All-TIME 100 Albums

Pet Sounds

All of the original Beach Boys sang on Pet Sounds, but from the very beginning this was Brian Wilson’s autocratic attempt to recreate the noises in his head. Laying the groundwork for the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band a year later, Wilson plundered orchestra pits for new instruments and obsessed over the layering of what may be the most perfect harmonies in rock history. At the time of its release, Pet Sounds was a commercial disappointment, largely because it broke from the unadulterated chirpiness of the Beach Boys’ early work. “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “God Only Knows” teeter on the edge between adolescent euphoria and adult lament, while “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times” provided what was to become Wilson’s defining lyric: “Sometimes I feel very sad.”

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