Beach Boys - The Pet Sounds Sessions

So I write my buddy Matt to ask if there's anything he needs for this little electronic rag thing that he's got goin'. "Dave," he writes back, "You know that new Beach Boys thing that you were telling me about? How about a thousand words on that."

"A thousand words!" I cry, "That won't cover the adjectives!"

"And I'll need it by January 20th," he tells me. So here I am with a deadline coming up quick and a computer filled with a half-dozen half-finished, half-baked essays, all trying to describe Brian Wilson's genius to the world in a few measly little paragraphs. Each version seems to focus on a different facet of the new Capitol Records release "The Pet Sounds Sessions," a four-disc dissection of the Beach Boys' greatest work, but nothing I wrote had effectively captured its greatness.

One reason why it is so tough to describe is that there's never been anything to compare it to. Oh sure, there's the Beatles "Anthology" series, but think about this for a second: That was six discs covering eight years of recording. This is four discs covering 13 songs! Are you starting to see my problem here? Another reason is that, although I can talk about music for hours on end, "Pet Sounds" leaves me speechless. It must be heard to be understood. So, with that dilemma picking at my brain, I turned on my CD player, my computer, and my mind.

My first draft focused on the history and the myth surrounding "Pet Sounds." Wilson quits touring with the band in 1965 to concentrate on his songwriting, blah, blah...Hears the Beatles' "Rubber Soul" and needs to top it, blah, blah...Writes a bunch of beautiful, emotional songs that are misunderstood by a public expecting surf music, blah, blah...Has drug-induced nervous breakdown working on his next project...Is never the same again.

I looked at this a few days later and thought, "Most people don't really care about this stuff. What they want to know is if the thing is good or bad." So I went back and listened to nothing but this set for a few days and figured that the review should focus on the tunes. So the second draft centered on the music. The album has an almost-classical feel to it, what with all those orchestral instruments and textures, and that's why it's so beautiful. Besides, the boxed set features the stereo backing tracks for all the songs (not including the two instrumentals for reasons of redundancy). So I mentioned things like Wilson's use of diminished chords, major sevenths, flattened fifths, and ninths in the bass. I wrote about the innovative production techniques used by Brian and his main engineer, Chuck Britz, that still haven't been duplicated, even by today's modern machinery.

But then I realized that only musicians and studio geeks would know what I'm talking about. Besides, the lyrics on "Pet Sounds" are brilliant as well. So draft number three talked about how lyricist Tony Asher, whose previous experience in songwriting was as a jingle writer for an advertising agency, effectively took Brian's emotions and put them into lyrics. I wrote about how the words run the gamut of emotions one faces over the course of a relationship: exuberance, longing, confusion, unconditional love, and loss; and that the lyrics convey these feelings without poetic devices, instead using direct language and rendering them timeless.

But that version didn't convey probably the important aspect of the Beach Boys' lasting appeal: the melodies and harmonies. So I started #4. I mentioned how the third disc of this set features the album stripped of the instruments so that you can hear that intricate four-part on such tracks as "Wouldn't It Be Nice" and "I'm Waiting For The Day" uncluttered, and how Mike Love's bass voice on "You Still Believe In Me" beautifully cushions Brian's falsetto.

But frankly, my writing on that made me want to blow chunks. I listened to it again and had what I thought was a great idea: Five hundred words on the centerpiece, "God Only Knows," and five hundred words on the closer, "Caroline No." It was beautiful. Two of the most perfectly written, performed, and recorded songs given extensive analysis. The French horn as the instrumental equivalent of Brian's voice on "God Only Knows"; the whole album coming to its catharsis on that arching, aching "Oh Carol-i-i-ne, no" as the drums come up and envelop him; just to name a few.

But who's going to spend sixty bucks for two songs? That led me to #6: the contents of the box set. Chances are if you're debating about whether or not to buy this, you're already familiar with the original release and want to know what is special about it. I wrote about how Disc One is the first-ever release of the album in stereo (Brian is mostly deaf in one ear and always worked in mono). Then I talked about the extensive rehearsal takes that are included, which allow us to hear Brian Wilson interacting with the musicians, joking around with them, dispelling the myth that he was a control freak and a tyrant in those days. I finished it off with a description the two books that are included. One gives a brief overview of "Pet Sounds" and has lots of cool pictures, while the other extensively details the recording sessions, with interviews from virtually everybody who was involved (notably drummer Hal Blaine, bassist Carol Kaye, Marilyn Wilson, Brian's first wife and of course, Brian Wilson) in the making of the album, showing us that the album was not just the work of one man (even though it seems like I'm trying to prove the contrary) . The book closes with interviews from two guys who have made a few good records in their day: Sirs George Martin and Paul McCartney, who speak of its influence on their work, most significantly on "Sergeant Pepper."

But I never mentioned why the album was worthy of such treatment in the first place. So now I'm looking back at what I've written and I see that I've pretty much done about as good a job as I possibly can in condensing this masterpiece of American popular music for all of you. It's about 4:30 in the morning, and I've been listening to "Pet Sounds" for about three hours straight. I have to be at work in four hours so I think I'll send it off to Matt and let him proofread it. But before I go to sleep, I gotta hear it one more time...

"BOOM! Wouldn't it be nice ..."