Pet Sounds - Your reaction the first time you heard it?

I bought the album about 15 years ago when the stereo/mono twofer version came out. I thought it was great and it was very unlike anything else in my collection, which at that time was around 300 albums. I wouldn't say that I thought it was a masterpiece, but it had a "magical" feel and and the dejected/lonely teenage lyrics were something I could relate to a bit. It definitely made me realize that there was more to The Beach Boys than just the great pop singles that I knew them for. It took a couple of years before I started exploring more of their discography (via the twofers), but more treasure was certainly to be found.

These days I certainly feel that it still is the best thing "The Boys" & Brian ever did (yes, even with Smile finally coming out), but I don't think it stands that far ahead of all the rest of their stuff. If I were to compile a 40-track personal "Best of the Beach Boys" anthology, I'd probably only put 4 or 5 tracks from Pet Sounds on it. Originally, I definitely preferred the stereo mix, but these days when I spin the album it's usually the "wall of sound" mono mix - I prefer a little mystery in there if you know what I mean.

P.S. - the two instrumentals on the album are gold, IMO. In no way are they filler.

 

I just don't get The Beach Boys (even though I have a greatest hits compilation CD somewhere) but I respect them for what they did and achieved. That being said, I almost never listen to 'm. But enjoy a tune or two when my oldie station plays 'm.

 

Again, it's a timing thing. I had Sgt Peppers a good 8 years or so before I bothered with PS. I was only ever a fan of their singles (although I owned 'Holland' and loved that). Like many, I picked up PS as it kept appearing on so many lists. Curiosity got the better of me. Had I picked it up on release, when I was eight, I might now have a different opinion. Or not. And Sgt Pepper is better anyway.

 

I bought Pet Sounds within it's first week of release. I was still somewhat new to buying records as I had only had my own record player for about six months. Up until that time I was listening to records on my parents console TV thing. But, once I could play anything I wanted, whenever I wanted, every spare penny went to buying LPs and 45s.
As an almost 16 year old, I was familiar with the BBs radio hits and not a lot more. Pet Sounds was my first Beach Boys album. I loved it on first spin and still do. I may have had a total of 50 LPs at the time and immediately it was top two or three, with Rubber Soul at number one. Pet Sounds has remained in my top three ever since, as well as Rubber Soul.
I call it beginners luck.

 

Yes!

 

Absolutely confused. I got it on cassette in the 80s when I was about 8 or 9. I was well consumed with their early singles and wanted to get my hands on more of their work. Pet Sounds was described to me as being a "different" experience, but I didn't care - I just wanted more. The description was correct: it's very different (as you all know). I knew "Wouldn't It Be Nice" and "God Only Knows", but the rest of that material was very detailed and interesting in a way that the early singles were not. And not that the early singles were now considered child's play. It's just that I didn't quite get where all the surf/beach themes went and why all of a sudden they sounded so mature. I was okay with it and after a few listens I really started to "get it" (or at least I thought I did). It all made really wonderful sense to me when I was 12 or 13.

It's a remarkable piece of work and I can only hope that new young musicians that are coming up will have the same experience with it as I did as a young musician.

 

I heard it as a teenager in the early 80's.
Having immersed myself in Endless Summer and Spirit of America, I was surprised by how many songs were unfamiliar to me.

Made me realize, and excited, that there was more great Beach Boys music out there to be discovered.

 

Didn't like it then, don't like it now.

 

Probably the most high-profile Pet Sounds hater was Keith Moon, otherwise a huge Beach Boys fan.

 

Interesting because Keith Moon is the one (alongside Bruce Johnston) who brought John & Paul Pet Sounds so they can hear the greatness too.
If it wasn't for Keith Moon who knows if The Beatles would've ever heard the album or pay it any mind.

 

In my opinion, you're doing something wrong if your album takes twenty listens to "get it".

 

Maybe no Penny Lane as we know it but there would have been a Sgt. Pepper.

 

I first owned and heard Pet Sounds as the bonus LP in the Carl & The Passions 2-fer. That was about 40-years ago. I wasn’t too impressed with the new album after Surf’s Up and I was confused by the inclusion of Pet Sounds in the package… it was an odd way to reissue an album. But then, "reissues" weren’t really in the parlance of rock music at the time.

I don’t remember my first reaction and I didn’t understand the reverence I was expected to bring to the table; its historical “importance” wasn’t a given like it is now. I liked the album and in the next couple of years I started to understand its significance, but I initially approached it as a curiosity.

I love Pet Sounds. I’m not a musician and I don’t try to decode the arrangements or get overly analytical about the lyrical content. The music delivers emotional impact and I take it more or less at face value. And I’ve never understood the antipathy towards Sloop John B... it fits-in just fine to my ears.

 

To me it always sounded unfinished.
I never understood the way of fading out most of the songs at places, where no one expects a fade.

 

Having only played guitar and studied theory for a year or so when it came out in 1966, it threw me for a loop ear wise.
You have to totally change your expectations of tension and release and resolution when you listen to the album. Bass guitar arrangement also.

 

I did not like it at all. I do now.

 

"Crap!"
Now I like it...

 

Caroline No is unfinished. Mike once said that there was supposed to be backing vocals but it was never included because Capitol rushed the record.
He even speaks briefly about that in this video.

 

Disappointment. Extreme and powerful. I had heard "Wouldn't It Be Nice" and absolutely loved that song (anybody else remember it being used in an episode of King of the Hill's first season-pure genius) and "God Only Knows," which is so beautiful that I don't listen to it much-I hate coming to the end. The rest? Mostly it seemed like a mopey, drama-queen (I am not making any homophobic remark here, I mean that in the context I grew up with regarding the term, where the most "macho" guys could (and often were) drama-queens) whining in his room. I MUST be wrong about this album, and I have tried for decades to change my view-I would love to enjoy an entire lp as much as I do those two songs, but I can't. I'm 52 next month so if was going to happen, it probably would have. No disrespect meant to anybody.

 

My first reaction was silence. Iwas totally blown away by the strong production quality of it. Caroline no made feel like it has happened to a guy like me.
I recall it. I was a teen and had bad luck with a girl . The lyrics were just the way i felt.
Along with Beatles for sale it has strongest lyrics in pop ( for a teenager)
But even nowadays the record gives me something special even the smile sessions cant come near that.
Along with "..Today" probably Wilsons best work.

 

Honestly I thought "Was that it? Is this the great masterwork?" I was quite dissapointed.
It changed later and today it is among my favourite records.

 

I thought it was great since I always associated The Beach Boys with surf music. Little did I know.

 

Growing up in the 70's I wasn't much of a Beach Boys fan. I knew them from their early hits and some of their 70's singles like 'Rock N Roll Music'. I didn't think of them as an album band because I wasn't educated on that period of their career. I knew the singles from Pet Sounds, 'Wouldn't It Be Nice', 'Sloop John B', 'God Only Knows', but I didn't know the album beyond the title. I always had it on my list as an album I needed to check out, but it took me until after college to finally give it a listen. That was probably in 1990 when the first CD reissue with bonus tracks came out. I was underwhelmed, to say the least. I listened through a few times before putting it away. It wasn't for me.

Fast forward to the late 1990's. Not exactly sure why, but I picked up the Pet Sounds Sessions box set. I think it may have been on sale, or I had a gift card. Maybe it was the promise of all the unreleased tracks and the chance to hear raw vocal tracks, isolated instruments, etc. I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff. Listening to that box all the way through I finally "got it". I think part of it was, and this is going to come off as blasphemous to some (most?) of you, that I love the stereo version of this album, but in the past I had only heard the mono versions, or maybe a lousy stereo mix. I spent about 6 months listening pretty much exclusively to this. One of the many albums that I got wrong on first listen.

 

confusion as I tried to figure out who Carl and the Passions were!

 

Initially I didn't like it. I waited a few years listened to it again and still didn't like it. Finally, on my third try I 'got it'.