Pet Sounds: most overrated album ever?
Posted by robram on 29 February 2008 - 3:46pm.
Subtitle: I just don't get it
I'm prepared to be shot down in flames here, but as often as I listen to it, I just don't see what all the fuss is about Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys.
Sure it's nice and poppy and God Only Knows is a lovely track, but I just don't understand why everyone makes a huge fuss about it.
I've tried and concede that perhaps you just 'had to be there' and as a callow 30-something, 70s child I missed out, but words like 'seminal' and 'legendary' just seem like hyperbole to me.
Two questions:
1) What am I missing?
2) Name me an album that's more overrated
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Three things
1. I love Pet Sounds. Just not quite as much as I feel I'm supposed to.
2. Yes, it's overrated. That is neither its fault, nor does it affect its quality.
3. I prefer Smile.
Three more things
1. I love Pet Sounds.
2. It's not overrated.
3. I prefer Rubber Soul.
I like it a lot...
...but what happened to this album is that it's consistently placed at the top of those arbitrary 'best albums ever' polls and therefore I imagine a lot are disappointed due to that hype.
Honestly though, it's one of the few Beach Boys albums I personally like in its entirety.
I love Pet Sounds
because it's full of love and when I've done bad things in drink and drug binges I put it on and it feels like a reassuring embrace that speaks to the best parts of my soul. It makes me feel like a better person and banishes the terrible raging fear.
If you believe that love is the law then it is like prayer
If you turn off the lights and listen to it in the bath in the dark you will hear things that you didn't know were there
Blimey
I hope I never bump into you in the middle of a drink & drugs binge brought on by a heavy session of listening to Oasis.
Should I carry an MP3 player pre-loaded with Pet Sounds, just in case?
I prefer
the sounds my pets make.
Another three more things
1. If you don’t like it don’t listen to it. There are loads of Word sacred cows - Floyd, Zep, Rilo Bloody Kiley - I couldn’t give a rat‘s arse about but I don’t go around demanding that people who do explain themselves.
2. In the next few weeks, when Dennis Wilson’s Pacific Ocean Blue is re-issued, you’ll be bombarded with balls in all the papers and magazines about how wonderful it is. That will be bullshit and hype. The fuss made of Pet Sounds isn’t.
3. Threads about things being over-rated are over-rated.
p.s. prefer Today and Sunflower myself. And nice to see The Boss has got Sloop on his i-pod.
Too true
I was so pleased when someone got me a snidey download of Pacific Ocean Blue as I was seriously considering paying £150 for a copy.
It is abysmal
The only reason people go on about is either smugness that they got hold of an album no-one else has or that they have paid £150 for it and need to convince themselves that whoever sold it to them hasn't just massively pissed down their back
You and I
I agree with you about Pacific Ocean Blue. I'd heard so much about what a masterpiece this album was and couldn't believe my ears when I finally got to hear it. Oh, what a let down. God only knows what "Bamboo" is like.
Indeed
I imagine most unreleased albums remain so for a pretty good reason.
Case closed
It really is a rancid load of old cock.
Well Robram, you asked it there was a more over-rated album. I think we've found it.
Hang on a second....
If I may just dissent here. I know it's got a reputation which has been enhanced by its unavailability, but I would rather listen to POB than Smile, which for me was a shattering disappointment when it was finally released.
In my opinion
Smile - yes, I think that the 2004 release is better than all those bootlegs - is Brian Wilson's crowning achievement. Profoundly moving and reassuringly impenetrable, if that's possible.
I'm with you there
I think it's a beautiful album and much better than the bootleg version of the 'proper' album I've got. Even the recurring instrumental Heroes and Villains piece sounds markedly less sinister than the sixties version, which sounds like something out of the Exorcist. No wonder it freaked him out.
Of course his voice isn't what it was but overall it's a fine album.
No no and thrice NO
Pacific Ocean Blue is NOT abysmal, and neither is it a work of genius; it's just a pretty good Beach Boys spin-off album with one or two gems on board.
The fact that anyone could be stupid enough to fork out £150 for it is no reflection on the album, it's a reflection on the gullibility of the overpaid, and the lazy journalism that heaps praise on something unavailable, praise which cannot be corroborated.
I wouldn't ever mention the album "out of smugness that (I) got hold of an album no-one else has", I bought the bloody thing in HMV in Bristol when it was freely available, and it cost me whatever the going rate for a back catalogue title was at the time; around ten quid probably.
This album has been previously discussed in the "hot, sexy and dead" thread that Mr H started:
http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/dennis-wilson-he039s-hot-he039s-se...
Don’t quite understand
Don’t quite understand this idea that POB is “unreleased” or hard to get hold of. I’ve got a CD of it which I’ve had for about 15 years, a perfectly legit “Digitally Remastered” release on Epic.
Perhaps I should be knocking it out on ebay. I’ve got a bootleg of Bamboo to. What does that fetch?
I never said I didn't like it
I just don't see what all the fuss is about. I can see why people like it, but not why it's revered.
I was hoping that I could get some sort of context from people who were around when it was released, rather than some slightly misplaced vitriol.
As for this type of post being overrated - yup I agree it probably is, but it's more likely to get people reading it and, rightly or wrongly, that's what the web tends to be all about.
Didn’t mean to be
Didn’t mean to be “vitriolic“ Robram, just get a bit defensive about the Beach Boys and hate all this crap about how “rated” things are. Who cares. You like what you like.
I can’t speak for when it was released because I was a toddler at the time but I think it blew people away because of the production, the unusual song structures and instrumentation, the magnificent harmonies and the fact that it was a song cycle (rather crudely interrupted by Capitol insisting on sticking Sloop John B, a recent hit, in the middle of it) vaguely plotting the course of a teenage romance from wide-eyed innocence (Wouldn’t It Be Nice) to disillusioned despair (Caroline No). Having pretty much exhausted the subject of teenage fun (Amusement Parks USA off the preceeding album was really scraping the barrel), Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys turned to teenage angst.
Although not a big seller on release (a flop in America, did OK over here) musicians loved it. The Beatles raved about it; the Stones’ manager Andrew Loog Oldham loved it so much he paid for adverts in the British music papers to plug it.
You’ll find some ringing endorsements here from the likes of Macc, Clapton etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_Sounds
What are you missing?
Absolutely nothing insofar as if you've listened to it and it doesn't 'click' with you, then you're doing nothing wrong, and i should think that repeated listenings to it might not change that either.
I bought Pet Sounds and Hard Days Night on the same day - the former due to the critical reverence and 'cos i knew (and loved) 'God Only Knows' and the latter solely 'cos I knew (and loved) 'I should have known better'.
I enjoy Pet Sounds. I really do. There are moments when it is like a soothing salve for the soul, but I don't love it. I can see what's there and what's to like, I can marvel at the musical accomplishment and I can appreciate that even throwaway tracks like Sloop John B piss all over a lot of what others have ever tried to do; the thing is that the album just doesn't fill me with the warmth that so many others appear to go on about.
On the other hand, I still get a mad rush whenever i listen to A Hard Days Night. Chalk and cheese, i suppose, in a sense, but i'll always compare them as they've been with me the same length of time!
Right, that's that one out of the way, then.
Now can we start on Dusty In Memphis?
I'm a lifelong Dusty fan. My admiration for that voice and what she did for soul & Motown in the 60's knows no bounds, believe me. I have battered, scratched old Philips albums that can't be played, but I still treasure, as well as the compilations I've re-bought over the years.
But this album? Please. It doesn't cut it by a long chalk. Windmills Of Your Mind? Jesus. (skip) Land Of Make Believe? Sounds like a film theme. (skip) What Do You Do When Love Dies? Laboured (skip).
On vinyl, side one did the job (& Breakfast In Bed is a killer) but generally, it's all over the place and far from cohesive in choice of material & feel. Son of A Preacher Man was a stone classic item that the album couldn't live up to. Played it the other night and it didn't get to the end again. I don't care how many reappraisals it gets, how many extended CD re-releases with sleeve notes by Elvis Costello (& just what has it got to do with him anyway?), who played on it, who wrote the tracks or how it was eventually completed in New York. I know all that, thanks.
Like Pet Sounds, (and thanks to the reader who was bold enough to kick this thread off and raise a welcome rumpus) I think it's a long way from a "classic".
Know what the greatest Dusty album really is?
The Best Of. Alan Partridge would be pleased.
I don't disagree
Whenever I put Dusty In Memphis on, I can't quite get to the end. The tracks you mention - spot on. Of the extra tracks, Willie & Laura Mae Jones and Natchez Trace would help considerably if they were on the album.
overrated
Astral Weeks! Any other Van Morrison album but that one please.
Poetic Champions Compose
I rest my case.
If you don't like Astral Weeks
you have no soul.
A Weeks
Goes on a bit I feel. His other albums from that period are better, in my humble etc etc.
The problem with Astral Weeks. . .
is that it happens to contain two of the very best songs he (or, arguably, anybody else) has ever written and sung or is likely to write and sing in our lifetimes: "Cyprus Avenue" and "Madame George".
But I can appreciate that - in 40 years' retrospect - the rest of the album may well sound like a load of old ballerinas to many people.
Van can vamp ballerinas
for as long as he likes, it's fine with me.
I first heard Pet Sounds...
...when I bought the Carl & The Passions: So Tough/Pet Sounds double album as a cut out in the late 70s/early 80s. On first listening I was somewhat underwhelmed, pleasant enough but that was it. However, I liked The Beach Boys enough to give it a chance and I now love it.
Having said that, if you've given it a fair chance and still don't get it you're missing nothing.
Most over rated album of all time? Sgt Pepper. I love The Beatles, I like Pepper but it's not in my top 5 Beatles' albums* let alone an all time top 5 (which it usually is).
*Revolver, Rubber Soul, White Album, A Hard Day's Night, With The Beatles, Magical Mystery Tour, Help!, Abbey Road are all better IMO.
There really is no other contender for this title.
The most over-rated album ever? Not Pet sounds, that's for sure.
It's obvious which album has been overinflated to the point of absurdity, just look at all those Q polls; there it is at the top, preening and apparently smug in the knowledge that there are enough voters out there cheering for it that it'll probably remain severely over-rated for the foreseeable future.
It's all a bluff though. It affects a lack of concern for any eventual downfall, when the benefit of hindsight will finally relegate it to the lower divisions full of also-rans, but it's a hollow bravado, for in its own heart it knows it only holds one or two great songs, and that even they are transparently built on borrowed chords and hackneyed verses. Once the artificial charisma, driven by remembered teenage adrenalin in a fragmenting social climate, has faded and grown thin, it knows its true worth will be exposed. It's really all mouth and no trousers.
They will fall
Oasis' first 2 albums will no doubt drop down the all time best charts further and further, suprised they were so high on that Q list actually. What's the Story is already not apparent in more recent critic's lists. Yes both albums overrated by miles. Should not have featured so high with such exalted company for sure. And I speak as one who still enjoys many of the tracks, whilst aware of their shortcomings. Screamadelica is similarly being re-evaluated it seems, as not as hot as once was thought, even though it's very good IMHO. Time does indeed tell. Sgt Pepper I also agree on, as too highly placed. Pet Sounds never listened to really. Not been drawn to Beach Boys much but appreciate greatness of Good Vibrations. Really like Frank Black's take on Hang onto your Ego also. So quite a few albums more overrated than Pet Sounds I would so, even though opinion based on limited knowledge of it's contents.
The trouble with Screamadelica
is that it's a pretty good album cursed with a FANTASTIC sleeve.
I assume...
...we're talking OK Computer here?
Definitely Maybe
Oasis, surely?
OK Computer
If we're not talking OK Computer we should be. All the reviews of "In Rainbows" have churned out the "....best album since OK Computer" cliche. NO!! It's their best album, period. OK Computer is just that. OK. And that's all.
Pet Sounds hype
Lets be honest the Beach Boys were the surfer equivalent of The Monkees and like them maybe wrote 3 good songs at tops. The problem with all of this is that our brains lose a grip on reality when it comes to dealing with nostalgia. Rose tinted glasses help us to look back fondly on all sorts of things from spacehoppers to chopper bikes to 60's bands writing endless songs about girls, surfboards and little deuce coups.It doesn't mean they are indispensable neither does it mean they were necessarily good. It mainly means that we have fond memories of our past and hold an affection for the soundtrack that accompanied those times.
A lot of this is very subjective - for me not many of my past favourites are current favourites. I am pretty sure too that my top 5 of today will be completely different to my top 5 in a years time.In fact ask me next week and it might be different.
Tell you what Steve,
go and listen to "Surf's Up", "Holland" and "Sunflower" and then tell us what you think about the BBs.
Don't go near the water.
Not my cup of tea VV
Good Vibrations was brilliant, God only knows and Sloop John B were very good and some of their other songs are 'nice'. I have not heard all of their canon of work but have heard most. I have Surfs up and it is okay. Holland I dont care for and havent heard Sunflower but wont be rushing out to the store to rectify this.
Of this era in American pop music i thought Creedence Clearwater Revival were infinitely better but then as you will know from my controversial posting I also thought the Stones were much better than the Beatles. As I said all of these opinions are subjective. For all the people arguing on this thread that Pet Sounds is not overrated how many are actually playing it on a regular basis? My guess is the answer would be a great big fat zero or very close to it. My belief based on my own experiences is that you may hear a song unexpectedly that will encourage you to check out a long forgotten album in your collection but having played it once for nostalgic reasons chances are it will go back into the collection for another couple of years. One of my all time favourites is Steely Dan's Can't buy a thrill but i honestly cannot recall the last time i played it.
Well, one things for sure,
...is the fact that if the Beach Boys can produce 2 strands of blogging within days of each other, each provoking this amount of vociferous opinion, when having produced nothing new of worth for nigh on 20 years, then I think they probably deserve a place at the top table. I think they were as important as the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield in terms of giving one of the most oft copied styles over subsequent years. There is very little in US rock that doesn't owe a little to at least one of that trio of Bs. Both REM and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, whether or not you like either it or them, but both very big sellers, owe not a little to the brothers Wilson.
Pursuing the B argument, the solo artists offering equivalent influence are, of course, Bob and Bruce.
Stones better than Beatles controversial, Steve? Just run down the preferences in the profiles of your fellow bloggers.
Fair do's Steve
but I'd urge you to try and hear some of the isolated vocal track material from the Pet Sounds box set. It is stunning, and will let you hear how brilliant they were as a vocal group. I bought the box set just to get this stuff; it's doubtful whether any other band have ever had the vocal chops to match it.
Creedence are one of my all time favourites too, but they're not really in the same place as the Beach Boys, so comparisons are a bit oranges and apples, don't you think?
That overused word
There are very few artists with whom I'm comfortable using the word 'genius'. I hold no one in higher regard than Bob Dylan, and yet I'm more comfortable calling Brian Wilson a genius. He quite clearly heard something indefinable in his head that can only be interpreted melodically; and I think that Smile is his greatest work, closely followed by the Pet Sounds song I Just Wasn't Made For These Times. The repetition of the phrase "sometimes I feel very sad" becomes both more complex and simple the more it is repeated. The documentary Beautiful Dreamer tells the story of his greatest work brilliantly: deeply moving and largely beyond satisfactory analysis: music for all time, and all souls.
I have a lot of trouble with this
Is Pet Sounds the most over-rated album of all time? Given the laudatory hysteria it garners, you would think it was a lay down misere - surely it must be right up there as the most over-lauded tosh? Three decent tunes, lots of noodling, and a selection of pretty ropey tracks elsewhere. Sure, I love the Beach Boys greatest hits, but I honestly do not think they ever did a great album. And I have Surf's Up, Sunflower, Carl and the Passion's, 15 Big Ones and several others as well as PS and Smile, so I do have some idea of what they achieved.
But unfortunately, there are just so many other over-rated album contenders to pick from. Sgt Pepper's, Blonde on Blonde, OK Computer, London Calling, Dark Side of the Moon, Exile on Main Street and Smile all get a guernsey in this particular fashion parade. And as for bloody Oasis, god only knows how they got into this particular discussion in the first place. Sure, these are all good albums - but the greatest ones? I don't think so.
I guess it ultimately comes down to personal taste - but for me, the special albums are Blood on the Tracks, Astral Weeks, On the Beach and Sticky Fingers. Why? Because each of them takes on a coherence that transcends the sum of their parts. There is nothing logical behind these choices. I know Sticky fingers was a grab bag of outtakes, that Astral Weeks was knocked off in a day, that Blood on the Tracks was redone in the studio afterwards and that On the Beach was done under the influence. No matter. They all sound great today, and none of the others above do. A great album does not date. It projects soul. That is the acid test.
The White Album
After discovering the Beatles at the tender age of 13 (Rubber Soul, Sgt Pepper) and falling madly (and mandatorily) in love with them, I came to the conclusion at the age of 17 that the world would always be a better place if there was a new Beatles album due. So, at that point and having listened to everything they ever did, I elected not to listen to or buy The White Album (it was the most expensive...) safe in the knowledge that I would be able to listen to it on my death bed at the age of 80 and be comforted by the knowledge that there was a new Beatles album coming for the whole of my adult life. Last year (aged 41) after a friend had died tragically at the age of 40 I decided that enough was enough (life often unexpectedly short etc) and bought the damn thing and popped it on in the car one Saturday morning with wife and child in tow.
Wish someone had warned me what a clunking load of tripe it was....
White album
I really struggle with it. Some great songs and some real turds. It needs to be turned into a MP3 so you can then resequence it and then turn it into a 40 - 50 minute album that refelects what YOU find enjoyable.
Funny thing
I always thought I liked The White Album. But whenever I stick on my mammoth 5 hour Beatles playlist on long car journeys, I always get bored around this point and jump to the Let It Be and Abbey Road stuff.