BBC4 is tonight showing one of its excellent Classic Albums shows and the album concerned is Pet Sounds. The record books and record shops, as well as the record itself, records the artists who made it as the Beach Boys, which is true, but really this record was largely about one man, Brian Wilson.
You will know many of the songs, starting with the joyous Wouldn’t It Be Nice. Although you may not be familiar with all the songs, I guarantee there is nothing approaching a filler. The lyrics could have been penned by Brian himself, but they weren’t. They were written by Tony Asher, a completely unknown songwriter who was making advertising jingles. And Brian hired him to co-write the greatest album of all time.
There is very little in the way of participation of the Beach Boys on the album. Some of them sing on some tracks but the musicians were mainly the greatest session players in the land, from the legendary Wrecking Crew to keyboardist Larry Knechtel who played THAT piano on Bridge Over Troubled Water. So good were the songs, it has been argued, that Wilson could do little else but hire the best musicians he could find to play them.
The other big tunes you will know immediately are Sloop John B and, of course, God Only Knows, which to my ears is one of the greatest songs ever written. There are only three voices in the tag, too, which surprises many folk. Only Carl Wilson, who sings lead, and then Brian and Bruce Johnston appear on the vocal track.
I am biased, but I think the album is as near to musical and production perfection as it was possible to be back in 1966 and today. Like Sgt Pepper, it is an album I never tire of playing and hearing. But get this. Brian Wilson was 23 when he started making Pet Sounds and 24 when it was finally released. This is mind-blowing an fit certainly blew Wilson’s mind. How do you follow that? The bar was set so high and in truth Wilson didn’t and probably couldn’t follow it.
But Brian Wilson did carry on making music and, every so often, he would hit the highs of Pet Sounds. Not by way of an entire album, but with most of the band’s subsequent output, there were tantalising reminders of Wilson’s enduring genius, right into the new millennium.
If you are collecting the best albums ever made, Pet Sounds has to be part of your collection. It’s way ahead of its time, it is still fresh and relevant today. I think I’m going to play it again.
