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Great thoughts on this important musical work ! As you reflected on the significance of the base lines , I was reminded of something that occurred the second time I saw The Beach Boys live … it was August of 1966 in Asbury Park , NJ . This was the summer following Pet Sounds release . They had already performed Sloop John B and Wouldn’t It Be Nice ( Al sang lead as he would for years to come . Late in the show , Mike started talking about a song that “ wasn’t getting enough airplay “ , because it had God in the title . As they got ready to play , Bruce switched from bass to keyboard . I was enough of a fan to know that Al would likely play bass . To my surprise , Carl played bass and , of course , sang lead . His vocal was flawless , but so was the intricate and rhythmically challenging bass line . My respect for Carl as a musician grew exponentially that evening .
Great story! There's a number of photos (and some film) of Carl playing bass on that song on the 1966 tour. It's interesting that it fell to him, and it also speaks to how much having to execute the PET SOUNDS material forced the band into tricky roles that were easier for some (Carl, as you say) than others. That would come back to haunt them the following year.
Listened the whole way through, Adam. Really enjoyed it all. Nodded in agreement so many times. Smiled when you mentioned you couldn't buy a vinyl copy of Pet Sounds, at the start of the 80's. What I think had happened was they had shipped their excess copies of So Tough/Pet Sounds over to the UK and Ireland, and they propped up many a bargain bin! Agreed though, that pressing of Pet Sounds was really excellent. Also, in 1981, Pet Sounds was also released as a single vinyl album, back on Capitol, under the moniker 'Greenlight, Priced Right'. Several other earlier albums were also released on vinyl at this time, again in UK,Ireland. They kinda messed things up though with US sleeves being used (if I remember correctly) from re-issues (usually a couple of tracks missing) but with the full album on the actual vinyl. I don't think Pet Sounds was one of the albums affected though.....Thanks, Adam! Now I need to listen back to more Pet Squares!
I wrote such a rapturous review of the Pet Sounds box set for my newspaper that I was invited on a radio show to discuss the album. I chose to play the absolutely stunning stereo vocals-only version of Wouldn't It Be Nice on great speakers and the people in the studio were stunned. Sadly, the show I was on was on AM radio.
If Good Vibrations had been included on Pet Sounds, it would easily be the greatest pop music LP of all time. Many have it #2 behind Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I still think its the best pop LP ever recorded, bar none.
It's unclear whether or not they had to do it because the rights transferred to Warners. I've heard it both ways. But they were doing all kinds of other unhelpful cheapo crap at the time, too.
You're doing a great job on this, I'm really enjoying it. I think that the real beginning of the build-up for the greatness of Pet Sounds started with the glowing review that Rolling Stone gave the two-fer, Carl and the Passions/Pet Sounds. When I say glowing, I'm talking about what they said about Pet Sounds. This was somewhat ironic in that RS was instrumental in placing the Beach Boys in the unhip bin in the post Pet Sounds period. Something else I'm noticing: I think you could make the case that Pet Sounds was the last time that Brian really put his heart and soul into his music, the only exception I can think of might be "Till I Die". He continued to write good songs but he was never going to open his heart again the way he did on Pet Sounds. Wild Honey and Friends are nice albums but they don't appear to have been created by the same person who created Pet Sounds. Of Course by 20/20 Brian had checked out. Anyway, great job
Thanks so much and that's an interesting point about the Carl and the Passions review. I had not thought of that. There were certainly some other signposts along the way: David Leaf's book in '78 and Domenic Priore's SMILE tome in 1987 both forcefully made the case for the Beach Boys as artists. But popular wisdom didn't shift over until the '90s and I think a lot of that has to do with the Beach Boys mostly abandoning their attempts to compete in the new CD marketplace. Their efforts to stay current in the mid '70s to the late '80s really undercut any arguments that could be made for their artistic merit, despite a few commercial and even critical successes here and there. I think Brian starting to establish a separate identity away from the group really helped, too. Even if some of his solo work was inconsistent, average people "got" that there was this guy Brian who was an oddball artist and then there was the Beach Boys who played baseball stadiums.
@@karmafrog1 yeah, agreed, The two-part 1971 cover story in Rolling Stone and Leaf's book really laid the groundwork for Brian being perceived as a creative force possibly in the same league as Lennon and McCartney. Also the six-hour 1976 radio special that was narrated by Wolfman Jack was also very helpful. It was on AM radio, in the summer and heard by millions of people. It was a slow consistent drumbeat and you're right, Brian's solo career helped which to me, was kind of a twenty year victory lap.
@@gerrydooley951 Leaf's book certainly was very formative in how I viewed the group. The radio special hadn't occurred to me...too early in my musical development.
@@karmafrog1 the radio special was huge, it indicated the Beach Boys had arrived. They devoted six hours to one group, I think up until then, only the Beatles had such attention.
Regarding the Beach Boys "unhip" status in the early 70s, my grandfather has related to me how he desperately tried to show his college friends "Holland" or "Surf's Up" and had no success in swaying the commonly held opinion that the band was perennially uncool. I wasn't alive at the time but it really sounds like the image problems that you mentioned truly plagued the group even when they were still creatively vital.
I went to college from 1972-'76 in northern California. I spent much of those four years trying to spread the gospel of Brian Wilson, I had some success, especially in the areas of Smile, Surf's Up and Sunflower. Brian's journey was always interesting to people. Once I was able to get people to a concert, they couldn't deny how good the Beach Boys were. The '73 Live album helped also. It was an uphill battle but I was able to turn 5-6 people into genuine fans. You're right about the image problem, you can't underestimate how important the length of one's hair was to their popularity. When the Beach Boys came on the scene, hair wasn't as much of a thing: the Beatles changed all that and the Boys were slow to change. They were still wearing striped shirts into 1967. It was complicated as they say.
Another awesome episode. You were able to take the significance of "Pet Sounds" that is usually praised in a general way and give substance and solid analysis of why it a great work. One of the things that drove me to look closely at Brian Wilson (and The Beach Boys) a couple of decades after I first enjoyed their music was the frequent comment I came across that Brian was a genius. I wanted to know why. On the surface the catchy melodies and lyrical content (especially in the 60s) masked the remarkable and advanced qualities of the music. Although I had learned much about what brought the word "genius" to sit along side Brian Wilson's name your studies and carefully-organized thoughts provide a deeper, and more illuminating, understanding. For example, your checklist about what makes the album great. And in particular, things like explaining the chord structures and the effect of the sound combinations upon the listening experience. I bought "Pet Sounds" when it first was released. I was puzzled by its uniqueness, but I also enjoyed it. The timelessness of the music, and the fact I can continue to learn about it from sources such as your series, sustains the pleasure of hearing it again and again.
Hi Adam - great video and analysis! I think Tommy Morgan’s fantastic bass harmonica on I Know There’s An Answer is worthy of a mention - this is perhaps the first time the bass harmonica plays a lead solo on a pop/rock track and it’s amazing! Best wishes! Daniel
Nice one Adam. That was a lovely conclusion there about the unknowable spirituality of the album. I think that is a key point. Re: the influence on progressive rock - you can add Genesis to Yes for sure. Not in the performance perhaps, but certainly in the composition. Brian was a major influence on Tony Banks.
I think someone said on the Wrecking Crew film that for a while after Pet Sounds, producers and arrangers were continually asking for "that Beach Boys rhythm", meaning God Only Knows. Like on Don't Sleep In The Subway by Petula Clark to name just one example. I Get The Sweetest Feeling by Jackie Wilson (no relation) is possibly my favourite of those kinds of records. On the intro at least. It's cool to hear Brian's influence leaking into soul music.😊
Speaking of the Beach Boys-influenced groups that did succeed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the fact you mentioned the Association, one has to wonder what would have happened if the group had released that absolutely wonderful outtake Won't You Tell Me, first heard on the Feel Flows box, and which, to me, has a sunshine pop-like sound. And, of course, there's Soulful Old Man Sunshine.
I'm a little handicapped on my knowledge of the box sets since most of them came out after I moved to Asia, where I had no practical easy way to obtain them or to play them. So my knowledge is limited to random investigations on youTube. So I have heard "Won't You Tell Me" but probably only once/twice. I can't recall it in my head. Even the SMILE sessions, which has my own doggone name in the credits, I've never listened to thoroughly. I'll have to remedy that as we get into '67 and beyond. Kinda looking forward to taking my own dive into SMILE, which I actually like better than PET SOUNDS.
Regarding the critical response to Pet Sounds: 1. The 1979 Rolling Stone Record Guide shamefully gave Pet Sounds three stars - maybe the stoner bias was still in effect at that time. Their review basically said the music was "strong but spotty." Pretty insufficient. That same book made the colossal error of claiming Smile had been released in the form of Smiley Smile. That was corrected in the 1983 edition. 2. Another factor that likely boosted Pet Sounds when it was released on CD in 1990 was Paul McCartney's liner notes, where he detailed the influence the album had on him and where, IIRC, he wrote that God Only Knows still made him cry (and I'm sure it still does), and that he plays the album to his kids for their musical education.
That exact "strong but spotty" review was firmly in my mind when I was doing that part. IIRC they also trashed nearly every post PET SOUNDS album with the exception of perhaps one or two.
@@karmafrog1 Yup, two stars for Sunflower. Yikes! And they said Brian barely made his presence felt on the album. He's all over that album, maybe not with many leads, but certainly with production, arrangement, harmonies and instrumentation. And the only standout songs for Rolling Stone from 1970-72 were Marcella and Sail On Sailor. This is hilarious, as Rolling Stone Magazine, in 1970, loved Sunflower.
I'm sure you brought it up (somewhere), but Pet Sounds was recorded on 4-track recording technology which combined with Brian's partial deafness astounds to even greater degrees.
I didn't actually but we discussed the tech on a prior episode about an early album...Brian actually used 4-track for the instrumental tracks and then bounced to an 8-track for vocal overdubs for about a third of the songs. But in general, you are correct.
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Great thoughts on this important musical work !
As you reflected on the significance of the base lines , I was reminded of something that occurred the second time I saw The Beach Boys live … it was August of 1966 in Asbury Park , NJ . This was the summer following Pet Sounds release . They had already performed Sloop John B and Wouldn’t It Be Nice ( Al sang lead as he would for years to come .
Late in the show , Mike started talking about a song that “ wasn’t getting enough airplay “ , because it had God in the title . As they got ready to play , Bruce switched from bass to keyboard . I was enough of a fan to know that Al would likely play bass . To my surprise , Carl played bass and , of course , sang lead . His vocal was flawless , but so was the intricate and rhythmically challenging bass line .
My respect for Carl as a musician grew exponentially that evening .
Great story! There's a number of photos (and some film) of Carl playing bass on that song on the 1966 tour. It's interesting that it fell to him, and it also speaks to how much having to execute the PET SOUNDS material forced the band into tricky roles that were easier for some (Carl, as you say) than others. That would come back to haunt them the following year.
Listened the whole way through, Adam. Really enjoyed it all. Nodded in agreement so many times. Smiled when you mentioned you couldn't buy a vinyl copy of Pet Sounds, at the start of the 80's. What I think had happened was they had shipped their excess copies of So Tough/Pet Sounds over to the UK and Ireland, and they propped up many a bargain bin! Agreed though, that pressing of Pet Sounds was really excellent. Also, in 1981, Pet Sounds was also released as a single vinyl album, back on Capitol, under the moniker 'Greenlight, Priced Right'. Several other earlier albums were also released on vinyl at this time, again in UK,Ireland. They kinda messed things up though with US sleeves being used (if I remember correctly) from re-issues (usually a couple of tracks missing) but with the full album on the actual vinyl. I don't think Pet Sounds was one of the albums affected though.....Thanks, Adam! Now I need to listen back to more Pet Squares!
Thanks for your support, Conrad! That's really interesting to hear about those twofers turning up in the UK!
I wrote such a rapturous review of the Pet Sounds box set for my newspaper that I was invited on a radio show to discuss the album. I chose to play the absolutely stunning stereo vocals-only version of Wouldn't It Be Nice on great speakers and the people in the studio were stunned. Sadly, the show I was on was on AM radio.
If Good Vibrations had been included on Pet Sounds, it would easily be the greatest pop music LP of all time. Many have it #2 behind Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I still think its the best pop LP ever recorded, bar none.
I had no idea that PS was deleted from Capitol's catalog. That's some cold-ass shit.
It's unclear whether or not they had to do it because the rights transferred to Warners. I've heard it both ways. But they were doing all kinds of other unhelpful cheapo crap at the time, too.
You're doing a great job on this, I'm really enjoying it. I think that the real beginning of the build-up for the greatness of Pet Sounds started with the glowing review that Rolling Stone gave the two-fer, Carl and the Passions/Pet Sounds. When I say glowing, I'm talking about what they said about Pet Sounds. This was somewhat ironic in that RS was instrumental in placing the Beach Boys in the unhip bin in the post Pet Sounds period. Something else I'm noticing: I think you could make the case that Pet Sounds was the last time that Brian really put his heart and soul into his music, the only exception I can think of might be "Till I Die". He continued to write good songs but he was never going to open his heart again the way he did on Pet Sounds. Wild Honey and Friends are nice albums but they don't appear to have been created by the same person who created Pet Sounds. Of Course by 20/20 Brian had checked out. Anyway, great job
Thanks so much and that's an interesting point about the Carl and the Passions review. I had not thought of that. There were certainly some other signposts along the way: David Leaf's book in '78 and Domenic Priore's SMILE tome in 1987 both forcefully made the case for the Beach Boys as artists. But popular wisdom didn't shift over until the '90s and I think a lot of that has to do with the Beach Boys mostly abandoning their attempts to compete in the new CD marketplace. Their efforts to stay current in the mid '70s to the late '80s really undercut any arguments that could be made for their artistic merit, despite a few commercial and even critical successes here and there. I think Brian starting to establish a separate identity away from the group really helped, too. Even if some of his solo work was inconsistent, average people "got" that there was this guy Brian who was an oddball artist and then there was the Beach Boys who played baseball stadiums.
@@karmafrog1 yeah, agreed, The two-part 1971 cover story in Rolling Stone and Leaf's book really laid the groundwork for Brian being perceived as a creative force possibly in the same league as Lennon and McCartney. Also the six-hour 1976 radio special that was narrated by Wolfman Jack was also very helpful. It was on AM radio, in the summer and heard by millions of people. It was a slow consistent drumbeat and you're right, Brian's solo career helped which to me, was kind of a twenty year victory lap.
@@gerrydooley951 Leaf's book certainly was very formative in how I viewed the group. The radio special hadn't occurred to me...too early in my musical development.
@@karmafrog1 the radio special was huge, it indicated the Beach Boys had arrived. They devoted six hours to one group, I think up until then, only the Beatles had such attention.
Stocking up on popcorn for Smiley Smile through Summer In Paradise ;)
me too!
Regarding the Beach Boys "unhip" status in the early 70s, my grandfather has related to me how he desperately tried to show his college friends "Holland" or "Surf's Up" and had no success in swaying the commonly held opinion that the band was perennially uncool. I wasn't alive at the time but it really sounds like the image problems that you mentioned truly plagued the group even when they were still creatively vital.
I went to college from 1972-'76 in northern California. I spent much of those four years trying to spread the gospel of Brian Wilson, I had some success, especially in the areas of Smile, Surf's Up and Sunflower. Brian's journey was always interesting to people. Once I was able to get people to a concert, they couldn't deny how good the Beach Boys were. The '73 Live album helped also. It was an uphill battle but I was able to turn 5-6 people into genuine fans. You're right about the image problem, you can't underestimate how important the length of one's hair was to their popularity. When the Beach Boys came on the scene, hair wasn't as much of a thing: the Beatles changed all that and the Boys were slow to change. They were still wearing striped shirts into 1967. It was complicated as they say.
Another awesome episode. You were able to take the significance of "Pet Sounds" that is usually praised in a general way and give substance and solid analysis of why it a great work.
One of the things that drove me to look closely at Brian Wilson (and The Beach Boys) a couple of decades after I first enjoyed their music was the frequent comment I came across that Brian was a genius. I wanted to know why. On the surface the catchy melodies and lyrical content (especially in the 60s) masked the remarkable and advanced qualities of the music. Although I had learned much about what brought the word "genius" to sit along side Brian Wilson's name your studies and carefully-organized thoughts provide a deeper, and more illuminating, understanding. For example, your checklist about what makes the album great. And in particular, things like explaining the chord structures and the effect of the sound combinations upon the listening experience.
I bought "Pet Sounds" when it first was released. I was puzzled by its uniqueness, but I also enjoyed it. The timelessness of the music, and the fact I can continue to learn about it from sources such as your series, sustains the pleasure of hearing it again and again.
Thank you so much.
Hi Adam - great video and analysis! I think Tommy Morgan’s fantastic bass harmonica on I Know There’s An Answer is worthy of a mention - this is perhaps the first time the bass harmonica plays a lead solo on a pop/rock track and it’s amazing! Best wishes! Daniel
Oh yeah, that was an oversight to be sure. We will certainly be talking about him - and my experience performing with him - when we get to that song.
It must’ve been great to perform with Tommy Morgan - he was one of the all-time harmonica greats!
@@danielreid5114 Oh yeah. Definitely got a story there.
God Only Knows is in the top 20 of that century. It really is a perfect song.
I didn't know that Botnick engineered some of the PS sessions, cool.
Nice one Adam. That was a lovely conclusion there about the unknowable spirituality of the album. I think that is a key point. Re: the influence on progressive rock - you can add Genesis to Yes for sure. Not in the performance perhaps, but certainly in the composition. Brian was a major influence on Tony Banks.
I did reference Genesis briefly, later.
I think someone said on the Wrecking Crew film that for a while after Pet Sounds, producers and arrangers were continually asking for "that Beach Boys rhythm", meaning God Only Knows. Like on Don't Sleep In The Subway by Petula Clark to name just one example. I Get The Sweetest Feeling by Jackie Wilson (no relation) is possibly my favourite of those kinds of records. On the intro at least. It's cool to hear Brian's influence leaking into soul music.😊
I did not know that! Good information.
That Jackie Wilson song is my favorite of his. So joyous.
Speaking of the Beach Boys-influenced groups that did succeed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the fact you mentioned the Association, one has to wonder what would have happened if the group had released that absolutely wonderful outtake Won't You Tell Me, first heard on the Feel Flows box, and which, to me, has a sunshine pop-like sound. And, of course, there's Soulful Old Man Sunshine.
I'm a little handicapped on my knowledge of the box sets since most of them came out after I moved to Asia, where I had no practical easy way to obtain them or to play them. So my knowledge is limited to random investigations on youTube. So I have heard "Won't You Tell Me" but probably only once/twice. I can't recall it in my head. Even the SMILE sessions, which has my own doggone name in the credits, I've never listened to thoroughly. I'll have to remedy that as we get into '67 and beyond. Kinda looking forward to taking my own dive into SMILE, which I actually like better than PET SOUNDS.
I also like Smile better. The creativity is astounding.
Regarding the critical response to Pet Sounds: 1. The 1979 Rolling Stone Record Guide shamefully gave Pet Sounds three stars - maybe the stoner bias was still in effect at that time. Their review basically said the music was "strong but spotty." Pretty insufficient. That same book made the colossal error of claiming Smile had been released in the form of Smiley Smile. That was corrected in the 1983 edition. 2. Another factor that likely boosted Pet Sounds when it was released on CD in 1990 was Paul McCartney's liner notes, where he detailed the influence the album had on him and where, IIRC, he wrote that God Only Knows still made him cry (and I'm sure it still does), and that he plays the album to his kids for their musical education.
That exact "strong but spotty" review was firmly in my mind when I was doing that part. IIRC they also trashed nearly every post PET SOUNDS album with the exception of perhaps one or two.
@@karmafrog1 Yup, two stars for Sunflower. Yikes! And they said Brian barely made his presence felt on the album. He's all over that album, maybe not with many leads, but certainly with production, arrangement, harmonies and instrumentation. And the only standout songs for Rolling Stone from 1970-72 were Marcella and Sail On Sailor. This is hilarious, as Rolling Stone Magazine, in 1970, loved Sunflower.
@@joelgoldenberg1100 Do you remember, wasn't there one album they liked? Was it Surf's Up? Or Love You?
They liked Love You, but emphasized that Brian's voice was "shot".
@@joelgoldenberg1100 Well that's a fair take at least.
I'm sure you brought it up (somewhere), but Pet Sounds was recorded on 4-track recording technology which combined with Brian's partial deafness astounds to even greater degrees.
I didn't actually but we discussed the tech on a prior episode about an early album...Brian actually used 4-track for the instrumental tracks and then bounced to an 8-track for vocal overdubs for about a third of the songs. But in general, you are correct.
Hey, I'm the first person to comment!