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Wed 3 December 2025 0:00, UK
Not to make conversations about music in the 1960s all about The Beatles, but to truly understand just how seismic Pet Sounds was in terms of cultural impact, it’s important to bring the Fab Four into the fold.
While we rightly marvel at their contribution to music in the ’60s, pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the studio, we also have to acknowledge that it might not have been possible without the stewardship of The Beach Boys.
The subjectivity of music means that the records that would likely be in contention for the greatest album of all time are all so equally genius that to definitively pick one feels like an insult; however, when an album like Pet Sounds is so universally loved by all musicians, it’s hard to argue its place as the ultimate titleholder.
In fact, Paul McCartney explained that he “played it to John so much that it would be difficult for him to escape the influence. If records had a director within a band, I sort of directed [Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band] and my influence was basically the Pet Sounds album,” adding, “I’ve often played Pet Sounds and cried. It’s that kind of an album for me.”
It was a masterclass in studio recording, inspired by Phil Spector’s ‘Wall of Sound’ technique, where Brian Wilson used the record as a full-blooded attempt to combine as many musical textures as possible to see what happens, resulting in a multi-layered sonic genius that combined several vocal harmonies with instrumental melodies to create one overarching musical concept, as opposed to a collection of singles. Acknowledging that allows all that came after, including Sgt Pepper’s, to make sense.
Yet, despite receiving endless public praise for writing an album that changed the course of musical history, Wilson still believed that some of his adjacent work was equally as commendable. When asked if he thought any of The Beach Boys’ work post-Pet Sounds was as good, he confidently answered “Yeah”.
He continued, “Smile, Friends, Wild Honey. We made some really cool albums. But it’s true, they never got as big as Pet Sounds did. It was frustrating, because I thought those records, and a lot of my solo stuff contains some of my best work, but it’s like so many people just wanted me to write about cars and girls, and after a certain point, you’re just now there anymore, you know? I mean, I wasn’t there anymore since Pet Sounds, and that was 1966!”
In many ways, that’s the most obvious characteristic of a true artistic genius, someone who can achieve greatness and still focus on the inadequacies, which, sadly, was also the attitude towards creation that ultimately spiralled Wilson into a state of creative madness.
Whether he was willing to admit it or not, Pet Sounds was The Beach Boys’ opus and, for many people, the greatest album of all time, but maybe somewhere in that process of it leaving the hands of Wilson and becoming a record for the entire world, his relationship with the piece of art broke down.
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