Originally scheduled for release in December 1966 or January 1967, Capitol Records continuously pushed back the release date of the highly-anticipated album and put considerable pressure on the Beach Boys, who were ultimately forced to abandon their planes for an independent record label. Capitol released “Here Today”, b/w “You Still Believe in Me” as a single in January 1967 to fill the gap. Smile was finally released on May 20, 1967, right as the band’s popularity and reputation in the US was slipping amidst the rise of the psychedelic era. Containing a gatefold cover, a booklet of photos and illustrations, liner notes, and lyrics, it was one of the first LPs to use its packaging as an extension of the musical experience. The album initially polarized critics, with many celebrating it as an artistic triumph and Brian Wilson’s magnum opus, and others dismissing it as confusing and unfocused. Capitol’s rigorous promotion allowed it to reach number one on the Billboard album chart for five weeks, replacing the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (which had been released only a week after Smile), and certified Platinum by the RIAA by the end of the decade. The success and acclaim of Smile gave the Beach Boys a reinvigorated popularity and artistic veneration, and an alternate version of “Heroes and Villains” was a top five hit. In 1968, Smile won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Today’ the album is considered one of the greatest and most important in pop music history. In 2004, it was ranked number 7 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.
Smile was, for the most part, welcomed and hailed by critics. Most reviewers highlighted the album’s musical variety, conceptual lyrics, and production feats, and saw it as a unique bridge between pop and psychedelia. A brief review in Billboard raved, “The Beach Boys’ long-anticipated return is an astonishing triumph of production and musicality. The Beatles should take notes.” England’s NME said, “Beautiful melodies and daring conceptual bounds colour this knock-out of an LP, the group’s first in over a year. Pet Sounds was just the beginning. This is the all-American psychedelic masterpiece we were promised and much, much more.” Robert Christgau of the Village Voice wrote, “the Beach Boys’ new album is the grand-slam response to Sgt. Pepper’s blow”, and readers of the Voice later voted it one of the year’s best releases. Composer Leonard Bernstein lauded Smile in a lengthy analysis in the New York Times, declaring it “the culmination of everything inventive and exciting in today’s pop music”, and commended Wilson and Parks’ ability to blend contemporary sounds with classical, baroque, and jazz elements in a way that “elevates the pop record to a level of art that could hold its own against any of the most classic pieces of our elder generation”.
At the 9th Grammy Awards in 1968, Smile was nominated for nine awards, including Album of the Year, Best Pop Vocal album, and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. It won all but the latter. Brian Wilson won Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for “Surf’s Up”, and the Beach Boys as a whole won Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. Smile was in heated competition with Sgt. Pepper’s, and Brian personally thought it was better than Smile.
sargento pimienta is better than smile desu
Their best album. Always listening to "do you like worms".
Oh come on, it's just Pet Sounds. Despite the fact that two or three generations of music fans will secretly believe you have no soul if you don't announce your allegiance to it, despite that you probably already own it (in some cases, two or three times over-- if I could only remember where I put my 24-carat gold CD version), or that you may even have written an article for Pitchfork years ago making fun of anyone who dared criticize it, well, that's no reason to feel any pressure to make sure it's displayed prominently for guests, or worry that you haven't met your monthly "God Only Knows" listening quota.
Despite (or because of) the "pressure" to adopt pro-Pet Sounds stances in today's high-powered world of hanging out with your friends or staying home and getting high whilst listening to "Let's Go Away for Awhile", I'd wager most people are only too happy not to discuss the merits of the oft-oft-reported Beach Boys masterpiece. Certainly, regardless of what I write here, the impact and "influence" of the record will have been in turn hardly influenced at all. I can't even get my dad to talk about Pet Sounds anymore.
>>60523767
This isn't so bad. Beyond my personal preference for the records immediately following Pet Sounds (1967's Smiley Smile to 1971's Surf's Up in particular), I'd argue the actual sound of much modern music purportedly influenced by the Beach Boys is closer in execution to what the band did in the wake of Pet Sounds (and for that matter, Smile). "Influence" is a loaded concept here, because there's no foolproof way to measure how someone might channel inspiration from a single record, Pet Sounds or otherwise; however, much more certain is the feeling that very few musicians are making active decisions to "try to top Pet Sounds." In this light, just as with other perennially lauded pop/rock records, Pet Sounds is as much tautology as musical document. (Interestingly, this also seems to have been Brian Wilson's attitude beginning in mid-1967.)
Forty years after release, then, while the album's initially disappointing (at least to Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys) chart showing has been vindicated by a perpetual reservoir of new fans and adoring critics - not to mention still being commercially viable enough to support recent live productions and similarly perpetual ways of reissuing the music-- talking about the music, or how the music makes you feel isn't much easier than it was in 1966. Very famous people waste no time in offering testimonials to Pet Sounds' greatness, but (probably wisely) stick to short statements about how important the record was to them as artists and musicians, or just how beautiful its music is.
>>60523796
Pet Sounds was made during the period in 1965-66 when Brian stopped touring with his band, preferring to stay home and work on tracks. His decision to work with lyricist Tony Asher for most of the songs freed him further to focus on music. This not only translated to backing tracks of considerably more nuance and subtlety than even Brian's recent apexes "California Girls" and the Beach Boys Today! LP, both from 1965, but similarly well-crafted chord progressions and choral arrangements. Almost predictably, as the deserved praise for the vocal arrangements may never wane, I've heard more fine things said about the instrumental tracks recently than any other aspect of the record. In any case, the technical achievements of the record (only given further support by the stereo issue of the record in the late 90s) have tended to overshadow the emotional and spiritual ones, at least in my lifetime.
This anniversary issue of Pet Sounds, including both the mono and stereo version of the record, and a bonus DVD with several documentary features, surround sound mixes and promo clips, will be of immediate interest to longtime fans for obvious reasons (of which "collecting" isn't necessarily the least important). In particular, the "Pet Stories" feature, with recent interviews with Brian, Asher, session drummer and Beach Boy pal Hal Blaine, and even an illuminating cameo from Elvis Costello, sheds light not only on the original sessions and song origins, but on all concerned parties' attitudes about the music now. Also very cool is the footage of Brian and famed Beatles producer George Martin listening to the original tracks; at one point, Martin twists a few knobs and Brian is convinced he’s finally perfected Pet Sounds!
>>60522914
>>60522933
this was an interesting read
someone do this for detox
>>60523813
Also included in the set, of course, is the album; mono and stereo mixes of Pet Sounds, recapping the tracklist from the 1999 CD issue. The most famous songs-- "God Only Knows", "Wouldn't It Be Nice", "Sloop John B", "Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)", "Caroline No"-- are no less gorgeous than they have always been. The hymnal aspect of many of these songs seems no less pronounced, and the general air of deeply heartfelt love, graciousness and the uncertainty that any of it will be returned are still affecting to the point of distraction. Currently, there is a minor surge in support for the record's two instrumentals "Let's Go Away for Awhile" and the title track, though later efforts like "Diamond Head" and the quasi-instrumental "Fall Breaks Into Winter" (not to mention its parent track, "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" from the Smile sessions) seem both more idiosyncratic and intrinsically interesting to me.
As it happens, Brian's instrumental arrangements for the album, while again justly praised (especially by other musicians), were related to concurrent productions by Juan Garcia Esquivel, Les Baxter, Martin Denny, and a host of other exotica producers, in both the kinds of instruments used, and the stylistic appropriation of, say, percussion and string instruments from other countries. In fact, Brian was the only one of these people not producing music in stereo at the time, which might explain why it took so long for bands (and not just the Stereolab kind) to borrow as much from his instrumental tracks as from his vocal ones, which cut through mono mixes much more effortlessly than the backing tracks.
>>60523888
So, the unfair question is: Do you love Pet Sounds enough to buy it again? Before you answer, here's a fairer one: How often do you need help recalling the emotions Pet Sounds provokes inside you? If you haven't lived with the record day in and day out, chances are, it's still a pretty fresh experience, and I'd recommend this set with absolutely no reservations. However, if the music is practically family to you already, I'd say check out the DVD stuff when you can, keep your current version, and watch the album's effects wind and rewind their way through lives and cultures in the meantime.
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/9371-pet-sounds-40th-anniversary/
>>60523767
>>60523796
>>60523813
>>60523888
>>60523904
I really, really hate pitchfork.
>Oh come on, Pet Sounds isn't that big a deal. 9.4/10
>THE BEATLES WERE THE FUCKING BEST!
>SGT. PEPPER'S IS PERFECT! 10/10
>THE WHITE ALBUM IS PERFECT! 10/10
>RUBBER SOUL IS PERFECT! 10/10
>REVOLVER IS PERFECT! 10/10
>MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR IS PERFECT! 10/10
>ABBEY ROAD IS PERFECT! 10/10
>A HARD DAY'S NIGHT IS NEARLY PERFECT! 9.7/10
>PLEASE PLEASE ME IS NEARLY PERFECT! 9.5/10
