The use of session musicians on Beach Boys “Pet Sounds”

I could care less if session musicians were used on Pet Sounds or any other album. The finished product is what matters.

 

I think it’s like saying “how do you feel about the Beatles using session musicians for some of their songs like For No One, A Day in the Life, Steawberry Fields”. - ponder that and get back to me

 

No it doesn't matter to me.
I can't believe anyone would actually care about this now, honestly.

 

If the Beach Boys were the only instrumentalists on that session the record wouldn't have been made. I prefer having the record exist over it being lost due to less than stellar musicianship.

 

A lot of singing

 

Well, drums, bass, guitar and keyboards could have been played by group nembers. It would take way more time but it could have been done. But at the end of the day the group didn't care a lot about that anyway.

Now, the lead vocals. it would be a better album if you had more leads for Mike, Carl, Dennis and Al. Like for Today and SDSN. When I listen to those records I never think "oh I wish Brian had sung everything".

 

I'd say half Beach Boys hits were performed by or with session musicians.
That's a basic fact of 60s hit making recording knowledge in general. There's no loss of integrity because of it. Some seem to think so.
Most contemporary hits have NO musicians on them! The producer just applies 'copy and paste' and, voila! There's your hit!

The Beach Boys were nowhere near the caliber of musician needed to make Brian's arrangements work.
I find it odd anyone would still call it out!

 

Also it looks like the OP disappeared after posting such an odd thread topic.

 

Beach Boys are a vocal group. They could play but they had already used studio musicians on albums before Pet Sounds. The album is perfect or as close as one can get. The correct choices were made.

 

You would get a Sgt Pepper like thing with 100's of overdubs

 

I would probably listen to music that is solely the wrecking crew, so no it does not bother me. One of my favorite parts of pet sounds is Carol’s bass honestly.

 

Carol’s , Ray’s, and Lyle’s (and Brian’s on “That’s Not Me.”)

 

I was thinking about a similar topic the other day. Brian is often compared to McCartney in several ways, one of them being that they both play bass. While Paul is considered a great bassist with many cool bass lines, you don't hear about Brian. Are there some pre-Wrecking Crew examples of great Brian basslines or not so much? Nothing I can think of.

 

It’s actually a legitimate question though. Does it bother you or not? At one point I was really bound the romance of the self contained unit(even though in fact it never was that way for anyone.) Pet Sounds really discards that notion and thus challenges a lot of fans who feel like that’s the only way music is “authentic.”
Sothe question is why is that not authentic? Should Brian have limited his amazing powers of composition, arrangement and production in order to conform to some arbitrary notion of rawk authenticity? Is Hal Blaine an inherently less “authentic” drummer than Dennis Wilson? I think it’s an interesting question.

 

"Caroline No" was released as a single credited to Brian Wilson.

 

McCartney’s great baselines were inspired by Brian’s work —he wrote the baselines that the Wrecking Crew members played. No one really calls McCartney a great bassist for his work on “Can’t Buy Me Love.”

It’s his Beach Boys inspired baselines (which he ran with and did something different with , as he was not bound to a producer/composer’s vision like the Wrecking Crew were under Brian’s auspices.)


Brian certainly wrote baselines that were a little unorthodox as early as “In My Room” though Al Jardine played the bass on that (Brian played organ.) Al in fact played more bass on record than Brian did; but Brian wrote his bass lines, too.

Both McCartney and Brian developed but they were in fact very different musicians and I don’t like comparisons between the teo: they are a bit facile and weird. They just don’t sound that much alike.

Brian’s greatness is as a composer/arranger/ producer, not as a performer, although he was a great singer obviously.

 

Yeah, I guess I don't find Brian's vision all that appealing is the thing...

 

Yeah, Ok. But some people clearly do. And that is not really the topic.

 

According Wikipedia’s list of Personnel on the Album, Capitol Records must not have been too thrilled when they received the catering bill during the recording.

 

Yeah....it was definitely not cheap to work that way. That's the reason why the next two albums were recorded by the Beach Boys in Brian's living room!

 

Not at all. Does the fact that George Martin did many of the keyboard parts on The Beatles songs make you think significantly less of Help!, Rubber Soul, and Revolver? Does that fact that Billy Preston played keyboards on Let It Be bother you? How about the orchestrations and production George Martin applied to some of The Beatles songs?

For Pet Sounds, Brian Wilson had ideas in his head. The band sang the melody and harmonies. Wilson needed to flesh out the band in order to create the sound he needed.

 

It's not a big deal to me... that's how Motown operated in the day - the band that appeared on stage was not the one in the recording studio.

 

Well the four Beatles were there for the basic tracks of guitar bass and drums. Auxiliary instruments were handled by George Martin and others. Billy Preston and Eric Clapton were guest musicians. They didn’t get Hal Blaine to play drums or Glen Campbell to play guitar. They handled those basics themselves.

 

But they didn’t play those basics like Hal Blaine or Glen Campbell; that’s why Brian used Hal Blaine and Glen Campbell. Because he wanted them to play what he wanted and he wanted it done quickly and the Beach Boys were touring anyway.

Also Brian’s methods were different anyway. He mostly recorded those tracks live. Some of those songs have three different basslines played by three different bassists at once.

He didn’t overdub for six months straight. Different records, that sound different, made by different methods and different musicians.

 

Matter of opinion