Critique my review of Pet Sounds

[Zack]

I posted this review last year on a classic rock run by the a guy who  runs a popular Stones board.   

http://www.keno.org/classic_rock/fan_album_reviews/beach_boys.htm

I wrote it for an audience generally unaware or possibly even hostile to the idea that the BB could be considered great. 

What do you all think?  Did I nail it or miss the boat?

Pet Sounds
By Zack Taylor
January 12, 2005
Rating: 10.0

"Rubber Soul really blew my mind," Brian Wilson gushed in 1965. Deeply impressed by the absence of filler and sustained mood of the American version of the Beatles' first masterpiece, the head Beach Boy vowed to top it with "a whole album of good songs." 

Despite the likes of Mike Love chiding him not to "f*** with the formula," Brian had steadily evolved from writing the sun-surf anthems that ruled early 60s radio.   Emotionally fragile, he had quit touring to devote all his time in the studio to take on the mighty Lennon-McCartney-Martin troika. At that time, Brian was the only true artiste - writer, singer, arranger, and producer - in pop music.  With the Boys on the road, he enlisted the hottest session players in LA, the Wrecking Crew, to perform his new Beatle-busting opus.     

Near single-handedly, 23-year-old Brian just about did it, creating arguably the greatest album in rock history.  Some contend Pet Sounds  isn’t rock and roll at all, much less a classic.  But for your humble reviewer, for whom music borders on obsession, this album is brilliant like none other.  It's as different from guitar-based rock as from those vapid surf anthems that pigeonholed the Beach Boys into a cliché they could never shake.

I could review Pet Sounds track-by-track, or note that it took 32 takes to complete just the backing vocals to "Wouldn’t It Be Nice" to Brian’s satisfaction, but that would miss the point.  The beauty of Pet Sounds is the album as a whole, the relationship of the melodies to the lyrical exploration of the emotional vicissitudes of romance.  The tracks all employ stunning vocal harmonies over an unusual array of instruments, some exotic for the medium, arranged to evoke a sad, spiritual search for inner peace.  Who hasn’t felt sometime that "I got brains, but they ain’t doing me no good." 

"God Only Knows" is rightly praised as among the most beautiful songs ever, and "Sloop John B," while not fitting thematically, features such stunning vocals and lyrical bass line, it stands tall in its surroundings.  Space limitations prevent me from going on in praise of the other songs on this record.

Without the support of the group and unhinged by drugs, Brian couldn’t sustain this intensity, and succumbed to insecurity and mental illness soon after.  But not before creating this infinitely moving window into his gifted, troubled soul. Pet Sounds is not really a Beach Boys album. It's Brian Wilson's artistic statement to the world, as significant to popular music as the best of Van Gogh or a Monet is to painting.

[Mitchell]

I liked it overall, but there were a few things with which I took issue. I don't like that you mentioned Mike in a negative way, and used the "foda with the formula" quote (is that even a recorded fact or is that just a myth?), because it tells people something that they don't need to know and isn't necessarily true. It's things like that which automatically bias people away from Mike in the first place and causes this whole rift in Beach Boys fandom. Mike Love's contribution to Pet Sounds is some great singing and occasional lyrics, which stand right up against Tony Asher's. Leave it at that. Similarly, I don't like the singling out of Sloop John B. as not fitting the 'theme' of the album. My reasons are similar to the Mike Love issue. People don't need to be told that it doesn't 'fit' the album, because for some people it does and for others it doesn't (though I appreciate that you say it stands tall, as it sure does!). Finally, I don't like how you call it "not really a Beach Boys album." I know Brian wrote all of the music and produced it and sang a large portion of the vocals, but the fact is that it IS a Beach Boys album, and it's one of the reasons The Beach Boys should be respected and admired (alongside Brian, who naturally deserves all the praise he can get for it!).

[Dan Lega]

I don't like that you mentioned Mike in a negative way, and used the "foda with the formula" quote (is that even a recorded fact or is that just a myth?)

     As far as I know it is not a recorded fact, however that doesn't mean it's a myth.  It could still be a true statement even though it wasn't recorded down in a first person interview or something similar.

       Love and merci,   Dan Lega

[SMiLEY]

You can say what you want about Mike Love, AFAIC! If he didn't say it, it still stands as where his attitude is to this very day.

But, Sloop John B. most definitely DOES fit theme-atically. In fact, the idea of going on a journey, Candide-style, begins two songs earlier. The songs on side two have a world-weariness (even GOK) that sound very 'arrived-at.'

Another point in it's favor is the fact that every song on PS is a step up, keywise, from the last. Take out SJB and that goes right out the window.

[Chris Brown]

Another point in it's favor is the fact that every song on PS is a step up, keywise, from the last. Take out SJB and that goes right out the window.

How do you figure that?  A few of them are only a step away in sequence (for example, YSBIM to That's Not Me: B major to A major) but there are plenty of places where this does not hold.  Wouldn't It Be Nice is in F major, then YSBIM is in B major.  To use Sloop as an example, it goes from A flat major of Sloop to E major for God Only Knows (although the vocal break in GOK is A major, that doesn't really count for being sequential key raising). 

Back on point here, I do agree that Sloop totally fits with the album theme...Brian once said in an interview that Pet Sounds is a "production concept album", and the production doesn't get any better than Sloop.  And Zack, I liked your review too!

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

I think the person who first suggested the ascending keys thing was kind of taking a lot of liberties to make it work.  I mean, WIBN is in A for the intro and bridge, You could call Don't Talk D# despite the enharmonic awkwardity, Sloop could be G#, GOK is ambiguous enough that A could be considered, etc, etc.  I think it's a neat idea, but just one of those coincidental things that doesn't even really hold up.

[Reverend Joshua Sloane]

I love how Sloop John B always pops its head into every thread about Pet Sounds. It has become my new favorite on the album. It's such a fantastic recording and production, and the mix on the mono original is excellent.

[Aegir]

I dislike the review; Pet Sounds shouldn't be considered good because of the atmosphere surrounding the composer or any sort of amount of trivia tidbits, but for the music, which you spent so little time actually discussing. You can talk about an album for pages, but that doesn't mean you've reviewed it.