Dog only knows why everyone loves this record so goddamn much
Dog only knows why everyone loves this record so goddamn much Andresr/Shutterstock

It must have been around the 30th anniversary of Pet Sounds when I started noticing people talking about it so reverently, despite the fact that the Beach Boys were still generally scoffed at by music seriousos.

The default setting on the nostalgia machine favors commercially disappointing albums, preferably by bands who A) were famous for a different kind of music, or B) never got famous at all. That's why when it comes time to talk about the Kinks, people will tell you all about ...Are the Village Green Preservation Society or Muswell Hillbillies before extolling "Lola" or "You Really Got Me." It's why Odessey and Oracle will always be more meaningful than "She's Not There." It's why we all revere Big Star, despite the fact that more people are reading this stupid blog post than ever bought one of their records when the band was extant.

These are the kind of legends that flatter the teller at least as much as the subject.

It's not hard to make the case for Pet Sounds as the hippest record the Beach Boys actually finished. Nor is it hard to argue that that Brian Wilson is a musical genius. But unlike the many other hidden/secret/lost albums of the rock'n'roll era, the mystifying brilliance of Pet Sounds never fully strikes me. (It's tied with Nebraska for the top spot on the list of albums I know I'm supposed to like but don't.)

By my count, it has two indisputably great songs ("Wouldn't It Be Nice" and "God Only Knows"), one seemingly innocuous but actually rather divisive one (you're either with "Sloop John B" or against it), and a bunch of other ones that strike many smart people with excellent taste as heartrending expressions of emotional vulnerability and diffidence ("Caroline, No," "Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)," "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times").

I wish I could hear it that way.

I'm not saying Pet Sounds isn't good or special. It just doesn't please me, no matter how many times I have been exhorted by its strong adherents to give it another try, with the understanding that it's not like the surfer shit. Guess what, though? I actually prefer the surfer shit. And while we're on the subject, I think "Good Vibrations" is one of the greatest songs of all time. I like a few of their early hits, but unlike the Beatles or the Stones (or the Monkees, for that matter), the Beach Boys "get serious" phase always strikes me as mawkish and unconvincing. And not actually all that sensitive. (Plus, the narrator of "Caroline, No" is hard to sympathize with, like any man scolding his ex for not being the same person he decided she was.)

And though the harmonic intervals Brian Wilson dreamed up are objectively stunning, I simply don't like the sound of their voices—not his, not Carl's, and especially not Mike Love's. Despite the band's feel-good reputation (or maybe 100% exactly because of it) the Beach Boys have always made me feel left out and less than. I grew up in suburban Los Angeles in the 1970s and '80s. To me, the Beach Boys can only ever be the sound of the Republican jock oppressor.

The fact that Pet Sounds is them at their most reflective (and the fact that Mike Love hated it) doesn't carry much water with me, because once this album was out of the band's system, they went on to a weird split personality, making odd records with and without Brian, and touring on the increasingly lucrative oldies circuit until their vibe became a trademarkable brand and the group wound up playing at the Reagan White House while Brian endured decades of a psychotropic fugue state that can only have been hell on earth.

But if the oldies industry is an industry, then guess what: so is the genius industry. I don't doubt that Wilson is a musical savant. But his band remains an archetype for the unreflective bro who makes Southern California childhoods like mine a nightmare.

Pet Sounds is like the moment of unexpected tenderness between you and the school bully when you both get detention because he beat you up in front of everyone and you wind up walking home together because his friends ditched him and he admits that he, too, feels sad from time to time. Then the next day at school you're like "hey, man" and he's all "hey... fag!" and gives you a dead arm and everyone laughs.

So, happy birthday, Pet Sounds. God only knows you've brought joy to many people. I just wasn't made to be one of them.