wouldn’t it be nice

the beach boys pet sounds is arguably the greatest album of all time (it’s #2 on rolling stone’s list). “wouldn’t it be nice” kicks off pet sounds and is one of my favorite summer jams. i hadn’t seen the video until yesterday. i was surprised not to see any females in bikinis in the video, but then remembered this was 1966.

pet sounds was predominately a brian wilson album with the rest of the beach boys only filling in vocals here and there. wilson obsessed over every detail trying to top the beatles’ rubber soul. when he presented it to the label, they told him they weren’t going to release it. good thing for us it was released the way brian intended it to sound and has since become a classic.

here are a few photographs of brian wilson and the beach boys recording pet sounds. there’s also a couple of outtakes from the album cover shoot. notice wilson’s black watch plaid pants in the last photo. i need to find some of those.