Douglas Laman Gets A Tune-Up (Entry #1): Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys

DOUGLAS LAMAN GETS A TUNE-UP

ENTRY #1: Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys

Douglas Laman Gets A Tune-Up is a new weekly series wherein Douglas Laman listens to an album of music he's never fully listened to before (though he may have heard one or two songs from it) and writes up his brief thoughts on it.

This 1966 album by The Beach Boys seem like a Trojan Horse of music in retrospect. In the years since its release, we know all about Brian Wilsons difficulties coping with his mental health problems and songs that might have been dismissed in the albums initial release as “Derivative” or what not take on a whole new layer of meaning in the context of the realities we are now aware of in regards to what Brian Wilson was struggling with. A song like I Guess I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times now gets a whole extra layer of tragedy to it, as Wilson’s vocals seem to be crying out for help while wearing the guise of being another peppy 1960’s bands.

That level of further introspection brought on from external circumstances does lend the album some unexpected depth, though it still works as solid music on its own merits. The structure itself of the album is particularly interesting to me, as it starts off on a more jazzy high-energy note (the first song is Wouldn’t It Be Nice, which is still a keeper) before transitioning into more somber material like Caroline No.

The instrumental accompaniment on the various songs on the album (which is heavy on softly plucking the strings of a guitar and the occasional presence of a tambourine in the background) sometimes feels like it blends together when you’re listening to the various tracks back-to-back but they work fine on their own merits and special kudos go out to the lovely instrumental accompaniment in Wouldn’t It Be Nice which is an indispensable part of why the song works so well as a lively piece of music. There’s also various interludes where the instruments are allowed to go to town without the accompaniment of Wilson’s vocals (such as the ending of Caroline No or the entirety of Pet Sounds) that show some real talent from these members of the band.

The best song of the bunch is easily God Only Knows, which serves as the perfect encapsulation of the album itself; it’s a piece of music that manages to gain extra levels of effectiveness when you know aspects of Brian Wilson’s real life (namely, how his wife basically saved his life) but even without that real world resonance, it’s still a well-made song with well-written lyrics and a unique sound to its instrumental accompaniment. There's lots to unpack in The Beach Boys work in terms of how it connected to Brian Wilson's tumultuous life but there's also some outright incredible music to be found in Pet Sounds, plain and simple.