{"id":916867,"date":"2026-07-02T00:15:03","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T05:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/02\/unfettered-creativity-the-beach-boys-pet-sounds-at-60\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T00:15:03","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T05:15:03","slug":"unfettered-creativity-the-beach-boys-pet-sounds-at-60","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/02\/unfettered-creativity-the-beach-boys-pet-sounds-at-60\/","title":{"rendered":"Unfettered Creativity: The Beach Boys\u2019 \u2018Pet Sounds\u2019 At 60"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Music <\/p>\n<div property=\"content:encoded\">\n<p>Like Orson Welles\u2019\u00a0Citizen Kane, <strong>The Beach Boys\u2019<\/strong>\u00a0\u2018Pet Sounds\u2019,\u00a0released sixty years ago this week, is saddled with the burden of GOAT status, not least because it features actual goats on the front cover. And like Welles before him, Brian Wilson never quite escaped the shadow of having created a masterpiece in his early twenties. Derek Taylor, then handling the Boys\u2019 press, came up with the\u00a0<strong><span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Brian_Wilson_is_a_genius\">Brian Wilson Is A Genius\u00a0tagline in 1966<\/a><\/span><\/strong> to help push the album, a marketing concept that, at least in music PR terms, must be ranked among the most successful of all time. No tribute to Brian, following the announcement of his death in 2025, was without due (and valid) recitation. <\/p>\n<p>\u2014<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Brian Wilson - Surf's Up 1966 Higher Quality\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HpM2lE1EJ4g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" data-load-mode=\"1\"><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Back in late 1966, with\u00a0\u2018Good Vibrations\u2019\u00a0dominating the charts, even <strong>Leonard Bernstein<\/strong> was on board, paying homage in a documentary that showed Brian alone at the piano, playing the as yet unreleased\u00a0\u2018Surfs Up\u2019. By the time it aired, Brian and the Beach Boys were on the outs, Brian having scrapped\u00a0\u2018Smile\u2019, the much anticipated follow up to\u00a0\u2018Pet Sounds\u2019,\u00a0and retreated to his house in Bel Air. It would take years for the Beach Boys to recover commercially, eventually becoming one of the biggest stadium acts of the 1970s, and creatively, while they would go on to make some of their greatest music in the years to come, they would never again recapture the glory of their golden period from 1964-66. It could be argued that Brian never fully recovered.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014<\/p>\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1582\" height=\"1000\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clashmusic.com\/sites\/default\/files\/field\/image\/The%20Beach%20Boys-bw%20Brian%20holding%20group%20portrait.jpg\" alt previous-src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u2014<\/p>\n<p>In early 1966, while the other Beach Boys toured Japan, Brian Wilson assembled the best session musicians in LA, and an unknown advertising copywriter named <strong>Tony Asher<\/strong>, serving as lyricist, to create the suite of songs that became\u00a0\u2018Pet Sounds\u2019. For Brian, the benchmark had been set at the end of 1965 with the US release of The Beatles\u00a0\u2018Rubber Soul\u2019. While the Beatles had concocted that album mostly on the fly in a few weeks, working collaboratively with producer George Martin, Brian set out to compose, arrange and produce his response single handed. That it far exceeded and eclipsed everything before it in pop music became clear when <strong>Bruce Johnston<\/strong> played the album to the Beatles in London for the first time a few months later. While they sat in a hotel room, Lennon and McCartney were notably circumspect, listening closely. When it was over, they asked to hear it again. <strong>George Martin<\/strong> later wrote that Sgt Pepper, another GOAT-heavy record, was \u201can attempt to equal\u201d \u2018Pet Sounds\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Capitol, the Boy\u2019s label, didn\u2019t know what to do with the end product, feeling it was uncommercial. This is evidenced in their somewhat slapdash handling of the album art, which features the boys awkwardly feeding goats in San Diego zoo (as opposed to, I don\u2019t know, maybe Brian\u2019s dogs Banana and Louie? Both of whom actually feature on the album). Despite this, the cover has become iconic by its proximity to the music. The cooper bold font and rich green and yellow colourway, paired with the kodachrome warm tones of the cover shot, have imbued the record with an idyllic innocence that belies the deeply melancholic songs it contains.<\/p>\n<p>Over its thirteen tracks\u00a0\u2018Pet Sounds\u2019\u00a0creates a sound world, almost tangible at times, that you can escape into. Opening with the full force, sunlit yearning optimism of\u00a0\u2018Wouldn\u2019t It Be Nice\u2019, it\u2019s not long before the long shadows start setting in. The spectral opening of\u00a0\u2018You Still Believe In Me\u2019, with its off\u00a0kilter bicycle horn fade out, undercuts the innocence with its confession of some darker truth \u201cafter all I\u2019ve done to you.\u201d\u00a0\u2018That\u2019s Not Me\u2019\u00a0acknowledges failure set against the huge expectations young people are freighted with when they first try to strike out alone in the world.\u00a0\u2018Don\u2019t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)\u2019,\u00a0with its funereal atmosphere and heartbeat bassline, evokes intimacy of an almost too intense kind.\u00a0\u2018I\u2019m Waiting For The Day\u2019, for all its boisterousness, is underpinned by the brief string interlude just before the end, seeming to suggest the bad relationship referred to, and hint at the obsessiveness of the subject.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Let\u2019s Go Away For A While\u2019,\u00a0the first of two instrumentals, is a dreamy detour, showcasing the complexity and originality of Wilson\u2019s arrangements. <strong><span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Carol_Kaye\">Wrecking Crew stalwart Carol Kaye<\/a><\/span><\/strong>, whose muted bass playing features prominently (often paired with a stand up bass) throughout the album, recalled how Brian \u2013 with no formal training \u2013 would sometimes show up in the studio with handwritten charts for the musicians. \u201cHe wrote all his music but he\u2019d bring it in and you could tell he wasn\u2019t schooled at all. Some of the stems were on the wrong side of the notes and he\u2019d write in odd keys.\u201d A student and ardent admirer of Phil Spector (who did not reciprocate his admiration), Brian learned to build sound in the studio from unique composites of different instruments played together to create scale and depth. Building on Spector\u2019s formalism, Brian further blurred the lines between classical and pop, pairing his arrangements with the multi-part harmonies he could hear fully formed in his head, to perfect what became known as baroque pop.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014<\/p>\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1447\" height=\"1000\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clashmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/The-Beach-Boys-color-around-piano-1967-Hawaii_0.jpg\" alt previous-src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>Al Jardine<\/strong>, a fan of <strong>the Kingston Trio<\/strong>, suggested they cover the folk standard\u00a0\u2018Sloop John B\u2019. The recurring motif that opens the track gives the audio impression of sunlight on water, and as the song becomes more strident in tone musically, the yearning to be off\u00a0the godforsaken sloop and its atmosphere of overbearing dysfunction \u201cLet me go home\/I wanna go home\u201d takes hold.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018God Only Knows\u2019, dealing directly with dependency, death and the cosmos by way of an exquisite lead vocal from 19 year old Carl Wilson, is another example of how Brian interweaves melodic motifs with harmony, and features in its closing overlapping vocal lines quite possibly the finest outro of any popular song.\u00a0\u2018I Know There\u2019s An Answer\u2019\u00a0(originally titled\u00a0\u2018Hang On To Your Ego\u2019) along with\u00a0\u2018I Just Wasn\u2019t Made For These Times\u2019\u00a0are the two most direct tracks, speaking to Brian\u2019s sense of isolation within the group, and the tensions between its commercial and creative factions. The ruminative bass line in the latter is an example of how Brian foregrounds instruments as a counterpart to melody, suggesting the inner turmoil \u201cSometimes I feel very sad\u201d\u00a0the lyric articulates.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Here Today\u2019, like\u00a0\u2018I\u2019m Waiting For The Day\u2019\u00a0uses a deceptively sprightly arrangement as a backdrop to the most openly cynical lyric on the album, sung fittingly by Mike Love. The title track, another instrumental, with it\u2019s goofball exotica is the perfect sucker punch lead in to the closer\u00a0\u2018Caroline No\u2019,\u00a0on the surface a fairly straightforward song about a girl cutting her long hair short that becomes a devastating parable about lost youth \u201cCould we ever bring em back\/ Once they have gone?\u201d and fades out to the sound of a passing train and the aforementioned dogs barking off\u00a0in the suburban distance.<\/p>\n<p>Like\u00a0Kane,\u00a0\u2018Pet Sounds\u2019\u00a0was the work of a prodigious talent able to overcome all of the pressures they were under for one brief moment, to create an indelible work of stunning originality. And as with Welles, that work cast a long shadow that Brian Wilson could never fully get out from under. The long shadows and bright sunlight of Pet Sounds evoke a fleeting moment in time that we can all inhabit, that moment when youth gives way to adulthood. By giving us permission to revisit that time in all its emotional complexity whenever we please, Pet Sounds has earned its GOAT status many times over.<\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<p><em><strong>Neil Brogan\u00a0<\/strong>is a musician from Belfast. <strong><span><a href=\"https:\/\/neilbrogan.bandcamp.com\/album\/near-broken-band\">His latest single \u2018Joys of Spring\u2019 is out now<\/a><\/span><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"blob:https:\/\/www.clashmusic.com\/5d9dc839-0d57-4f17-86a2-c92f090603a3\" alt=\"music page2image31974128\" width=\"71.445000\" height=\"0.550000\"><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.clashmusic.com\/features\/unfettered-creativity-the-beach-boys-pet-sounds-at-60\/\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Music Like Orson Welles\u2019\u00a0Citizen Kane, The Beach Boys\u2019\u00a0\u2018Pet Sounds\u2019,\u00a0released sixty years ago this week, is saddled with the burden of GOAT status, not least because it features actual goats on the front cover. And like Welles before him, Brian Wilson never quite escaped the shadow of having created a masterpiece in his early twenties. Derek [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":916868,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[131522],"class_list":["post-916867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business-news","tag-podcast-music"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/916868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}