Brian Wilson – Jason Hensel

The Rewind Button is a group blogging project that I’m participating in. We’re taking on Rolling Stone‘s Top 40 albums of all time and writing our own reviews of them. There will be a new album and review each Thursday.

I know a bit about Pet Sounds‘ history, but not a lot. And for this edition of the Rewind Button, I decided to forgo any research about it and give it a pure listen. I wanted to hear the songs as someone would for the first time in 1966, without Internet access.

Okay, so if I picked up this album at my local record retailer in 1966, I’d probably be all like, “Whoa, the Beach Boys are trippin’, man!” I’d turn to my friend and say, “Harold, put down that Simon & Garfunkel album. This one has sound effects.” And Harold would cock his ear toward it–he can tell I’m serious, because I’m speaking in italics–and chime in with a “it’s groovy man. The Beatles better watch their back.”

Alas, it’s 2012 and we know how this story ends. The Beatles counter with Sgt. Pepper’s and Brian Wilson goes mad.

For its time, though, it was good (maybe great on certain days). However, it doesn’t hold up for me. For this review, I listened to Pet Sounds about 10 times over the last two days. I often found myself looking at the track list to see how many more songs were left before it ended. Several times I found the music flourishes frustrating and unnecessary.

“After listening to it twice in a row one day, I couldn’t help but notice that I was feeling annoyed and sad,” wrote Dave Lefebvre, another Rewind Button reviewer, on Musicqwest. “It’s funny how something so light sounding can make you want to slit your wrists.”

Lefebvre raises the point that the lyrics are to blame for the annoyance. It’s true, Wilson’s lyrics trend toward the unhappy side of life. And just like with Sgt. Pepper’s music/lyric dichotomy, I appreciate this element on Pet Sounds. I also appreciate the use of call backs on the album. The most predominant one is “I Know There’s an Answer” and “Hang On To Your Ego.” Another one is “You Still Believe In Me” and “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times.” While not as overt as “Answer”/”Ego”, there is the same melodic movement in both.

It’s as if Wilson wanted to write an opera, reusing music and lyrics throughout for an overall theme. I’m not an opera fan. I often find it tedious, melodramatic and too ornate. Maybe that’s why Pet Sounds doesn’t sit well with me.

In an attempt to one-up The Beatles, Wilson goes over the top. He tries to pull listeners over to his side of the world. However, I prefer a little restraint with my madness, a little balance to my world. Pet Sounds is too much for me. It overwhelms in its effort to prove its genius.

Please visit these other blogs participating in The Rewind Button project:

Betty Livin

Love As A Verb

Life Doesn’t Have to Suck

Grad Student By Day

Renée Sylvestre-Williams

1throne: King of the Internets

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Sgt. Pepper broke Brian Wilson’s heart. He had a nervous breakdown after hearing the seminal album in 1967. Because of this, he didn’t complete the Beach Boys’ album Smile until 2004.

The specific song that affected Wilson so much was “A Day in the Life,” the last song on Sgt. Pepper. Perhaps it was that song’s final E-major chord that suffocated his creativity. That chord is a heavy door shutting on one of the Beatles’ most lyrically depressing albums.

Below the uplifting music, lyrics address loneliness, leaving, emptiness, and holes (fixing and filling them). And it’s this music/lyric dichotomy that is Sgt. Pepper‘s greatest strength. The album has character. It has emotions. It has good and bad days.

My dad framed his first pressing of Sgt. Pepper and hung it on the wall in his study. It’s one of the many albums he played around the house when I was growing up. As a child who preferred the make-up and theatrics of KISS and the Village People, I never appreciated the Beatles as I should have. I liked them, but at that time they were dad’s music.

Then came my teenage years and my flirtation with country music (old school, please, none of that Nashville pop) and hair metal bands. I remember shopping at Wal-Mart with my grandmother. This was when The Beatles’ albums were first released on CDs. I browsed the selections and almost bought Sgt. Pepper. I chose Guns and Roses instead.

It wasn’t until I got to college that I started to fully appreciate them and just how much they influenced all the other types of music I had been listening to. And when I was finally clued in, I wasted no time in catching up.

I admit that Sgt. Pepper is not my favorite Beatles album (that would be Rubber Soul). Still, as someone who appreciates darker lyrics, I find listening to it a satisfying experience. But it’s rare that I listen to it completely and in song order. I most often start with “A Day in the Life.”

Unlike Wilson, the song doesn’t choke my creativity. When I hear that final E-major chord and its slow ringing out, I start to think of how I can add to the song, what music I can write that could contribute to the art.

The greatest works of art are ones that inspire others to create more art, either through reflection or impersonation. That is why Sgt. Pepper sits atop Rolling Stone‘s Top 100 albums list. Listeners have found, and will continue to find, new things with every play. And they’ll want to immediately add their own views about it. Conversation rolls into conversation. Music into more music.

Unless, of course, you’re Brian Wilson.