It Just Wasn't Made For Its Time

Album: Pet Sounds
Artist: The Beach Boys
Label: Capitol
Release date: 16 May 1966
Peak chart position/sales: (US) #10, Platinum (UK) #2

RATING: 3.5/5 stars


When I think of The Beach Boys, I think sun, surf, cars and girls...and of how overplayed "Wouldn't It Be Nice" is. I certainly didn't think of an album to rival Rubber Soul, or "challenge" The Beatles to write Sgt. Pepper.  And yet this is what my beloved 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die tells me their eleventh studio album, Pet Sounds, is. I was intrigued - how could some beach bums from California match my beloved mop-tops? So of course I investigated...

I admit feeling slightly dubious upon discovering that Brian Wilson's collaborator was jingle-writer Tony Asher, and I admit to initially skipping the sugary-sweet opening track "Wouldn't It Be Nice" - but when I decide to actually listen, it doesn't fail to impress. With astounding layers of percussion, horns, bells and larger-than-life drums, I push all thoughts of the Cadbury ad firmly to the back of my mind and am decidedly curious.

The album continues in kind with apparently limitless instrumentation, that makes many of The Beach Boys' rock band contemporaries sound a little stingy. After the almost regal choral arrangement of "You Still Believe In Me", the attention-seeking drum beat and cheeky Hammond organ of pop/orchestral hybrid "I'm Waiting For The Day" brings the listener back to earth in remarkable style after the almost unbearably hypnotic "Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)" - also Wilson's only solo on the album. Contrary to its title, the instrumental "Let's Go Away For A While" doesn't really go anywhere, constantly building up to a verse/vocal that doesn't come, it drops teasingly back until wistful strings, horns and booming drums escalate into another anti-climax. It is around about now that one realises there is not going to be a climactic point on this album; rather, it's like floating down a smooth stream of constant self-analysis.

But despite all the experimental high jinx, the drowsy, introspective vibe of the album had me in a half-interested daze most of the time. If there has to be a highlight, it comes in the double-whammy of tracks 8 and 9: "God Only Knows" and "I Know There's An Answer".  Sweet vulnerability and faultless sincerity in the former make it an artwork in pop, while bass vocals, gutsy horns and booming drums in the other make for an exhilarating, sky-high chorus. Shortly after, and coming second-last on the track listing, the title track is an exotic mash of all Wilson's favourite - or "pet" - sounds, woven around each other in a festival-vibe celebration of musical texture. The album-closing retrospective ballad "Caroline No" fails to leave a favourable impression of the album however, as by this time I'm not interested in yet another of Wilson's tripped-out, whiny vocals - despite the fact that this is one of the best songs on the album.

And then, with a few lonely dog barks (of course, there had to be some literal "pet sounds" in there somewhere), the album draws its conclusion and leaves me to follow suit. I'm left feeling respectful, but vaguely bored. The instrumentation is marvellous, the melodies and lyrics spectacularly clever and the song structure is genre-defyingly daring in the most genuinely creative way possible...but it feels as if all these techniques have been used in much the same way for each track, producing a musical consistency that is probably heavily linked to the yawn I just let out. Nevertheless, Pet Sounds is impressively experimental for its time and filled to bursting with Wilson's songwriting flair - it has every right to its classic status.

Is it worth my $$$? - I'm so surprisingly apathetic to this album I don't know whether to recommend it or not. Yes, it's full of marvellous musical moments, but I can't help feeling I'd rather enjoy a couple of the numbers from time to time, rather than buy and listen to it as an album.


Listen to: You Still Believe In Me, I Know There's An Answer, Caroline No