Investigating musical genius by listening to the Beach Boys a lot

If the author's question is "what is it that makes Pet Sounds such a great album", and they are aware that critics say this:

> Pet Sounds revolutionized the field of music production and the role of producers within the music industry, introduced novel approaches to orchestration, chord voicings, and structural harmonies, and furthered the cultural legitimization of popular music, a greater public appreciation for albums, the use of recording studios as an instrument, and the development of psychedelic music and progressive/art rock ...

Then why not study those aspects of the album? It seems like those are historical and technical innovations, not esthetic or preferential. They are saying "look at all the ways this album changed the world." The author's strategy instead was to listen to other Beach Boys albums, then listen to Pet Sounds again, and expect to have an epiphany. I think that's a hopeless strategy, and probably misses the point anyway.

This sounds like the Seinfeld effect.

The things that were revolutionary at the time have been so copied and are now so commonplace that they seem utterly mundane.

You can’t understand Pet Sounds as a person in 2022 who has lived their whole life in the world that Pet Sounds created. You have to be the person in 1966 who never heard anything like it before.

> God Only Knows is by far my favorite track on the album, but “often praised as one of the greatest songs ever written”? Hmm.

* what key is it in, and how can you tell?

* did you hear the grand reunion of themes at the end, or the counterpoint in the interlude (fucking counterpoint in pop music!)?

* how can you even tell that you've arrived at the chorus the first time? Isn't the music supposed to change for the chorus?

* just noticed this one: when the melody starts the 3rd verse, the strings are still busy playing through an accompanimental phrase that started in the previous chorus. So accompaniment, main melody and sectional divisions are tapered

* just sing the goddamned melody out loud. Listen how it outlines and suggests it own chordal accompaniment, while at the same time it has a clear, catchy melodic shape and goal. Also take note of the range-- it's actually difficult to sing because of some of the melodic leaps required

In short, this is a melody and setting on par with the theme from Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, or an aria by Bellini.

Edit: since author mentioned Coltrane-- it's worth noting that the first 10 minutes of Love Supreme is Coltrane doing Beethovenian motivic variations over a groove. Beethovenian motivic variations are so prominent even today because they are a surefire way to create musical coherence. E.g., even if Coltrane had a bad night you've still got a hundred chances to hear transpositions, elongations, juxtapositions, and forward development of that little motive over the groove. There's built-in redudancy there.

On the other hand, if you're going to write a pithy melody with a clear rhyming scheme like "God Only Knows," you'd better have every rhythmic and melodic proportion mapped out exactly as you want it. Melodic prowess is more like solving some kind of musical sudoko-- if you don't get it right then the entire audience will hear how it doesn't add up properly.

I think the mistake listening to Pet Sounds is to expect audio pyrotechnics, some sort of forcefulness or "wow" factor that separates it from the rest of the albums of its time. It's almost the exact opposite.

Instead of musical forcefulness or bombast, Brian Wilson doubled down on an almost shocking emotional honesty and tenderness. Nobody can deny the majesty of the 1812 Orchestra or Flight of the Valkyries, but Pet Sounds is the gentle sound of a summer romance blowing away in the breeze as the leaves change color. The instrumentation and production draws more on the soundtracks of the '60s than straight-ahead rock; it's filmic but quiet and understated. In the right state of mind, it puts you in touch with yearning and loss at the same time it's as light and lush as a sunny weekend drive down the coast.

This, of course, was a terrible mistake commercially - few in 1966 who were fans of "Surfin' Safari" or "California Girls" wanted an album of sweet romantic yearning with a light but heavily orchestrated sound. In fact, many today still don't want that. But that's what's there; an emotional and orchestral complexity missing from other works of the time made at the expense of AM-radio stomp.

This is not a serious attempt to understand or appreciate this music in any way. Four hours is not “a lot” of listening by any stretch of the imagination, and the author does not delve into any of the aspects of this music that make it unique.

I’m disappointed that this has ended up on HN.

There are facts and then there are options, but somewhere in the middle is taste. To me taste is like a fact that you can’t prove, and is also difficult to discuss because it’s hard to communicate about. Basically, I believe taste exists, but only to other people who have taste.

Obviously there’s plenty of room for subjectivity, but what I’m trying to describe is a certain feeling, a certain wavelength, that I think is hard for people to get who aren’t already there. Coincidentally software engineering is another realm where there’s definitely this mystical taste, but again any time you try to shed light on what you mean it’s like people almost intentionally try to torpedo your attempt at making a point.

In the end though the music and the code speak for themselves, and Pet Sounds to me really is the ultimate. It’s uncomplicated yet emotional lyrics. Each song’s melody is just so catchy. The whole thing has this romantic early 60s American feeling. The album makes me think of George Lucas’ American Grafiti but as music. It’s simultaneously nostalgic but to me still feels fresh.

I think very few bands today could make something so masterful. I just absolutely love that album.

I don’t know though, when I was reading the review I felt sorry for the person. It seemed like they were far away from this sense of taste. Comparing love supreme with pet sounds is like comparing a sandwich to some really complicated culinary masterpiece. Both are good, but they’re very different.

Sometimes it’s more pedestrian things that are done really well that are what is most impressive to me. If it’s critically good but also has mass appeal then you’ve done something very impressive.

Or I guess it’s also like comparing Hemingway to Joyce. Clearly Joyce is on another level as a writer and I enjoy him very much. That being said, if I had to pick whose head I’d rather be in for an hour or two I would pick Hemingway.

So any way, love supreme is good and so is Joyce, but so is pet sounds and Hemingway. To me though, ultimately pet sounds takes the cake for best album of the century, but it’s really difficult to explain why because it comes down to taste. If you try to make music and you try to balance all these different elements: ambition, mass appeal, melody and harmony, etc… it’s just basically perfect.

Also I don’t think this just because it’s old and important. I really just like the album.

Some seriously good commentary here, even if the original article isn't up to HN's usual level.

Even though I dislike the Beach Boys, this all put a smile on my face this morning. As a former budding and aspiring music critic, I appreciate all these perspectives. ;) Thank you all.

I'll just suggest that music is a remarkable thing, miraculous even. Something so hopelessly scrutinized, yet so hopefully refined by criticism, created (or maybe captured) by the artists because the best seem to just have to do it. Competition, even in music for better or worse, produces emotionally profound results.

I am so grateful for the many people and many technologies and techniques that enable me to reach that emotional-mystical place some have mentioned in the comments. Thanks again for the reminder this morning!

Off to listen to Pet Sounds now. Then maybe Pet Shop Boys.

Some of the acclaimed genius is something you can't hear in the finished album, you'd need to know what the single track studio takes sounded like. Some of those proclaiming how revolutionary "Pet Sounds" was had working familiarity with such things, but their audience didn't.

I think the biggest break was the realization that they were aiming at a low fidelity channel and working to that, rather than holding themselves to a "it would sound good live" standard which was irrelevant because it was never going to be a live arrangement.

The author quoting critical appreciation of Pet Sounds:

> Pet Sounds revolutionized the field of music production and the role of producers within the music industry [...] the use of recording studios as an instrument.

When comparing A Love Supreme favorably to Pet Sounds:

> I’d guess you’ll think it’s a great deal more complex, cohesive, impressive, and interesting in just about every way (other than the lack of prominent "studio effects") than Pet Sounds.

The author simply isn't interested studio production, which is the primary axis Pet Sounds is so highly regarded on.

My only exposure to Pet Sounds as a cultural touchstone was the Doonesbury storyline in 1990 when Andy Lippincott, dying from AIDS, lived long enough to hear the album on CD.

* https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1990/05/21

People say Pet Sounds is good because it invented modern studio recording. That's interesting but Birth of a Nation invented feature films and it's unwatchable.

I really like Pet Sounds. It's The Beach Boys, who sing songs about beaches and girls and surfing, but the whole album is suffused with melancholy. Every song is sad. It's an interesting juxtaposition.

The article references A Love Supreme, which is also great. But in some sense what The Beach Boys are doing is harder than what Coltrane is doing. They're taking a subject matter and art form that are broad, trashy, often associated with kitsch, taking them really seriously, and producing something that avoids all the usual pitfalls when someone writes pop songs about their feelings.

I think it has more to do with the “sea change” it represented at the time. One can easily point to that album as a point in music history from which whole new varieties of pop/rock bloomed. Of course it is never that simple, but history has to be condensed into simple terms to make it comprehensible and consumable.

Regardless of how any single individual might feel about it (my audiophile uncle very much dislikes The Beach Boys), their music can’t be overlooked in the history and a great many people enjoy it to this day — thus standing the test of time to a degree that most music does not.

This reminds me of Lady Gaga. When I first heard her music, I thought she was just another pop performer. But when I saw her play a live performance, I realized that she was playing up the silly pop performer trope while being a serious musician underneath it.

Similarly, I think the Beach Boys probably get discounted by many, including myself, because the genre they have chosen, and their style and aesthetic, scream not to be taken seriously. But, if you do anyway, there is some incredible musicianship in there. God Only Knows, cited by another commenter, is a great example.

I question what credentials this author has. The premise of their Beethoven series (Why has no musician in the modern era achieved the stature of Beethoven, despite a much higher population of potential artists today?) seems ludicrous on its face. I shouldn't say credentials, when I mean credibility. I haven't heard a single credible thought from the author yet, besides the suggestion to check out the Beach Boys, which was a good one.

I’m surprised this hasn’t been linked to yet: Brian Wilson/The Beach boys’ supposed genius was the product of an intentional marketing campaign https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Wilson_is_a_genius

Half of genius is the willingness to obsess. To dive into your beautiful subject, plumb its ecstatic occult depths, and leave everything else in your world to rot.

The other half is this amazing phenomenon. When you focus upon a thing, a sight, sound, thought or whatever, for a time, when you concentrate, that thing becomes transparent. The original form dissolves, revealing deeper, realer, form. And then it keeps happening. Deeper and deeper. Funny you don't see much talk of this outside occult circles.

A whole article about The Beach Boys’ genius and not a single mention of Kokomo.

Lot of great comments here, pointing that to really understand something, you need to invest in understanding the context. A moment that drove this home for me was hearing “I’m Waiting For The Day” for the first time, nodding along to some cliched lyrics with sentimental swelling strings, and then BAM you get hit with the change up. Suddenly there’s a maudlin, jangling arrangement over syncopated rhythm that staggers into Brian Wilson baring his teeth, all gloating and possessive, with direct physical imagery replacing the dewy euphemisms the song starts with. It’s physical, but there’s nothing romantic about it. Then you’re back in the gentle strings, with Brian Wilson whispering sweet reassurances and you can never hear this song, or perhaps any of the top 40 songs of the time it imitates in the same way again. It’s the kind of song that could change your world if you were a teenager in the 60s, or now.

Highly recommend Smile by Brian Wilson too. It’s caught out of time but a masterwork of what was coming. As we lose musical prodigies to their genius, for decades and forever, their impact moves me and my family by the grace of bringing emotions of life to the listening experience. This author seems to forget that important history, when pop became deeply personal.

I really like Sloop John B. The rest of Pet Sounds is... completely boring and dull to me.

Agree with this analysis. Cheesy pop songs. The genius of that era is pretty well established, at most I see The Beach Boys tangentially inspiring others both with their music and behind the Laurel Canyon music scene.

Back to the original argument of this article: it does feel sometimes that there are as many stars in that patch as stupidity in our human friends in the current world we live in. Sigh.

When I was young I listened through The Rolling Stones 100 best Rock Albums. The fact that Pet Sounds even made the top 10 was always baffling to me.

>Or maybe I’m the one hearing (or failing to hear) things? I would love to hear from any readers who could give me any idea of what kind of headspace I’d have to inhabit to find Pet Sounds more impressive, enjoyable, or [any positive adjective]4 than A Love Supreme!

We're very deep in the subjectivity foxhole here, but nevertheless, from one person who never had any clue as to why people enjoy Jazz (other than it's "cool" to claim that you like it), I find Pet Sounds a million times better than anything Coltrane ever did.

You can optimize this using the Unix shell and some utilities:

echo "Beach Boys" | sed s/e// | sed s/Boys//

I get that sounding like a big greasy blob is great for AM radio as you cruise PCH, but these days it feels like kinda gimmicky.

this is cute. i dont know if this is correct or not. but in this day and age this is the type of silly curiosity i need more of in my life. you absolute dork. thanks

> Musical Genius

> The Beach Boys

These two things simply don't belong together. Chord voicing and structural harmonies? That's stuff that dates back to the early 17th century at the latest. It's quite literally 400 years old, and you can trace its gradual development in the previous century which gets you to stuff that's 500 years old(!). Now, orchestration I might of course give you: a modern pop song is just as complex in instrumentation as anything written for voice + orchestra, and possibly more so. But you can't separate that from purely technical developments, there's very little specifically musical about those. Orchestral cantatas and operas still date back to the early 18th c. or so, so we're talking 300 years old as the age of actual "musical genius" in these domains.