Simply put, there isn’t any popular, jazz, or avant-garde music that was written and produced like Pet Sounds before Pet Sounds. It’s literally an unprecedented work of art.
It’s not just about the fact that it had an exorbitant budget, but the fact that it was composed and directed almost singlehandedly by Wilson. It’s the fact that Wilson found a way to be as successful and sophisticated to the degree that he was. He created commercial AM radio pop music with very complex forms and structures within an industry whose markets clamored for either simple three-chord rock ‘n’ roll, bubblegum, throwaway novelty songs, or schmaltz - an accomplishment that no one had thought possible back then.
Every track contains dozens of different musical parts played and sung by a full-sized virtual orchestra (virtual because many of the parts—mostly the vocals—were overdubbed). These tracks were designed to be as intricate as possible without forcing the listener to struggle with the bombardment of information they’re receiving. And it worked. Newly married couples around the world still choose God Only Knows as their wedding song—a song that was crafted so incredibly well that nobody notices that it has no key center until they try to learn to play it.
“But it’s doubtful that it used the recording studio better than today’s music does.” I don’t know, I guess this comes down to whether you prefer:
A) the kind of music that would be composed by one guy with strange ideas about music, recorded organically with analogue equipment and real singers and musicians, and then released as-is
B) the kind of music that is composed by algorithms, programmed in a DAW, recorded with autotuned singers, and then screened by test audiences to take out all the “weird” parts
“But it’s inevitable that pop music would have gone in more complex directions.” Another weird point. It’s also inevitable that man will develop civilizations on other planets. Is the “inevitability” supposed make it any less impressive to us?
Yet, 55 years later, there’s still no album that hits every checkmark that Pet Sounds does. So much for the inevitability. So much for progress.
I’ve heard albums with one or two tracks that sorta sound like Pet Sounds, but none of those attempts are structured as complex as songs like Here Today and Don’t Talk. The soundalikes use bass harmonicas and harpsichords, but they don’t really mess with time signatures, or feature six-part vocal arrangements, or use chord extensions like m7sus4/b5, or modulate keys several times in less than 2 minutes without sounding like free jazz. On the rare occasions that they do, then it’s only when they’re directly quoting/referencing a line from Pet Sounds.
Yes, there’s plenty of complex music out there with all those weird chords and key changes, but it’s not pop, it’s jazz, prog, heavy metal, and so on and so forth. It’s very difficult to be complex and stay pop. That is what makes Pet Sounds so amazing.
Miles Davis could not have written Pet Sounds, and Brian Wilson could not have written A Love Supreme. Why even compare the two? Different backgrounds, different genres, different types of musicians, different markets. So silly.
Simply put, there isn’t any popular, jazz, or avant-garde music that was written and produced like Pet Sounds before Pet Sounds. It’s literally an unprecedented work of art.
It’s not just about the fact that it had an exorbitant budget, but the fact that it was composed and directed almost singlehandedly by Wilson. It’s the fact that Wilson found a way to be as successful and sophisticated to the degree that he was. He created commercial AM radio pop music with very complex forms and structures within an industry whose markets clamored for either simple three-chord rock ‘n’ roll, bubblegum, throwaway novelty songs, or schmaltz - an accomplishment that no one had thought possible back then.
Every track contains dozens of different musical parts played and sung by a full-sized virtual orchestra (virtual because many of the parts—mostly the vocals—were overdubbed). These tracks were designed to be as intricate as possible without forcing the listener to struggle with the bombardment of information they’re receiving. And it worked. Newly married couples around the world still choose God Only Knows as their wedding song—a song that was crafted so incredibly well that nobody notices that it has no key center until they try to learn to play it.
“But it’s doubtful that it used the recording studio better than today’s music does.” I don’t know, I guess this comes down to whether you prefer:
A) the kind of music that would be composed by one guy with strange ideas about music, recorded organically with analogue equipment and real singers and musicians, and then released as-is
B) the kind of music that is composed by algorithms, programmed in a DAW, recorded with autotuned singers, and then screened by test audiences to take out all the “weird” parts
“But it’s inevitable that pop music would have gone in more complex directions.” Another weird point. It’s also inevitable that man will develop civilizations on other planets. Is the “inevitability” supposed make it any less impressive to us?
Yet, 55 years later, there’s still no album that hits every checkmark that Pet Sounds does. So much for the inevitability. So much for progress.
I’ve heard albums with one or two tracks that sorta sound like Pet Sounds, but none of those attempts are structured as complex as songs like Here Today and Don’t Talk. The soundalikes use bass harmonicas and harpsichords, but they don’t really mess with time signatures, or feature six-part vocal arrangements, or use chord extensions like m7sus4/b5, or modulate keys several times in less than 2 minutes without sounding like free jazz. On the rare occasions that they do, then it’s only when they’re directly quoting/referencing a line from Pet Sounds.
Yes, there’s plenty of complex music out there with all those weird chords and key changes, but it’s not pop, it’s jazz, prog, heavy metal, and so on and so forth. It’s very difficult to be complex and stay pop. That is what makes Pet Sounds so amazing.
Miles Davis could not have written Pet Sounds, and Brian Wilson could not have written A Love Supreme. Why even compare the two? Different backgrounds, different genres, different types of musicians, different markets. So silly.