May 16 – No Dogs In Beach Boys Set

Film-maker Francis Ford Coppola recently suggested you can’t make art without taking risks. We had evidence of that this day in 1966 when one of the truly “classic” albums of the rock era came out – the Beach Boys Pet Sounds. But as good as we now consider the record, it wasn’t without artistic risk. The LP took a turn away from the simple, carefree sound that had dominated the band’s previous 10 albums (released in an astounding four years!) and not everyone was happy with the difference. The band’s own Mike Love, for instance, is said to have called it “S***” and some at their Capitol Records offices didn’t even want to put out the expensive and experimental album.

Pet Sounds was unquestionably Brian Wilson’s pet. He wrote most of the material, produced it and found backing musicians, using the other Boys as little as possible in the eight or so months it took to get the record together (which also cost Capitol some $70 000, a huge amount for the time equivalent to over half a million in this day and age.) Wilson was doing a large amount of drugs, primarily LSD, at the time and having some mental issues which doubtless led to a somewhat sadder and darker sound than the band had produced on previous hits like “I Get Around” and “Surfin’ USA”. Not only was the lyrical content deeper, so too was the quality of the sound and production on now-classics like “Sloop John B”, “God Only Knows” and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice?”. Many credit it as the first concept album, something Wilson agrees with… to a degree. “It wasn’t really a song concept album, or lyrically a concept album, it was really a production concept album.” Wilson had two clear inspirations for the concept- the Beatles and Phil Spector. He borrowed heavily from Spector’s huge “Wall of Sound” studio technique and was unabashedly competitive with the Fab Four. After he heard the critically-acclaimed Rubber Soul he decided to up his band’s game. “It was a challenge to me, “ he recalled, “it didn’t make me want to copy them but to be as good.” He told his wife excitedly, “I’m gonna make the greatest rock album ever made.”

Did he succeed? Some would say he did. Although at the time, response was lukewarm at home (it only hit #10 in the U.S., not as good as most of their prior albums) it took off right away in the UK, where it got to #2 and earned them their first platinum record on that side of the ocean. Spencer Davis echoed many there at the time saying “I haven’t spent much time listening to the Beach Boys before, but I’m a fan now…”

Soon many around the world caught up to Davis. It sold to platinum in the U.S. after a few years and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice?” and “Sloop John B” both hit the top 10 singles chart. Retrospective critics have been very appreciative of the band that “bid farewell to the innocent world of the Beach Boys fun-in-the-sun hits” in the words of Rolling Stone. That album twice has listed it as the second greatest album of all-time (both times behind The Beatles Sgt. Pepper…) complimenting its “luxurious sounds… deeply personal songs” which “perfected the idea (that) an album could be more than the sum of its parts.” Q and allmusic both have scored it a perfect 5-star rating and London’s the Times put it at #1 on their list of best albums ever- ahead of Sgt. Pepper. Wilson must love that one!

One last bit of evidence about how good the album was- a song Wilson was working on during the recording, with a 43-piece orchestra, didn’t end up on the album. It eventually was finished and released as a single later on. That song was their biggest hit, “Good Vibrations.”

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