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I have kinda genuflected at the altar of this album since it first came out.
I owe at least two of my "meh" bands to it/them.
It was the sound of Liverpool in my head; rainy, grey, moody, caught between gothic stoicism and a dappled-light magical realism of moonlight reflected on the waves that surround that port city. Tough and tender. Bluster and vulnerability. Light and shade. All in one package. Just like Liverpool itself.
My friend Rob Elba and I did a full podcast episode on it a few years ago that still stands up pretty well as a definitive evaluation of what singer Ian McCulloch once boastfully called "The Greatest Album Ever Recorded" (not that I'm making him wrong about that). Will's guitar playing never, ever left my head -- I tried to model my whole "less is more" approach upon his twinning of Television and the Velvets.
"Silver" and "Seven Seas" could chart today, they still sound so fresh.
May 4, 2024
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I've listened to a few episodes of that podcast, had no idea one of my mutuals was on it
May 4, 2024
spencerto It's great, Rob does such a good job. We also talked about Syd Barrett's first solo album (three years ago) and Elliott Smith's "Either/Or" last year. Next up: Led Zeppelin's "Physical Graffiti" ha.
May 4, 2024
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Ive been having trouble coming up with the things I want to post on here, but recently a friend sent me an Instagram reel with a song in it that I just couldnāt put my finger on. After asking everyone around me, just playing it over and over it in my mind, I realized itās āLetās Go Away for Awhileā by the Beach Boys. One thing led to another and now I want to start doing reviews for classic and new albums-that I like. I donāt want to be a dick.
After more thinking I realized thereās not much new to say about it. The consensus on Pet Sounds is that itās sonically one of the most impressive albums of its era, and influenced pop in a multitude of ways. Some say itās what made the Beatles want to start being taken more seriously as artist.
But as someone who grew up in a post Pet Sounds world (very, might I add), itās hard to draw the connections because pop music is so far away from this sound now. Still, it doesnāt date itself, either in instrumentation, lyricism, composition, or other ways. It feels incredibly fresh, and feels like the biggest pop artist of the current century could decide to make it tomorrow, and it would pop off.
The lyricism is a sort of longing that makes me think of Jeff Buckley, or it might make you think of a first love that you ruined because of inexperience and inability. Itās quite simple, but itās the idea that heās saying āall the right thingsā.
On the other hand, both with the combination of how the instruments and Brian and Carl Wilson (I had to look that up, thought it was just Brian for so long) or Mike Loveās voices, the album sounds still very impressive. Im not sure I have the vocabulary for it, but both from the quite sparse songs like āDonāt Talkā to the lush ones like āHere Todayā, everything feels meticulously constructed to fit the lyrics and where itās actually placed in the album.
Itās a 10, because of course itās 10, but itās important to go back and appreciate why itās a 10. I enjoyed doing so, even after remembering the songs that made me think of my first girlfriend lol.
After more thinking I realized thereās not much new to say about it. The consensus on Pet Sounds is that itās sonically one of the most impressive albums of its era, and influenced pop in a multitude of ways. Some say itās what made the Beatles want to start being taken more seriously as artist.
But as someone who grew up in a post Pet Sounds world (very, might I add), itās hard to draw the connections because pop music is so far away from this sound now. Still, it doesnāt date itself, either in instrumentation, lyricism, composition, or other ways. It feels incredibly fresh, and feels like the biggest pop artist of the current century could decide to make it tomorrow, and it would pop off.
The lyricism is a sort of longing that makes me think of Jeff Buckley, or it might make you think of a first love that you ruined because of inexperience and inability. Itās quite simple, but itās the idea that heās saying āall the right thingsā.
On the other hand, both with the combination of how the instruments and Brian and Carl Wilson (I had to look that up, thought it was just Brian for so long) or Mike Loveās voices, the album sounds still very impressive. Im not sure I have the vocabulary for it, but both from the quite sparse songs like āDonāt Talkā to the lush ones like āHere Todayā, everything feels meticulously constructed to fit the lyrics and where itās actually placed in the album.
Itās a 10, because of course itās 10, but itās important to go back and appreciate why itās a 10. I enjoyed doing so, even after remembering the songs that made me think of my first girlfriend lol.
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I'll state it right up front: This is a dad-rock rec.
Try to picture yourself (a theme of this album's third track, "Picture Book") back in 1968: songwriting pairs dominate the UK scene. Lennon/McCartney; Jagger/Richards; Page/Plant. Into this noisy fray saunters the Kinks' Ray Davies, who has had hits earlier in the decade with his group the Kinks that SOUND a lot like to guitar-up-to-eleven frenzy ("You Really Got Me," a number one, was said for years to feature a young Jimmy Page on the solo, until it was debunked) but is now fixated on a sepia-toned sort of quasi-nostalgia that is pivoting his band from England's Hitmakers toward the sort of cult band that would later be cited by Blur's Damon Albarn and Oasis' Noel Gallagher as a seminal source of material and influence (it's hard to imagine "Parklife" or "What's the Story Morning Glory" -- hell, Britpop, period -- without this album and the pathway it created).
Davies was busy wrapping himself in the cloak of the Union Jack, long before this sort of move would have had him branded as National Front (or Morrissey-adjacent). "Village Green Preservation Society" didn't sell much when it was released (it only went gold in 2018) but was notable for its acoustic, singer/songwritery pastoral vibe and a yearning for a return to a Middle England that arguably had never existed. Indeed, the mix of sarcasm and sentimentality that marks the title track ("We are the skyscraper condemnation affiliates/God save Tudor houses, antique tables, and billiards") and other key cuts such as "People Take Pictures of Each Other," "Last of the Steam Powered Trains," the music hall sounds of "Sitting by the Riverside" and "All of My Friends Were There" speak to a love of both the literal village green as well as the metaphorical village green -- many of these mementoes of the past are likely better left behind (which Davies either notes directly or through comparison) but the crank in him just can't resist making the point that a way of life and a slice of history is sliding away before our very eyes.
Davies spent part of 1968 writing satirical numbers for a late-night BBC comedy program, so it's entirely possible that this ironic sensibility (which would inform his writing from that point forward) spilled over into the writing and creation of this album. Earlier songs like "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" and "A Well Respected Man" pointed the way toward this endstate but Davies had never sustained it for a full LP. This was a novella about the premature death of England, The Concept and The Empire.
Two contemporaneous non-album tracks -- "Days" and "Wonderboy" -- do as good a job of explaining Davies' motives at the time (a sort of inward and wistful focus on their Britishness, which a five year U.S. performance ban for reasons that remain somewhat vague no doubt also created, by extension) as the album itself, which is nonetheless one of the first extant concept albums ever recorded.
These days, we think of Davies as doing his best work with a quiet, knowing, ironic smile -- this is the album that started his whole downstream career phase as the poet laureate of a quickly-evaporating Albion, which groups like the Libertines (and all their tongue-in-cheek Olde Ways mythmaking) were surely taking note of.
A top-ten all time record for me. All hail the Godfather of Britpop (I'm sure he hates that moniker but it doesn't mean it's not true).
Oct 27, 2024
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My friend Rob and I did a lengthy/detailed version of his That Record Got Me High podcast about this one šš»
Feb 24, 2025
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The man responsible for dozens of Teenage Symphonies to God
"Sad songs about happy things" (the first time, as a kid, I can recall the sweet/sour combo of melodies that could make you cry attached to songs about endless, bottomless love)
I've long since lost track of how many weddings and funerals I've attended that have featured this song; suffice it to say, "a lot."
God only knows what we'd been without him šš»
Jun 11, 2025
May 22, 2025
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Hey tyler hopefully this doesnāt violate some PI.FYI golden rule
But after nearly two years of writing, editing and arguing, my book about the EP is coming out in May and can be preordered here:
https://hozacrecords.com/product/aifl/
The book is about the origins, history and cultural impact of the EP since these little objects first started coming out in the 50s. Over 50 of my music biz friends then helped me shape the list and review the top 200 ever released, according to us (ha). For those of you who are into this kind of geekery/snobbery, I canāt wait to hear what you think. A labor of love, as all books are! ā¤ļø
https://hozacrecords.com/product/aifl/
The book is about the origins, history and cultural impact of the EP since these little objects first started coming out in the 50s. Over 50 of my music biz friends then helped me shape the list and review the top 200 ever released, according to us (ha). For those of you who are into this kind of geekery/snobbery, I canāt wait to hear what you think. A labor of love, as all books are! ā¤ļø
Mar 27, 2024