If you were a musician in the 60s and your name was Brian (or some variation thereof), chances are you did good, maybe not commercially, but definitely artistically, and that you were an integral part of an album that is now considered a 'classic', a 'masterpiece', an 'innovation'. (Or, to save space, an innovative classic masterpiece). I've talked a little about Brian Jones and even though I didn't specifically mention names, the song I sampled from the band Love was written by Bryan MacLean.
The best Brian of the bunch, though? Definitely Brian Wilson.
I wish I could say I was precociously cognizant of his immense musical ability-- his genius (sorry, but that's a word that is going to get tossed around here a lot, given that I don't suffer fools easily and that goes for music, as well) but I really didn't listen to him (or the Beach Boys, beyond a cursory listen to some of their earlier hits, whenever they'd get airplay somewhere). This is how I got lucky enough to really hear of him, when I was much, much older: I was gleefully buying an almost brand new LP of Queen's 'A Night at the Opera' for a ridiculously low price, found in an LP bin at a local music store. (I already had two copies, a collectible in pristine condition and then a secondhand one for listening, but I was looking to upgrade). I got to talking to the guy behind the cash register about why I was buying it and when he heard me go on about layering and harmonies, etc., he mentioned something about 'Pet Sounds'. The "say what?" look on my face must have told him the whole story, because he gave me a little back history, told me to forget whatever impression I may have had of The Beach Boys (not really much of one, at the time), and to put in an order for the CD, and he'd try to find me the LP. I never got the guy's name, not even after I went back and picked up both the CD (and later, the LP), and the store closed down (what is it with me and music store closings?!) and relocated and I never got to really thank him properly for introducing me to one of the most creative albums ever.
A lot of people have described the album and the amazing musical arrangements, so new and, yes, innovative--not for just 40 years ago, but even now--better than I ever can. The best way I'd know to describe it, though, if you really wanted to know, would be this: imagine if music up to that point was similar to the concept of single dimensional geometric space e.g. the single line. Now imagine that with Pet Sounds, Brian Wilson did the equivalent of introducing the four dimensional geometric space e.g. the tesserect. It's precisely because of its never before imagined and mind-blowing complexity that the album, which was so rich in sound, was so poorly received. It required not one or two but several leaps of faith and multiple mental progressions to begin to understand just exactly what had been accomplished.
There was a wonderful little article in the November/December 2007 issue of Mental Floss, that very nicely summed up the back history of the album, including the family dynamics that probably led to the creation of the album including Brian Wilson's volatile relationship with his father. Supposedly, the loss of hearing in one ear is due to his father's severe beatings*, although never confirmed, and that even honed his [good] ear more. Brian Wilson was also born with a rare gift of being able to simultaneously carry multiple harmonies in his head which, coupled with his approach to creating new sounds for music, using never before used objects as instruments, led to the album's overall concept of layering in a manner that hadn't been even thought of.
*Interestingly, the same story was used in Immortal Beloved as the basis of Beethoven's deafness. Given the liberties they took with his personal life, I very much doubt the authenticity of the story as it applies to Beethoven, even while I think the movie itself does a superb job of visualizing the music and Gary Oldman deserved an Oscar for his transformation. (Have you seen him when he's not playing a character and is himself? You probably wouldn't give him a second glance in real life!)
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Nowadays, the entire album, complete with both digital remasters and stereo mixes, can be bought as a download for less than ten dollars. That's 27 tracks at 37 cents each. Seriously, to not buy the album at that price is a crime, and you'd be passing up on one of the greats. Buy it, fix yourself a drink, sit back, put your feet up, close your eyes, and just spend a couple of hours letting it just play over and around you. Even if it doesn't move you, you'll still have spent a couple of hours listening to music that is going to leave you feeling...more, than before. That's never a bad thing.
(And read up a little on Brian Wilson and what the album cost him. If there's such a thing as a soul, I think he put what he could of it in there.)
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My favorite track off the album is actually one that wasn't on there, at least not in its original format. Basically, when the Beach Boys' manager got wind of the lyrics (and title) of the song 'Hang on to Your Ego', he deemed it as something promoting the use of drugs/LSD (which personally makes me think he was probably into it himself), and he felt that could hurt the album (which, okay was probably not too off; after all, some radio stations had a fit over the use of the word God in the song 'God Only Knows'. Weirdos.) So he convinced/bullied Brian into rewriting the lyrics and renaming the song to "I Know There's an Answer". Honestly, the replacement song is just not as good, even though the music is the same, because the beauty of the songs on this album was that each and everyone was perfection in a whole package, with the lyrics and music not complementing but being inseparable from each other, and if you listen to the whole [original] album start to finish, I think you can really sense that something about track nine is just not...right.
But, this is just one person's opinion. Take a listen for yourself and then listen to covers of each one, as an added bonus. (If Frank Black sounds familiar, he's aka Black Francis, the frontsman for the Pixies.)
