During a recent VH1 documentary on the making of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, Lindsey Buckingham sat behind the console, fiddling with knobs and dials until he managed to separate out each piece of one particular song. He isolated the vocal tracks, the myriad guitar lines, the bits and pieces of percussion, the elusive and indecipherable effects piled one on top of the other. Buckingham, like a mad surgeon, sliced open his creation to reveal the tiniest pieces inside--not just the heart and muscle, but every blood cell and excretion. And in the process, he absolutely ruined the mystery that is the very best rock and roll. Buckingham let us see how he put together his majestic record, when all he ever has to do is let us hear it.
And so it is with the long-delayed The Pet Sounds Sessions, a four-disc boxed set that spills Pet Sounds' guts all over the floor--every note repeated again and again, every vocal track and every run-through included, every Brian Wilson instruction and every mistake revealed. The box exists solely for fetishists, those who would seek to understand how Wilson constructed his masterpiece from beginning to end; it pulls back the curtain and reveals the midget standing on the ladder, stripping away the intrigue till Pet Sounds' 13 perfect songs become dozens and dozens of half-finished, start-and-stop-and-start templates. It's a how-to kit that comes with a 120-page instructional manual--not to mention two versions of the completed product itself, one in stereo and another in mono. Never before have we been given a chance to see a genius at work; never again will we want to.
Pet Sounds undoubtedly ranks high among the most important rock and roll records of the past 30 years--the record that inspired the Beatles to make Sgt. Pepper, the record that merged pop and psychedelia, the record that ushered teen music into adulthood. It's essential listening, especially for those who would dismiss the Beach Boys after witnessing the golden-oldies act now relegated to playing state fairs and summer festivals. Sometimes you can listen to Pet Sounds and it feels as though it's the place where pop music begins and where it ends, where joy turns to sorrow turns to near-suicide. It's an album of heartbreak and fear, filled with one man's songs about how he doesn't fit in, how he longs for escape to a place he will never find, how he longs for the sort of love he will never know. It's as much about surrender as celebration, and it's still surprising sometimes to discover how much of Brian Wilson's own twisted demons we call our own. Listen one more time to "God Only Knows" or "Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)" or "Wouldn't It Be Nice"--they're perfect love songs, teardrops on a smile.
Pet Sounds was also about how Brian Wilson couldn't find the answers in drugs or religion--only in his music, this luxurious and textured sound that comes on like a whisper and leaves like a train. If anything, The Pet Sounds Sessions places you inside Wilson's anguished head for a moment, letting you (sort of) understand why he went this way instead of that way; you can hear him giving instructions to the myriad musicians piled into the studio, telling them to stop doing that and start doing this instead. Of course, there are reasons they leave this kind of stuff off records: Do you really want to see Georges Seurat put all those little dots to canvas, or would you rather just gaze at the finished painting and marvel at the effort?
The "Stack-O-Vocals" collected on Disc Three are the most rewarding moments: It's exhilarating to hear the unadorned, swelling harmonies of the Beach Boys, most of whom weren't too thrilled to sing Wilson's anguished lyrics after years of having so much fun, fun, fun. These cuts prove Pet Sounds wasn't only about the intricate arrangements: It was about the words, the angst, Brian Wilson's romance with pot and misery. The a cappella selections only underscore the lyrics; without the arrangements getting in the way, "Sloop John B" finally becomes less a folk standard performed Beach Boys-style and more about "the worst trip I've ever been on." Pet Sounds was one long bad trip, a comedown after so many highs.
Listening to The Pet Sounds Sessions isn't as rewarding as listening to the album alone; there's little pleasure to be gained from drowning in the details. Wilson understood that the best music came when you put the music and words together, when they formed that inexplicable third element--when the words made you think, the music made you feel, and the song made you whole. Whole--that's the way Pet Sounds should be heard, not in disconnected pieces. Whole--that's when it's a perfect masterpiece. Otherwise, it's just a perfect mess.
