Retro Vinyl Cupboard: Pure Pop Bliss

I’M TRYING TO AVOID a mental inventory of how many versions of Pet Sounds I own. I certainly wasn’t counting when I snatched this limited double stereo/mono edition out of the racks and clutched it to my chest with the rat-like grin of the borderline insane. Mine’s number 00516—what’s yours? The mono disc is translucent amber, the stereo crystalline emerald, like stained glass windows in the church of pop. Brian Wilson heard the voice of God, and this album is his reply. Unfortunately, opening up so completely is not without risk, and his line to the divine was later repeatedly hacked by goblins urging him to kill himself. Pet Sounds remains his finest moment, and in the view of many, the pinnacle of pop music. I’d go further. It’s the best music ever made, period.Of course, there are times when I strike a patriarchal pose at the mantel-piece and make that claim for (INSERT COOL-AS-CHEESE ALBUM HERE) but finally, I know in the deepest recesses of my hard old heart that Pet Sounds is, and will always remain, in an untouchable dimension of sheer holy gorgeousness. Resistance is futile. Even the minor criticisms leveled against it (that “Sloop John B” has no place here, that “Let’s Go Away for Awhile” needs vocals) seem to miss the point, like questioning the manicure on the Venus de Milo.The mono disc here is a newly remastered (2006) version by Mark Linett, and the difference between this and the recent Sessions mono CD is startling. Maybe some of the change is in the medium (the new vinyl sounds closer to the original 1966 vinyl than it does to the CD), but the last digital attempt now seems like a fluorescent tube compared to the massed candlelight of the analog. With a deeper and clearer sound than the original mono vinyl, this version is the new reference standard. The stereo version is the same mix as the Sessions box, the miracle mix they said couldn’t be done. As Wilson carved it in mono back in the day, the very suggestion of a stereo mix made grown men wail, yea, as the hyena, and rent their garments. And Mark Linett did carry two tablets down from the mountain, and spake, saying “Lo! I bring left and right channels!” And it was good. A lush, widescreen revelation that makes your headphones sound like cathedrals and polishes every gleaming facet of this polychromatic, humangelic surge from the proto-teen heart. It just depends on the sound you prefer. The CD is bright, hard, and clear as surgical alcohol; the vinyl is warm and rich, and sounds like real people singing and real instruments playing. The quality of the vinyl is unimpeachable, as noisy as goosedown tickling the pope’s silk shorts. Will someone tell me again what CDs are for?If one word could be chosen to encapsulate what Pet Sounds is about, it’s longing. From the longing for adulthood of “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”, through the homesickness of “Sloop John B” (perfect in context), to the yearning for lost innocence in “Caroline No”, every lyric and every chord expresses a pure, heartbreaking sense of longing that resonates in all of us. The famous barking dogs and wailing locomotive that close the album couldn’t say it better—this astonishing little clip of audio verité is the signature of genius.America was chewing gum and looking the other way when Pet Sounds was released. Public indifference must have contributed to the confusion of Smile, and a career noted for its inability to face up to maturity, either personal or artistic. This retreat into a fake innocence, with its near-fatal reliance on the “emotional gangsters” (his term) who bloated him up and sucked him dry, effectively relegated him to outsider status. The charming naiveité (sic) of much of his later work, so cooed over by indulgently protective Brianistas, is the creepy sound of a grown man sincerely faking adolescent emotions. The attempt to regain what was lost when Caroline cut her hair may be tragic in essence —you can’t go home again—but it’s disturbing in effect, as the sense of longing that illuminates Pet Sounds has been warped into something sinister. If surf music was Wilson’s Old Testament, Pet Sounds is the New, and Smile the apocrypha. Unfortunately there is no second coming. Although movingly fulfilling his past promise with the as-good-as-it-could-get 2005 version of Smile, it’s been for many years charitable to the point of negligence to expect Wilson to come “back” in any real sense. Maybe that old genius-is-pain trope is right after all, but getting voices in the head seems a harsh price to pay for putting music in our soul. Be thankful.I have only two wishes for this otherwise perfect piece of work. I wish the original cover design—an in-house paste-up by someone who’d evidently never heard the music, and maybe never even heard of Brian Wilson—had been replaced decades ago with something more appropriate. For me, the San Diego zoo (?!) photograph has always eluded the iconic status some claim for it. I mean, Wilson is strange enough, but I’d hate to peek into the head of the guy who thought goat ass was the ticket to the teen demographic. And I wish—Lordy, how I wish—that Wilson’s original true-speed version of “Caroline, No” had long ago been accepted as the scriptural version. Then we’d have world peace.