My commentary on the article and the comments on the article:
One needs to be familiar with the actual day-to-day context into which a work of art was introduced and thrived in order to make either a defense of this specific piece, or justify both its hypothesis/premise/conclusion and basic existence. I'm not seeing that in the follow-ups.
If a writer is going to use an album like Pet Sounds to state his premise and attempt to prove that premise, that in itself is absurd.
Some have gone back and tried to place everything surrounding Pet Sounds and Smile into a historical context. Not only the summary textbook style telling of events, but the actual daily/weekly/monthly events that surrounded the creation of these works. Current news, current music, TV, radio, film, advertising, fashion, regional trends (i.e. what made New York different from LA and different from Chicago in Spring 1966, Fall 1966, etc.) If context is key, the music created at a specific time never came from a vacuum, it didn't spring out of nowhere.
What is key in this case, since music is the focus of this article, would be what did the market into which an album like Pet Sounds was entering actually sound like, what did it consist of, and what else was surrounding it?
Why and how did Frank Zappa's debut album come out on Verve in 1966, a jazz label? Why did Jac Holzman, a figure in jazz, sign and release Love and the Doors on Elektra? How did the radio stations which were crucial to spreading this music sound, what did their playlists consist of?
For the radio portion of it, there is no simple answer. Every market from 66-69 had a different "sound" and a different style. Why did Boston top-40 play records which midwest top-40 wouldn't touch, and why did LA radio play what Philly never spun at all, or vice versa?
Someone needs to study those points in order to make such statements as in this article and the commentary following up.
Let's zero in on LA top 40, since it was what Brian Wilson would have been hearing when his work was being created and released. KHJ, KRLA, KBLA...1966 into 67.
Check the playlists, if available listen to the aircheck recordings from LA and the SoCal area. Motown next to soul, well-produced "pop" next to garage rock, Beatles next to Temptations, etc. East coast, West coast, south, etc. Wilson Pickett, Young Rascals, Sinatra (yes, Sinatra), Dionne Warwick, Lesley Gore, Junior Walker, Herb Alpert...
These diverse styles heard on top 40 - which was the market the singles and the album this author is using to postulate his theory - existed in the same music sweeps, in between the commercials and announcements. Listeners wanted it, they tuned in for the music. They heard what they liked, and they bought the 45 for 79 cents or dropped the 3-4 bucks for the LP.
Were there "R&B" stations and formats? Of course, just as there were classical, country, and easy listening MOR formats on the AM dial. But Top 40 was the delivery system for getting the music to the market, i.e. the listeners. Was there funny business going on in the business practices? No one denies it. It is a part of the entertainment business period. To this very minute. That's the reality.
So where is the Pet Sounds album and its singles fitting into this author's ideas on racism? Did he or any commenters ever listen to these broadcasts or scan the weekly surveys from the LA market in 66-67 to see what the actual formats and market he's pinning his theory onto sounded like?
I wasn't going to comment, but when I got caught up on the posts, I saw a disconnect - a wide one in some cases - existing between dissecting the sociology of the topic versus the actual words written by the author and his theories which he postulated on the back of the Pet Sounds album.
The author had a bogus premise, in my opinion, to begin with. He chose a convenient vehicle to carry it, a lightning rod if you will to generate interest 50 years after the fact. His choosing a specific album from a specific year and spinning his theories around it told me all I needed to know. As a clinical/educational research and analysis project, it failed because the premise hinges on a single album within a musical and pop culture context that the author barely if ever dissects or even describes. How was "Sloop John B" existing in the scene it was actually in, via top 40 radio and the kids buying the records, next to the R&B and soul records being played and bought by the same demographic?
It's a faulty premise to begin with. The "main idea" isn't clear. The statement followed by analysis and dissection followed by conclusion or proven hypothesis is scattered all over the sociological spectrum, yet "Pet Sounds" is the headline and assumed main topic of the dissertation. I can only assume that since the album is used as the vehicle to back up the theories offered by the article.
Now we have comments and this piece being shared around - attaching Pet Sounds directly (in the author's case) to existing racism of the mid to late 60's if not pinning future societal issues to this specific album's place within its era and by nature of its very creation.
If people want to really talk about it, I mean *really* talk about these issues and put them into the context of top 40 music trends and demographics of the 60's, ignore this article. It's flawed, faulty, and based on a premise which wouldn't even qualify for the term "threadbare logic".
It felt like something which needed a clickbait headline to generate interest and shares/views, and Pet Sounds happened to come under the microscope. Pop Matters can add this to its previous publication of a reviewer comparing a new Brian Wilson project to wheeling grandpa out for Thanksgiving dinner in a wheelchair.
Shame on them. Don't click on the site, simple solution to that one.
If you're going to discuss the real history and context of the music like Pet Sounds in an intellectual or educational manner, discuss it with some intellectual or educational knowledge of the subject matter and the historical context. Such context would have taken Pet Sounds or any similar album from 1966-67 out of consideration for becoming the basis of such an article.
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One needs to be familiar with the actual day-to-day context into which a work of art was introduced and thrived in order to make either a defense of this specific piece, or justify both its hypothesis/premise/conclusion and basic existence. I'm not seeing that in the follow-ups.
If a writer is going to use an album like Pet Sounds to state his premise and attempt to prove that premise, that in itself is absurd.
Some have gone back and tried to place everything surrounding Pet Sounds and Smile into a historical context. Not only the summary textbook style telling of events, but the actual daily/weekly/monthly events that surrounded the creation of these works. Current news, current music, TV, radio, film, advertising, fashion, regional trends (i.e. what made New York different from LA and different from Chicago in Spring 1966, Fall 1966, etc.) If context is key, the music created at a specific time never came from a vacuum, it didn't spring out of nowhere.
What is key in this case, since music is the focus of this article, would be what did the market into which an album like Pet Sounds was entering actually sound like, what did it consist of, and what else was surrounding it?
Why and how did Frank Zappa's debut album come out on Verve in 1966, a jazz label? Why did Jac Holzman, a figure in jazz, sign and release Love and the Doors on Elektra? How did the radio stations which were crucial to spreading this music sound, what did their playlists consist of?
For the radio portion of it, there is no simple answer. Every market from 66-69 had a different "sound" and a different style. Why did Boston top-40 play records which midwest top-40 wouldn't touch, and why did LA radio play what Philly never spun at all, or vice versa?
Someone needs to study those points in order to make such statements as in this article and the commentary following up.
Let's zero in on LA top 40, since it was what Brian Wilson would have been hearing when his work was being created and released. KHJ, KRLA, KBLA...1966 into 67.
Check the playlists, if available listen to the aircheck recordings from LA and the SoCal area. Motown next to soul, well-produced "pop" next to garage rock, Beatles next to Temptations, etc. East coast, West coast, south, etc. Wilson Pickett, Young Rascals, Sinatra (yes, Sinatra), Dionne Warwick, Lesley Gore, Junior Walker, Herb Alpert...
These diverse styles heard on top 40 - which was the market the singles and the album this author is using to postulate his theory - existed in the same music sweeps, in between the commercials and announcements. Listeners wanted it, they tuned in for the music. They heard what they liked, and they bought the 45 for 79 cents or dropped the 3-4 bucks for the LP.
Were there "R&B" stations and formats? Of course, just as there were classical, country, and easy listening MOR formats on the AM dial. But Top 40 was the delivery system for getting the music to the market, i.e. the listeners. Was there funny business going on in the business practices? No one denies it. It is a part of the entertainment business period. To this very minute. That's the reality.
So where is the Pet Sounds album and its singles fitting into this author's ideas on racism? Did he or any commenters ever listen to these broadcasts or scan the weekly surveys from the LA market in 66-67 to see what the actual formats and market he's pinning his theory onto sounded like?
I wasn't going to comment, but when I got caught up on the posts, I saw a disconnect - a wide one in some cases - existing between dissecting the sociology of the topic versus the actual words written by the author and his theories which he postulated on the back of the Pet Sounds album.
The author had a bogus premise, in my opinion, to begin with. He chose a convenient vehicle to carry it, a lightning rod if you will to generate interest 50 years after the fact. His choosing a specific album from a specific year and spinning his theories around it told me all I needed to know. As a clinical/educational research and analysis project, it failed because the premise hinges on a single album within a musical and pop culture context that the author barely if ever dissects or even describes. How was "Sloop John B" existing in the scene it was actually in, via top 40 radio and the kids buying the records, next to the R&B and soul records being played and bought by the same demographic?
It's a faulty premise to begin with. The "main idea" isn't clear. The statement followed by analysis and dissection followed by conclusion or proven hypothesis is scattered all over the sociological spectrum, yet "Pet Sounds" is the headline and assumed main topic of the dissertation. I can only assume that since the album is used as the vehicle to back up the theories offered by the article.
Now we have comments and this piece being shared around - attaching Pet Sounds directly (in the author's case) to existing racism of the mid to late 60's if not pinning future societal issues to this specific album's place within its era and by nature of its very creation.
If people want to really talk about it, I mean *really* talk about these issues and put them into the context of top 40 music trends and demographics of the 60's, ignore this article. It's flawed, faulty, and based on a premise which wouldn't even qualify for the term "threadbare logic".
It felt like something which needed a clickbait headline to generate interest and shares/views, and Pet Sounds happened to come under the microscope. Pop Matters can add this to its previous publication of a reviewer comparing a new Brian Wilson project to wheeling grandpa out for Thanksgiving dinner in a wheelchair.
Shame on them. Don't click on the site, simple solution to that one.
If you're going to discuss the real history and context of the music like Pet Sounds in an intellectual or educational manner, discuss it with some intellectual or educational knowledge of the subject matter and the historical context. Such context would have taken Pet Sounds or any similar album from 1966-67 out of consideration for becoming the basis of such an article.