Wilson essentially made Sounds without the rest of the band, using them only to flesh out the vocal arrangements. He even considered putting the album out as a solo project, and the first single, "Caroline, No," was released under his own name. The deeply personal nature of the songs, which Wilson co-wrote primarily with lyricist Tony Asher, further distinguished the album from the Beach Boys' typical fare. Its luxurious sound convey a heartbreaking wistfulness, as songs such as "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" and "I'm Waiting for the Day" bid farewell to the innocent world of the early Sixties and to the Beach Boys' fun-in-the-sun hits.

Unfortunately, Capitol Records proved no more enamored of Pet Sounds than had Love; the label actually considered not releasing the album at all. Not yet vindicated by history, Wilson withdrew further into his inner world. "At the last meeting I attended concerning Pet Sounds," Wilson wrote in his autobiography (which took the name of the album's opening track, "Wouldn't It Be Nice") about his dealings with Capitol's executive brain trust, "I showed up holding a tape player and eight prerecorded, looped responses, including 'No comment,' 'Can you repeat that?' 'No' and 'Yes.' Refusing to utter a word, I played the various tapes when appropriate." (Rolling Stone)

Total album sales: 1.6 million, Peak chart position: 10

This is a record that embraces adult themes of love and spirit. It embraces you the listener – inviting you into its world of love, beating hearts, lost relationships and resting a head upon the shoulder of a loved one. Its an album with impeccable state of the art production. Well, by twenty first century standards the production is no longer state of the art, but given the studios in which Brian, Mike, Al, Carl, Bruce and Dennis worked with – this is the state of the art, unsurpassed even today. Brian didn’t use studio trickery in so much as he simply knew how to use the studio. He knew where to place a microphone and which microphone to use. Well, all good record engineers do know these things of course. Brian wasn’t unusual in that respect. What was unusual is how all of his choices were just ‘right’. And, bear in mind, Brian wasn’t really a producer or an engineer. He’d not taken any college courses in sound re-production or record production. Everything was learnt cutting those simple early Beach Boys records, watching trusted lieutenant Chuck Britz in the control room and beating off the overbearing advances and attempted domineering of his father.

I should talk about the actual record.... I’ll get round to it in a second. The impact of ‘Pet Sounds’ deserves some discussion first. Upon release, people within the music industry – the actual musicians, producers etc recognized Brian had put his heart and soul into ‘Pet Sounds’ and that it was indeed something special. They fell in love with the record and people such as Glen Campbell, producer Terry Melcher even John Cale of The Velvet Underground are responsible partly for ‘Pet Sounds’ never being forgotten. The fans of ‘Pet Sounds’ spread the word, spread the message. Capitol Records famously were lukewarm about the whole thing and quickly released the first of many greatest hits packages and generally treated ‘Pet Sounds’ without any respect whatsoever. Hence it ‘only’ charted top ten in the US, ‘only’ spawned two top ten singles – although it was a huge hit in England where Brian and The Beach Boys still have a very loyal and loving fan-base right through to today.

Personally, I’ve had troubled relationships ( haven’t we all? ), I’ve had doubts about religion and also periods of discovery concerning spirit and religion. This isn’t a religious record as such but Brian and Carl reputedly held prayer sessions concerning the success of the album and one song, 'God Only Knows' in particular. Before all of that however we have 'Wouldn’t It Be Nice'. Two and a half minutes in length, the lyrics written by advertising man Tony Asher and directed by Brian are a step away from previous Beach Boys material. Basically ‘wouldn’t it be nice’ if we were older, if we were in love, if we were married. It’s a fantasy and the fantasy is supported by those wonderful Beach Boys harmonies of course. Musically the most notable aspect of the song is the section where it slows down, the track is stripped back and the singing just soars upwards to the heavens. After that, the song pretty much just ends. It hardly matters as you are still awestruck by what’s just happened. Everything in the right place – an up-tempo, impossibly sophisticated pop song. The next three songs are something of a sandwich. We have 'That’s Not Me' a simple song on the face of it that is transformed purely by the playing and production, the sound of the bass guitar like a heart beat. Together with the drums it’s a sound used especially well on 'Don’t Talk…' Its actually used to follow a particular lyric and reinforces the idea of ‘Pet Sounds’ as a loving emotional album able to present the emotion of love out to the listener, rather than just stories and songs about love. 'You Still Believe In Me' was reworked from an earlier song called 'In My Childhood'. Its all double lead vocals from Brian ( on the mono version of the album at least ) and he showcases his heartbreaking falsetto very well.

You may be thinking at this point, ‘this Pet Sounds’ doesn’t sound very, um, Rock n Roll!’. You’d be right. This is hardly Rock and Roll, this isn’t early Beach Boys influence Chuck Berry. Brian’s Idol Phil Spector, now, you can hear his influence. The same musicians that Phil recorded with were used during the ‘Pet Sounds’ sessions after all. The nearest we do get to rock music as such is 'I’m Waiting For The Day' and 'Sloop John B'. Sloop features exciting piano, rock rhythms and impossibly simple sounding yet complicated melodies that send me giddy. 'I’m Waiting For The Day' again is a fairly simply song, but simple isn’t bad. Its only actually simple in sound. The melody and chord changes, the production and mixing are far from simple. Every effort was made to get the right sounds, Brian’s ‘Pet Sounds’ – hence the albums title.

'God Only Knows' is of course one of the most beautiful records ever made. Oh, but of course! Well, I say that myself and I believe that myself. Many other people believe it to be true and Brian has been playing the entire ‘Pet Sounds’ album during recent solo concerts. 'God Only Knows' was sung by Carl, chosen by Brian after he rejected himself for the lead and deciding something wasn’t quite perfect. Remarkably, it was only brother Carls second ever lead on a Beach Boys record. He’d provide many important and great lead vocals the years after 1966, but never really would match that first ( well, second ) love of his 'God Only Knows' vocal work. 'I Know There’s An Answer' has lyrics that were re-written by Mike after he expressed doubts concerning Brian’s original ‘Ego’ lyrics. The importance of the musical tracks on ‘Pet Sounds’ – the fact that they turn a great record into a masterpiece genius record is emphasised by 'I Know There’s An Answer'. The new lyrics are slightly clumsy, slightly corny. Fortunately the musical backing is one of the most exotic on the entire record, full of strange noises and held together by wonderfully melodic bass-playing.

I’m going to finish this review now. I haven’t even mentioned 'I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times', the two instrumentals and the beautiful solo Brian 'Caroline No'. The instrumentals provide variety. The title track is ridiculously joyously silly and really should raise a smile – 'Let’s Go Away For Awhile' matches its title in its musical description of places to achieve a state of joy and relaxation. 'Caroline No' fades out with the sounds of a train going past behind dogs barking. Pet Sounds, indeed. We are all fortunate Brian shared these sounds with us all. One of the greatest albums ever made, as simple as that. No, it’s not rock and roll….not really. It renders categorization difficult, actually. Just forget everything I’ve said. As the song goes, ‘listen, listen, listen….’

(Adrian Denning)

The group's second and, for all intents and purposes, last full album was recorded while Them was in a state of imminent collapse. To this day, nobody knows who played on the album, other than Van Morrison and bassist Alan Henderson, though it is probable that Jimmy Page was seldom very far away when Them was recording. The 16 songs here are a little less focused than the first LP. The material was cut under siege conditions, with a constantly shifting lineup and a grueling tour schedule; essentially, there was no "group" to provide focus to the sound, only Morrison's voice, so the material bounces from a surprisingly restrained "I Put a Spell on You" to the garage-punkoid "I Can Only Give You Everything." Folk-rock rears its head not only on the moody cover of Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" but also the Morrison-authored "My Lonely Sad Eyes," but the main thrust is soul, which Morrison oozes everywhere -- while there's some filler, his is a voice that could easily have knocked Mick Jagger or Eric Burdon off their respective perches.(by Bruce Eder, AMG)

Released on May 16th, 1966, rock's first studio double LP by a major artist was, as Dylan declared in 1978, "the closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my head . . . that thin, that wild-mercury sound." There is no better description of the album's manic brilliance. After several false-start sessions in New York in the fall of 1965 and January 1966 with his killer road band the Hawks -- "One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)" was the only keeper -- Dylan blazed through the rest of Blonde on Blonde's fourteen tracks in two three-day runs at Columbia's Nashville studios in February and March 1966.
The pace of recording echoed the amphetamine velocity of Dylan's songwriting and touring schedule at the time. But the combined presence of trusted hands such as organist Al Kooper and Hawks guitarist Robbie Robertson with expert local sessionmen including drummer Kenneth Buttrey and pianist Hargus "Pig" Robbins created an almost contradictory magnificence: a tightly wound tension around Dylan's quicksilver language and incisive singing in barrelhouse surrealism such as "Rainy Day Women #12 and 35" and "Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again." Amid the frenzy, Dylan delivered some of his finest, clearest songs of comfort and desire: the sidelong beauty "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands," recorded in just one take, and "I Want You," the title of which Dylan almost used for the album.

Total album sales: 2 million" (Rolling Stone)

Although Fifth Dimension was wildly uneven, its high points were as innovative as any rock music being recorded in 1966. Immaculate folk-rock was still present in their superb arrangements of the traditional songs "Wild Mountain Thyme" and "John Riley." For the originals, they devised some of the first and best psychedelic rock, often drawing from the influence of Indian raga in the guitar arrangements. "Eight Miles High," with its astral lyrics, pumping bass line, and fractured guitar solo, was a Top 20 hit, and one of the greatest singles of the '60s. The minor hit title track and the country-rock-tinged "Mr. Spaceman" are among their best songs; "I See You" has great 12-string psychedelic guitar solos; and "I Come and Stand at Every Door" is an unusual and moving update of a traditional rock tune, with new lyrics pleading for peace in the nuclear age. At the same time, the R&B instrumental "Captain Soul" was a throwaway, "Hey Joe" not nearly as good as the versions by the Leaves or Jimi Hendrix, and "What's Happening?!?!" the earliest example of David Crosby's disagreeably vapid hippie ethos. These weak spots keep Fifth Dimension from attaining truly classic status. (by Richie Unterberger, AMG)

Tim Hardin's debut album was something of a happy accident, a killer record at least a third of which was comprised of tracks intended as demos, while another half utilized a string orchestra that the artist knew nothing about. Whatever its origins, Tim Hardin 1 is one of the most powerful and compelling records of its era, encompassing deeply personal and compelling poetry, blues, rock, and folk in settings ranging from stripped-down Sun Records-style rock & roll to lightly orchestrated folk-rock. The beautiful, briskly paced "Don't Make Promises" -- which, along with "Reason to Believe," became one of the two huge songwriting hits here -- opens the album on an ambitious note, its sound mixing a small-band and string section behind a confessional lyric. "Green Rocky Road" and the rollicking "Smugglin' Man" are both more in a traditional folk-rock vein, showcasing the darker and rougher side of Hardin's singing, while "How Long" carries listeners into electric blues that is as raw and stripped down as anything coming out of the British blues boom of the same era, and which could've passed muster on Chess' Fathers & Sons blues showcase. Hardin wasn't happy about the presence of the blues-style demos on the finished album, but when they're placed alongside such startlingly original and personal songs as "Reason to Believe," "Misty Roses," "While You're on Your Way," "It'll Never Happen Again," and "Hang on to a Dream," they vividly show off the sheer range of Hardin's singing and his musical sensibilities. The string accompaniment on most of those songs reportedly wasn't to Hardin's liking, but Artie Butler's arrangements are models of restraint, and the bluesier cuts here keep the album from going too far in that direction. And so what if "Ain't Gonna Do Without" was Hardin's informal joke based on "Hi Heel Sneakers," never intended for release? It offered some of the best blues harmonica that John Sebastian ever laid down on a record. The result is a seminal folk-rock album, every bit as exciting and urgent as it was in 1966, and as important a creative effort as Bob Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited. And this wasn't even Hardin's best album, though it set the pattern for everything he did after.

(by Bruce Eder, All Music Guide)

"I don't see too much difference between Revolver and Rubber Soul," George Harrison once said. "To me, they could be Volume One and Volume Two." Revolver extends the more adventurous aspects of its predecessor -- its introspection, its nascent psychedelia, its fascination with the possibilities of the studio -- into a dramatic statement of generational purpose. The album, which was released in August 1966, made it thrillingly clear that what we now think of as "the Sixties" was fully -- and irreversibly -- under way.
Part of that revolutionary impulse was visual. Klaus Voormann, one of the Beatles' artist buddies from their days in Hamburg, Germany, designed a striking photo-collage cover for Revolver; it was a crucial step on the road to the even trippier, more colorful imagery of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which would come less than a year later.

And then there's the music. The most innovative track on the album is John Lennon's "Tomorrow Never Knows." Attempting to distill an LSD trip into a three-minute song, Lennon borrowed lyrics from Timothy Leary's version of The Tibetan Book of the Dead and recorded his vocal to sound like "the Dalai Lama singing from the highest mountaintop." Tape loops, a backward guitar part (Paul McCartney's blistering solo on "Taxman," in fact) and a droning tamboura completed the experimental effect, and the song proved hugely influential. For his part, on "Eleanor Rigby" and "For No One," McCartney mastered a strikingly mature form of art song, and Harrison, with "Taxman," "I Want to Tell You" and "Love You To," challenged Lennon-McCartney's songwriting dominance.

Revolver, finally, signaled that in popular music, anything -- any theme, any musical idea -- could now be realized. And, in the case of the Beatles, would be.

Total album sales: 5 million
Peak chart position: 1

(Rolling Stone)

GOD, affirmed the legendary Russian ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, is a fire in the brain. Saxophonist John Coltrane's ecstatic jazz, from 1964's seminal A Love Supreme onwards, is the sound of these flame-ravaged synapses in celestial communion. By the time of Meditations - which he originally cut with his classic quartet under the title First Meditations - the John Coltrane Orchestra had swollen to a sextet. Alongside drummer Elvin Jones, pianist McCoy Tyner and bassist Jimmy Garrison were two controversial new recruits - second drummer Rashied Ali and the wildest tenor saxophonist of his generation, Pharaoh Sanders. Like A Love Supreme, 1965's Meditations feels almost like a live seance, with all of the musicians playing from their soul in an attempt to break on through to the other side. At points it sounds like an evangelical revival, with Pharaoh and Trane's tenors seeming to speak in tongues. Ali and Jones drum so hard it feels like they're trying to stop time, while the bass and piano dance in the spaces between. Though there are moments of serenity, Meditations is by no means easy listening, but if it's a spiritual experience you're after then this'll blow the cobwebs from your brain for good.