The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds Classic Album Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds Classic Album Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 24, 2016

Love & Mercy provided Beach Boys fans a supposed window into the shifting dynamics between the members of the group within the context of the psychological issues experienced by Brian Wilson, with Brian’s desire to leave the live performance side of his band membership in favor of devoting his energies to writing and producing as one of the major fulcrums around which the plot pivoted. While not really explicitly explored in any major way, Love & Mercy at least hinted at the creative excesses Brian regularly employed as he crafted what many critics have called one of the finest albums of the sixties, 1966’s Pet Sounds. As with so many supposed “masterpieces”, the reaction at the time to the album was a little less rapturous. Capitol Records executives weren’t sure how to promote the album, and were disappointed that it “only” managed to get to the Number 10 spot on the national sales charts (how many other groups would have been gobsmacked to have achieved a sales ranking like that?). As this latest entry in the Classic Albums series details, even other members of the Beach Boys, notably Mike Love, were a little reticent about the new directions Brian was taking with this album. After all, as this appealing if surface deep documentary mentions, the Beach Boys had built their careers on songs about “girls, cars, surfing and school.” Pet Sounds was a radical departure not just in Brian’s producing acumen, but with regard to the subjects Brian and lyricist Tony Asher were beginning to explore. Musically dense, with some of the most glorious changes ever crafted for supposed “pop” material, Pet Sounds continues to delight listeners to this day (two Blu-ray editions of the album are available: The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds and The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds). The Beach Boys Pet Sounds Classic Albums entry has some decent interviews and some appealing archival footage of the band and even some recording sessions, but longtime fans of the group and/or Brian himself will probably not find anything overly exciting in terms of the actual information provided.

This Classic Albums episode spends a bit of time quickly recapping the rise of the Beach Boys, though it conveniently leaves out some of the roiling dynamics between Murry Wilson and his kids, notably Brian himself. Instead there’s a brief and actually kind of touching moment with Brian at the piano (many of his interview segments are with him seated at a grand) where he plays one of his Dad’s tunes, as if everyone should know it. My hunch is, few if any will, but it’s kind of a charming if perhaps also troubling testament to Brian’s relationship with his father. Whatever Murry’s parenting deficits may have been, he at least recognized that his kids, along with cousin Mike Love, had a “sound”, and Murry did of course get the kids signed to Capitol Records. Capitol’s Karl Engemann is on hand here as well, detailing his early delight in hearing the first demos of the group which came to his attention, and how eager he was to sign the band before anyone else got to them.

The documentary quickly details the early hits of the Beach Boys, hits which were of course largely about, yes, “girls, car, surfing and school”. Al Jardine has a brief interview moment where he talks about Brian’s now infamous breakdown on a flight, and how deeply it affected Jardine, who thought that Brian would never recover from it (interestingly, while Love & Mercy includes a sequence devoted to this incident, it’s not really played as an overly terrifying moment for either Brian or Al). In a perhaps unexpected development, Brian’s desire to abandon touring with the group didn’t really cause any concern in the Capitol Records executive suite, and they in fact seemed to be pretty sanguine about the whole situation. The “band” could continue to tour and promote their albums and singles, while Brian could be left to his own devices to hopefully write, arrange and produce the backing tracks for whatever the next Beach Boys smash(es) might be.

Once the nuts and bolts of assembling the tracks for Pet Sounds starts to be detailed, the documentary gets into some of its most interesting material, though the approach here is hardly going to satisfy any devoted Beach Boys fan who wants more than cursory information. Noted engineer Bruce Botnick talks about some of the mixing choices, and in a kind of funny moment is able to identify which of the many studios Brian used for various songs simply due to how “dry” the drumming sounds. But even with Brian sitting there during some of these interview segments, there’s no real effort to delve deeply into any of the subjects being mentioned. At one point a piano track is played and they state that Brian decided not to use it in the final mix—why? Questions like this are rarely if ever answered.

There are some relatively interesting tidbits shared along the way, including how close harmony groups like The Four Freshmen sparked Brian’s early interest in vocal arranging. Later, Al Jardine mentions his love of folk groups like The Kingston Trio, and how that led to the group covering tunes like “Sloop John B”. (It may just be my imagination or tendency to read between the lines, but it sounds like Jardine is trying to take at least some of the credit for the song’s inclusion and actual arrangement on Pet Sounds, which he may in fact be entitled to.) Mike Love tries to dispel the long held belief that he tried to put the kibosh on at least parts of Pet Sounds, but, again, some of his comments come off in a kind of “he doth protest too much” manner. Brian seems slightly addled in some of his interview segments, and tends not to talk all that much in any case, at some points merely blurting out a none too helpful (or informative) word or two. That tendency may be one of the most salient if bittersweet things this Classic Albums has to offer.

The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds Classic Album Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Beach Boys Pet Sounds is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Vision, Eagle Rock Film Productions and Universal Music Group with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer (largely) in 1.78:1 (as should be expected, some archival footage is in narrower aspect ratios, typically around the 1.33:1 mark). This is completely in line with other music documentaries which cobble together contemporary interview segments with a glut of older material that is sourced from a variety of elements in pretty disparate conditions. As will be unsurprising to most, the contemporary interview segments are the best looking here, with good levels of detail and a natural looking palette. The archival footage varies greatly in quality, with frankly none of it looking much above average at best, and some of it looking pretty fuzzy, with attendant video anomalies like ghosting. While there's nothing here that provides much "wow" in terms of visuals, there's similarly nothing here that will bother most videophiles used to seeing documentaries assembled the way this one has been.

The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds Classic Album Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Beach Boys Pet Sounds features both LPCM 2.0 and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track and truth be told due to the fact the actual music is only sporadically offered here (and typically in pretty short snippets), there's not a whale of a lot of difference between the two tracks. There are a couple of notable moments, though, when the 5.1 track really perks up, including a wonderful little sequence devoted to how Brian put together various sounds for "Good Vibrations", where a really forceful bass line is given much more impact on the surround track. Otherwise, this is pretty much a standard talking heads documentary, and as such both tracks serve the sonics more or less equally well.

The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds Classic Album Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Bonus Interviews (1080p; 32:01) offers extended interviews with several of the main documentary's participants.

The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds Classic Album Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Those who don't know much about the Beach Boys or Pet Sounds in particular may find this a bit more interesting than diehard Wilson fans, who will find virtually everything discussed here old news. That said, some of the interview segments are really quite interesting, especially with folks like Botnick who can provide at least a little technical information. Technical merits are fine if nothing to write home about, and The Beach Boys Pet Sounds comes Recommended.