7/8/2023 0 Comments Pet sounds sessions![]() ![]() Instead, those lyrics are heartbreakingly honest and affecting. (Asher has commented that many of the song's themes came directly from the composer, with his job to "translate" those thoughts into lyric form.) In the hands of lesser talents, the sentiments of "You Still Believe in Me" ("I want to cry.") or "That's Not Me" ("I'm a little bit scared.") could have come across as maudlin. It's heady counterpoint to "Wouldn't It Be Nice," but even more effective considering how Wilson had laid his soul bare in between. For three minutes, it's sheer pop bliss.īy the end of the album, some 35 minutes or so later, Wilson and Asher - two twentysomethings - were elegizing innocence itself with the plaintive cry of "Caroline No." Brian's vocal is raw, unaccompanied by the lush harmonies of his brothers, cousin and friends, and nakedly emotional. Wilson deployed imaginatively unusual instrumentation - including rock-and-roll accordions, a tack piano, bells and tympani - to support his melody which expresses the same feelings as the lyrics: the determined assertion of "You know it's gonna make it that much better," the sheer hope of "Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true," the simple, blithely heart-tugging "Oh, we could be married, and then we'd be happy." And you believe they will. "Wouldn't it be nice," asks The Beach Boys in Pet Sounds' opening song, "if we were older? Then we wouldn't have to wait so long/And wouldn't it be nice to live together/In the kind of world where we belong?" In that brief stanza, Wilson and Asher capture the essence of youth on the cusp of change and adulthood, hoping that the promise of better days will come true: that they will marry and one day "belong." It's a desire that's every bit as universal today, and not simply for the young, either. ![]() ![]() ![]() With Asher and Wilson spurring each other to new heights, the result was an attractively unconventional song cycle of great sensitivity and bold emotion. His songs had naturally touched on teenage themes before, from romance to desire and even loneliness, but never with the newfound maturity provided by lyricist Tony Asher. What sets Pet Sounds apart? Though Wilson had hinted at its melodic intricacy and complex beauty on The Beach Boys Today! ("Please Let Me Wonder," "She Knows Me Too Well") and Summer Days (And Summer Nights!) ("Let Him Run Wild," "Summer Means New Love"), it was only on Pet Sounds that his ambitions entirely crystallized. This compelling presentation simultaneously streamlines and expands 1996's 4-CD The Pet Sounds Sessions to chronicle and explore Brian Wilson's masterwork from its earliest stages to its afterlife. The latest iteration has just arrived from Capitol Records and UMe in a variety of formats - most notably a 4-CD/1-Blu-ray box set. As of 2016, Pet Sounds has seen over ten distinct CD and SACD reissues not to mention vinyl, DVD-Audio, and so on. 10 on the Billboard chart at the time of its original release. It took until the compact disc era for Pet Sounds to be fully appreciated the album wasn't certified platinum until early 2000, and only rose as far as No. The talents of Brian Wilson, Tony Asher, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson and Bruce Johnston coalesced in one unforgettable place and time to create music's most exquisite realization of both the exultant joy and beautiful melancholy of adolescence. 50 years have passed since the original release of The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, yet it still stands alone in the rock canon. ![]()
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