It Was 10 Years Ago

[Summer_Days]

It was 10 years ago this month that I first heard Pet Sounds. Or was it April? It's tough to remember, but during April-May 1999, I first listened to Pet Sounds, the first album I ever heard of the Beach Boys. I wasn't a fan at all until I heard this album, the 1990 CD reissue to be specific. I'm listening to it on headphones again tonight, which I rarely do. I usually stick with the 2006 40th Anniversary version, but tonight I knew I had to put on the old disc, the very same copy I heard ten years ago. I'm on 'That's Not Me' right now, a song that hit me pretty hard at the time (still does) because I was going through much the same experience as what's detailed in the lyrics at that time. I moved back home after spending many dark, cold months in Washington state, returning to the Colorado sunshine of spring that I love best.
I was staying at a friend of mine's house in the mountains for some months, April though July, and I went through a a little cabinet of CDs he had, and one that caught my eye was this CD. After hearing, Pet Sounds immediately became my #1 favorite album of all time. For many people, I know that it took a few listens to "get" the album or for it to sink it, but for me, it was IMMEDIATE, right when 'Wouldn't It Be Nice' came on, which became my #1 favorite song pretty quickly.
Soon, probably later in April or in May, for all I know TODAY in 1999, I picked up Endless Summer on CD at Barnes & Noble (back when it was still in print on CD!) to get a Cliff's Notes of the Beach Boys prior to Pet Sounds. And so...my obsession began.

I know it doesn't matter much to you guys, you all heard this album at different times, be it long before I was even born (1979; I was 19 almost 20 when I first heard PS...the exact right age!) or you picked up on it since then, but it means the world to me. It changed my life, that first listen back then, on a sweet spring day in April...or May...it's a shame I can't remember the exact date, but oh I remember the day clearly. Odd, huh?

[Shane]

I was born in 1978, and heard Pet Sounds for the first time in late 1997... so we're right around the same age and time frame here.  For me, I found a beat up vinyl copy of the LP with no cover at a yard sale for 50 cents.  I remember some weird dude was sitting in a lawn chair, smoking a cigarette, eying me the whole time while I looked through his nasty box of neglected vinyl.  I grabbed what I wanted from the box, and got the heck out of there.

My first impression of the album was that it sounded strange, and had a very "distant" quality to the music... in other words it sounded like it was being played off in the distance.  This was probably due to the mixing/mastering of the mono version, and the fact that the vinyl was worn. 

It did take a few plays for me to comprehend the album.  I think the thing that first caught my ear was the background harmonies in "Here Today".  The rest of the songs proceeded to "click" with me rapidly after that.  Then the Pet Sounds Box set came out just a few months later.  I bought it, and the stereo mix completely blew me away.

[variable2]

the experience of listening to great music for the very first time with open ears and an open mind is a beautiful, spiritual thing.  may you keep listening for 10 more years to come! 

[Alex]

I'd known the song "Wouldn't It Be Nice" since I was a kid...it's been in 8 million movies and TV shows...first heard "Sloop John B" and "God Only Knows" when I was 18 in 2003 on the Sounds of Summer compilation. Prior to that, I only BB songs I knew were everything on Endless Summer (my mom had the record) and, "Rock and Roll Music", and "Kokomo". A review of Pet Sounds by Cameron Crowe in the 500 Greatest Albums issue piqued my interest, and finally, in the fall of 2005, when I was 20, I heard Pet Sounds in it's entirety (the 2001 reissue). I quickly ended up preferring the stereo mix...and I've loved the album ever since. (And I became a SMiLE-o-phile/Brian-ista shortly after.)