Pet Sounds

The Beach Boys earlier work seemed very youthful and chipper. Pet Sounds seems very more song driven and a bit more mature. The change from the Beach Boys party songs to the songs of pet sounds shows the growth in maturity and musicianship from album to album. Brian Wilson is somewhat consider the driving force of the Beach Boys. He was the writer, producer, and sometimes the lead singer. He was influenced to write and record Pet Sounds because he heard the Beatles Rubber Sole. He Said that he never heard an album that all of the songs fit so well together. Brian spent countless hours in the studio formulating his ideas for pet sounds. I believe the reason why Pet Sounds is such a great album is because most of it was co-written by Tony Asher, a very successful Jingle writer. I believed this helped the album become what it is today because the songs are very catchy hence, they were written by a jingle writer. I feel that prior to Pet Sounds the Beach Boys records were just recorded. It seems to me that they did not take as much time to fully think and plan out their tracks. Also, prior to Pet Sounds most of their material is very up-tempo. Pet Sounds is very calming to me, the listener. When I hear it, it reminds me of easy listening music. It is very different from other music during the 1960’s era because of its wide variety of instruments. Most songs during that time were just guitars, bass, a drum kit, and maybe a brass instrument but Pet Sounds used very uncommon things like bells and whistles. It is especially different from the music that Motown Records was creating because no other group of singers mastered the art of harmonizing like the Beach Boys did. 

Dionta Lyle