Next month marks the 50th anniversary of the release of the album Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys. Stay with me, millenials. I swear this is relevant to us.
I’ve always seen the album listed as one of the top rock albums ever made, but I’ve also almost always disregarded this because when I think of the Beach Boys, I think of cheesy harmonies and fluff songs about sand and surfing and summer and I GET IT YOU LIVE IN CALIFORNIA. In my head, the Beach Boys lacked the edge and risk that defined other classic rock acts, and I made the decision that I had no interest in actually trying to like them.
And at first listen, I’d be right. Pet Sounds is, as far as rock albums are concerned, an incredibly gentle album, composed of gorgeous vocal arrangements and elegant orchestrations. But the album’s edge exists in the lyrics of the Beach Boys’ resident musical genius Brian Wilson. Pet Sounds was Wilson’s (I have to make this pun, I’m so sorry) pet project, and it was such a deeply personal one that, had he not needed the rest of the band to flesh out the vocal harmonies, Wilson would have released it as a solo album.
Wilson’s songwriting transitions the music of the Beach Boys from a surf’s up/beachy-keen sound to a more mature introspective examination of youth, love and doubt. His lyrics are painfully real, as Wilson unpacks both the joys of early romance and the intense internal anxieties that some love can trigger. The album moves through the stages of a relationship, opening with the wistful hopefulness of new love in “Wouldn’t It Be Nice?” to “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times,” in which Wilson mourns the disconnect he feels from those around him as the relationship begins to deteriorate.
Pet Sounds captures this moment of transition that so many college students experience who are caught in this space between the sweet (and, admittedly temporary) prospects of adolescent love and the reality and difficulty of adult relationships. Beyond its depiction of love and loss, Pet Sounds is an album about navigating young adulthood and Wilson’s realization that age does not bring clarity in this pursuit. Wilson doesn’t know who to be or where he’s headed (a feeling that’s familiar to anyone who’s ever been asked what they’re going to do with that humanities degree). The anxieties in his lyrics create the backbone of the album that clash with the beautiful and sweet orchestrations they’re set to.
Fifty years later, Wilson’s joys, aches and fears are just as relevant as they were in 1966. When Wilson pitched the idea for Pet Sounds, fellow bandmate Mike Love responded with, “Who’s gonna hear this shit?” And to a certain extent, his concerns were valid. Pet Sounds is a raw reflection of Wilson’s personal anxieties (anxieties that would eventually mount to such extremes that Wilson would fall into a reclusive period for almost 20 years). But there’s something universal about Wilson’s fears, too. The risk that makes Pet Sounds great is Wilson’s willingness to discuss the vulnerabilities of youth that we have all experienced.