'Pet Sounds' at 60: A New, Spectacular Set

The new release of isolated vocals, backing tracks and more is deeply satisfying on every level

The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album was released on May 16, 1966—60 years ago on Saturday. It was and remains a towering and influential emotional work. In tribute, Capitol/UMe is releasing today The Beach Boys: The Pet Sounds Sessions Highlights as a two-CD package and multiple double-LP sets as well as a digital download and streaming. It’s hugely satisfying. [Photo above of Brian Wilson recording Pet Sounds in 1966 in Los Angeles by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images]

While all of these isolated tracks were previously released on the four-CD 30th-anniversary box released in 1997, Capitol has remastered and ordered them as they appear on the album. The new collection features 25 alternate takes, layered a cappella tracks, demos, backing tracks, alternate versions and mixes, and tracking sessions. All are on vinyl for the first time.

For example, the first disc/LP features isolated Four Freshmen-inspired vocals with minimal instrumentation. It's like listening to a choral group or Gregorian chants. The second disc/LP features assorted tracks related to the songs.

At the time of the record’s release, leading rock artists were spellbound. Paul McCartney has often cited Pet Sounds as his favorite non-Beatles album and called it a significant influence on the group as they composed and recorded Sgt. Pepper, released in May 1967. The same goes for George Martin.

Instead of caustic messages of protest and rebellion, Brian tapped into the youth psyche and what it felt like to come of age and grapple with maturity. The mood was inspired by the many records recorded by groups like the Ronettes and Righteous Brothers and produced by Phil Spector in the early 1960s. Pet Sounds’ songs seem to exist in a twilight zone between the safety of childhood and the daunting responsibilities of adult independence.

Its appeal rests in innocence backed by grand instrumental arrangements organized as a concept, with one song leading into the next. The record’s very title expresses pure nature—the noises friendly animals make to convey pleasure, anger, yearning for food or attention, and a range of other basic needs.

The music also sets a mood. I interviewed Brian Wilson, Al Jardine and Mike Love multiple times on a range of topics and attended one of the best outdoor summer concerts ever: Brian, Al and the Beach Boys at the California Mid-State Fair in 2016, performing the entire Pet Sounds album at dusk as large beach balls were belted around a sizable crowd. Off in the distance were the neon lights of amusement part rides shimmering in the humidity. Even live, you could hear the insecurity and acne between the lines.

If you lived in Los Angeles or the surrounding area at the time, as friends of mine did, the album was a radical break from the formulaic pop rock and pop soul that dominated AM radio then. It also was a departure from the Beach Boys’ own endless summer, beach-centric themes and a journey into psychological issues and self-doubt.

Just as the cover of the Beatles’ Rubber Soul in 1965 made pre-teen guys my age (9) pause after seeing the Fab Four with facial hair and realizing we would soon be them, Pet Sounds did the same for those soon to be exposed to a host of angst-y issues.

Here are Tony Asher and Brian’s lyrics for I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times:

I keep looking for a place to fit in / Where I can speak my mind / And I’ve been trying hard to find the people / That I won’t leave behind / They say I got brains but they ain’t doing me no good / I wish they could.

To hear all of these songs with just the vocals or isolated backing tracks with music are a revelation. Not only do you come to realize how special Brian was as a vocal arranger and falsetto singer but you also marvel at the vocal sophistication that the Beach Boys needed to pull off the harmonizing.

The set is enormously rewarding on so many levels. If you want to be transported back to an age of teenage innocence, when all that mattered were cars, romantic relationships and the beach, this new set will serve as a summer concentrate. And to think, all of this was in Brian Wilson’s head.

Here are the isolated stacked vocals for Wouldn’t It Be Nice, newly remastered...

And here’s the remastered I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times…