Pet Sounds

Rock ‘n’ roll has a sad tradition of geniuses who’ve succumbed to mental illness and addiction. Some of them have, paradoxically, produced some of the best music of their careers during periods of decline. We’d have to mention Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett, Moby Grape’s Skip Spence, Big Star’s Chris Bell… all of whom recorded strange, intimate, and heartfelt solo albums after leaving their respective bands. Then, of course, there’s Brian Wilson, whose 1966 Pet Sounds re-invented pop, and laid the groundwork for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. (Wilson is said to have been inspired by Rubber Soul). We may know Pet Sounds as a Beach Boys release, but it was really Wilson’s record. 

Pet Sounds has been named the greatest album of all time by NME and Mojo magazines and ranks at number two in Rollingstones 500 Greatest Albums of All Time right behind Sgt. Pepper’s. Wilson wrote the songs with lyricist Tony Asher during a time when he was pulling away from his sunny surf-pop group and expanding his repertoire of studio techniques in unprecedented ways. The songs can sound superficially like breezy Beach Boys pop, but reveal themselves as complex, baroque orchestrations that hold enough instrumental surprises and lyrical subtleties for a lifetime of listening. It’s a record both thoroughly of its time and thoroughly timeless.