Anyone here hear Pet Sounds when it was first released?

[nobody]

What did you think of it? Share some stories.

Everyone else, if you like, share your first experiences of Pet Sounds. When, where, with whom, etc.

[MBE]

I bought it new on LP in 1989 or 1988 at the mall. I remember the old hippie behind the counter was jazzed. I liked it pretty quickly, On first hearing, I didn't relize how good the group really was. I mean it gave me a whole new respect for them, but it took a few plays to absorb it all.

[Mr. Wilson]

bought it when it came out in 66..didnt understand it but  knew it was different + important even for my 13-14 yr old brain.. I use to at that age avoid the 2 instrumentals  at the very least..Also ..IJWMFTT..The rest of the lp i liked + played regulary but i knew it was a giant leap forward + it would take forever to ever play the songs on the guitar...It did..!..Later in that year i went to a 9th grade after school dance + a couple of the prizes were: Pet Sounds + single ..Good Vibrations....Even tho i owned both i was jealous + tried to win those in dance contest..No deal when ya cant dance..LOL.!.. Anyway the hubbub of Pet Sounds wasnt near as strong as Smile so when it came out it was a complete turnaround from Party + quite surprising..Altho a couple of singles had been released..{CNO + Sloop}..It still was a step up from most other pop artists..This is when the Genius + Smile propaganda started + all those clippings + Goodbye surfing Hello GOD articles started coming out after the release of Pet Sounds..If you were a real fan at that time you felt you were on to something special..Then Smiley Smile came out + bubble burst..I dont think i fully understood Pet Sounds UNTIL..I was around 30 and i had experienced every emotion there is on that record..Pet Sounds is the kitchen sink of emotions....Also IMHO...BW + BB fans like the music + emotions in the music because we as BB fans..Are more sensitive to the world around us maybe..Or more spiritual maybe..The word im lookin for im not sure of..I just know over the years alot of the people ive met that that like to BOOGIE..Find BB music not to their tastes..maybe it takes a more sensitive human to understand some the BB deeper songs..Im not sure im expressing myself right + i dont want to come off like an elitist....Anybody understand.??..One more thing..This is embarassing..I NEVER fully appreciated the 2 instrumentals on Pet Sounds till i saw them played 99 00 01...I dont know weather BW is a gehius..But it took a special mind to write those songs..When all he had to go on was 4 freshman + C.Berry + Dennis surfing
+ Teen idol music he grew up with..What growth as a composer..!...Paul

[nobody]

bought it when it came out in 66..didnt understand it but  knew it was different + important even for my 13-14 yr old brain.. I use to at that age avoid the 2 instrumentals  at the very least..Also ..IJWMFTT..The rest of the lp i liked + played regulary but i knew it was a giant leap forward + it would take forever to ever play the songs on the guitar...It did..!..Later in that year i went to a 9th grade after school dance + a couple of the prizes were: Pet Sounds + single ..Good Vibrations....Even tho i owned both i was jealous + tried to win those in dance contest..No deal when ya cant dance..LOL.!.. Anyway the hubbub of Pet Sounds wasnt near as strong as Smile so when it came out it was a complete turnaround from Party + quite surprising..Altho a couple of singles had been released..{CNO + Sloop}..It still was a step up from most other pop artists..This is when the Genius + Smile propaganda started + all those clippings + Goodbye surfing Hello GOD articles started coming out after the release of Pet Sounds..If you were a real fan at that time you felt you were on to something special..Then Smiley Smile came out + bubble burst..I dont think i fully understood Pet Sounds UNTIL..I was around 30 and i had experienced every emotion there is on that record..Pet Sounds is the kitchen sink of emotions....Also IMHO...BW + BB fans like the music + emotions in the music because we as BB fans..Are more sensitive to the world around us maybe..Or more spiritual maybe..The word im lookin for im not sure of..I just know over the years alot of the people ive met that that like to BOOGIE..Find BB music not to their tastes..maybe it takes a more sensitive human to understand some the BB deeper songs..Im not sure im expressing myself right + i dont want to come off like an elitist....Anybody understand.??..One more thing..This is embarassing..I NEVER fully appreciated the 2 instrumentals on Pet Sounds till i saw them played 99 00 01...I dont know weather BW is a gehius..But it took a special mind to write those songs..When all he had to go on was 4 freshman + C.Berry + Dennis surfing
+ Teen idol music he grew up with..What growth as a composer..!...Paul

Great post, thanks for sharing. Strange about the instrumentals, they were the standout tracks for me when I was getting into Pet Sounds. I feel that they both capture a very mysterious mood. Particularly Let's Go Away For Awhile which is very ethereal. I've listened to that track alone on repeat for many hours.

re the hype for SMiLE - when you got Smiley instead, what were your impressions of it? that a joke had been played, or that they couldn't live up to their hype, etc.. ?

[Mr. Wilson]

Impressions of Smile hype..??  OOH..UMM..Remember Dominic"s Smile book with all the articles from ALL the magazines of the day..? Well i had access to all the mags back then cause my uncle owned a book newstand at sunset + echo park ave...Read them ALL for months..I saw BW do Surfs Up on TV in 66 solo..With all the hype + remembering all the names of the songs + finding out that almost none of them  were onthere i felt let down..I figured later on they would come out..!!..Then when reading over + over the 3 part Goodbye Surfing Hello GOD article i knew all was lost..There was another big article around that time but i forget the name that had some info maybe Derek Taylor stuff..I noticed instruments were nominal instead of full blown orchestra..etc..Smiley Smile + Party are the two lp"s i rarely visit cause of the dissapointment in them..Ill keep my thoughts short cause ill rewrite my history..Im forgiving of those 2 lp"s now..At the time they were both complete dissapointments to me..

[nobody]

Impressions of Smile hype..??  OOH..UMM..Remember Dominic"s Smile book with all the articles from ALL the magazines of the day..? Well i had access to all the mags back then cause my uncle owned a book newstand at sunset + echo park ave...Read them ALL for months..I saw BW do Surfs Up on TV in 66 solo..With all the hype + remembering all the names of the songs + finding out that almost none of them  were onthere i felt let down..I figured later on they would come out..!!..Then when reading over + over the 3 part Goodbye Surfing Hello GOD article i knew all was lost..There was another big article around that time but i forget the name that had some info maybe Derek Taylor stuff..I noticed instruments were nominal instead of full blown orchestra..etc..Smiley Smile + Party are the two lp"s i rarely visit cause of the dissapointment in them..Ill keep my thoughts short cause ill rewrite my history..Im forgiving of those 2 lp"s now..At the time they were both complete dissapointments to me..

Hmm, yes I can imagine your disappointment, especially after seeing the Surf's Up performance. I guess that in itself was proof that the hype wasn't crafty marketing ... and then Smiley came about with no signs of Surf's Up, heh.

Did you get the Surf's Up album when it came out? What'd you think of it on there? How about Our Prayer/Cabinessence on 20/20?

[groganb]

I was 14 when Pet Sounds came out. I'd been hooked on the BBs since All Summer Long, and had memorized Today,  Summer Days and Party. The BBs were a private thing of mine; no one else I knew got them, so it never occurred to me to judge PS pro or con. It was just the next BBs album, that's all. I would've had no one to share my opinion with anyway. I didn't find it stylistically shocking at all. There'd been the intro to "California Girls" and "Let Him Run Wild," to name a few foreshadowing moments, as well as "Please Let Me Wonder" and "Kiss Me Baby." I didn't find its sound surprising.
My first girlfriend had just broken up with me, and I was totally in sync with the album's mood. Mopey kid. I went away to a camp that summer that didn't allow radios or turntables, and PS ran through my head constantly, haunting me.
I didn't realize its revolutionary musical nature until later on as a college-age musician, when -- after a few listens to clear out the emotional associations -- it blew my mind all over again.

[rogerlancelot]

Just finished listening to the stereo mix when I discovered this thread. Such beautiful music that took me into this direction. Discovered this album in 1999 and never looked back again.

[Ed Roach]

Funny to me, how the recollection of groganb is in many ways the opposite of mine.  First off, in those halcyon days in Brooklyn, all of my friends 'got' The Boys; (which turned out to be real beneficial, when several of them formed a group.  Dennis & Carl loved their original material, and I brought the guys west, to record at Brian's house.  Sadly, this was right around the time The Flame album sizzled, and nothing ever became of the recordings...). 
I'd first fallen in love with them when I first heard 409, but became much more enamored with those "foreshadowing moments" of "Please Let Me Wonder" & "Let Him Run Wild".  While I bought each album as it came out, I wasn't totally knocked out with them until Shut Down Vol. 2, so I was totally ready for the huge step forward that was Pet Sounds.  What I wasn't expecting was for it to be released the very same day I started going steady for the first time!  We were strolling hand-in-hand when we past a record store and I  saw the cover.  (Don't recall if I'd found out if she was a fan before this; wonder if we'd have lasted as long as we did, had she not been?  Don't know what became of her, but I've still got my 45 of "Caroline No", by Brian Wilson, that she ruined by writing "Julie & Eddie 4ever"!)  I can still close my eyes and remember going back to her parents house, curling up on the couch, and hearing "Wouldn't It Be Nice" for the first time...  It was like he was writing just for us.  Thanks for giving a old geezer a great memory.
 

[A Million Units In Jan!]

I had heard the hype about Per Sounds, and when I first heard it, I thought 'You've got to be kidding me'. I didn't like it at all. A few months later I went back to it, and still  I didn't get it. Finally, I went back to it and listened to it a last time ( I kept thinking that there had to be something about it for everyone to talk about how great it is)  and it was like a light switch went on. For whatever reason, it all of a sudden just clicked, and I loved it.

[Goin’Bald]

It was the first album I ever bought. I was already a huge Beach Boys fan, but with no record player in the house I didn't have any single records of the boys. The Beach Boys had always had minor hits in Holland, but Sloop John B hit the big.

From my first self earned money I then bought my own record player, and Pet Sounds was the first album to be played on that record player. Speaking of first loves.......... Best buy I ever did. It still sounds as fresh as it did then. I still love God Only Knows with perhaps the best lyrics a song ever had. Besides that, the album has sounds you never heard before, and at times the sounds were so intense and difficult to get into. Amazing! A couple of years later I had to buy a new one because it was worn out.

[gxios]

I bought the Wouldn't It Be Nice 45 in summer 1966, so I was familiar with the singles from the album (although I don't remember ever hearing Caroline No on the radio). Funny, My girlfriend got a free promo copy of Pet Sounds at a fall 1966 high school dance contest too!  I first heard the whole album in the fall of 1967.  I had just turned 13.  Didn't particularly like it or hate it.  I liked Wild Honey and Friends, then I went off the Beach Boys for a while.  When I heard the Add Some Music 45 on the radio, I got back into them, and rediscovered Pet Sounds.

[Mr. Wilson]

I just love all these memories,,Ed"s girlfriend ruining Bw pic sleeve..Goin Bald"s comments about earning money + the 1st record he bought was pet sounds..!!!!..These comments + thread about 1st time you ever heard BB should be compiled into a book + have entries from BB freaks all over the world..These comments are priceless..!.When printed/compiled.. All the surviving BB + Dennis + Carl"s family should get free copies.. IMHO..Also here is another memory..I used to have a Complete collection of BB 45rpm pic sleeves in early 70"s..I decided to take all my BB concert tickets.. Pic sleeves..And pics from teen set magazine..66.?..And tear them apart + make a COLLAGE on wood of all the pics..+ put that decopagge stuff over it..Clear.. I know i spelled that wrong..I was 19 or 20 at the time...Wonder what that is worth in mint condition NOW....WHAT was i THINKIN..? LOL.!

[groganb]

One of the nice things about PS is how it can support opposite emotional points of view like Ed's and mine. You're in love? "Wouldn't It Be Nice." Lonely? "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times." And on and on.
Awesome album. Ed, your story about your girlfriend writing on the "Caroline, No" single made me lol.
I'd forgotten about that single. Loving it as much as I did (intrigued by the solo credit, too), chalk it up as yet another reason PS didn't surprise me. I need to go check my crawlspace. Wonder if I still have it.

[nobody]

One of the nice things about PS is how it can support opposite emotional points of view like Ed's and mine. You're in love? "Wouldn't It Be Nice." Lonely? "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times." And on and on.
Awesome album.

Not only that but when you're really connecting with Pet Sounds, every mood and state that's expressed on the album whether musically or lyrically brings to mind your own experiences and they form a whole picture. So it's not that one emotion (let's say, In Love : WIBN) contradicts another (let's say, Lonely : IJWMFTT) but that all of them join together to create a mental space that you move in in the form of thoughts, emotions, memories. Plus, the album ends brilliantly with a sense of things being unresolved ... so in a sense it has you hooked for more. You HAVE to keep returning to it.

[sleeptalk]

One of the nice things about PS is how it can support opposite emotional points of view like Ed's and mine. You're in love? "Wouldn't It Be Nice." Lonely? "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times." And on and on.
Awesome album.

Not only that but when you're really connecting with Pet Sounds, every mood and state that's expressed on the album whether musically or lyrically brings to mind your own experiences and they form a whole picture. So it's not that one emotion (let's say, In Love : WIBN) contradicts another (let's say, Lonely : IJWMFTT) but that all of them join together to create a mental space that you move in in the form of thoughts, emotions, memories. Plus, the album ends brilliantly with a sense of things being unresolved ... so in a sense it has you hooked for more. You HAVE to keep returning to it.

great insight, sir. haters say what they like, you're one of my favorite posters here.

[nobody]

One of the nice things about PS is how it can support opposite emotional points of view like Ed's and mine. You're in love? "Wouldn't It Be Nice." Lonely? "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times." And on and on.
Awesome album.

Not only that but when you're really connecting with Pet Sounds, every mood and state that's expressed on the album whether musically or lyrically brings to mind your own experiences and they form a whole picture. So it's not that one emotion (let's say, In Love : WIBN) contradicts another (let's say, Lonely : IJWMFTT) but that all of them join together to create a mental space that you move in in the form of thoughts, emotions, memories. Plus, the album ends brilliantly with a sense of things being unresolved ... so in a sense it has you hooked for more. You HAVE to keep returning to it.

great insight, sir. haters say what they like, you're one of my favorite posters here.

 

[Ed Roach]

,,Ed"s girlfriend ruining Bw pic sleeve..

One of the nice things about PS is how it can support opposite emotional points of view like Ed's and mine.
Ed, your story about your girlfriend writing on the "Caroline, No" single made me lol.
I'd forgotten about that single. Loving it as much as I did (intrigued by the solo credit, too), chalk it up as yet another reason PS didn't surprise me. I need to go check my crawlspace. Wonder if I still have it.

Yeah, my copy was put away for years & years, along with tons of other interesting 45's.  What a deal, when you used to be able to purchase them, picture sleeve & all, for 69 cents!  Thing is, though, I was talking about her writing this right on the label.  I can't recall if "Caroline No" came in a picture sleeve or not; (I've got those stored separately).
I had always cherished that single, though.  Thought way back then that one would be just the start of seeing Brian's name alone like that.  Never imagined it would take forever before seeing it again.

[Mr. Wilson]

yea Ed,,It did come with a pic sleeve..VERY RARE.!

[Nicole]

Those are fascinating stories, everyone. You're so lucky you got to experience it right when it came out and have those memories now.

My first BBs memory is of Pet Sounds. I posted it in another thread, though, so I won't repeat it here. That was when I was really little, but when I listened to it again as I got older, I loved all of it except for That's Not Me and Caroline, No. Those two took me the longest to get into, but I really like them now.

[oldsurferdude]

Bought it when it was released-and while GOK, WIBN and SJB got a good chunk of well deserved airplay(AM), the complete fascination rested in material lodged between the better known hits. Being all of 19, I didn't get the instant gratification I usually did with the "hits" of the BB's or any other group for that matter. This was going to take some getting used to-there were a whole bunch of places that their music had not gone before and it was a bit of a balancing act between new and old  territory. I convinced myself that I wanted to like it and I most likely wore down my sapphire (diamond was too expensive) needle trying.  All I could put together was that Brian was going somewhere else. By the way, I still have my first copy-mono of course!

[NHC]

Bought it the week it came out, 16 years old, grown into my teens with BB and J&D, expecting something evolving out of Today or SD&SN, not disappointed, this record absolutely grabbed me from the first note, every song. The instrumentals floored me.  How could these guys have done an album that was so completely about ME and so astonishlngly good? i thought it was the most amazing record I had ever heard. Still do. When I play it, it's 1966 and I'm in my room at home marveling at this latest soundtrack for a young man's life, and, as a budding musician, captivated by the arrangements and the instrumentation, as in "my gosh, how does he do that?". My wife, who I met six months later, still gets concerned when I say that IJWMFTT sums me up to a certain degree, but in so many ways Brian described my life, my thoughts, my desires, my worries, and my yearned-for triumphs,  and the lives of a lot of others, in a most stunningly beautiful manner.  Of course, my wife is already concerned about being married all these years to a now-59 year old guy who still obsesses about the Beach Boys and can't carry on a conversation without making a reference to them.

[Mr. Wilson]

NHC..Beautifull post.

[nobody]

Thank you all for your replies so far in this thread , I'm gaining a much deeper perspective on what sort of impact SMiLE would have had on a fan at the time.

[NHC]

Following up on my first post, I know a lot of fans didn't "get" it at the time - they were looking for another California Girls (and certainly nothing wrong with that - I definitely did not suddenly put the first ten albums in storage when PS hit the stores).  Capitol Records didn't help much either.  But, and i can only speak for me, the album simply seemed like a natural progression - while it wasn't Little Deuce Coupe or Help Me R(h)onda, it was still the Beach Boys with those glorious vocals and melodies and magic trick arrangements and themes all young people deal with (to misquote Brian Wilson on that last part).  Between that and "Today" (which I bought out of order and for a long time thought it came after SD&SN, and logically so in many ways), what was there that didn't immediately take residence in your heart and brain? There was absolutely nothing about it not to revel in, even when it struck the melancholy, frustration and  yearning chords of life. That was sort of the whole point.  it was simply too beautiful to either ignore or not take comfort in it exactly as it was. One thing it portrayed that may not have been obvious was hope, and that's what we all needed.  My original mono copy has traveled  with us from California to the Western Pacific Islands to California to Texas to Las Vegas, right along with our birth and wedding certificates.  OK, a little silly to put it that way, maybe, but that's what it means.  The greatest album ever made. I knew it then and I know it now.