If the author's question is "what is it that makes Pet Sounds such a great album", and they are aware that critics say this:
> Pet Sounds revolutionized the field of music production and the role of producers within the music industry, introduced novel approaches to orchestration, chord voicings, and structural harmonies, and furthered the cultural legitimization of popular music, a greater public appreciation for albums, the use of recording studios as an instrument, and the development of psychedelic music and progressive/art rock ...
Then why not study those aspects of the album? It seems like those are historical and technical innovations, not esthetic or preferential. They are saying "look at all the ways this album changed the world." The author's strategy instead was to listen to other Beach Boys albums, then listen to Pet Sounds again, and expect to have an epiphany. I think that's a hopeless strategy, and probably misses the point anyway.
I think if critics said things like “Pet Sounds was a huge technical and cultural innovation in the production of music but was only an incremental improvement in the aesthetics and complexity of music” we wouldn’t have this article. The point of the investigation is to understand why critics are literally calling it God-like. At least, that’s my reading.
I was excited to dive into the investigation with the author but was completely underwhelmed by where things went. The author barely pays respect to the idea that you can’t just listen to something today and understand it’s acclaim and influence at the time. There was not nearly enough depth here explored. Like what did other bands sound like? What was at the top of the charts at the time? Paint a picture of before and after. Disappointed this is floating so high here on HN
You don’t need to listen to all The Beach Boys albums that went before. All you need to do is listen to the top 40 at the time Pet Sounds came out. Other than the Beatles, it was pretty shlocky.
The things that were revolutionary at the time have been so copied and are now so commonplace that they seem utterly mundane.
You can’t understand Pet Sounds as a person in 2022 who has lived their whole life in the world that Pet Sounds created. You have to be the person in 1966 who never heard anything like it before.
I get that, but still not sure Pet Sounds is as revolutionary as that.
I too went through the entire Beach Boys catalog a few years back and indeed you hear the progress of pop music from "California Girls" ditties (Paul teased with the Beatles "Back in the U.S.S.R.") to the more dare-I-say drug addled "Good Vibrations" (and more experimental "Heroes and Villains").
But as I sort of hint at, marijuana, psychedelic drugs could be just as responsible for the trajectory of pop music.
Go through the Beatles catalog and I would argue there is an even more dramatic shift in trajectory with the influences of Dylan, pot, later LSD. It's well known that the Beatles were the biggest influence on Brain Wilson's song writing — it could just as likely be then that The Beach Boys arc was simply following (anticipating?) the Beatles'.
The orchestration in Pet Sounds though follows the McCartney/Martin "Yesterday" by the Beatles as well as Phil Spector's production at the time.
I'm also on the fence regarding Pet Sounds. I'm more impressed by overlooked gems like the Zombies "Odessey and Oracle" than what may be the over-hyped albums like "Sgt. Pepper's" and "Pet Sounds".
> I get that, but still not sure Pet Sounds is as revolutionary as that.
It seems the Beatles sure thought it was revolutionary. They were scared of him. Didn't competition with Pet Sounds result in Revolver? And didn't subsequently that experience, plus rumors of Smile and the release of Good Vibrations, result in the pull-out-all-the-stops effort that created Sgt. Pepper's?
I understand you're underwhelmed by that album, but it seems the Beatles were driven to make what's often considered to be their best work because they were spooked by a single boy genius in LA.
The Beatles did not arrange their own scores, and they weren't even acting goofy when the beach boys hot streak began with "Beach Boys Today," which predates rubber soul.
You can come at the music of Brian Wilson from many angles, I enjoy the harmonic view. The music still holds up on that account because music today is regressive, we have deconstructed the same tired plagerized african-american grooves over and over to the point where there are no strong or weak beats, nor even tones to map tension and resolution around, all just to crank out cheep schlock crap to pollute the airwaves with. It would be avant-garde if it wasn't so shallow and exploitative. The future sucks.
Although it's true that the value of most great works of art is partly historical, I think the majority of innovative masterpieces also have great aesthetic value. I think Seinfeld is one of the funniest comedies of all time and Pet Sounds is an extremely well-written, interesting, and pleasurable album, regardless of both being made before my time.
> God Only Knows is by far my favorite track on the album, but “often praised as one of the greatest songs ever written”? Hmm.
* what key is it in, and how can you tell?
* did you hear the grand reunion of themes at the end, or the counterpoint in the interlude (fucking counterpoint in pop music!)?
* how can you even tell that you've arrived at the chorus the first time? Isn't the music supposed to change for the chorus?
* just noticed this one: when the melody starts the 3rd verse, the strings are still busy playing through an accompanimental phrase that started in the previous chorus. So accompaniment, main melody and sectional divisions are tapered
* just sing the goddamned melody out loud. Listen how it outlines and suggests it own chordal accompaniment, while at the same time it has a clear, catchy melodic shape and goal. Also take note of the range-- it's actually difficult to sing because of some of the melodic leaps required
In short, this is a melody and setting on par with the theme from Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, or an aria by Bellini.
Edit: since author mentioned Coltrane-- it's worth noting that the first 10 minutes of Love Supreme is Coltrane doing Beethovenian motivic variations over a groove. Beethovenian motivic variations are so prominent even today because they are a surefire way to create musical coherence. E.g., even if Coltrane had a bad night you've still got a hundred chances to hear transpositions, elongations, juxtapositions, and forward development of that little motive over the groove. There's built-in redudancy there.
On the other hand, if you're going to write a pithy melody with a clear rhyming scheme like "God Only Knows," you'd better have every rhythmic and melodic proportion mapped out exactly as you want it. Melodic prowess is more like solving some kind of musical sudoko-- if you don't get it right then the entire audience will hear how it doesn't add up properly.
My early pandemic project was to record live covers & re-arrangements of the entire Pet Sounds album on instagram, and when I got to God Only Knows I was stunned. I’d learned the verse & chorus chord progressions and things were going great, but at the bridge it fell apart. I knew it was the verse progression repeated, but it wasn’t resolving into the final verse like I knew it should.
That’s when I checked the chords more closely and realized there was a key change at the bridge that felt so natural I missed it completely. Without that piece there’s no way to connect the two sections. “Musical sudoku” is right on.
I think the mistake listening to Pet Sounds is to expect audio pyrotechnics, some sort of forcefulness or "wow" factor that separates it from the rest of the albums of its time. It's almost the exact opposite.
Instead of musical forcefulness or bombast, Brian Wilson doubled down on an almost shocking emotional honesty and tenderness. Nobody can deny the majesty of the 1812 Orchestra or Flight of the Valkyries, but Pet Sounds is the gentle sound of a summer romance blowing away in the breeze as the leaves change color. The instrumentation and production draws more on the soundtracks of the '60s than straight-ahead rock; it's filmic but quiet and understated. In the right state of mind, it puts you in touch with yearning and loss at the same time it's as light and lush as a sunny weekend drive down the coast.
This, of course, was a terrible mistake commercially - few in 1966 who were fans of "Surfin' Safari" or "California Girls" wanted an album of sweet romantic yearning with a light but heavily orchestrated sound. In fact, many today still don't want that. But that's what's there; an emotional and orchestral complexity missing from other works of the time made at the expense of AM-radio stomp.
So many hopeful critics completely missing what made Brian Wilson Brian Wilson. And it nearly broke the poor guy. I’m glad he’s been making it through his struggles alright.
For all of the talk people make about “living your truth” and all that, the level of emotional honesty is complicated, not easy, and often not welcome. What’s even harder is making it sound easy. He became a master communicator at pretty immense personal expense.
This is not a serious attempt to understand or appreciate this music in any way. Four hours is not “a lot” of listening by any stretch of the imagination, and the author does not delve into any of the aspects of this music that make it unique.
There are facts and then there are options, but somewhere in the middle is taste. To me taste is like a fact that you can’t prove, and is also difficult to discuss because it’s hard to communicate about. Basically, I believe taste exists, but only to other people who have taste.
Obviously there’s plenty of room for subjectivity, but what I’m trying to describe is a certain feeling, a certain wavelength, that I think is hard for people to get who aren’t already there. Coincidentally software engineering is another realm where there’s definitely this mystical taste, but again any time you try to shed light on what you mean it’s like people almost intentionally try to torpedo your attempt at making a point.
In the end though the music and the code speak for themselves, and Pet Sounds to me really is the ultimate. It’s uncomplicated yet emotional lyrics. Each song’s melody is just so catchy. The whole thing has this romantic early 60s American feeling. The album makes me think of George Lucas’ American Grafiti but as music. It’s simultaneously nostalgic but to me still feels fresh.
I think very few bands today could make something so masterful. I just absolutely love that album.
I don’t know though, when I was reading the review I felt sorry for the person. It seemed like they were far away from this sense of taste. Comparing love supreme with pet sounds is like comparing a sandwich to some really complicated culinary masterpiece. Both are good, but they’re very different.
Sometimes it’s more pedestrian things that are done really well that are what is most impressive to me. If it’s critically good but also has mass appeal then you’ve done something very impressive.
Or I guess it’s also like comparing Hemingway to Joyce. Clearly Joyce is on another level as a writer and I enjoy him very much. That being said, if I had to pick whose head I’d rather be in for an hour or two I would pick Hemingway.
So any way, love supreme is good and so is Joyce, but so is pet sounds and Hemingway. To me though, ultimately pet sounds takes the cake for best album of the century, but it’s really difficult to explain why because it comes down to taste. If you try to make music and you try to balance all these different elements: ambition, mass appeal, melody and harmony, etc… it’s just basically perfect.
Also I don’t think this just because it’s old and important. I really just like the album.
> Or I guess it’s also like comparing Hemingway to Joyce. Clearly Joyce is on another level as a writer and I enjoy him very much.
Who’s better: the engineer who writes a great program in 10,000 lines of code. Or an engineer that writes a different great program in 1000 lines?
Brevity doesn’t imply less skill. One might argue that Hemingway is “on another level” because he did more with less. Joyce left little to the imagination whilst Hemingway left almost everything to the imagination. Hemingway used white space as a feature.
But then again, here we are, discussing taste — which makes your point. I love a good Hemingway vs Joyce debate. Great fun, thanks for your thoughts.
Some seriously good commentary here, even if the original article isn't up to HN's usual level.
Even though I dislike the Beach Boys, this all put a smile on my face this morning. As a former budding and aspiring music critic, I appreciate all these perspectives. ;) Thank you all.
I'll just suggest that music is a remarkable thing, miraculous even. Something so hopelessly scrutinized, yet so hopefully refined by criticism, created (or maybe captured) by the artists because the best seem to just have to do it. Competition, even in music for better or worse, produces emotionally profound results.
I am so grateful for the many people and many technologies and techniques that enable me to reach that emotional-mystical place some have mentioned in the comments. Thanks again for the reminder this morning!
Off to listen to Pet Sounds now. Then maybe Pet Shop Boys.
Some of the acclaimed genius is something you can't hear in the finished album, you'd need to know what the single track studio takes sounded like. Some of those proclaiming how revolutionary "Pet Sounds" was had working familiarity with such things, but their audience didn't.
I think the biggest break was the realization that they were aiming at a low fidelity channel and working to that, rather than holding themselves to a "it would sound good live" standard which was irrelevant because it was never going to be a live arrangement.
Readit News
> Pet Sounds revolutionized the field of music production and the role of producers within the music industry, introduced novel approaches to orchestration, chord voicings, and structural harmonies, and furthered the cultural legitimization of popular music, a greater public appreciation for albums, the use of recording studios as an instrument, and the development of psychedelic music and progressive/art rock ...
Then why not study those aspects of the album? It seems like those are historical and technical innovations, not esthetic or preferential. They are saying "look at all the ways this album changed the world." The author's strategy instead was to listen to other Beach Boys albums, then listen to Pet Sounds again, and expect to have an epiphany. I think that's a hopeless strategy, and probably misses the point anyway.
The things that were revolutionary at the time have been so copied and are now so commonplace that they seem utterly mundane.
You can’t understand Pet Sounds as a person in 2022 who has lived their whole life in the world that Pet Sounds created. You have to be the person in 1966 who never heard anything like it before.
I too went through the entire Beach Boys catalog a few years back and indeed you hear the progress of pop music from "California Girls" ditties (Paul teased with the Beatles "Back in the U.S.S.R.") to the more dare-I-say drug addled "Good Vibrations" (and more experimental "Heroes and Villains").
But as I sort of hint at, marijuana, psychedelic drugs could be just as responsible for the trajectory of pop music.
Go through the Beatles catalog and I would argue there is an even more dramatic shift in trajectory with the influences of Dylan, pot, later LSD. It's well known that the Beatles were the biggest influence on Brain Wilson's song writing — it could just as likely be then that The Beach Boys arc was simply following (anticipating?) the Beatles'.
The orchestration in Pet Sounds though follows the McCartney/Martin "Yesterday" by the Beatles as well as Phil Spector's production at the time.
I'm also on the fence regarding Pet Sounds. I'm more impressed by overlooked gems like the Zombies "Odessey and Oracle" than what may be the over-hyped albums like "Sgt. Pepper's" and "Pet Sounds".
It seems the Beatles sure thought it was revolutionary. They were scared of him. Didn't competition with Pet Sounds result in Revolver? And didn't subsequently that experience, plus rumors of Smile and the release of Good Vibrations, result in the pull-out-all-the-stops effort that created Sgt. Pepper's?
I understand you're underwhelmed by that album, but it seems the Beatles were driven to make what's often considered to be their best work because they were spooked by a single boy genius in LA.
You can come at the music of Brian Wilson from many angles, I enjoy the harmonic view. The music still holds up on that account because music today is regressive, we have deconstructed the same tired plagerized african-american grooves over and over to the point where there are no strong or weak beats, nor even tones to map tension and resolution around, all just to crank out cheep schlock crap to pollute the airwaves with. It would be avant-garde if it wasn't so shallow and exploitative. The future sucks.
Yesterday's orchestration is just acoustic guitar + string quartet
* what key is it in, and how can you tell?
* did you hear the grand reunion of themes at the end, or the counterpoint in the interlude (fucking counterpoint in pop music!)?
* how can you even tell that you've arrived at the chorus the first time? Isn't the music supposed to change for the chorus?
* just noticed this one: when the melody starts the 3rd verse, the strings are still busy playing through an accompanimental phrase that started in the previous chorus. So accompaniment, main melody and sectional divisions are tapered
* just sing the goddamned melody out loud. Listen how it outlines and suggests it own chordal accompaniment, while at the same time it has a clear, catchy melodic shape and goal. Also take note of the range-- it's actually difficult to sing because of some of the melodic leaps required
In short, this is a melody and setting on par with the theme from Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, or an aria by Bellini.
Edit: since author mentioned Coltrane-- it's worth noting that the first 10 minutes of Love Supreme is Coltrane doing Beethovenian motivic variations over a groove. Beethovenian motivic variations are so prominent even today because they are a surefire way to create musical coherence. E.g., even if Coltrane had a bad night you've still got a hundred chances to hear transpositions, elongations, juxtapositions, and forward development of that little motive over the groove. There's built-in redudancy there.
On the other hand, if you're going to write a pithy melody with a clear rhyming scheme like "God Only Knows," you'd better have every rhythmic and melodic proportion mapped out exactly as you want it. Melodic prowess is more like solving some kind of musical sudoko-- if you don't get it right then the entire audience will hear how it doesn't add up properly.
That’s when I checked the chords more closely and realized there was a key change at the bridge that felt so natural I missed it completely. Without that piece there’s no way to connect the two sections. “Musical sudoku” is right on.
It's Paul's favorite song:
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/paul-mccartney-beach-boys-brian...
Instead of musical forcefulness or bombast, Brian Wilson doubled down on an almost shocking emotional honesty and tenderness. Nobody can deny the majesty of the 1812 Orchestra or Flight of the Valkyries, but Pet Sounds is the gentle sound of a summer romance blowing away in the breeze as the leaves change color. The instrumentation and production draws more on the soundtracks of the '60s than straight-ahead rock; it's filmic but quiet and understated. In the right state of mind, it puts you in touch with yearning and loss at the same time it's as light and lush as a sunny weekend drive down the coast.
This, of course, was a terrible mistake commercially - few in 1966 who were fans of "Surfin' Safari" or "California Girls" wanted an album of sweet romantic yearning with a light but heavily orchestrated sound. In fact, many today still don't want that. But that's what's there; an emotional and orchestral complexity missing from other works of the time made at the expense of AM-radio stomp.
So many hopeful critics completely missing what made Brian Wilson Brian Wilson. And it nearly broke the poor guy. I’m glad he’s been making it through his struggles alright.
For all of the talk people make about “living your truth” and all that, the level of emotional honesty is complicated, not easy, and often not welcome. What’s even harder is making it sound easy. He became a master communicator at pretty immense personal expense.
I’m disappointed that this has ended up on HN.
Obviously there’s plenty of room for subjectivity, but what I’m trying to describe is a certain feeling, a certain wavelength, that I think is hard for people to get who aren’t already there. Coincidentally software engineering is another realm where there’s definitely this mystical taste, but again any time you try to shed light on what you mean it’s like people almost intentionally try to torpedo your attempt at making a point.
In the end though the music and the code speak for themselves, and Pet Sounds to me really is the ultimate. It’s uncomplicated yet emotional lyrics. Each song’s melody is just so catchy. The whole thing has this romantic early 60s American feeling. The album makes me think of George Lucas’ American Grafiti but as music. It’s simultaneously nostalgic but to me still feels fresh.
I think very few bands today could make something so masterful. I just absolutely love that album.
I don’t know though, when I was reading the review I felt sorry for the person. It seemed like they were far away from this sense of taste. Comparing love supreme with pet sounds is like comparing a sandwich to some really complicated culinary masterpiece. Both are good, but they’re very different.
Sometimes it’s more pedestrian things that are done really well that are what is most impressive to me. If it’s critically good but also has mass appeal then you’ve done something very impressive.
Or I guess it’s also like comparing Hemingway to Joyce. Clearly Joyce is on another level as a writer and I enjoy him very much. That being said, if I had to pick whose head I’d rather be in for an hour or two I would pick Hemingway.
So any way, love supreme is good and so is Joyce, but so is pet sounds and Hemingway. To me though, ultimately pet sounds takes the cake for best album of the century, but it’s really difficult to explain why because it comes down to taste. If you try to make music and you try to balance all these different elements: ambition, mass appeal, melody and harmony, etc… it’s just basically perfect.
Also I don’t think this just because it’s old and important. I really just like the album.
Who’s better: the engineer who writes a great program in 10,000 lines of code. Or an engineer that writes a different great program in 1000 lines?
Brevity doesn’t imply less skill. One might argue that Hemingway is “on another level” because he did more with less. Joyce left little to the imagination whilst Hemingway left almost everything to the imagination. Hemingway used white space as a feature.
But then again, here we are, discussing taste — which makes your point. I love a good Hemingway vs Joyce debate. Great fun, thanks for your thoughts.
Even though I dislike the Beach Boys, this all put a smile on my face this morning. As a former budding and aspiring music critic, I appreciate all these perspectives. ;) Thank you all.
I'll just suggest that music is a remarkable thing, miraculous even. Something so hopelessly scrutinized, yet so hopefully refined by criticism, created (or maybe captured) by the artists because the best seem to just have to do it. Competition, even in music for better or worse, produces emotionally profound results.
I am so grateful for the many people and many technologies and techniques that enable me to reach that emotional-mystical place some have mentioned in the comments. Thanks again for the reminder this morning!
Off to listen to Pet Sounds now. Then maybe Pet Shop Boys.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law
>"The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer." -Ward Cunningham
I think the biggest break was the realization that they were aiming at a low fidelity channel and working to that, rather than holding themselves to a "it would sound good live" standard which was irrelevant because it was never going to be a live arrangement.
You can't do much better than this in 2 minutes.
1966 (a capella):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2Jvblwzwjo
2016 (with assistant vocalist):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpR2b71puCM
And stand the test of time for over 50 years.