Pet Sounds: Most Overrated Album of All Time?


Try as I might -- and I have tried very hard -- I just don't get the "genius" of this album. I know that George Martin said that Sgt Pepper would have never happened without Pet Sounds, but I don't think the two are even in the same league. What am I missing?
jeffreybowman2k

The FACT PS is being discussed 12 years since this thread was started is telling.

 

Few albums are worthy of debate such as Pet Sounds. Nothing contemporary or in the last 40/50  or so years is close to the level of PS-at least in how it influenced musicians who listened to it when it was introduced. 

I just watched the David Leaf film Beautiful Dreamer-Brian Wilson And The Story Of Smile. To establish the context for the creation of the amazing Smile album (a subject for another time), Leaf covers Pet Sounds, the album that proceeded Smile. Quotes about Pet Sounds from scenes in the film:

- Jimmy Webb: "Pet Sounds is probably, um, really, the most significant album of our generation." Wow.

- Burt Bacharach: "I think it is one of the, THE great albums."

- George Martin: "It floored me. I thought it was fantastic, and it gave The Beatles great inspiration. And it gave a challenge to them."

- Rob Reiner: "We used to play that all the time in the writer’s room because we thought this is like the most incredible Rock ’n’ Roll album we had ever heard." Pet Sounds "Rock ’n’ Roll"? Not from where I come from, but okay, maybe I’m taking the phrase too literally.

Are the opinions of the above any more credible than those with whom they disagree? Again, just a matter of opinion.

Pet Sounds & Sgt Pepper...... are not in my collection but I don't use the term over-rated. We all like what we like no matter what Paul Mccartney says. It is my opinion that matters, I don't like being told what to like or dislike.  I do like reading about why and what other music fans like or dislike. . 

Okay, you're making me talk.

My two favorite Rock albums of all time are Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, with Television's Marquee Moon and any Ramones album coming in close behind.

 

I might have said this in another post 'way back when, but in the Mid-Seventies I was a Cat Stevens fan. As a matter of fact, his acoustic guitar style is still a large influence on my playing. Anyway, I went into the Licorice Pizza in West L.A. to get the latest Cat Stevens record, Foreigner. I also bought Aladdin Sane on a whim. I liked the cover It happened to be featured alongside Foreigner at the front of the store. Anyway, I didn't make it more than halfway through the first side of Foreigner. Ack! Ugh! I pulled it off the TT and put on Aladdin Sane. By the time Panic in Detroit was in the throes of its howling, screaming, Mick Ronson outro, I had a new favorite rock artist.