The History and Popular Music of the ’60s class learned about The Beach Boys’ much-loved album, Pet Sounds (1966). Here are their reactions.
Lily Brooks:
In the mid-’60s, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones and others were all trying to outdo one another. This pressure is what made some of the best music in history and definitely the best of the decade. Pet Sounds was a response to the Beatles’ Revolver, not an easy album to top. The Beach Boys are known for their harmonies and pop music, but the more I listened to the songs closely, I became more and more impressed with the production. Some of my favorite songs have to be: “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “That’s Not Me,” “Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder),” “Let’s Go Away for Awhile” and “God Only Knows.” Something specific about this album that makes me love it is that I feel like each song perfectly matches the title. I normally don’t favor fully instrumental music like “Let’s Go Away For Awhile,” but something about it matches the name of the song so perfectly, it makes me feel as if I’m on a beach trip in Europe. “Here Today” is also in my top three because I personally think it has the best melody. I also love the order of the songs because of the way it leads you through a love story about someone having a crush and then it developing into something more serious.
Some of the music Brian Wilson created on this album reminded me of Phil Spector’s wall of sound. I found out recently that when Wilson would bring musicians in to work with (that also had worked for Spector), he would ask who they thought was better to work with. As far as I know Wilson never pulled a gun on anyone so I think I could guess the answer.
Wilson is a musical genius and his childhood background, though tragic, definitely contributed to him becoming the crazy genius he is/was. His father was violent with him in his childhood so much so that he lost hearing in one ear. Wilson, only having hearing in one ear made music better than most people can with two.
Pet Sounds was his album. Yes, he used the other members for their harmonies and input most likely, but the style of the songs stay consistent to his vision.
One thing that bugged me about some of the songs were the lyrics. I feel as if the lyrics didn’t match the excellency of the production and voices. I don’t think Wilson cared as much about the lyrics as he did about the music, which is fine because lyrics are sometimes not what makes an album great. Bob Dylan’s albums are more lyrically-focused, and if his songs had poorly written lyrics I’m sure he would not have been as much of a success as he is today because the production of his music is much more simple.
Pet Sounds did not only provide some of the best songs to come out of the ’60s, but the history behind it is almost more interesting to me. The constant battle between bands, Wilson’s unusual mind and childhood, made for an incredible album and pushed other artists to do the same.
Alex Skiles:
I was moved by the lonely and poignant sounds of the passing train and the barking dogs at end of this otherwise colorful and noisy album. I felt like these sounds captured the feeling of the album, of Brian Wilson getting on a train and moving on from Caroline to another relationship, or growing up and moving on to another part of your life. Color is minimal in the piece not just because I am lazy but also because I wanted the sole colors to be from the sources of the sounds at the end of the album: the train, the dog, the bell. I wanted to create a kind of synesthesia effect by only highlighting those things so that it makes sense when you look at it while listening to the sounds at the end of the album. I thought about adding something else or rearranging the elements so that it didn’t have a huge gap in the middle of the piece, but decided it adds to the lonely feeling.
Sam Swartley:
For my Beach Boys response I created a track entitled “Shimmer.” Because that’s the one word that always came to mind when listening to album. The layers upon layers of instruments really created this dreamy landscape of harmony.
I took a screenshot of the project in Garage Band to show the layers and instrumentation. The key was to layer certain melodies and chords in order to create this dreamy full sound, and to take out and add to make the song flow. If you look at the screen shot and listen to the track you can probably follow along pretty well to see what is doing what.
Green: midi keyboard (midi is when you use a normal keyboard and change the sound to any instrument within the computer). This is how I, in a way, had an entire band/orchestra.
Blue: Audio (using microphone/guitar amp). This was all me actually playing guitar (not a midi), and with some effects I was able to make it sound pretty cool.
Pritam Khalsa:
I love this album. The Beach Boys go beyond expectations as a surf pop group. Pet Sounds lacks the predictable pop feel especially being written by a pop group in the ’60s. It sounds more calm than their earlier music and I would probably prefer to listen to any of these songs over a song like “Surfin’ U.S.A.” which isn’t bad, it’s just not my style. I also love their use of bells. I didn’t expect the bells but they make the songs sound a little more unique. For my response, I chose to use a lot of green because it feels more calm but still bright, just like the music. I also added a few facial features to the page because this is sort of how I imagine feeling the songs in my head. I kept the middle part of the page more plain watercolor because I could somewhat expect where songs were going to go so it was less surprising. All of the songs also go really well together, so I used mostly just green to represent the album as a whole instead of just one song. I added collage bits at the edges of the piece because parts of the album felt a little bit spike-y while still in keeping with the original feeling.
Conor McGeady:
While listening to Pet Sounds, I was getting a very melancholic and kind of sad but content vibe from it, especially from the song “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” which definitely feels like it could apply to a lot of teens nowadays, so I decided to kind of modernize it to kind of a sadder, slower version of it with more simplistic drums to add to the tone and slowed town and pitched the sample to add even more sad vibes.
Gibson McCoy:
The first Beach Boys songs that come to mind for most people are “Good Vibrations” or maybe “California Girls”, both portraying something positive. Thinking about their more popular songs someone could easily think that their music is just on the surface, and not deep or lonely. Not saying that all of The Beach Boys’ songs sound happy but for most people the easily recognizable and famous songs are. The band seems to be stuck behind a wall of innocence that the public has put them behind. At the first glance the songs are happy and maybe even wholesome. Because of the simplicity of their lyrics, it is possible that the deep meaning often gets overlooked. Most may just listen to the songs for something happy and simple, but with a deeper look, someone might realize how deep the lyrics can be even if they are simple.
“Wouldn’t It Be Nice” is a very happy song, at least on the surface. But when analyzing the lyrics this song is almost like they’re stuck in the same day and they’re saying wouldn’t it be nice to have something new for a change.Giving someone all of your strength and waiting to see if they love you, and will still love you tomorrow is so sad. But in the song “I’m Waiting for The Day” it is something that goes unnoticed by the casual listener that could possibly change the way that they listen to The Beach Boys. The somber violin and slower melody get interrupted by drums, flute, guitar and backing vocals covering up what could have been sad. The true meaning of the words ‘let me go home’ again is concealed by the happy joyful and wholesome instrumental behind the lyrics in “Sloop John B.” Brian Wilson wrote most of the songs with the loss of innocence in mind but covered up with a more or less happy instrumental at first glance it would have been very hard to notice.
The paragraph above supports and explains my artistic response, the top part is more or less how they present themselves to the press. The curtains around the edge are representing and it could be a cover-up and a continuation of the message they send out from their most famous song. The bottom is some important song lyrics that are getting cover-up by presenting them the way that they do and how their lyrics and instrumental are the majority of the time conveying two different emotions.
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