Pet Sounds

Prior to the release of their iconic album Pet Sounds, The Beach Boys were known for their poppy sound and simple tunes.  A big part of The Beach Boys’ sound was always the thick harmonies that were sung with the lead vocals.  Brian Wilson was the backbone of the group, doing mostly all of the songwriting, producing and arranging.  He played a quintessential role in making The Beach Boys as successful as they were. 

When The Beatles came out with Rubber Soul, it inspired Brian Wilson to write cutting edge new music that could compete with the new wave of more complicated and deeper tunes.  One thing that Brian Wilson wanted to do on Pet Sounds was to experiment with all different types of instruments.  He wanted to increase his musical palette and mix together sounds and instruments that had never been tried before.  Another aspect of Pet Sounds that made it stand out from other music at the time was the fact that the whole album was meant to flow together as one.  When listened to from beginning to end, it was almost as if the album were telling a love story.  The arrangements of the songs were also much more experimental, with odd chords and funky tempo changes. 

When listening to Pet Sounds, I can really tell that a lot of experimentation was done.  Compared with earlier works done by The Beach Boys, much of the main-stream feel is gone, and you can tell that Brian Wilson had a good amount of time to sit down and arrange the songs with much more thought and creativity.  The recordings also seem to be of much better quality and the overall production of the album seems to have been carried out with the utmost care.  You can tell that Brian Wilson really wanted to step out of the box and create something new and groundbreaking.