UPCOMING
Brian Wilson and his touring band promise two sets, the first typically consisting of more than a dozen Beach Boys numbers. The second finds “Pets Sounds” performed in its entirety, the last time audiences will have the chance to experience it live. Earlier shows in the tour have been wrapping with an additional five- to six-song encore.
Brian Wilson. 8 p.m. Sept. 9. $46.50-$76.50. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 855-285-8499, foxtheatre.org.
There was no mass critical cheer or chart-topping stateside success upon initial release, but 50 years later some call the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds” the best pop album ever, and its influence rolls on like an endless summer.
The album washed away the group’s fun-in-the-sun reputation with its deeply personal introspection, unconventional arrangements and instrumentation, and unprecedented studio sorcery. At the helm was Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson, who produced and arranged the album and penned most of the tunes. Wilson brings his tour marking the album’s 50th anniversary to the Fox Theatre Sept. 9.
In the 2014 Wilson biopic “Love & Mercy,” actor Paul Dano depicts Wilson at work, pushing boundaries by bringing animals into the studio, plucking piano strings with bobby pins and conducting famed studio musicians known as the Wrecking Crew.
The results made Wilson something of a Pied Piper of pop. Among the album’s devotees is arguably its most famous, Paul McCartney, who cites it as a pivotal influence on The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” released a year later.
Legions of others, from concept rockers Pink Floyd to contemporary alt-poppers Tame Impala, wear “Pet Sounds” stripes. Rolling Stone ranked “Pet Sounds” second behind “Sgt. Pepper’s” in its original “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” issue from 2003. And, since 2005, “Pet Sounds” has been residing in the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry.
To celebrate “Pet Sounds” turning 50, and to welcome Wilson back to town, we corralled some notable area musicians to talk about the album:
“My brother (the late Ricky Wilson) introduced me to that record when I was 8 or 9. … It’s one of those albums you just put on and listen to the whole thing. It’s well produced, well thought out and magical. There was something deviant and original about it, too. It’s part of the B-52s sound. You can definitely hear its influence.”
— Cindy Wilson, of the B-52s
“This album changed my life. …The name, to me, represents that the sounds of the album are pet sounds, like a pet rock. The sounds are like your own pet animal, and I love that about the record. … ‘Pet Sounds’ is also very peculiar sounding. That record contains a set of sounds that don’t exist anywhere in the universe and haven’t in the billions of years of existence. Those were Brian’s pet sounds.”
— Robert Schneider, of the Apples in Stereo and Elephant Six Recording Co.
“No one has made a record before or since ‘Pet Sounds’ that has had such an impact on popular music. Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys cut a sonic path that we would all try to follow. I learned how to sing harmony and produce records by listening to ‘Pet Sounds.’”
— Shawn Mullins, singer-songwriter
“At that time, everything on the pop and rock landscape was guitar-driven. Then ‘Pet Sounds’ comes out, and it’s orchestrated. Brian would write out charts and the (studio musicians) would notate them. It was like Brian Wilson was working with a symphony orchestra … because that’s how they approached it.”
— Mike Holbrook, former Hampton Grease Band bassist and current radio host on WMLB-AM 1690
“It’s a work of genius. … (Genius is believing) enough in what you’re doing and having the passion to go forward with these brand new ideas, no matter how crazy people think they are.’”
— Michelle Malone, singer-songwriter
“I wasn’t a fan of ‘Pet Sounds’ until I became aware of its influence on The Beatles, and I saw how it inspired Paul McCartney. I began appreciating (the album’s) production and how magnificent the song sequencing was for the time. That was groundbreaking, because the song order helped create the mood of the record.”
— Rick Richards, of the Georgia Satellites
“When I was getting started, that record was everywhere in (my) world. Today, I think ‘Pet Sounds’ is an enduring influence on a certain type of American pop music.”
— Jeff Calder, of the Swimming Pool Q's
“At a younger age, we’re trying to make sense of what’s going on emotionally inside of us and how to connect it to the world around us. … In my mind, no piece of music has ever captured that feeling and crystallized it as well as ‘Pet Sounds.’ I think that’s why the record endures and why we embrace it so strongly.”
— Glenn Phillips, guitarist, formerly of the Hampton Grease Band
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