The Smiley Smile Message Board

Poll Clarifications:
-I'm not asking about people who have heard the album--I'm simply asking about anyone who has even just heard of the album (and they don't even have to know that it's by the Beach Boys).
-Let's assume that the people I'm asking about are 18+.


In my experience, I've been surprised by who hasn't heard of "Pet Sounds", but that just may be the case in the circles I run in...

I'd say

Music fans: 60-80
Everyone else: 20-40

i dunno, perhaps 30.

About 0,25 - 1 %.

I would be very, very (pleasantly) shocked if it was any more than 5 to 10%. Probably 20 to 25% for the singles off the album.

This may sound pessimistic, sad even, but I think that this is a fair estimate. And I try to be an optimistic person, glass half full and all that. But looking back with l..., I mean, looking back over the fourty years that I'm a fan now, there were preciously few people who actually had heard of PS in Holland. Even within circles of music fans, it turned out to be not well known (unlike Sgt Pepper, the Stones' output, Led Zep, you name 'em). And I think Holland (besides the UK, of course) must be ranked among the countries outside of the US where the Boys are well-known artists.

We, in our fandom, tend to overestimate things, and that's not such a bad trait in itself.

But I'll go with the 1% guess.

BTW: the fact that Justin Bieber probably will score a good 10% in these matters is proof positive that there is a Satan, besides a benevolent God.

Realistically about 80% of the US population couldn't give a sh*t about the Beach Boys one way or the other.

It's worth mentioning that Rolling Stone, the most biased of the music magazine breed, listed Pet Sounds as the number 2 greatest album ever made

The other side of this coin is that Pet Sounds is possibly the only Beach Boys album that the general population have heard of.
Or they've heard that it's the only Beach Boys album worth bothering with.

100%

 :lol

From personal experience, people say to me "Ahhh... the Beach Boys" and then sing "Surfin' USAAAAAAAAAA". So I think it's a very low percentage.

:) Mark

And therein lies the tragedy. With the Beatles and the Stones, people will sing any of the major songs for you, hits or otherwise

But no one in the street ever bursts out in an ecstatic rendition of 'Can't Wait Too Long'.

We're doomed, I tells ya'.

I disagree with this. If you asked people on the street to sing their favorite Stones song I think 98% of them would break out their rendition of Satisfaction. Most of their hits and non-hits are no better known (or not much better known) to the public-at-large than the Beach Boys'.

To place my vote for this poll, though, I think 1%  for Pet Sounds is probably about right. And my guess would be the same goes for Stones' classic albums like 'Beggars Banquet' and 'Sticky Fingers'.

Whenever I talk Beach Boys with anyone, usually Pet Sounds is the only album title that they know by name. They also know that it is highly rated by most music critics and most times is the only reason they know it. Now if you ask me, how many ever listened to it, that amount would drop quite a bit.

I once thought that "Pet Sounds" was a household name, at least for people who like older music.  I found out how wrong I was when I was at church a few years back with a group of 20-ish people, ages 20-65.  We were sharing our dreams, and I said mine was to create an album as beautiful as "Pet Sounds" by The Beach Boys...crickets.  No one knew what I was talking about.  It was in this moment that I felt misunderstood and realized I was part of a minuscule (albeit important) subculture lol.

Realistically, in a room of 100 people, I'd guess that likely 3-5 would have at least heard of "Pet Sounds"--so, specifically, I'd guess 3%-5%.

Although the 1%-20% is the clear poll-leader, it's interesting to see how some of us believe(d) that an upwards of 60% of people have heard of it...

Yes, the higher estimates are fascinating. But human too. I think that those who visit this, and related boards frequently, buy all the records, books, etc., go to shows that are BBs-related, and so on, that those will post an estimated percentage that is sort of an indirect representation of the space that the BBs, notably Pet Sounds in this case, has in their life.

Moreover, I dare say that almost all such estimates in many, of not most cultural fields, will be biased, not to say distorted, unless one happens to have some scientific or otherwise occupational insight that compensates for the tendency toward distortion. I mean: without any thinking, I would guess that Usain Bolt is known by a safe majority of all inhabitants of the planet. However, upon consideration, I think that this percentage may revolve around 15%, or less, realistically.

There is more to the type of question raised by ThyRavenAscend than meets the eye (or ear, in this case).