The sixty-first album: #61 The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
In an era with famous albums, here is the Beach Boys' peak (or so I understand) and hence one of the best on its own terms. It is as experimental as the earlier Revolver, but with a more consistent sound. It feels more like variations on a basic sound - quite major variations, but it doesn't jump as much as Revolver. On the whole, that's to its benefits, it feels like a true album rather than a compliation of songs, where the whole still retains theme while each song can have its own identity.
The Beach Boys are incredibly strong vocally and that shows up in most of these songs. Not just the harmonies, but also the individual Wilson songs like Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulders). The Wall of Sound influences are just as strong, but what is important here is how it never drowns the vocals, but supports them far better than I feel I get from Phil Spector's works. It's not as afraid to pull back. For the instrumental tracks, you get a similar impact - they aren't brash, stand on their own, but you can feel where the lyrics would slot in. It's mostly very atmospheric.
God Only Knows starts the second half and is just as memorable, just sounding right. After that, I'm not sure the second half of the album holds up to the first half quite as well. Not that the songs are bad, just that it feels like some of them aren't quite there for me. As we saw that Beach Boys Today had a similar split, I wonder whether that was intentional to some point, creating two halves where this sadder part doesn't connect with me quite as well.
It's difficult to see quite where this fit in in the music of the time, or what I've heard of it, being a mix of genres, but what's clear is that future musicians were as influenced by it, and it feels like it sets up a lot of future pop songs. It led, for example, to Sgt Pepper, and I wonder whether it can quite live up.