Pet Sounds

The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds

Pet Sounds
List Price: $17.98
Our Price: $4.60
You Save: $13.38 (74%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $3.67 (click here)
Category: Music CD
See more new music releases
Listen soundtracks from this album

Compare Prices for Pet Sounds

(Click here)
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store

Music CD Cover

Artist: The Beach Boys
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Extra tracks, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
Published: 2006-10-27
CD Release Date: 1999-07-13
Music Label: Capitol
Soundtracks:
  1. Wouldn't It Be Nice
  2. You Still Believe In Me
  3. That's Not Me
  4. Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)
  5. I'm Waiting For The Day
  6. Let's Go Away For Awhile
  7. Sloop John B
  8. God Only Knows
  9. I Know There's An Answer
  10. Here Today
  11. I Just Wasn't Made For These Times
  12. Pet Sounds
  13. Caroline No
  14. Hang On To Your Ego - (bonus track)
  15. Wouldn't It Be Nice (Stereo Mix)
  16. You Still Believe In Me
  17. That's Not Me
  18. Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)
  19. I'm Waiting For The Day
  20. Let's Go Away For Awhile
  21. Sloop John B
  22. God Only Knows
  23. I Know There's An Answer
  24. Here Today
  25. I Just Wasn't Made For These Times
  26. Pet Sounds
  27. Caroline No

Free Music Notes for Pet Sounds

Free Music Review: PET SOUNDS defies comparison; judge it on its own terms
Hit: 5 Stars

At the time of this writing Amazon lists 365 reviews of PET SOUNDS under one or another CD release (and I won't be offended if you choose to read some of them!). I'm writing this review for the benefit of people who are contemplating the purchase of PET SOUNDS and are interested mostly in the music, not its source medium -- there are many.

The Beach Boys' PET SOUNDS (1966) was expected to be an epochal release . . . it was revealed in a biography many years later that Brian Wilson felt himself and the band to be in a running competition with the Beatles. He was blown away by SERGEANT PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND (1967) but depressed because he thought PET SOUNDS was inferior.

Perhaps Brian, as well as many critics, missed the point. True, PET SOUNDS wasn't a commercial success like the epochal SGT. PEPPERS'S, but IMHO both albums are significant and superlative and both incomparable . . . especially not to be compared with each other. PEPPER was one of the first concept albums; all but one of the tracks is performed not by the Beatles as themselves, but by their slightly fantastic alter ego, the psychedelically-dressed foursome whose full name is the album's name. In its mix of musical styles and idiom, it's a head trip. PET SOUNDS, on the other hand, is a heart trip, Brian Wilson's *cri de coeur* of teenaged angst and longing. It was definitely a departure from the group's "Fun, Fun, Fun" type of single earlier in the Sixties that had made AM hits and broken LP record sales. Most of PET SOUNDS' songs are personal, lyrical, and downbeat. Their haunting beauty stays in the mind much longer than the usual slap-bass rock'n'roll love song from the mid-Sixties.

Three of my favorites from PET SOUNDS:

(1) "Caroline, No" is a paean to lost love built around the repetition of "Caroline, No" at the end of each stanza of a song that builds in richness by exploring the devastated emotions of the lover. The song is a carefully worked-through exploration of relationship and self in which the singer (Brian Wilson) realizes that despite his emotions (like many of his songs, blending romantic yearning with mental depression), any further contact with Caroline is going to be out of the question.

(2) Probably "God Only Knows" is the best remembered song from the original PET SOUNDS release, as well as the one that caught the bulk of critical praise. This is a simple love song and not quite about personal depression, more of the singer's coming to an existential awareness of how helpless he is without his loved one ("God only knows how I'd live without you"). Try this: transcribe the song lyrics and read them as poetry. Also consider that Wilson believed in God so the title was no mere cliche to him. The plot of this song doesn't quite have him losing the girl, but clearly he has envisioned that future with anticipatory sorrow. IMHO "God Only Knows" just gets better and better with the passage of time.

(3) "Wouldn't It Be Nice?" is an ironic title. Brian Wilson shares credits for the lyrics with Tony Asher and Mike Love, but while the sentiment of frustated love is general to most pop songs, the lyrics still bespeak Brian Wilson. Warren Beatty wisely chose to play (and practically resurrect) the song over the closing credits of his movie SHAMPOO (1975) about a studly 1968 hairdresser who was anything but thwarted sexually yet, disillusioned by movie's end, could only conceive of the joy it would be to "wake up in the morning when the day is new" with his lover, an innocent pleasure he has fast-forwarded over while tumbling into bed with multiple women. "Wouldn't It Be Nice" is too complex and original to be a jingle, yet too conflicted to be a ballad. Partly personal and partly political, the song in its movement and complex tug-of-war emotions between a stifling present and a hopeful future is probably much closer to the "anthem" type of musical-comedy showstopper like the idealistic "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" than it is to an exuberant outburst like "Surfin' Safari."

Or perhaps, in an era that lionized "anti-heroes" on the screen, it's a type of "anti-anthem," since there's no resolution, no easy way out; longing and frustration emotions become more and more mixed during the song. And the "Wouldn't it be nice" sung at the end of each stanza becomes progressively more cynical, sung with a jeering intonation at its last appearance. The Beach Boys, plural, employ their legendary close-harmony style to good effect but the "voice" is clearly that of one frustrated teen ("Wouldn't it be nice if we were older, then we wouldn't have to wait so long?"). He feels held back by society's laws, but his only recourse is to envision something better -- until a quite unexpected coda adds to the pain when it bursts in with: "You know it seems the more we talk about it, it only makes it worse to live without it, but let's talk about it." He's stuck in the present and legal majority seems impossibly far away. Compare this resignation to another 1967 song, Janice Ian's "Society's Child," in which the singer has to accept her mother's kneejerk racism for now, but looks forward to a better future of action and idealism fueled by no small amount of anger.

"Wouldn't It Be Nice" also seems to have the ability to speak to different people at different stages in their life. Those who have seen Michael Moore's ROGER AND ME will recall that it's the song that pushed Moore's laid-off autoplant buddy over the edge from reigning-it-all-in to something like a nervous breakdown when the song unexpectedly came playing over the radio. I'm gay, and I find very plangent lyrics like "Wouldn't it be nice to live together in the kind of world where we belong?" Or, more recently, "We could be married, and then we'd be happy . . . oh, wouldn't it be nice?" (Yes it would, Senator.)

PET SOUNDS is anything but dance music. It won't make you happy. You might even want to stay away from playing it if you're feeling depressed. I think it is Brian Wilson's great gift to us that, troubled and depressed as he was, he pulled it together and did his part of the singing, most of the songwriting and all of the sound engineering for PET SOUNDS. By the way, my first album was a vinyl LP, although the retronym "vinyl" with LP hadn't yet come into use. I own another PET SOUNDS LP, shrink-wrapped and inviolate, but I play the CD.

A final and somewhat related note on sound quality: Anything you hear in PET SOUNDS that smacks of stereo has been added by sound engineers at some point after the album's initial release in 1967. Brian Wilson recorded the entire album in mono, which by then was practically unheard of. When an interviewer asked why, Wilson replied that his father had boxed his ears over some misbehavior, causing one of them to rupture and make him deaf in one ear. He didn't think of stereo because he didn't hear in stereo. (There may be a redeeming feature in that Wilson used echo effects and natural reverb to perfection.) Regardless of what you play music on, though, don't let that keep you from this amazing work.
Write your own review
More free music notes:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Pet Sounds Poster

2000 HDCD remaster of the original MONO mixes. Does not include the bonus tracks that were on previous issues.
If you need some pointy-headed pundit to sell you on the merits of Pet Sounds, your money might be better spent on an ear specialist. Brian Wilson's gift to 20th-century music elevated this pop album into a beguiling musical and emotional cogency that still operates outside pop culture's fickle space-time continuum--and limited critical lexicon. There's never been another record to compare (Rubber Soul, its inspiration, is close; Sgt. Pepper's, its response, misses the point), and certainly no album has been as dissected, overanalyzed, and predigested for public consumption. In 1997 Capitol Records devoted an entire four-disc box set, The Pet Sounds Sessions, to its thorough deconstruction. The techno-marvel centerpiece of that project--the album's first true stereo mix, painstakingly conjured out of multitape session sources by producer-engineer Mark Linett (under Wilson's supervision)--was at once heresy and revelation. Now the label has gratifyingly seen fit to offer both mixes on a single disc (along with alternate versions of "Hang On to Your Ego," the original title of "I Know There's An Answer"), an idea that should please the orthodox and heretics alike. And while the album has always clearly been The Brian Wilson Show featuring the Beach Boys, David Leaf's concise new notes attempt to be more inclusive of a wider band perspective. The result (three of the five band members claim credit for the album title) sometimes resembles Rashomon. If Pet Sounds forever crystallized the band's various creative (in)differences, it also became Wilson's grand karmic joke on his band mates; its burgeoning reputation (Mojo magazine's panel of pop experts once elected it greatest album of all time) guaranteed they would sing its songs--and praises--until the end. And if putting two different versions of the same album on one disc seems like overkill, look at the bright side: it's a perfect excuse to listen to the glorious Pet Sounds twice. --Jerry McCulley

Classic Rock Music CDs
Music Genres
Top music charts in Classic Rock Music CDs
Wings at the Speed of Sound ImagePaul Mccartney, Wings - Wings at the Speed of Sound
Release date: 1996-09-24; Music CD
Best price: $149.99
Boxed ImageSmall Faces - Boxed
Release date: 1997-11-01; Music CD
Best price: $39.95
Gris Gris ImageDr John - Gris Gris
Release date: 1994-07-15; Music CD
Price in other shops: $18.98
Eric Clapton: Live in Hyde Park [VHS] ImageEric Clapton: Live in Hyde Park [VHS]
Warner Bros / Wea; Release date: 1998-02-17; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $13.50
Price in other shops: $19.98
Human Highway [VHS] ImageHuman Highway [VHS]
Warner Bros / Wea; Release date: 1995-08-08; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $153.94
The Monkees - Head [VHS] ImageThe Monkees - Head [VHS]
Rhino / Wea; Release date: 1995-01-25; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $14.40
Price in other shops: $14.98
Live & Loud [VHS] ImageOzzy Osbourne - Live & Loud [VHS]
Sony; Release date: 1993-05-25; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $3.96
Price in other shops: $14.98
Unplugged [VHS] ImageBruce Springsteen - Unplugged [VHS]
Sony; Release date: 1992-12-15; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $2.75
Price in other shops: $14.98
Peter Gabriel - P.O.V. [VHS] ImagePeter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel - P.O.V. [VHS]
Virgin Records Us; Release date: 1992-06-29; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops: $19.98
Past to Present [VHS] ImageToto - Past to Present [VHS]
Sony; Release date: 1991-07-01; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $77.99
Top Rated Albums
London Calling ImageThe Clash - London Calling
CLASH; Release date: 2000-01-25; Music CD
Best price: $4.48
Price in other shops: $7.99
Blonde on Blonde (Reis) ImageBob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde (Reis)
Release date: 2004-06-01; Music CD
Best price: $6.94
Price in other shops: $9.99
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Remastered) ImageThe Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Remastered)
EMI Music; Release date: 2009-09-09; Music CD
Best price: $9.85
Price in other shops: $18.98
Rubber Soul (Remastered) ImageThe Beatles - Rubber Soul (Remastered)
EMI Music; Release date: 2009-09-09; Music CD
Best price: $9.74
Price in other shops: $18.98
Revolver (Remastered) ImageThe Beatles - Revolver (Remastered)
EMI Music; Release date: 2009-09-09; Music CD
Best price: $9.71
Price in other shops: $18.98
Highway 61 Revisited (Reis) ImageBob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited (Reis)
Release date: 2004-06-01; Music CD
Best price: $4.75
Price in other shops: $7.99
Smile ImageBrian Wilson - Smile
Release date: 2004-09-28; Music CD
Best price: $11.96
Price in other shops: $19.98
Velvet Underground & Nico ImageNico, Velvet Underground - Velvet Underground & Nico
Release date: 1996-05-07; Published: 1996; Music CD
Best price: $2.41
Price in other shops: $5.98
The Smile Sessions (2CD) ImageThe Beach Boys - The Smile Sessions (2CD)
Release date: 2011-11-01; Music CD
Best price: $19.39
Price in other shops: $34.98
What's Going On ImageMarvin Gaye - What's Going On
GAYE,MARVIN; Release date: 2003-01-14; Music CD
Best price: $3.12
Price in other shops: $9.98
Books | Health and Personal Care | Beauty | Digital Cameras and Photo | Kitchen and Housewares | Tools and Hardware
Copyright © 2005-2007 musicnear.com
Google
 
Web musicnear.com
Compare prices and find music notes for more than one million Music CD titles