That explains. Rmbr I said in the "Bubs" & Judd thread that I find the expletives boring? Ditto with drugs. I HATE DRUG REFS. If you all find it funny - cool. To me, it's boring. & I like my interpretation, thanks.

& btw, fyi, the date in Russia goes day/month not vice versa. Same as the UK date. The US stuff reads very bizarre,beyond basic understanding. I don't get it & will not get used to it, jus' like I find 2 dashes-4 dashes (-- or ----) extremely weird & stupid-looking & Oxford comma. JMHO.

Sometimes I read your posts and relate to them so well because I, too, am a very serious, curmudgeonly contrarian. Times like this I read them and think you have some very, very strong beliefs about minutiae. In both cases, I commend you for fighting the good fight. Gotta keep people in line.

By the way, two dashes is correct but four dashes is simply obscene.

I changed a lot when I heard Pet Sounds as a 19 year old; partly because of the album and the effects of such rich music resonating with me, and partly just a correlation with changes I was already going through. It was a marked effect, the same way adolescence changed me before and adulthood would change me not much later.

The spirituality -- lacking a better term, but you all know what I mean -- that I perceived in Pet Sounds (and The Beach Boys' music in general, but this album had a more defined impact) was a catalyst to my growth, a growth that was flawed in some aspects and ideal in others. I let go of a lot of baggage, certain ways that I was posturing and habits I'd formed in my thinking that I knew wouldn't be conducive to becoming my Self. My belief system became more flexible, I became more open. More relaxed in some ways and more rigid and anxious in others, because this album made me care more about almost everything in life. My ambitions became no more defined but much more passionate. My own art became a lot more honest and, frankly, better. It allowed me to embrace my sensitivities and affirmed my own conviction that the only stuff worth pursuing in life and art are rich, exalting, and honest.

Yeah, most of these changes happen to a young adult anyhow, but I would be lying if I said the Pet Sounds album wasn't a major part of it. It's one of the only albums that's never been tainted by bad circumstances or rough times (you know how strong music association can be on the memory). I don't even listen to it all the way through anymore, but I'll play individual tracks from it and I find them just as interesting and inspiring as ever. I saw it performed live in 2006 when I was just getting into it and was obsessed with it, and I'll be seeing it live in October of this year.

Probably just from the background vocals going "funky pretty, pretty funky" at the same time as Carl's lead.

Dennis Wilson saying that Brian, along with Aretha Franklin, is not a good looking human being.
        ::VS::
Brian lying through his teeth claiming that he's never heard "P.O.B."

Not that either of those are foul, but if we really restricted this game to purely foul quotes we'd be left with a (Stan or Steve?) Love quote, a couple Murry's, and maybe a few sour Bruce gems.

Edit:
Oh, and a really really mean Phil Spector one about Brian.

So mightn't we say liking Jay-Z is lazier?

Just to clarify, I wasn't saying that enjoying their music is lazy, just that the writing is. I can see how that may have been misunderstood because of my reference to the article claiming that white people like it because they're told it's hip, which I suppose is a remark on the insincerity of music listeners now? I don't know -- I can't say I necessarily agree with that wholeheartedly, and it's a whole discussion on its own, but it did drive the author's point home and I found it a funny bit.

Can't relaxing music be ok without it being "limp-dick?"

Yes! In fact, there is plenty of relaxing, non-limp dicked music out there. Furthermore, it's okay to enjoy the relaxing stuff that doesn't pack a punch. My perspective is more of disbelief that there isn't more current, non-rap music out there that packs a punch in just a couple of minutes.

I actually do see its merit, and I'm not surprised nor is it totally unrelatable that somebody would prefer Fleet Foxes to Lil Wayne or Foster the People to Eminem. It's just that hipster rock (we'll go with that term) excites me less than some current hip hop. And for the record, I wouldn't put the Black Eyed Peas in the same league as Eminem or Jay Z -- though, somebody out there might! And so it goes; the variables of preference can't be exhausted! 

There's so much limp dick sh*t out nowadays. There was a great article (maybe posted on here?) a while back that reviewed the worst bands in the new decade. Fleet Foxes was one of them and the reviewer said, in summary, that they don't know how to write an actual proper song, it's just lazy music that white people like because they're told it's profound and beautiful. That review really hit it for me, I mean I really believe that. I'd rather listen to The Carter IV than anything by the Black Keys or Foster the People. By the way, is "Pumped Up Kicks" really what passes for a lead vocal nowadays? I don't like mumbling. I'm sorry to be abrasive, I just miss the days when a song would pack a punch in 2 minutes and then wrap up. Granted a lot of hip hop tracks are too long too.

Rapping isn't really "talking," anyhow. An element of rap that impresses me is vocal inflection. There is pitch in almost anything if you are sensitive enough to it. I once heard that a toilet flushes in Eb -- that's probably total bullsh*t, but you get what I'm saying. I love the pitches guys like Eminem and Tech N9ne will use their flows, and without singing, these guys can make a very dynamic vocal track. And that's not even mentioning the rhyming, which is a whole skill on its own with multi-syllabic lines, inverted rhymes, etc.

Edit:
I guess a couple people had already touched on this. I didn't read it all. Nevertheless...

Rick Nelson is one of my top 3 musical acts along with The Beach Boys and Burt Bacharach, and his voice is right up there with Glen Campbell and Elvis for me. I was happy to pick up Rick's Rarities, it was the first I'd known of him singing Bacharach and Randy Newman tunes.

Excellent! Gotta say - I dig your covers of "ET" and "Call Me Maybe" as well!

I love every year when Thanksgiving ends, it's my cue to to obsess over "Little Saint Nick" and listen to it and play it on the piano a million times a day.

1. Little Saint Nick - I want to punch people in the throat when they say " 'Christmas comes this time each year,' what a terrible lyric!" I love my dad, but he says this every time I play the song and it makes me wish I was adopted.
2. Christmas Day - Surprised so many people dislike this. Al's voice is the perfect innocent delivery. He really sounds like he cherishes Christmas and wants everybody to have a nice day. Spirituality: successful!
3. The Man With All the Toys - Great melody.
4. We Three Kings of Orient Are
5. Santa's Beard - Dorky. Cool melody, cool hook.
6. Blue Christmas - Nicely sung, BW.
7. Merry Christmas Baby - Weak concept but has some cool moments.
8. Auld Lang Syne
9. I'll Be Home for Christmas - This and "White Christmas" are both great songs that just aren't interesting enough in their arrangements for me to get that worked up over them. But they're well done and "I'll Be Home..." especially has a nice sentiment.
10. White Christmas
11. Frosty the Snowman
12. Santa Claus is Coming to Town - Plain dumb song.

Girls On The Beach - I can't buy this meme that its too similar to Surfer Girl, as similar as a Vespa is to a Ducati. The key changes, complex arrangement, Dennis on the middle bit, incredible vocal stacks...way, way beyond Surfer Girl.

This album is so great I don't even care to rank the tracks. I mostly just wanted to post my agreement, because I am so thankful to hear somebody say this. Look, if somebody doesn't like "Girls on the Beach," they don't like it. Fair enough. Although it ranks with any other of BW's most sophisticated compositions. My gripe is that it's observably not similar to "Surfer Girl." The only two similarities are the rhythm of the melody in the first 8 bars of the verse, and the time signature. It shows a crass lack of appreciation for BW's growth as a songwriter to pass this off as a "Surfer Girl" rewrite.

I honestly hate the internet, the whole tumblr universe is something that anthropologists will look at some day and weep over. TVtroupes, reddit, something awful, 4chan, the subcultures and attitudes that have developed around these sorts of sites in the last 10 years are honestly horrifying. There's more to life than memes about Mitt Romney, or feigning outrage over the latest manufactured social justice controversy, and the general internet worldview that many 18-25 year olds have taken up for themselves is over. Internet culture is a cesspool of once-vital progressive ideologies totally undermined by systemic hypostasis. Ideas like tolerance, equality, freedom, justice, prejudice, aestheics, reason, logic, science, and objectivity have become meaningless and in the process an intellectually bankrupted generation has come into being, a generation of clowns haranguing one another and wringing their collective hands about whether or not some blogger needs to check his privilege for writing about which female superheroes he'd most like to f***. 

sh*t yeah! I am giving you the most enthusiastic round of applause right now.

1. Brian Wilson - BW
2. Gettin' In Over My Head - BW
3. Pacific Ocean Blue - DW
4. In the Key of Disney - BW
5. What I Really Want for Christmas - BW

Yes, GIOMH is at #2. I think almost all the songs on this album are great from a compositional standpoint. His vocals don't really ruin the experience for me like a lot of people.
Obviously this list takes a pretty big drop after POB. I find all of BW's solo work enjoyable, but I miss having original songs from him. The lyrics on Imagination ruin what could be a decent album. The lyrics on TLOS put me off very much, and when you factor in the spoken interludes and reprises -- fuhgedaboutit. Takes itself way too seriously -- totally unlike BW.

What's a Hitchclock?

The god damned stupid fucking word filter. Glad my review was so interesting that the word filter's bullshittery was the only bit deemed worthwhile! 

"Pet Sounds." My number 1 is "Friends" right now, and sometimes it's "Love You." And sometimes my number 1 is "Pet Sounds." Man, a #1 slot is just kind of inapplicable for me when it comes to this band. It's much easier to rank everything after #1.

[Don't Worry Baby]

This album could be so much better. Oh well. I still love it for those few fantastic tracks.

1. Don't Worry Baby - Just great. Especially Mike's low part during the chorus.
2. Warmth of the Sun
3. Fun Fun Fun - Such a relief. Finally, a fast-paced instrumental track that fits the quality of the song itself. So many early fast songs are great, but up til now they've all had these really weak backing tracks (with the exception of "Surfin USA" and a couple others maybe). I'm looking at you, "Don't Worry Baby."
4. In The Parking Lot - Fun melody, and one of their most successful songs as far as making me feel like a teen in the early '60s. "Grass is all covered in dew," so fucking good!
5. Pom Pom Playgirl - Another fun schooltime melody. The fade is dope.
6. This Car of Mine - Love the "Diddly-oh" part -- enough to place this before "Keep An Eye..."
7. Keep An Eye On Summer - Nice chord changes. Doesn't thrill me as much as it used to, though.
8. Why Do Fools... - Here's where the album starts to lose me. A fine performance, but I just don't care why fools fall in love.
9. Shut Down Pt 2 - It's an OK instrumental. Still -- SKIP!
10. Cassius Love vs. Sonny Wilson - Can't believe I dislike the next 2 tracks so much that I'm placing a skit before them. It really is an amusing skit though!
11. Denny's Drums
12. Louie Louie - NOOOOOO!

[Ballad of Ol' Betsy]

I slept on this album for a while because it was full of so many songs I'd heard already, but when I finally played it I was more than pleasantly surprised. It stayed in the deck for several weeks during summer '09.

1. Ballad of Ol' Betsy - Love the way this is sung. Love the chord change during "all the way from Detroit City," etc.  Sounds like they're choking up when they go acappella at the end. Pretty sure I cried when I first heard it too!
2. Be True To Your School - I like this version of the song. I fucking love any version of this song.
3. Shut Down - Don't like songs being re-used across multiple albums, but this song is an ass kicker.
4. Spirit of America - Such a dope idea for a song. I love the words. Great chord change when it goes to that "once as a jet, she played in the stars" section.
5. Custom Machine - I get such a kick out of the melancholy "A Young Man..." ending ,and then hearing "CHECK MY CUSTOM MACHINE!!!" I love Brian and Mike's parts of the "waaa-ahhh-ahhh" harmony bit.
6. No Go Showboat - Brian was really growing with these songs. That's one thing I think fans should recognize this album for. "Betsy," "Custom Machine," "Be True..." and this song are all a fine display of some really interesting compositional techniques he was using.
7. Cherry Cherry Coupe - Just a really cool one. Mike sings these awesome words so well.
8. Car Crazy Cutie - I prefer "Pamela Jean" for being a ballsier track and having better subject matter. But this song still does it for me.
9. Our Car Club
10. A Young Man Is Gone - Like a few others, I like the James Dean thing more than "Their Hearts..."
11. Little Deuce Coupe
12. 409

I think it's denying fans some credit to imply that we're being disingenuous in our enjoyment of Brian and Dennis' vocals during that era, whether it's a result of their destructive lifestyles or not. Whatever caused Brian's voice to degenerate (and we can certainly define the cause, of course, it's been sufficiently discussed) is the same thing that caused his mind to veer in certain directions that inspired his songwriting at the time. His frustrations and indulgences as he led that lifestyle were catalysts to ideas that reflected his neuroses, distresses, what have you -- ranging from quirky to tragic: "Roller Skating Child," "It's Over Now," "Lines" ... you could go on and on. If, instead of getting into drugs and excessive eating and sleeping, Brian had gotten into drinking coconut water and reading lots of books and playing tennis, he probably would've written in a much different vein and methodology. And I would probably like them, but I might not because I really wouldn't want to have anything else except the all around directness of his music during that era. But, uh... Haha, I sort of lost my point after I started imagining the kind of lyrical ideas and arrangements his songs would have if he was just into drinking coconut water and reading a variety of books and playing tennis.

[Today]

To a significant extent, this is the first album where I really start to connect with BW's songwriting in a different way than I can with Today through Smiley Smile. I hesitate to draw my comment away from Wild Honey, but I want to make my point a clearer. To me, BW as a songwriter appeals to me in these distinct forms:

1. The simple idea, the simple tune. No less brilliant, but more succinct, more narrow. This form is delivered on the albums Surfin' Safari through All Summer Long. Then a departure, and a return to this form on Wild Honey and Friends, a departure, then another return from Love You onward.

2. The complex structure, the ornately produced. Concepts are a bit more abstract, and even the simple ideas have a bit more dimension. Shown on albums Today! through Smiley Smile, return to the style discussed in [1.], and back to this form with Time to Get Alone, All I Wanna Do, This Whole World, Our Sweet Love, 'Til I Die, A Day in the Life of a Tree, Funky Pretty... then in like '75 or so he goes back to "older" form.

I really have some sentiment for this notion, so I hope someone else kinda gets what I'm saying. I can't speak to any method or reason for his going between songwriting styles -- it may simply be incidental, no intent on his part, and just that I happen to categorize his songs in such a way.

Back to the album specifically:

It contains great keyboard-rockers ("Wild Honey," "Here Comes the Night," "Darlin'"), my favorite melodic, sentimental expressions ("I'd Love Just Once..." and "Aren't You Glad"), one of my favorite sets of Beach Boy lyrics ("Let the Wind Blow"), an odd little harmony-rich, atmospheric joint ("Country Air"), and  then "A Thing Or Two" which I think is great and unique because of the chord it starts on, and "How She Boogalooed It" which is a lot of fun. And finally, "Mama Says" which sucks and is useless.

Love this album!

That was a great review right up until you dismissed the lovely Mama Says as 'sucking and useless'. You can not like a song (although how you can not like such beautiful harmonising is beyond me?), but 'useless'? A little harsh for such a fun, inoffensive, nicely sung ditty, no?

I prefer it as part of "Vegetables." It's nicely performed, yes. But it being inoffensive is just the problem: it's totally not invigorating to me, which is disappointing coming from a group whose catalog, in large part, is otherwise just that -- invigorating and memorable. So I think "useless" still describes the way I feel: I don't actively hate it, but I would've liked it left off the album.

I love this album.

Me too, man. This was NOT easy!

1. Your Summer Dream - In my top 10. Great atmosphere. Beautiful chord changes and melody and lyrics.
2. In My Room - One of BW's best song ideas in his whole career.
3. Surfer Moon - Lovely lyrics and vocals.
4. Hawaii - Pretty kick ass.
5. Catch A Wave - Cool hook and trade-off between Brian and Mike.
6. Our Car Club - Fuckin awesome drums and bass groove.
7. Surfer Girl - A classic of course. But also a less than thrilling composition, really.
8. Little Deuce Coupe - Same as 7.
9. Surfer's Rule - Kick ass in the same way that "Catch A Wave" is. Love the hook and the fade.
10. South Bay Surfer - A jacked melody, but a fun track.
11. The Rocking Surfer - The instrumentals are an improvement over previous album, as somebody said. They're starting to get more to my taste.
12. Boogie Woodie - Lowest rated, but I still dig it.

I vote for FRIENDS. It's in my top 2 favorite Beach Boy albums.

Now, I adore 20/20. I actually think it's a more exciting album. I've always agreed with the assessment that it's a hodgepodge, but I think that's what gives it its unpredictability and a mania about it that keeps it fascinating, engaging.

But FRIENDS has -- and I hope this isn't too off-puttingly dramatic -- spirituality in the design of the songs and can alter my mood and outlook, the power to transform my day. And if we don't want to go as far as invoke spirituality, the songs are just so damn light, innocent, and profoundly fun all at once. Listening to FRIENDS is like going to yoga and then getting a gyro and an iced tea.

Okay, enough sensationalist affection and cute metaphors. "Be Here In The Morning" is in my top 10 Beach Boys songs. "Wake the World" and "Busy Doin' Nothin'" are compositions that I am endlessly fascinated by. The title track and "Passing By" make the case: this album, unbelievably, strokes a harmonic sweet spot that make for beds of instrumental and vocal tracks unlike anything else I've heard. And, obviously, it's primary composer has hit some harmonic sweet spots many times before and since this album. So the fact that it so effectively stands out really means something to me.

20/20 has one of my all time favorite Beach Boy tracks, "Time To Get Alone," and some other very high points. But it unfortunately hits a few too many potholes, "All I Want To Do" being the lowest. And I never liked that "Our Prayer" and "Cabinessence" were tacked on to the end as a save-our-ass measure. In contrast, FRIENDS has only one pothole, "Be Still," and even then the song still fits into the theme of the album. Like others have said, cohesiveness is part of what makes FRIENDS such a pleasure.

[Today]

To a significant extent, this is the first album where I really start to connect with BW's songwriting in a different way than I can with Today through Smiley Smile. I hesitate to draw my comment away from Wild Honey, but I want to make my point a clearer. To me, BW as a songwriter appeals to me in these distinct forms:

1. The simple idea, the simple tune. No less brilliant, but more succinct, more narrow. This form is delivered on the albums Surfin' Safari through All Summer Long. Then a departure, and a return to this form on Wild Honey and Friends, a departure, then another return from Love You onward.

2. The complex structure, the ornately produced. Concepts are a bit more abstract, and even the simple ideas have a bit more dimension. Shown on albums Today! through Smiley Smile, return to the style discussed in [1.], and back to this form with Time to Get Alone, All I Wanna Do, This Whole World, Our Sweet Love, 'Til I Die, A Day in the Life of a Tree, Funky Pretty... then in like '75 or so he goes back to "older" form.

I really have some sentiment for this notion, so I hope someone else kinda gets what I'm saying. I can't speak to any method or reason for his going between songwriting styles -- it may simply be incidental, no intent on his part, and just that I happen to categorize his songs in such a way.

Back to the album specifically:

It contains great keyboard-rockers ("Wild Honey," "Here Comes the Night," "Darlin'"), my favorite melodic, sentimental expressions ("I'd Love Just Once..." and "Aren't You Glad"), one of my favorite sets of Beach Boy lyrics ("Let the Wind Blow"), an odd little harmony-rich, atmospheric joint ("Country Air"), and  then "A Thing Or Two" which I think is great and unique because of the chord it starts on, and "How She Boogalooed It" which is a lot of fun. And finally, "Mama Says" which sucks and is useless.

Love this album!

1. County Fair
2. Surfin' Safari
3. Cuckoo Clock
4. Little Girl (You're My Miss America)
5. 409
6. Chug A Lug
7. Heads You Win...
8. Surfin'
9. The Shift
10. Ten Little Indians
11. Moon Dawg
12. Summertime Blues

Probably the album most ignored by me, next to "Party," and I'm regretting how little I've listened to it! It's a really cool, loose album.

Surprised "Lana" and "Finders Keepers" are ranked low by so many.

1. Shut Down
2. Surfin' USA
3. Farmer's Daughter
4. Finders Keepers
5. Lonely Sea
6. Lana
7. Noble Surfer
8. Stoked
9. Let's Go Trippin'
10. Misirlou
11. Honky Tonk
12. Surf Jam

Had a couple great bouts rotation in my car, this album. It's been a while and I forgot how exciting it sounds. You know, I really like the instrumentals while I'm listening to them, yet they're still a little forgettable to me. But the songs with vocals stuck with me since the day I heard them. A great collection of songs.