Can someone explain this album to me? What is it about this album that makes it so popular here
They sample their weiners slapping against the wall so that makes it patrician.
Because it's good
Also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_Sounds#Influence_and_distinctions
>>63394125
Was good and influential.
Took quite a few listens for me to "get it".
Give it a few more tries.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-20120531/the-beach-boys-pet-sounds-20120524
here you go bud, that should be dumbed down enough for you
>>63394139
underrated post
Teenagers think Pet Sounds is some kind of experimental emotional masterpiece when really it's just The Beatles 2 Faggotronic Boogaloo
I'm 28 years old, I'm probably older than the majority of people on /mu/. I've studied music theory in college for five years. I play more than five instruments including guitar and violin. I'm part if a rock duo and I perform monthly at various places. We've been working on an album since 2014. I think I know what I'm talking about.
To all you Pet Sounds fags, how much music theory do you know? What instruments do you play? I'm guessing none.
Pet Sounds is perhaps the most overrated album ever. It’s a good album, with three incredible songs that are among their best; “God Only Knows,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “Sloop John B.” “I Know There’s An Answer” almost reaches that level, as does “You Still Believe In Me.” But that’s it. It’s not that the remainder of the songs are poor, it’s just that they’re not all that incredible. Combining that with the somewhat baroque production, you’ve got a very good but very flawed album.
What accounts for the lionization of Pet Sounds? For starters, there’s the story of Brian Wilson, the tortured artiste who battled his own demons and his own band (Mike Love fought him all the way on it) in making the record. Then, after producing Pet Sounds, he finally cracked up, a victim of too many drugs and trying to top Sgt. Pepper. It’s the kind of stuff that myths are made of, and it’s an irresistible story line. Secondly, there are Wilson’s production skills – which have been blown all out of proportion. (Wilson’s true production moment of genius was “Good Vibrations.”) Brian Wilson was a great producer, but listening to Pet Sounds you hear the heavy influence of the true master producer of the era – Phil Spector. Wilson literally worshipped Spector and learned everything from him. Reading lots of the over the top rubbish about the production on Pet Sounds, where Spector’s name is barely ever mentioned, you come to realize that there are a lot of people in the world who no clue as to Spector’s influence on Wilson. (The Wrecking Crew, Spector’s house band, played on many Beach Boys’ songs). And finally, the record was a (relative) commercial failure at upon release. So then the narrative becomes the misunderstood genius that is underappreciated after he becomes a “serious artist.” If you were going to write a indie rock biblical fable, it doesn’t get any better than that.
>>63394125
>here
yes, thankfully it's never mentioned outside of /mu/!
>>63394125
>What is it about this album that makes it so popular here
it's a great album, it's popular everywhere
This abomination is placed pretty highly on just about every album list I’ve ever seen. Usually in the top five, even. Nowadays, Pet Sounds has all the cultural relevance of a dog food commercial. It’s an elaborate symphony of merry, jingling pap, filled with goofy noises and men with extremely high voices. Hearing Brian Wilson and his band of brothers hit the notes in “Don’t Talk” is a truly emasculating experience. Seriously, it makes my nuts suck up into my body a little bit, like imagining Ernest Borgnine naked. I think the album is so highly rated for a few reasons: first of all, critics are fascinated by Brian Wilson because he is a loony idiot savant, and everybody knows that loony idiot savants make the best music. They refuse to admit that the album is merely a syrupy and overblown testament to one man’s meticulous studio habits. Even if Pet Sounds has the most elaborate production on Earth, that still just makes it rock and roll’s most highly-polished turd.
>>63394267
>>63394303
Quality pastas
it literally invented post-rock and avant-pop
>>63394267
This pasta sucks
>>63394407
how did it influence the residents?
>>63394125
Imagine being Mike Love in the Pet Sounds recording sessions and having to be all like "damn, Brian, you fuckin' brilliant, all profound with your pretentious songwriting and horrific cringe-worthy lyrics. I would totally jam this track out with you, both in the studio and in a live show" when all he really wants to do is compose surf rock about babes in your home. Like seriously imagine having to be Mike and not only sit in that chair while Brian sings his disgusting druggy lyrics in front of you, the favorable production barely concealing his high pitch whiny voice, and just sit there, take after take, hour after hour, while he perfected that song. Not only having to tolerate his fat, boy-like visage but his shy attitude as visitors in the studio tells him he's THE MOST TALENTED SONGWRITER OF ALL TIME and DAMN, BRIAN WILSON WRITES LIKE *THAT*?? because they're not the ones who have to sit there and watch his beady fucking aspie face belt out shitty lyrics you didn't even know could be put on paper before that day. You've been creating nothing but a healthy string of surf pop hits with your bandmates and later legal defendant for your ENTIRE CAREER coming straight out of the suburbs in Inglewood. You've never even heard anything this fucking artsy fartsy before, and now you swear you can see the sweat that's breaking out on his punchable autistic face as he begins to spew out another verse, smugly assured that you are enjoying the opportunity to get paid to sit there and work with his "provocative (for that is what he calls the song)" masterpiece, the masterpiece he worked so hard for with Wrecking Crew in the previous months. And then the manager calls for another take, and you know you could out-sue every single person in this room before your lawyers could ask for a pay raise, but you sit there and endure, because you're fucking Mike Love. You're not going to lose your continuing musical career over this. Just bear it. Hide your face and bear it.
>>63394303
Sloop John B. isn't even an original song, no way is it better than Hang On to Your Ego.
>>63394303
This is a great post, anon. I wonder if you could elaborate more directly as to why the rest of Pet Sounds was actually not so good aside from the tracks you called out?
Discussion of quality aside, excellent overview of "what happened"
>>63394460
Is that a druggie song? Sounds like a druggie song to me, Brian.
>>63394125
It's pop music regarded as some kind of masterpiece of experimentation.
So then plebs think they are patrician.
>>63394190
>this whole post
"K e K"
>>63394713
things useless dilettantes who have never stepped in a studio say for 800 alex
>>63396049
This
Also, can anyone recommend a place to listen to the Smile tapes, or a particular version of the recordings which is closest to the original intent?
I realize that Wilson extensively re-wrote the songs to create the Smiley Smile abomination. Then there's the two later box sets that came out in 2006 and 2011 or thereabouts--are those faithful to the direction of the original composition?
>>63396127
Smile Sessions is GOAT imho but some people really like this fanmade one called the sln 1967 stereo remix. just search it up
I dunno I have both and I prefer Smile Sessions
>>63396182
Is Smile Sessions an attempt at finishing the original form? I'm worried that what I listen to will be contaminated by the period of "fuck it compromise" that immediately followed
>>63396267
>Disc one of The Smile Sessions assembles the Smile album as it may have sounded in the 1960s while loosely following the template spelled by Brian Wilson's 2004 interpretation. Wilson himself made a few suggestions to the compilation's sequencing after it was presented to him by the compilers Mark Linett, Alan Boyd and Dennis Wolfe.[5] Brian has stated that the exact running order was not decided in 1967 and that the original Smile would have been "less uplifting" than his 2004 version.[12] Although the tracklisting to The Smile Sessions is different from what it would have been on the original 1967 Smile album, interviews with Linett clarified that the tracklisting of the first disc would "present the whole piece as close to it as was envisioned, or as is envisioned, as possible ... with input from Brian as from everybody else"
>When asked whether Linett and Boyd had arrived at what he had envisioned during the 1960s, Brian responded: "Somewhat, yeah. To some degree. It's not a far cry from what I thought it would be.
Take that as you will Honestly we're never going to get a perfect SMiLE due to the cognitive defects that are present in some one with Brian's medical condition but this one is pretty goddamn great. It's not finished but consider it like a catalog or a inspiration album of sorts as to what Smile would have sounded like. It has brilliant mastering and moments of artistic genius that it has collected from the OG SMiLE tapes. .
>>63394125
Reading about how they made it is just fascinating. It's musical autism at it's finest.
>>63396375
Sounds good. What I hope for isn't a finished album, so much as just to hear what Wilson had when he stopped. There being fragments and incomplete shit is actually more what I'd like to hear; as close as we can get to what Wilson had when he gave up, and nothing re-touched past that.
Listening to Smile Sessions now. It's fascinating, I can see Wilson keeping up with the Beatles and at the same time it's clear as fucking day that Love has a point when he demands to know what the lyrics mean.
Drug culture man. Fascinating not for the content it produced but more for the intense satire of the state of the artistic method that it became, I think
>>63394424
>residents
>good
>>63397200
then search out the soniclovenoize 1967 Smile. It's on the Albums That Never Were blog.
>>63397277
Fucking beautiful, thanks anon. One more question for you: once I've got Pet Sounds and Smile set, where would you suggest I go with the Beach Boys? Are any other albums essential to this paradigm shift, or is the rest of it just standard pop
>>63397466
Surf's Up is pretty good and fantastic commentary on the band itself, read up on it. I'd recommend watching the recent film Love & Mercy, I thought it was excellent and really gave me some insight into Pet Sounds and Smile
>>63397466
Try the other albums where Brian was working with The Wrecking Crew--Summer Days (And Summer Nights) and The beach Boys Today! You'll be able to hear the evolution into Pet Sounds. The stuff before that was pretty surf.
Then try the albums directly after Smiley Smile--Wild Honey and Friends .
>>63397528
Going to watch that shit tonight. Have you seen the documentary Beautiful Dreamer? It looks well done; hoping to watch that this weekend as well
>>63397466
Their stuff in the late 60's/early 70's is really good. Sunflower is a fantastic album. Love You is really good too. It was made when Brian was finally coming out of psychosis and dragged his ass out of bed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evSG3KKOj58
>>63397602
I haven't actually, thanks for the rec.
>>63397466
Just listen to everything from '62 to '77. There are some gems scattered throughout
>>63397602
the clip at the beginning of that doc makes me want to cry
Thanks for the suggestions, kids.
>>63394125
To answer your question OP it's one of the first and most prominent works of pure autership in pop and rock and roll. every string arrangement, every sound was exploited and arranged by one man with an almost religious attention to detail in a self described spiritual endeavor. It is pure, it is catchy, there are moments of true sublimity. Listen to Don't talk, or the crescendo-ing chorus on Here Today or the vocalization harmonies on Wouldn't it be nice. Just one dude thought of all that shit.
>>63398759
Listen to the atmosphere on Caroline No, listen to the sax on I know there's an answer, listen to the cohesion, the strange avant garde sounds. It's revolutionary because here's a man who understands music to its very core, he's not constrained by musical instruments or just pure harmonies, sheet music, notes and clichés. He just understands music period.
Even when Brian didn't know much about music he was still great at it.
Surfer Girl was one of the first songs he ever wrote and it is just so perfect tonally and in terms of harmonic structure
Mike Love called him dog ears because there is just something that Brian can hear in the world that can not be heard by a vast majority of human beings throughout history.
I believe that Brian Wilson has been personally touched by God himself.
>>63399791
>Brian Wilson could hear shit no one else could
>His songs are among the most loved and popular shit ever recorded
Pick one
>>63400489
as in he had very good hearing
