The ‘Pet Sounds’ Brian Wilson never heard

MANILA, Philippines - As I flip through a book titled 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die — an edition that’s heavily outdated already — I wonder if certain musical picks will stand the test of time: will Korn’s “Follow the Leader” or Kid Rock’s “Devil Without a Cause” really stay stack up there forever alongside, say, “Blood on the Tracks” and “OK Computer”? Hmmm… Nope! (Hell nope!)

Only a select few albums in rock history actually deserve perennial status. As summer gives way to summary execution season here in the Philippines, I gaze upon my copy of an album that has not faded one bit: released 50 years ago, in May 1966, the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds” has endured a half century by somehow escaping the confines of its own time (one song title says it all: I Guess I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times), by inventing a unique aural landscape — often imitated, never really equaled, not even by the Beach Boys themselves. This article’s not for Beach Boys newbies, those who need convincing to look beyond the sun/fun/surf songs to appreciate the quiet, introspective “Pet Sounds”; rather it’s for those looking for a way to rediscover its brilliance.

Just a year ago, I finally heard “Pet Sounds” the way its creator, Brian Wilson, never did: in stereo. Having suffered auditory damage as a child, Wilson was half-deaf, so everything he recorded, mixed and released up until about 1969 was in mono. That’s the way he could hear it, and he reasoned that’s how most listeners would first experience his songs: coming from car radio, hitting the air in glorious monophonic.

There’s something to be said for mono mixes. The Beatles catalogue recently got re-released in mono, rid of annoying left-right stereo separation that was necessary at the time. Mono puts things front and center.

But I’ve been listening to “Pet Sounds” in mono for decades. Hearing the original stereo studio tracks (the stereo mix is available on numerous “Pet Sounds” box set editions) is like listening to this album for the first time. Better yet: it sounds like a brand-new album.

Note the way Brian Wilson layered the slack guitar opening to Wouldn’t It Be Nice beneath a symphony of kettledrums and snares; you can hear that bass line walk its way up and down, and finally hear the background vocals spread across a broad canvas. This is how the musicians probably heard it in playback in the studio: as a live orchestral recording. There’s no more smear of instruments; everything comes through in distinct colors. Damn if it doesn’t sound completely fresh, 50 years on.

Or notice the piano strings (plucked with paper clips) at the opening of You Still Believe in Me giving way to a rondo of guitars, glockenspiels, horns and finger bells. Above it all, a plaintive Wilson vocal that finally releases into a descending chorale punctuated by bicycle horn. The details simply come alive in stereo.

Written during a period of introspective isolation (the other Beach Boys were on tour in Japan), but also fruitful collaboration with lyricist Tony Asher and the famed Wrecking Crew studio musicians, the album is a song cycle about love’s birth, its reverberations, and its loss, played out, perhaps, over a single summer season. Few works capture this wistful sense of watching innocence bloom into less-pristine experience the way “Pet Sounds” does, though Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye has always felt like a kindred spirit.

Re-listen now to those orchestral arrangements — on Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder), for instance — for a lesson on how to do chamber pop right: the subtle voicing on each instrument suddenly speaks volumes, nuances unheard before in mono.

Granted, some songs are not much changed by stereo. I’m Waiting for the Day is pretty much the same, though it sounds fresher, more polished up. Same with the instrumental Let’s Go Away for a While, which simply sounds more panoramic in stereo. But notice the lush arrangement and Wilson’s remarkable ear for detail.

Is there any way for God Only Knows to get better? Listen in stereo: the interlocking vocal parts in the outro are answered by instrumental licks that echo the final line (“God only knows what I’d be without you”). God is in the details.

I Know There’s an Answer features a strong Al Jardine vocal that is double-tracked here, spread across both channels; it’s no longer buried in a bed of guitar and bass lines, honking harmonicas, banjos and flutes.

The closing track, Caroline No, is practically a Brian Wilson solo, punctuated by drummer Hal Blaine smacking an empty plastic Sparkletts water bottle. Listen to the bass line slyly work its way into the narrative of glockenspiel, hi-hat and xylophone. There’s something probing, maybe even spiritually intuitive, about the playing here.

Yes, you can always listen to “Pet Sounds” in mono — it will still be there, still announcing itself to the world just as mysteriously and brilliantly in that format. But for those interested in the nuts and bolts, and the story behind the music, listening in stereo, 50 years on, is a great way to reboot a classic.