Prior to recording Pet sounds the beach boys had a pretty
squeaky clean image. They made music that wouldn’t be considered strange or
anything. You can almost see their image just from listening to their music up
to this time. Also up until the time they had recorded pet sounds they had
“filler” tracks on the records (like covers or non originals) and pet sounds
was their first to incorporate all originals. This affects their image because
it gave them more artistic integrity having all originals. Wilson’s role within
the beach boys was that of the leader. He was much the “Lennon” of the beach
boys. Writing most of their material and being the main image of the band. He
also played a big role in the production of what they would sound like once
everything was released. I got the
impression that Wilson’s main influence in recording and writing the majority
of Pet Sounds was The Beatles record Rubber Soul that was released in December
of the previous year. He uses a lot of vocal harmony and although that was
something that he employed before he certainly mastered it on pet sounds. I
feel that this was gained from studying the Beatles record. Listening to the
music you get the message that the whole album in really introspective and
focused inward on Wilson’s own psyche. This may in part be due to the use of
LSD that was so rampant in the 1960s. The difference when listening to Pet
Sounds as an audio profession as opposed to anyone else is how great Wilson was
a producing. As just a listener you hear the songs and just think “hey that
sounds really pretty” but the audio professional in me asks why or how they got
it to be so good. The first thing is the harmonies created by layering voices.
In my opinion it is some of the best vocal harmony every recorded. Although
this really doesn’t set it apart from other recordings of the 60s they truly do
it much better than anyone else. The other thing that is great is how when I
listen to it, it doesn’t seem one dimension like a lot of music from that time.
It has more dynamics and there is this feeling that the tracks are “deep”. Not
many others use space as well as Pet Sounds
Steve,
ReplyDeleteYour blog on the Pet Sounds album meets the criteria for MH2. I liked that your blog contained a lot of original ideas and that you didn’t just point out the obvious points about the album. Overall, everything flowed together pretty well however, one thing that I would have done different would be to have separate paragraphs for your different ideas. By doing this I think it would make your blog a bit easier to read. Other than that, the content is there and it looks good. I look forward to reading your future blog posts. You did great job.
-Jahan Gonzalez