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I was thinking about how iconic Pet Sounds is ... and my mind wandered back to an era in which it may have been less appreciated on a mass scale.

It seems there were periods of time in which Pet Sounds was out of print. I would guess around 1969-71, and possibly the late '70s? Maybe even mid-late '80s?

We have the original release in print 1966-19??, the So Tough reissue 1972-197?, the single Reprise reissue 1974-197?, the Capitol reissue 1980-19??, then the CD release in 1990 (and various reissues in print since then).

I'm guessing the original Capitol release was out of circulation by 1969 because Capitol retired the rainbow label sometime around mid-1969 and Pet Sounds was never released on the orange label. But I suppose it's possible it was withdrawn prior to 1969, or maybe even sold into 1970 (or later?) with the existing rainbow label.

Anyone know?

EDIT: I found a post from an old thread on the Hoffman board in which someone indicated that ALL of the original BB records were deleted in mid-1969 except Best of (Vols 1 & 2) and Little Deuce Coupe ... I guess that tells us which records sold the best in the '60s.

I'm not sure that's 100% true, as I've seen Surfer Girl, Concert, etc. on the later Capitol labels ... but that might have happened a little later, along with the weird repackages. But clearly, Pet Sounds, Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, Friends, Stack-O-Tracks, Best of Vol 3, and 20/20 were gone by 1970. Kind of unusual that 20/20 is not more rare. Friends actually seems to be the least common original issue in my experience (I've actually run into more copies of Stack than Friends over the years).

In this 89 interview carl mentions its out of print because landy wanted producer credit
http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,15607.msg369021.html#msg369021

Wow

Fascinating read otherwise, thanks a lot for the link

Wow, that's a great interview ... Carl was very candid.

I know PS was out of print when I started getting into the group in 1980. I was reading David Leaf's book on the bus to and from school. Checked Tower Records, Peaches, Budget Tapes and Records, nobody had PS. I vividly recall the day in summer 1981 when I walked into Tower, and there it was, A Capitol Value, $3.99. Took it home and let it change my life. There followed a whole bunch "Capitol Value" reissues of BB's albums, but most had a couple songs deleted. I didn't want those versions. Beach Boys Concert, Party, Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, Friends and 20/20 were released intact, so I grabbed those, hard to believe, only $3.99 each. The others I had to track down at various used record stores. I have a version of Surfin' USA with a yellow Capitol label (similar to the orange one on most 1970's releases). Sometime in the late 80's I found a copy of Surf's Up in a bargain bin at Fred Meyer for 99 cents. Those were fun times, trying to complete my BB's collection.

Thanks for those stories - I really enjoy reading this type of stuff.

Record-hunting was more interesting pre-internet in my experience too! I was lucky to find most of the BB records at local shops where I grew up in Phoenix throughout the '90s when I first got into the BB at age 12-13. Imagine my surprise when I thought I had collected all of their records ... but then I found a copy of Keepin' the Summer Alive for $2 at Zia Records (apparently all of the books I had were either written before this record came out or failed to mention it)!

What a scummy act from Landy.

Landy did end up getting a credit on the 1990 CD reissue as "Executive consultant of CD remastering".  :-\

that guy did get pretty control f***ed didn't he? 

well it's not out of print now lol, now its a case of 'which version do I get'?  :lol :hat

It's so beyond unbelievable that this goon weaseled his way onto the credits of a then-24 year old classic album.

yup, I can get the argument of song credits etc during his period with Brian a little more,
but he had nothing to do with Brian in 66'.  Landy sure did become a bad egg.

One time at a flea market i came upon M.I.U, had no motivation of getting it, but hell, if i can get the record that has My Diane on it for just one dollar, why not i ain't gonna die for it

But it's only once home i actually thought of checking the vinyl inside (which i always do usually) and surprise, the dude left Surf's Up in it! what a nice treat, definitely makes it up for it.

Thank god i don't own this copy, i hope the others reedition sold more than this

The part that struck me is when Carl said that there's only so many time you can go "Brian? Oh, he's ok". I also think it's interesting that Carl actually acknowledged the "Australia incident". Although he denied using heroin. I think we need more journalists like the guy in this interview. Somebody who is not shy about asking questions most people would skip. 

I don't read a tons of interviews, but i gotta say i'm impressed over the last ones i came across, the 95 Brian one during the Paley era and now this, is there any more fascinating interviews like these, where it gets more personal and evocative, more "real"?

Middle part of the 80's, or maybe a few years prior to the CD reissue like 87-88, I had a Pet Sounds experience that put the album in my younger mind's perspective and finally got resolved when the reissue came out. We had a small place on this lake in Luzerne County PA which used to be a much more active summer getaway kind of place but had fallen off. Apparently another lake nearby was similar, but would play host to the New York mob in the 60's and 70's and had all these big secluded summer houses where they'd go, including an amusement park...until the 80's when the NY mob got broken up by the feds.

But anyway...

There was this small local paper that I'd buy to read the classified ads, and one issue there was an ad in the "wanted" section where someone was asking if anyone had a copy of the Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" album available. I thought..."hmmm, why would someone be advertising for that particular album?". My experience with the Beach Boys was the usual well-known stuff, I was just getting into records and collecting and knew Pet Sounds wasn't the "Butcher Cover" or some mono Pepper deal, and kept thinking why would someone pay to place an ad looking for this particular Beach Boys album? It must be special. I knew it wasn't showing up at the yard sales or flea markets or even the stores where I was buying other bands and where Endless Summer was a constant presence.

Then a few years later, it all became clear and also changed my life and the way I think about creating music. But it shows that if someone were looking for a copy of the album and paid to place a want ad for it, at least in those years before the reissue campaign it was not readily available. And it definitely wasn't in the "new" record stores like Sam Goody or Wall To Wall in my area, whereas the Beatles section was fully stocked with the 60's Capitol reissue vinyls and cassettes before their reissue CD campaign and also the BB's section was stocked with any number of the Greatest Hits vinyls. But never Pet Sounds until the CD as far as I can remember, and I was at the malls and shops on a weekly basis going through the racks.

Yeah, it was an interesting time to live through. I remember seeing all those crummy Capitol compilations with titles like Fun, Fun, Fun (Shut Down Vol. 2 minus a couple songs), California Girls (Summer Days minus 2 songs), I couldn't understand why the BB's catalog was so butchered when I could easily walk on down to the store and find any of the American Beatles albums still in print. It was very exciting when the two-fer cd's came out - complete albums PLUS bonus tracks! Was nice to see other collectors getting into BB's music again.

When Carl is asked in that 1989 interview about PS, I believe the interviewer is referencing the first *CD* release of PS. It had already been released in Japan as of 1989, but didn't get the big main worldwide/US release on CD until 1990.

But I don't know if PS was completely out of print in 1989. I recall buying a brand new copy on cassette (just to have for portable listening) around 1987 or so.

I don't know when all of the Capitol stuff went out of print on vinyl in the 80s (or if it did), but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of that stuff stayed in print on cassette during the period of time after vinyl fell out of favor but before the CDs were released.

I'm sure it did. It was kind of a strange time for music collecting. I recall all the fuss made about the Beatles cd's being the British albums, but you could still buy the US albums on vinyl for a couple years after that, and on cassette for quite a long time, until cassettes finally were phased out.

Yep, unknown to many (especially with the buzz when Apple allowed release of the US albums in CD sets in the 2000s) is that Apple allowed the US albums to stay in print (complete with later era 90s Apple logos) on cassette for years after the UK CDs came out and the catalog was "standardized." I recall seeing "new old stock" of US albums (the cassettes had blue spines) into the late 90s at record stores.

Even weirder is that Apple allowed the unique Canadian albums (e.g. "Long Tall Sally", the Canadian album with the "Second Album" style cover) to stay in print on cassette in Canada into the 90s as well.

Back to the BBs: I have all sorts of weird cassette compilations, some (but not all) of which came from vinyl counterparts. My favorite is "Golden Harmonies", which includes the "Pet Sounds" instrumental....

I remember seeing those cassette comps; California (And Other) Girls was one I always saw at the drug store (with the cover of BB Rarities).

It's not always easy to find even a single pic of these weird cassette comps on Google (I have the tapes still packed away somewhere, I think), but here's Golden Harmonies:

(http://auctions.c.yimg.jp/images.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/image/dr000/auc0212/users/6/5/8/9/tomoko_0350-img450x600-1481535417hx9x2o11096.jpg)

I'd love to meet the person at Capitol that thought a compilation made up of a bunch of '64 "Concert" tracks, but then with "Pet Sounds" thrown in, was a great idea.

Here's another one I had, "For All Seasons":

(https://img0.etsystatic.com/063/0/11183480/il_570xN.780306212_fa7i.jpg)

And another one, "Summer Dreams":

(https://img.discogs.com/P65inMavrXlMb4ZqKw1KyaZmVjg=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-3671183-1339723588-3024.jpeg.jpg)

Another one simply called "The Beach Boys":

(http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/l5gAAOSwdU1W~DfK/s-l300.jpg)

Here's another one, a Radio Shack compilation (perhaps done as part of the whole deal "Mike and Dean" had with them in the early 80s):

(http://images.45worlds.com/f/ca/the-beach-boys-jan-and-dean-side-one-sectionbreak-surfin-usa-capitol-special-markets-ca.jpg)

I've noticed lately that people are admitting to collecting cassettes. I was a late convert to cd, so I have some unusual cassette releases in my collection, including Ultimate Christmas, Summer in Paradise, Stars and Stripes, I Just Wasn't Made For These Times, Orange Crate Art, and Imagination. I've also got the 1972 CATP/PS release on a double play cassette.

Yeah, cassettes are the new trendy, indie, hipster thing. Indie bands *today* are releasing their albums on cassette, and in some cases putting exclusive stuff onto cassettes. Cut to a bunch of people confusingly trying to track down a cassette player.

I've never been shy about buying cassettes over the years. I never "collected" them so much as basically bought "portable/on the go" listening copies of stuff.

Vinyl has turned into a trendy thing that has little to do with sonic quality, and certainly cassettes fall even more into this category.

Nailed it. There was an article which I shared with friends, it had to be a year ago or so, which highlighted one of the only if not the only cassette manufacturing companies still active, and they were busy as all hell due to the demand from indie bands. They were not only busy, they were making crazy profits because cassettes are and were very inexpensive to make, and indie bands hopped on both the underground and retro appeal of the format, as well as the lower price point for getting their music duped and available for their shows and other merch marketing.

Then it caught on.

At that time, I was talking to another fellow flea market/yard sale attendee who like me goes out looking for audio gear. I said at that time "buy cassette decks" because I knew there was a market that would be needing decks to play these now hip tapes. I don't know if he did or not at that time, but I was able to score a few Pioneer, Sony...etc. Decent decks, used, for a buck up to 5-10 bucks usually in a box along with old radar detectors and cordless home phones. If I took them to a college area of Philly or some similar area, I could sell them for at least 50 bucks if I wanted to.

Look for these decks, trust me - It's like the stock market and the demand is there.

Now onto my opinion piece which may ruffle some feathers.

Cassettes sucked, quality wise. The decks - even some of the better ones - tended to suck and were not reliable in terms of tape speed for playback. In a studio setting, I and some other fellow music and audio geeks ran a test with a rack full of various Sony decks. Out of 5 decks, at least 3 of them ran at a different speed than the others, and therefore that affected the pitch of the music being played. Plus, the cassettes themselves were made for pennies on the dollar, and marked up by the labels to 8-10 bucks per album. So it was not a good format for quality audio.

But they were portable, and *that* was the killer app of the format. You could take your music anywhere and make your own custom mix tapes. Boom - That was the appeal, not the sound quality. That was the tradeoff. Portability versus quality.

Now onto the vinyl - Again, another opinion that may inflame...but consider this.

There are records being pressed ostensibly for critical listening, on heavy vinyl, special 180g versus 160g vinyl, etc. So you're paying well over the cost of a normal pressing in some cases to get this audiophile experience from vinyl records.

But...what are these people playing this vinyl with? Look at how many turntables and retro 'record players' are being sold and bought which have low-quality plastic tone-arms, little to no tracking control, and a stylus and cartridge which would cost perhaps 3 dollars to manufacture in total, made of low grade plastic and the styli made of who knows what composite.

What it amounts to is if you pay bigger bucks for a 180g audiophile pressing, and play it on a 75 dollar rig with a hollow plastic tonearm and a low-grade stylus, you're going to ruin the record every time you drop the needle on that vinyl.

To me the whole deal is guerrilla marketing personified. Get the buzz going around a retro-themed concept and use that buzz to sell inferior products needed to be bought to experience the buzz everyone is talking about. That is how I think it was pure genius marketing how lower quality turntable makers were able to rebrand and relaunch a product that was dead in the water, and which is actually doing potential harm to the very vinyl people are buying these decks to play. And the sound just isn't there.

Now cassettes - which were a horrible format when I used to buy them at Sam Goody for ten bucks a pop (7.99 on sale) - are "cool". OK.

The only thing that's less annoying about the cassette trend versus the vinyl trend is that I don't *think* anyone is trying to argue cassettes sound better. It's more of novelty thing.

More annoying is that people just dive into vinyl and immediately claim their rig sounds better. I think a redbook CD played through a standard run of the mill stereo system (or car, or whatever) still sounds better than most home turntable rigs, especially the folks that buy a $100 turntable at The Sharper Image and then go spend a grand on vinyl at Barnes & Noble.

Vinyl, even fancy pressings, are often cut from the same digital master used to cut CDs, defeating much of the purpose/reason vinyl *can* sound great under the right circumstances.

And then yes, most record players have a cheap stylus, and it all doesn't sound that great. With more vinyl production, more pressings are noisy, etc.

I think under optimal circumstances with a nice turntable (no, it doesn't have to be a $5,000 stylus or anything), and a nice vinyl pressing actually cut from a good source, vinyl can sound amazing.

But it's a pain in the ass and too expensive for most folks to piece together what they need to optimize this.

To me, and this isn't just me being old and lazy (I have vinyl, 4-tracks, 8-tracks, pre-recorded open-reel, cassettes, CDs, an iPod, high-rez files, SACD, DVD-Audio, Blu-ray audio, and so on), good ol' Redbook CD, mastered well, is the perfect sweet spot of good sound quality, ease of use, and affordability.

That cassettes are trendy again isn't a big deal; it's annoying sometimes, and sure, nostalgia kicks in and it's kind of cool to see here and there. The same way it's now a hipster thing to have a flask that looks like an NES controller, or a pixelated Sonic the Hedgehog mug, so too are cassettes now trendy.

McCartney is doing a cassette-only thing for Record Store Day, and at least it has a bit of novelty to it in that he's taking three songs *originally* cut on cassette with Elvis Costello and kind of reproducing that. It's a piece of memorabilia more than a viable listening medium. If I saw that in a store for five or ten bucks, I might even buy it. But I'm going to listen to the CD/download versions rather than get my old 1989 Walkman out.

I've always liked cassettes as a convenient format to carry around with me; and in the old days, many of us recorded our albums onto cassette so as not to wear out the vinyl with overplaying. As for the new vinyl, the fad has worn off for me. Some of the pressings are bad, and the price keeps going up. 10 years ago, I could buy a new vinyl album for around $15. Now they are up around $25. Why spend that much when I can get the cd for around $10? I still buy vinyl, but it is mostly vintage vinyl. NM pressing of a lot of older albums are not hard to find, and I find that original pressing generally sound better than the new stuff. Of course it may cost you in some cases...and sometimes not. It helps that my tastes are eclectic, i'm not necessarily looking for the same records everyone else is. A couple weeks ago, I picked up good copies of several albums at a thrift store: Burton Cummings (solo debut), Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds "Fallin' In Love", The Who "Who's Next", and "The Blue Ridge Rangers". Was very happy with my purchases.

You have to add one thing: many of the vinyl reissues are cut from digital masters, even more, the same digital masters used for CD,, which means you end with the sound of the CD stuck inside a piece of vinyl, kind of worst-of-both-worlds.

Many jazz albums which have become liberated in terms of copyright are reissued this way (ie. you can reissue Ellington records from the 50's, but you can't use the original masters), but, when it comes to "protected" works this is way down outrageous.