So I guess this is going to be my only post this week. I'm experiencing a serious energy shortage right now and I haven't done much of anything for the past few days. Sorry about that.
I'm a pretty avid music fan, but not the most thorough rock historian out there. There are plenty of extraordinarily influential albums from the period between 1950 and 1990 that I've never heard from start to finish. Until last Friday, I could count the Beach Boys' 1966 album Pet Sounds among that number.
Though I'd never heard the album, I knew plenty about it by reputation. Brian Wilson retired from the band's touring lineup in order to compose it. It was among the first and most influential psychedelic rock albums of the 60s; it helped to codify the notion of 'chamber pop' with its complex and layered arrangements; it introduced a whole new musical vocabulary to a generation of rock songwriters.
I also knew that it was a central influence for a lot of modern indie rock bands. I didn't realize exactly how central until I sat down with it.
Listening to Pet Sounds, I was struck by how deeply conservative the more popular end of indie rock has become. I'm not terribly knowledgeable about that particular branch of rock music, but I know enough to recognize the connection. The Shins, Fleet Foxes, and especially Animal Collective come close to plagiarizing it at times. And many of the bands who don't fall back on Pet Sounds recall other late-60s/early-70s styles--folk rock, prog rock, krautrock, and so on.
People say that there's nothing new under the sun. I don't generally buy into that idea, at least as far as music goes. But when I watch musicians cannibalize the past so voraciously, I start to wonder.
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