Listened to Pet Sounds this afternoon while driving to work and this evening while driving to the grocery store. I gotta say, its beauty is absolutely stunning. There's an obvious lyrical simplicity to most of the album, the concept being young love and its trials [save, of course, for "Sloop John B."] But the textures in the instrumentals are nothing short of stunning.


I don't know if a more beautiful song than "God Only Knows" has ever been written. There's a tenderness in that song that I don't think had ever appeared in music before, and I doubt its appeared since. [Perhaps The Beatles' "Something"? I don't think so.] And I'm no music critic, but there's something to the actual vocal delivery, a sweetness to it, the timbre, a sincerity. You can hear the perfection that Brian was striving for...it's right there---it's been achieved.


What's striking to me is that, in this album where a note's not missed, every vocal pitch, every vocal emotion is perfect, he's left a song like "Here Today" in there. [By the way, song-wise, it ranks probably behind only "God Only Knows" and "Caroline No" on the record.] It's a beautiful song, well-written, but I'm stunned that the talking in the background, the clear over-modulation of the vocal takes, and Brian's voice saying "top, please" were actually not corrected. It's sort of strange.


Simply stated, wow. There's not a song that doesn't resonate. Wow.


I'm sort of happy that Smile was never properly finished. I think Pet Sounds, while not the achievement of experimentalism that Smile was intended to be, is the perfect pop record. It's easy to understand why he cracked trying to record its follow-up.