Brian Wilson's Masterpiece - Pet Sounds

The Beach Boys' ground-breaking album Pet Sounds, released May 16, 1966, rose no higher than number 10 on the charts. Though universally praised by the music community from its initial release, the album got little play on the radio and poor promotion by Capitol records.

It has been called Brian Wilson's crowning achievement, "perhaps the album of the century," claimed Paul McCartney, and it recently topped a poll by British magazine Mojo as the #1 rock album of all time.

The Inspiration

The release of the Beatles' Rubber Soul on December 6, 1965 roughly coincided with the Beach Boys' release of Beach Boys Party!. Party was just what it was called: an album of party songs that included "Alley Oop," some Lennon/McCartney, "Barbara Ann," and "Papa-Ooom-Mow-Mow." Party was far from innovative, no original work -- a compilation to fulfill a contract, yet an album that would out-sell Pet Sounds.

Rubber Soul, on the other hand, was as original and powerful as Party wasn't. The fact that Rubber Soul sold 1.2 million copies in nine days, a record at the time, was eclipsed by the admiration and inspiration it would spawn. Brian Wilson was impressed.

"This album," Brian declared, "blows my mind because it's a whole album with all good stuff! I'm gonna try that, where a whole album becomes a gas . . . Rubber Soul is a complete statement . . . I want to make a complete statement, too!"

Just a few months later, it was Lennon and McCartney's turn to be impressed.

An Ear in the Smithsonian

Derek Taylor, a Beatles publicist, was hired by the Beach Boys to promote the album in England. Along with Beach Boy Bruce Johnston, Taylor played the mono album at the London Hilton for the hippest of R&R royalty, which included Lennon, McCartney, Marianne Faithful, and Keith Moon. As legend has it, Lennon and McCartney were sufficiently impressed to race back to Paul's St. John's Wood home that night and pen "Here, There, and Everywhere" inspired by the introductions of "Wouldn't it Be Nice" and "God Only Knows."

Dylan declared of Wilson: "His ear should be in the Smithsonian." Tom Petty unabashedly compared him to the great composers of the past and that Pet Sounds is "as good a music as you can write."

The Internet is full of Web pages making adulatory proclamations that Pet Sounds is " . . . rated by many as the greatest album ever. With big, innovative productions and lyrics evoking the hopes, joys and losses of everyday life, it has become a friend and inspiration to many . . . what can I say about this wonderful album? Obviously, not enough, as it requires a whole HTML file to capture my thoughts."

The Production, Concept, and Composition

Brian was still in his early twenties when he composed Pet Sounds with the help of lyricist Tony Asher. Asher was a ex-pat Englishman who had found work as an advertising jingle writer. Brian had worked with many lyricists, including Mike Love and his road manager Terry Sachen. Though Sachen and Love would make small contributions to Pet Sounds, it was the collaboration of Wilson and Asher that made the difference.

The only participation the other Beach Boys had with the album was the singing. Love contributed a few lines to two songs; all of the instruments were played by studio musicians, one of the guitarists being Glen Campbell.

Declared as the first "concept" album, Pet Sounds is full of layers of sounds: strings, reeds, horns, all the complex sounds that would be the trademark of the Beatles subsequent albums, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper. The concept was Brian's desire to tell a love story through a sequential set of songs; specifically he endeavored to display the inner thoughts of a young man facing an optimistic romance. In "Wouldn't It Be Nice," the opening song, he sings naively of an ideal affair of "living together" and some day being married. As the songs progress toward the end of the album the tone of the singer transforms to frustration over a deteriorating relationship.

Brian instructs his listeners to ". . . use earphones, in the dark. You can hear everything."

The Studio and Brian's Bass Player

Pet Sounds was the first Beach Boys album in which studio musicians were employed for all instruments. Curiously, this included all of the bass work usually handled by Brian. Carol Kaye, an accomplished jazz guitarist, was one of numerous studio musicians that worked on Pet Sounds. She had worked with Brian on numerous Beach Boys records and became Brian's selection for bass work.

Kaye was an accomplished studio musician and had played on numerous pop hits like "The Way We Were," and "Wichita Lineman." On Pet Sounds she played a Fender Precision bass with Fender flatwound medium-gauge strings and a felt mute "placed on top of the strings to get a better definitive recorded sound (cuts out the overtones and undertones) and my special hard pick, which got a great sound."

Brian wrote every note Carol Kaye ever played for the Beach Boys. "He did try some things like the fuzz-tone sometimes and then have me play without it," she said in a 1997 interview with Feature Interview. There was one exception when it came to creativity: "I created a lick on 'Help Me Rhonda,' aside from that one lick, Brian wrote every bass note.

"We really had no idea if Pet Sounds was going to be a big 'hit' thing or not . . . but it was like Brian to keep growing, that was natural, so we were not astounded at the beauty of his music, it was a natural gift coming out of him."

When asked about Brian's claim that several of the studio musicians "got tears" when he played "God Only Knows" for them, Kaye said, "Well, I never cried like Brian said. I probably thought, 'well, darn it, there goes dinner' . . . nice tune, always like 'God Only Knows,' jazz musicians do too . . ."

The Songs

Oddly, the most commercial successful song on the album was "Sloop John B," released as a single with the far superior "God Only Knows" on the B-side. "Sloop John B." was arranged by Brian from a traditional song; it is the only song not written by Brian on the album.

The album was recorded in mono. In the early 1990's a box set of albums, which included Pet Sounds, was sold with a stereo mix of the album. Within the last two years Pet Sounds has been released with both mono and stereo versions back to back.

Brian started the album with bits of melodies and a rough idea of the feel of the album. He trusted Tony Asher to match lyrics to the fragments of melodies.

Stereo Version

The album was never mixed into stereo until the advent of digital recording technology. The problem rested in the fact that individual instrumental and vocal tracks for each song existed on separate tapes. In 1966, Brian recorded his instrumental tracks on four-track tape. The instrumentation was spread across the tracks so Brian could have more control over the final, mono instrumental track. Brian never intended to create a stereo version.

The album is full of various instruments uncharacteristic of a band known for their rock sound, and the songs are rich with harmonies and various voices. Brian would take the instrumental track and mix the tracks down to mono on a single track of another tape, either a four or eight track tape allowing him the luxury of up to seven tracks for vocals.

The only way to create a stereo version was to synchronize the vocal overdubs to the original instrumental master tracks, which was done in 1996 by engineer Mark Linett. Linett explained that "the original instrumental multi-track was transferred onto a digital multi-track and then, after carefully matching the tape speeds of the track and vocal tapes, the vocals were manually synchronized to the track using the mono track on the vocal tape as a guide. The result was a single multi-track master tape of each song with all the discrete tracks that Brian recorded in 1966 in sync."

PET SOUNDS

The Beach Boys

Producer: Brian Wilson
Released May 16, 1966
Capitol Records T-2458
Charted: 5/28/66
Highest chart position: 10

1. Wouldn't It Be Nice
2. You Still Believe In Me
3. That's Not Me
4. Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder
5. I'm Waiting For The Day
6. Let's Go Away For Awhile
7. Sloop John B
8. God Only Knows
9. I Know There's An Answer
10. Here Today
11. I Just Wasn't Made For These Times
12. Pet Sounds
13. Caroline, No

Sources:

Pet Sounds liner notes.

White, Timothy. The Nearest Faraway Place, First Owl Book, NY, 1996.