Pitchfork.com roundtable on Pet Sounds' 50th

[rn57]

With comments from Sean Ono Lennon; Tina and Chris from the Talking Heads; Yo La Tengo's Ira Kaplan; and a whole bunch of '90s/'00s musicians.

http://pitchfork.com/features/article/9870-the-beach-boys-pet-sounds-celebrates-its-50th-anniversary-artists-pay-tribute-to-the-eternal-teenage-symphony/

[You Kane, You Commanded, You Conquered]

Nice article!

[Don Malcolm]

Must respectfully disagree, BDIB, this is sound bite nonsense for the most part, very hit and miss, with a lot of millennial self-promotion and weak meta-irony dominating (as is mostly the case with Pitchfork, a music site that seems to have based its approach on all of the pompous "free paper" film critics who popped up in the late 70s/early 80s and  plagued us for so long until major newspapers started folding and the pros were forced to move down a notch).

I cannot believe that they were incapable of finding a group of people to at least talk about each of the songs on the LP, and do some actual justice to PS. This has a few moments of fresh insight, a good bit of rehash, some pointless trivia (with Chris and Tina showing the way...) and a whole lot of self-serving BS (including, sadly, Sean Lennon, who used to be able to not namecheck his own work).

We could collectively do infinitely better than this ourselves--and I daresay that the younger members of this board could easily do so without any "help" from us old folks. I'd love to see that rather than this type of half-assed tosh.

[Emdeeh]

Not one mention of Carl Wilson's vocals on GOK... 

[The Cincinnati Kid]

Maybe I'm out of the loop, but I haven't heard of any of these people aside from Spector and Lennon.  I have heard of the Talking Heads, but couldn't name any members.

[Emily]

I enjoyed it. Here are some comments:
The intro by Ron Hart was weirdly inaccurate but on-the-nose:
- If ever there was an artist so perfectly able to tap into the creativity of his inner child, it was Brian Wilson. – perfect
- He took in the Beatles’ then-brand-new album Rubber Soul, which challenged him to rethink his entire method of music making. – huh?
- 36-minute pocket symphony – does he know this referred to Good Vibrations and knowingly shifted it, or is he confused?
- Considering the lack of formal training Wilson possessed in terms of arrangement and composition, the way he translated his ideas to the album’s orchestral format is nothing short of magic. – perfect

-Sean Lennon has been raving about Pet Sounds for a long time, but this is the best tribute I’ve read by him; and I feel similarly: Pet Sounds is the means through which I’ve come to understand music.
-I’m thankful Drew Daniel exposed me to a really powerful poem, with a Pet Sounds reference.
-Ronnie Spector’s “peeking through the glass” mini-anecdote is new to me, and sweet.
-Patrick Wimberly validates assertions made about the impact of Kokomo and Full House that I’d always been dubious about. Guess I was wrong!
-Tina Weymouth explained a way that Brian Wilson unintentionally opened things up for other artists for a time. I’d never thought of that.
-Daedelus’ comment is my favorite.
-Ezra Furman cuts through some BS.
-Larkin Grimm makes a good point, and I love Caroline No anyway as well.

Does anyone have a savable copy of the picture after the Will Toledo quote? I don’t think I’ve seen it before.

[the captain]

Not a huge fan of the article. And this isn't the standard "Pitchfork sucks" kind of thing: I think Pitchfork is fine. Whatever Rolling Stone was to the late 60s and early 70s, I think Pitchfork was to a certain subset (fragmenting having done what it did) in the early or mid '00s. And now it's an aging entity, a Conde Nast company, for f***'s sake. Big ol' corporate entity trying to tell the kids what's cool. Good luck with that.

But for what it is doing, and considering the artists to whom Pitchfork has access, it could have been much better. I thought most of the blurbs were dull, and few of the artists were all that interesting. It wasn't entirely lacking, but this is your tribute to the anniversary of the album? Honestly, if that's what I came up with after thinking of running this feature, I'd have scrapped it.

[Emily]

Not a huge fan of the article. And this isn't the standard "Pitchfork sucks" kind of thing: I think Pitchfork is fine. Whatever Rolling Stone was to the late 60s and early 70s, I think Pitchfork was to a certain subset (fragmenting having done what it did) in the early or mid '00s. And now it's an aging entity, a Conde Nast company, for f***'s sake. Big ol' corporate entity trying to tell the kids what's cool. Good luck with that.

But for what it is doing, and considering the artists to whom Pitchfork has access, it could have been much better. I thought most of the blurbs were dull, and few of the artists were all that interesting. It wasn't entirely lacking, but this is your tribute to the anniversary of the album? Honestly, if that's what I came up with after thinking of running this feature, I'd have scrapped it.

Is it really Conde Nast?  surprise, surprise.

[The LEGENDARY OSD]

Must respectfully disagree, BDIB, this is sound bite nonsense for the most part, very hit and miss, with a lot of millennial self-promotion and weak meta-irony dominating (as is mostly the case with Pitchfork, a music site that seems to have based its approach on all of the pompous "free paper" film critics who popped up in the late 70s/early 80s and  plagued us for so long until major newspapers started folding and the pros were forced to move down a notch).

I cannot believe that they were incapable of finding a group of people to at least talk about each of the songs on the LP, and do some actual justice to PS. This has a few moments of fresh insight, a good bit of rehash, some pointless trivia (with Chris and Tina showing the way...) and a whole lot of self-serving BS (including, sadly, Sean Lennon, who used to be able to not namecheck his own work).

We could collectively do infinitely better than this ourselves--and I daresay that the younger members of this board could easily do so without any "help" from us old folks. I'd love to see that rather than this type of half-assed tosh.

Huh?? I thought the comments and thoughts were indeed insightful and sincere. Didn't know it was supposed to be a contest between Pitchfork and the SS board. Your comments follow the same vibe as myKe luHv's R&R HOF speech. 

[Gertie J.]

agreed.

[pdas1996]

Does anyone have a savable copy of the picture after the Will Toledo quote? I don’t think I’ve seen it before.

 

[Shady]

In classic Pitchfork fashion I know hardly any of the artists commenting.

Some interesting comments though.

[Emily]

Does anyone have a savable copy of the picture after the Will Toledo quote? I don’t think I’ve seen it before.

 

Thannks!

[William Bowe]

I have heard of the Talking Heads, but couldn't name any members.

In other words, it's been four decades since you ceased to accumulate knowledge about current music in any meaningful way. No shame in that, but I hardly think Pitchfork are going to take your perspective to heart.

[Emily]

I have heard of the Talking Heads, but couldn't name any members.

In other words, it's been four decades since you ceased to accumulate knowledge about current music in any meaningful way. No shame in that, but I hardly think Pitchfork are going to take your perspective to heart.

Not sure, but I think it's the opposite. I think The Cincinnati Kid is quite young.

[undercover-m]

The comments that I did like, I thought were touching or at least very honest. I guess this is interesting because it sounds like people are just stating facts or unbiased opinions of PS instead of praising it like we would. Which is fine to critique an album, just not when you're trying to, well, celebrate its 50th anniversary.

I know that Will Toledo is popular around my city and is heavily influenced by Brian, so I appreciated his comments. You guys should check out his bandcamp.

And yeah, Pitchfork can be that overly pretentious art critic of the music world, only assigning 8.0+ ratings to Kanye and Animal Collective, but I still really like their interviews and their descriptions of Vampire Weekend songs. Plus, their weird news section is quite interesting.

I feel like they could have picked other artists that are more obviously influenced by Brian. Mark Foster, Robin Pecknold, A/J Jackson... I was happy to see Washed Out's Ernest Greene on there, though. Didn't know he was a Beach Boys fan

[The Shift]

I have heard of the Talking Heads, but couldn't name any members.

In other words, it's been four decades since you ceased to accumulate knowledge about current music in any meaningful way. No shame in that, but I hardly think Pitchfork are going to take your perspective to heart.

Not fair, really. I can only name one member; I can only name two members of the Kinks, two members of REM… I could go on… point is, I'm older than CK but if I've no interest in an old band, I can't name their members.

[Dogbone51]

This might work a little better, in the right direction....it's 7:45pm (I would guess, don't think Brian would be up this early in the morning)...and it's time to hit the MEN'S ROOM, but some idiot can't let Brian pee in peace.  Just have to take another photo!! LOL!

As for the article.  I find most of the comments have little depth.  Sure, some seem to understand the significance of PET SOUNDS, but many we're probably just asked to write a few words, and I would guess most of these were done in an email and quickly with little thought.  One thing that is clear:  There is a lot of love for Brian nowadays, by many of the young, hip musicians.  Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with more than 3 or 4 of them.

Dogbone

[Don Malcolm]

Good work, Dogbone. I think once the photo is turned around it becomes recognizable as one that's been seen before.

Sound bites is sound bites, guys. I would sure as heck like to read more stuff from the folks here than 80% of what was in the Pitchfork essay. Yes, a few of them have a sense of what's timeless about Brian's achievement. Emily ID'ed several that have that quality about them. But they are the exception.

One of the essays suggested that there weren't "perfect" BBs LPs because Brian wasn't a "consistent" writer...what are we to make of such ahistorical twaddle? Did this person understand that LPs weren't considered to anything more than a collection of tracks until right about the time Pet Sounds came out? That certain artists were the ones who pushed against that stereotype in order to conceive of the LP as a more encompassing artistic statement? And this was a right that had to be earned?

Tina Weymouth reminds us of that fact, but the timeframe she references is a bit strange, since in '76 it wasn't the record label taking care of Brian at all, it was the BBs pushing him prematurely back into the "drivers seat." If Tina was paying attention she would have known that Warner-Reprise had a rep for being an artist's label much earlier than the time she's referencing, but that the record label had actually had consistently stormy relations with the BBs. I think her comment epitomizes what Dogbone said about much of what's in the "roundtable"--a lot of off-the-cuff stuff tossed out quickly and with a highly variable amount of reflection applied to what was written.

[Matt Bielewicz]

The article is what it is... some of the choices of contributor (which I'm sure was down as much to who Pitchfork could get to contribute in time as it was the result of any great masterplan of selection) are odd, and not everyone is as much a fan of Brian, or of the album, as we are. But the comments seem heartfelt - particularly Sean Lennon's comments, which didn't bother me at all. In fact I thought they were rather sweet. Yes, he sees everything through the prism of his own life (in his particular case, as a musician, and of course also as the son of one of the most famous musicians of all time)... but don't we all do that?

I did smile at Yuka Honda's comments. "The six bar intro of “Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)” is worth a thousand books. I consider it to be one of the greatest chord changes ever written."

Err... there IS no six-bar intro to that song. It goes straight into the verse!

I mean, I agree that the chord sequence is one of the best Brian ever wrote, and you COULD write a thousand books on it... but those changes aren't in the intro. Because there isn't one!

UNLESS: he means the vocal harmonies from 'Unreleased Backgrounds', which I've always thought were probably recorded with the intention of splicing them on the front on the track, as an intro. But as far as we know, Brian never ACTUALLY tried that out (perhaps, I speculate, because that would have made the start to album track 3 too much like the start of track 2?). So the track as released, in all its versions, has no intro at all!

Also: even 'Unreleased Backgrounds' (or whatever you call it...) is only five bars long...!!

[JK]

I did smile at Yuka Honda's comments. "The six bar intro of “Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)” is worth a thousand books. I consider it to be one of the greatest chord changes ever written."

Surely she (not he) merely means "the first six bars"! It's just oddly worded. And it is a fabulous sequence of chords...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuka_Honda

[Emily]

I did smile at Yuka Honda's comments. "The six bar intro of “Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)” is worth a thousand books. I consider it to be one of the greatest chord changes ever written."

Surely she (not he) merely means "the first six bars"! It's just oddly worded. And it is a fabulous sequence of chords...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuka_Honda

Yeah. The verse, from opening note to chorus, is six bars, so I assumed she meant that. Though it's a verse, it does have the feel of an intro.

[Don Malcolm]

All of this is proving my point that this group could concoct a much better 50th tribute to Pet Sounds than what appeared at Pitchfork...that would be a wonderful little group project, now, wouldn't it? Rather than bickering--not that this won't happen anyway!! 

[MikestheGreatest!!]

While I did not know most of the artists and did not find many of the comments illuminating, I found it rather touching that the article was even written and that the album is held in such high regard still by many of the younger set.

[The Cincinnati Kid]

I have heard of the Talking Heads, but couldn't name any members.

In other words, it's been four decades since you ceased to accumulate knowledge about current music in any meaningful way. No shame in that, but I hardly think Pitchfork are going to take your perspective to heart.

Nah, I'm 20, but nice try.