Remembering the Beach Boys' masterwork Pet Sounds as we mourn Brian Wilson's death
The death of Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson reminds us all that the great artists don't live forever, and we should cherish their masterworks while they're here.
Wilson's career spans more than half a century, as he's one of the fathers of modern pop music as we know it. While it's easy to imagine pastel surf boards and island getaways when you remember the Beach Boys in totality, Pet Sounds remains the group's signature achievement. Heck, it remains one of the signature achievements in the album's history.
Thanks to Wilson's unreal genius and breathtaking vulnerability, Pet Sounds has stood through the decades since its 1966 release as one of the benchmarks for the album concept. As the album model start to cater more to streaming analytics than to artistic curation, Pet Sounds both revolutionized the way pop music would be crafted in all the years since and outlined exactly how the album should function as a conceptual whole.
It's easy to geek out about Wilson's uncanny twist on the Wall of Sound or the innovative blend of instruments like French Horn and the Electro-Theremin and simple sounds like a bicycle bell. Sonically speaking, Pet Sounds is one of the foundational albums for musical exploration. However, the album is Wilson's soul bared for all to hear, and it remains one of the most profound revelations of what it means to love somebody that's even been realized.
The true greatness of Pet Sounds expands past it groundbreaking musicality. The album captures as well as any in the form's history how to love and sadness are inseparable, and how the act of loving somebody else will always carry with it a deep pang of sadness that only ironclad love can provide. The religiosity of the album is always evident, as Wilson approaches the throne of understanding, the God of whoever will listen, with the innocent heart and unbearable longing of adolescence trying to figure out these immaculate feelings inside.
"God Only Knows" remains the great American achievement in pop songwriting and performance, as Wilson and co-writer Tony Asher penning a lovesick rainbow that perfectly balances the joy of having someone and the pain of potentially having to let that person go. "God only knows what I'd be without you." Wilson's brother, Carl, leads the haunting vocals, backed by Brian Wilson and fellow Beach Boy Bruce Johnston.
The song ebbs and flows between elegiac tribute and sorrowful pleading; it's the ultimate love song because it perfectly captures just how much love connects you to someone, to the point where only the upmost high could even possibly comprehend what it's like not to have that love in your life. It might be the best song ever written, an opinion shared by Beatles frontman Paul McCartney. "It's one of the few songs that reduces me to tears every time I hear it. It's really just a love song, but it's brilliantly done. It shows the genius of Brian," McCartney said about "God Only Knows."
The rest of the album speaks for itself. You can't imagine a modern pop landscape without "Wouldn't It Be Nice" in particular, the otherworldly blend of young love matched against the cruel realities of youth. "Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)" one of the best examples of Brian Wilson's spellbinding voice meshing in harmony with his dreamlike production style.
The music is so beautiful, playful and wind-in-your-hair freeing, but it's also just everything about that pit in your stomach and that draw on your heart you feel when you look at the one you adore the most. It's emotionally maturity through the filter of youthful wistfulness. There probably hasn't been a compilation of music to ever capture those complicated feelings as well as Pet Sounds did all those years ago.
Is it the greatest album of all time? You'll have plenty of Liverpool's most faithful stumping for Sgt. Pepper's and Abbey Road, and the enormity of music makes it virtually impossible to compare apples and oranges with Pet Sounds to something like Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly or Nirvana's Nevermind. Rolling Stone recently listed Wilson's masterpiece second behind Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, for example.
At news of Wilson's death, it's just as good a time as ever to recognize Pet Sounds' eternal statue in music writ large. God only knows what we'd do without such a titanic achievement, one that latched itself to our hearts long ago and always gave us a beacon light to navigate the loving seas of happiness, sadness and everything in between. Wilson's genius and heart continues to guide us all these years later.
Listen to it back during this time of all times with the person you love most.
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