Is the music from Pet Sounds and Smile rock music?

[Generation42]

After the Surf rock days the Beach Boys became a pop band. They still area pop band. For some reason people want everything to be RAWWWK N' ROLLLLLL but to me the Beach Boys are quintessentially a pop band.
For comparison you can consider the Beatles, a band which made more 'rock' sounding music than the Beach Boys yet are labelled a pop band.

But the Bealtes were a rock band.  And a pop band. 

I would offer that the same applies to the Beach Boys.

For that matter, one of my other favorite bands of all time, NIRVANA, were a rock band.  And a pop band.  And a punk band, too.

These terms aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

(As always, YMMV)

[halblaineisgood]

.

[Cabinessenceking]

I recommend the original poster and everyone else not worry too much about how to classify this or any album. You can find the influences within it and discuss where they come from, just as you can with music that has come out since and been influenced by Pet Sounds or Smile. But to say this album is that and that album is this and this person is XYZ...it's a bit of a waste of time unless you're not intending to come to an answer and having the debate just for the fun of it. Because your answer will be incomplete or incoherent.

Listen to this man^^^^^

yup that is the final line really.

[filledeplage]

There are three types of music. Classical, jazz and pop music.

You are joking, right?
Just ignoring the fact that classical music only covers the period between 1750 and 1825, where would you out all the different genres of world music, which are as different from each other as chalk and cheese. Where would plainsong go? What about when what is now considered jazz, or classical, would have been considered pop?
I thought I had narrow views!

There are two types of music -- music I like, and bad music.

Yeah, sorry Dancing Bear, but while that might result in a workable system for you, it's not especially accurate.

I try to avoid over-categorizing music, probably in large part because I'm so prone to organizing things that I'd drive myself quite literally insane if I did, but also because music cross-pollinates too easily and often. But there are many basic styles of music outside of classical (even if you use that term to mean "serious" or "art" music, though like (Stephen Newcome) I end up quibbling with that due to the specificity of that term in formal study of art music), jazz, and pop. And those three styles of music interbreed as much as any other.

For example, how does someone categorize Duke Ellington's Black, Brown & Beige, or Andrew Hill's whole catalog? They are every bit as serious and complex as "classical music," but they use jazz. Many, many other jazz composers fit into that same dilemma. What about "classical" composers who use jazz ideas in their music? Equally common issue for the past hundred years or so. "Classical" composers have also used folk--which you omitted from your list, but presumably could fit into the folk category.

What is Frank Zappa, who used all three on a regular basis, and often within the same albums and songs?

I recommend the original poster and everyone else not worry too much about how to classify this or any album. You can find the influences within it and discuss where they come from, just as you can with music that has come out since and been influenced by Pet Sounds or Smile. But to say this album is that and that album is this and this person is XYZ...it's a bit of a waste of time unless you're not intending to come to an answer and having the debate just for the fun of it. Because your answer will be incomplete or incoherent.

Luther is pretty on target, I think.  I look at Rock Music as sort of an "amalgam" of many eras and styles, each with what I think of as "leakage" from one style and era, to the next. "Classical" music influence has "imprinted" itself into many subsequent eras and generations.   A textbook version might list a hard and fast dateline, but that is merely a guide for what is in front of you.  

The Beach Boys music is not different from that as each of them brought something different to the table, and the "progressive" label could have imprinted in the early albums, on one track or another and which might be construed as a prefiguration of Today, Summer Days (maybe the instrumental "Summer Means New Love" - used as a "venue departure" during some shows from C50) Pet Sounds, SMiLE, Holland, etc. Brian had classical, Gershwin and other influences that filtered into the music.  

Even with "markings" of rock and roll, Brian and the Boys had progressive themes and styling from the outset.  I strongly disagree that it was 1970's driven, and Carl clearly sets that forth in the Gaumont Palace interview and he talks about the process as dating backwards, definitively, five years or so.  But, it was a process, whose roots were firmly planted at the outset, IMHO.

Rock and roll has R&B, Country, Blues, Jazz, Classsical, Folk...it is often 4/4 time, verse-chorus, and often contains thematic romantic, social, political themes...and some is often public domain adaptations, such as Aura Lee, which Elivis used as "Love Me Tender."  Sloop John B is in that category.

Much is being discussed about whether Good Vibrations should have been on Pet Sounds...I wonder if it would have overshadowed God Only Knows, Wouldn't it Be Nice, or the sweetly yearning Caroline, No.  I think it gave Smiley a good "anchor" even though it was a "snapshot" of the vision Brian had.  And, might have made these gems in the Pet Sounds corpus, such as You Still Believe in Me or I'm Waiting for the Day or even Pet Sounds (the instrumental) which David Marks led so beautifully on the C50 extravaganza, sparkle less.  I see that GV "omission" on Pet Sounds as the silver lining.

[Smilin Ed H]

Who cares?

Do you appreciate it?  If not, move on.

[filledeplage]

Who cares?

Do you appreciate it?  If not, move on.

Smilin Ed H - I guess it matters to many.  It makes me cringe when I see these "Histories of Rock and Roll" texts ( that I have to pay for) or those generic types in bookstores, such as those coffee-table versions, which either marginalize the Boys contributions, and/or ignore the very large influence on music, in general, and popular culture, with contributions to music history, in particular. 

Now, after 50 plus years, we have whole generations of music major and music minor students,  or even music appreciation ( required course, context ) who may be getting a very one-sided or jaded version of the music and see it through a music critic's eyes (whose opinion is paid for) or some music professor's eyes who may have a bias one way or another. 

And, I guess I might struggle with that, having spent many years in an academic context, and seeing instructional bias, with professors who didn't ever take the work of the Band, seriously.  And place them in a leisure industry context, only, and don't present the concepts in a more neutral context where the students can form their own opinions and tastes, free from their personal biases.  It is a concern that the music is not "taken as a whole."  JMHO 

[NHC]

In the wrong key, so probably from a rehearsal for live touring (early 70's?).

What is the right key?  My sheet music for it is in "G" but on the piano it seems to be in "B" (my piano is currently tuned a half-step low, don't ask, it's 97 years old and that's the closest the tuner could bring it up at one time without breaking it to pieces, so it actually matches up to the record as "C"). Didn't Brian right a number of songs in "B", which is an easy "hand-fitting" piano key along with "Eb"?

[the captain]

What is the right key?  My sheet music for it is in "G" but on the piano it seems to be in "B" (my piano is currently tuned a half-step low, don't ask, it's 97 years old and that's the closest the tuner could bring it up at one time without breaking it to pieces, so it actually matches up to the record as "C"). Didn't Brian right a number of songs in "B", which is an easy "hand-fitting" piano key along with "Eb"?

It's in B.

[Smilin Ed H]

"It makes me cringe when I see these "Histories of Rock and Roll" texts ( that I have to pay for) or those generic types in bookstores, such as those coffee-table versions, which either marginalize the Boys contributions, and/or ignore the very large influence on music, in general, and popular culture, with contributions to music history, in particular."

That, I agree with.