Pet Sounds was The Beach Boys’ twelfth US album (tenth in the UK), and was released in May, 1996 - it was released in the UK the following month, June 1966. The album was created in the first quarter of 1966 and marked the highpoint of Brian Wilson’s creative output to date. Along with lyricist Tony Asher, a group of superb session musicians and technicians, and mostly in the absence of the rest of the Beach Boys, Brian Wilson created what is now regarded by many as the finest work of popular music created in the last century.
The prowess of Pet Sounds did not happen overnight: it has progressed to this state gradually over the last thirty-odd years or so – Pet Sounds was certified Gold and Platinum in February 2000.
In 1966, the general reaction to Pet Sounds in the US was underwhelming, and a number of factors contributed to its relative poor showing on the American charts. Pet Sounds reached the no.10 position but its progress was hampered by Capitol’s untimely release of the compilation The Best of the Beach Boys in early July 1966. The US singles releases from the album were greeted with mixed success: Caroline, No (a Brian Wilson solo release, reached no.32, April); Sloop John B. (no. 3, May); and the double A-side single, Wouldn’t It Be Nice (no.8 Sept. 1966)/ B-Side God Only Knows (no.29, Sept. 1966).
The album met with greater success in the UK and hit the no.2 spot in late July, 1966 - the UK singles Sloop John B. (released before the album), went to no.2 in May 1988 while God Only Knows hit the no.2 spot in August.
In 1990, Pet Sounds was re-mastered from the original tapes and released on CD - it has been all up hill since then. We now have various versions on CD: The mono version; a CD version to the original album, the stereo version, the twofer mono/stereo version and the DCC gold version along with the Capitol Gold LP vinyl versions. In 1997 Capitol provided us with The Pet Sounds Sessions box set - a fitting tribute to the album and Brian Wilson. There are other versions: Brian Wilson Presents Pet Sounds Live, the FAME release in the UK, various Japanese versions (no less than twelve) and in 2003, the release of Pet Sounds on DVD Audio - a superb re-engineering of the original studio tapes and in 2006, Capitol gave us the 40th Anniversary edition. The first version of Pet Sounds to appear on CD was in Japan in 1989, released as part of the Toshiba-EMI Greenline series.
Further information: Pet Sounds
