The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds

The American rock band ‘The Beach Boys’ formed in Hawthorne, California in 1961. The band originally consisted of Dennis Wilson, Carl Wilson and Brian Wilson as members with further additions to follow as the bands career progressed. Soon after their demo tape was approved by Capitol Records, they recorded their first album ‘Surfin’ Safari’ in April 1962. They soon became America’s top pop group during the psychedelic wave of the 60’s, with songs inspired by California’s surfer culture and care free lifestyle, preaching positive messages in their songs. As the bands career progressed with albums ‘Surfin’ USA’ (1963), Surfer Girl (1963), Little Deuce Coupe (1963), Shut Down Volume 2 (1964), All Summer Long (1964), The Beach Boy’s Christmas Album (1964) and Today! (1965). The band gravitated more towards revolutionary, melodramatic and hypnagogic songs as the intensity of the psychedelic movement grew during the mid-sixties.

Brian Wilson born in June 20,1942 is the front man of The Beach Boys. He was responsible for playing bass, keyboards and backing-vocals but also performed Lead vocals from time to time on certain songs. He was the chief arranger and composer but also acted as the main producer for the band. By the mid-sixties he was responsible for writing more than twenty Top 40 hits for The Beach Boys. He drew inspiration from the American vocal band ‘The Four Freshmen’ that had all members singing and playing instruments. Just like them, Brian had a knack for composing amazing vocal harmonies. He also drew inspiration from Chuck Berry and producer Phil Spector. Brian followed a great sense of perfectionism in the studio. He was always meticulous at crafting melodies and song arrangements, which ensured the band an amazing sense of detail and character while capturing the emotion of their songs.

While listening to the album ‘Pet Sounds’ by The Beach Boys, I noticed that they had a carefree idealism that they were preaching. While predominantly consisting of love songs, it also had mentions of revolutionary ideas or thinking. The songwriting consisted of amazing harmonies and a sense of smooth song writing that would at times even get epic. With Brian Wilson’s addition of sampled sounds of dog barks, Coca-Cola cans, Theremins, bicycle bells and whistles, it added a humorous flavor as well to the song writing.

In an engineering sense you can really hear the vintage character and warmth of the recording equipment back then, which is often lost in todays predominance of digital recording techniques. I prefer the mono versions as they are the untouched originals and capture the emotion of the times accurately with what was technologically available. As recording is predominantly about capturing a moment in time, I do not mind the lack of separation within the musical content of the songs. I do also appreciate the Stereo Re-masters as I can hear more clearly how much detail Brian and the band envisioned to have originally. With the stereo separation I can clearly identify the amount of layering that Brian as a composer and arranger has within his songs for the Beach Boys. Listening to them with my eyes closed intently, I was sucked away into an era in history with a consciousness that is often forgotten or lost in todays times. It has been a pleasure conducting research, listening and writing about The Beach Boys. I wish there are more bands in today's times preaching a positive message as The Beach Boys.