1001 Albums Summary

So much written history on this album, that I feel like all I can write is personal feelings since most of you know the facts. The production is amazing for the era even if it borrows much from Spector. But to me, sometimes things are thrown in that don't make a lot of sense (ex: bike horn at the end of You Still Believe in Me... or the random lounge music of Let's Go Away and Pet Sounds). It's the Beach Boys so there's a lot of falsetto (would the band have been better without it?) and like most 60's pop you have to be in the mood for sugar and sap. This is always compared to Sgt Peppers but the more fair comparison is Revolver- 66 vs 67 are almost different eras... and Revolver still had a little bit of that sugar and sap- You have Yellow Submarine to contrast Sloop John B. Here, There and Everywhere is as sappy yet sweet as Wouldn't It Be Nice. But, the Beatles were just writing differently at this time, branching into adulthood and Pet Sounds is still written for teens and college kids. Not that there's anything wrong with that! But, it's music that you can do a 180 in a second if it doesn't strike you that day. If you are having an "adulting" day you probably aren't going to turn on Pet Sounds. You could say that about most albums I suppose, but the swings I do on this one prevents me from calling it one of the greatest of all time even though I've said just as such on a day where it truly sounded that way to me.

Jimi Hendrix is one of the greatest but man, do his albums especially this one really suffer from length. I feel like when you play the blues no matter how legendary you play them you have to remember you're repeating similar ideas in different ways. There is nothing wrong with any of the songs on this album, on their own they are all fantastic. But meshed together it's just too much. Cut it down to And the Gods Made Love, Have You Ever Been, Crosstown, Voodoo Chile, Gypsy Eyes, Midnight Lamp, House Burning Down, Watchtower and you have about a 35 minute classic album. I'll even give you 40 minutes and add the Voodoo Child (Slight Reprise). But, hey I can do that on my end and leave the next guy with all the Jimi they want! So, I'll give it a 4 knowing I skip through this thing if I listen to it but I'm not willing to call it average either because it's not.

A few really good songs- There is Light, Boy With the Thorn, Bigmouth. The Smiths don't make bad songs and same goes for this one although Frankly Mr Shankly is teetering on the edge. Either way, there's a good reason the Smiths have like 500 compilation albums and a couple of them are what most people who are casual Smiths fans know them by. The hits are great, the rest of it is average.