Friday, April 4, 2008

Pet Sounds

I've been listening to a lot of mid to late period Beach Boys this week after reading finding an online site where after hearing the finished"Pet Sounds" album Mike Love asked Brian Wilson"Who's going to listen to this shit,Dogs?".Of course Pet Sounds is one of the seminal rock albums finishing number 2 on Rolling Stones way to Beatles friendly list of top 500 albums.Mike Love is to Brian Wilson what Paul was to John,a second fiddle looking for attention.In fact Brian is said to have named the album Pet Sounds after Loves bitching and the dogs barking after "Caroline No" now have meaning.But I've also been listening to Holland and especially Surf's Up which I think is a classic.Brian was pretty much gone from the day to day in the group and his replacement but long time on again off again Beach Boy Bruce Johnston wrote Disney Girls 1957 one of the top ten boys songs on Surfs Up but Dennis has a great song on it and the last two by Brian are two of his best.Till I Die and especially Surf's Up are great songs.Not at all like the surf sound they are what the Beach Boys were in moving on from the surf sound just like the beatles moved on from the early light pop songs.But while the Beatles were praised for it the Beach Boys were not.The reasons why I don't know as Brian Wilsons studio mastery is above anything the Beatles ever did.You just listen to the background sounds,vocals and tracks on later Beach Boys and no one is better except maybe Phil Spector.Brian Wilson is the God of rock hands down.

3 comments:

nnyhav said...

IIRC, Beatles praised Pet Sounds. But anyway, there's lotsa ways to please a crowd. Or not.

JAbel said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
JAbel said...

Sgt. Pepper was the Beatles response to Pet Sounds but Brian said that hearing Revolver inspired him to do Pet Sounds so it was an all around love in between him and Paul.By the way those are some really funny lyrics on your link.