1.09.2007

If You Want Me To Punch You In the Face

Simply tell me that the Beach Boys Pet Sounds is anything less than a work of staggering genius. It is guaranteed to put you on my "Must Punch," list with such luminaries as the cast of Friends and the people responsible for the travesty that is Pirates of the Carribean 2: Dead Man's Chest, which is such unbelievable garbage that I'm still mad I sat through it weeks ago. Seriously, I'm fuming inside whenever I think about how unbelievably stupid and pointless that film was.

[Sigh] Now I gotta go punch something.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Two questions for Pet Sounds:

1) Original Mono or Remastered Stereo

2) Rank among Revolver and Sgt Pepper's

Dylan Todd said...

To answer yr questions:

1) Either of them. The remastered stereo is pretty sweet, though the snob inside me still has a soft spot for the original version.

&

2) While it makes no sense, I love Pet Sounds more than either of them. There's such an amazing feeling of melancholy, even in the upbeat songs. Plus, it's sooo layered. I was listening to the sessions and it blew my mind how intricate everything is, despite feeling, at first blush, to be simple little, "teenage symphonies to God," as Brian Wilson once described them as.

Revolver is great pop music, amazing pop music (maybe my favorite Beatles album) and Sgt. Pepper's is a masterpiece, but, for my money, it's all about Pet Sounds.

Mainly because as brilliant as Sgt. Pepper's is, it feels a bit... academic at times. It's a little too self-aware, whereas Pet Sounds is effortlessly itself. Sgt. Pepper's is, to my ears, a little removed from human feeling. Revolver has some vitatlity to it, but in my mind, Pet Sounds is pure, unfiltered feeling. I don't know if that makes sense, but... there it is.