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.”
All-TIME 100 Albums
The album may be dead, but it's certainly not forgotten. TIME's critics have chosen the 100 greatest and most influential musical compilations since 1954.
Pet Sounds
Full List
1950s
1960s
- Abbey Road
- Bitches Brew
- Stand!
- Astral Weeks
- The Band
- At Folsom Prison
- Lady Soul
- The Beatles (“The White Album”)
- Are You Experienced
- I Never Loved a Man the Way I Loved You
- Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
- The Velvet Underground and Nico
- Blonde on Blonde
- Pet Sounds
- Revolver
- Highway 61 Revisited
- Otis Blue
- Rubber Soul
- A Love Supreme
- Live at the Apollo (1963)
- Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music
- King of the Delta Blues
1970s
- London Calling
- One Nation Under a Groove
- Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols
- Rumours
- Hotel California
- Ramones
- Songs in the Key of Life
- Born to Run
- Horses
- Red Headed Stranger
- Call Me
- Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
- The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust
- Exile on Main Street
- Talking Book
- The Harder They Come
- Blue
- Coat of Many Colors
- Hunky Dory
- Led Zeppelin IV (a.k.a. Zoso)
- Paranoid
- Sticky Fingers
- Tapestry
- What’s Going On
- Who’s Next
- After the Gold Rush
- Bridge Over Troubled Water
- John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
- Moondance
1980s
- Like a Prayer
- Paul’s Boutique
- The Stone Roses
- It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
- Straight Outta Compton
- Straight Outta Compton
- Document
- Paid in Full
- Sign O’ The Times
- The Joshua Tree
- Graceland
- Master of Puppets
- Raising Hell
- Legend
- Stop Making Sense
- The Great Twenty-Eight
- Thriller
- Back in Black
- Purple Rain
1990s
2000s