Pet Sounds: Most Overrated Album of All Time?

@tablejockey,

"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."

Is such a thing even possible now?

Or have all of the undiscovered musical discoveries and developments been discovered and developed?

As a chessplayer I've noticed that since the age of computers very few meaningful novelties (previously undiscovered strong moves in known opening positions) have been found.

This, despite the advent of supercomputers and neural networks which can play the game at far more accurate levels than any human could dream of.

Perhaps music, like chess, seemingly infinite in its expression, is also ultimately finite?

Thankfully, we are not infinite, and we have plenty of music to easily fill a lifetime.

edcyn

Give Foreigner a chance. It was unlike anything before Catch Bull At Four, but it is an excellent album. Play it 3x and see if that doesn't change your mind. I remember having to give numerous albums a bunch of listens before really liking them.  We just don't do that anymore. Thick as A Brick anyone?

Interesting that on an audiophile forum, everyone save a few are judging Pet Sounds on how "good" the song writing itself is. The accolades for Pet Sounds have almost nothing to do with the song writing.

Pet Sounds was so different in that it did two things:

1) It was a complete work of all originals: every song, every note every word mattered. The "normal album" for 1965 was a collection of a few orginals and mostly covers. Look at Hollies 1965 for a good example of this. Rubber Soul was one of the first departures from this approach and Brian was a great admirer of this record. This, plus his own creative abilities, had Brian thinking a complete statement. It was quite novel in its day and hard to imagine in todays terms.

2) It was one of the first times a rock artist combined the idea of multitracking and Phil Spectors "wall of sound" into a single project. The super dense complex vocal harmonies Brian created required many many takes (and tracks) to achieve. This was new. He also did this with intruments, layering unusual elements together to create one sound. He even had the Beach Boys play, but then added Wrecking Crew tracks to build on it and make it more complete. Brian approached this Pet Sounds album in an orchestral way, like an orchestral composer does, hearing each instrument seperately yet together, using specific element combinations to create a specific sound. It is very heady work, and requires a big thinker to pull it off. Back in time, classical composers did this. Today its movie scoring composers who do this, like James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer.

So production and technology and a unique multi element sonic landscape was what made Pet Sounds so different. Its a lot more than if you like songs. THis was a left turn that changed modern recording and recomrd making forever. Sgt Pepper was very different from Rubber Soul, and it is said that it was due to Pet Sounds that the [Beatles] engineering team went to work to figure out how Brian did it, then replicated it.

Brad

NOTE: It might be fun for forum readers to sit down and listen to Pet Sounds and try to hear all these different layers and parts from different instruments. A pro engineer would follow one voice thoughout the song, then another and another.  then one isntrument, another and another.  This is also how these records are built. 

1-10  of all Music .

Best of Rock = 2

Jazz= 7 

Folk music = 6 

Classical Music =20 , 

Just about anything, taken out of context, is over-rated decades after it was state of the art. We went from window fans to air conditioning, black & white TV to color and from launching a dog into space to man walking on the moon during that decade - and the music grew by leaps and bounds as well. If you weren’t there, you really can’t grasp how cutting edge Pet Sounds, Sgt Pepper, Hendrix etc were.

Compare 1963 pop music: Lesley Gore It’s My Party, The Chiffons He’s So Fine, The Kingsmen Louie Louie, The Cascades Rhythm of the Rain, to 1967: The Doors Light My Fire, The Beatles All You Need Is Love, Penny Lane, Procol Harum A Whiter Shade of Pale, Strawberry Alarm Clock Incense And Peppermints. Music was changing from mono singles and AM radio to stereo albums and FM radio - look at both The Beatles and The Beach Boys and how they evolved during these changes (that they were partially the cause of).

Hate to say it, but you had to be there.