Week 1 Entries

Pet Sounds

In December of 1961 the Beach Boys released their debut single "Surfin'". The group consisted of Brian Nelson, his younger brothers Carl and Dennis, his cousin Mike Love and friend/football teammate Al Jardine. They released the single on independent Camdix who they would later leave because of royalty problems. After recording a professional demo called "Surfin' Safari" they were then picked up by Capitol Records. One night through household rehearsals they met Gary Usher through a Kid that lived in the neighborhood. That very same night they recorded their first balled called "The Lonely Sea" and became very close. The two would go on to create several creative Beach Boy hits and Usher became a very prolific producer. Due to problems with the Wilson brother’s father, Usher was eventually pushed out of the circle though he still worked with Brian. 

In a sense Brian Wilson was the founder of the Beach Boys and this all started when he got his first tape recorded at age sixteen. His excitement and experimentation of the recorder spilled over to his brothers and they then developed a love for the craft to. Being the oldest brother Brian was the leader of the group and he led them to their first record deal. Brian produced most of the Beach Boy songs along with his friend Usher. However, it wasn't until 1963 that he was titled the Beach Boys sole producer. 

Brian Wilson's influence for writing and recording came after the success of the Beatles "Rubber Soul" he was impressed with how they raised the stakes and had no fillers, all good songs.   

One unique thing that set Pet Sounds apart from other popular recordings of that time was the instrumentation. The horn arrangements were enhanced with Theremins, bicycle bells and makeshift percussion from a water bottle. This is something that was not being done at that time. Also, for the recording sessions Wilson had 23 musicians in the recording studio, which had only been done once before. Of course this brought on limitations but Wilson perfect pitch and good memory allowed him success.

Being an industry professional I was very impressed by how creative Pet Sounds was for its time and also by how well put together it was. From a songwriting/production point of view all of the songs gave me a “free/have fun” feel. I was also very impressed that Wilson was so eager to take on the challenge of toping “Rubber Soul” which was an amazing album.

Revolver

Prior to losing his father in 1949 Phil Spector along with his sister moved to LA. Being in LA he quickly developed and showed his love for music and got a guitar for his bar mitzvah. By high school Spector was already composing and recording his own music along with friend Marshall Lieb.

Some non-musical interests that influenced the musical and lyrical content of Revolver were McCartney’s character study of loneliness and George Martin being inspired by composer Bernard Hermann.

One of the many ways that the Beetles used the studio as an instrument while recording Revolver was by what is know as ADT (Artificial double tracking) invented by Ken Townsend. ADT worked by duplicating the vocal to a new tape, which has a variable speed control, you then manipulate this speed to introduce delay and fake doubling.

Some unique innovations found in Revolver are the use of the Leslie-speaker, which was used while recording vocals to provide a swirling effect. Also, engineer Geoff Emerick used a wool sweater to stuff a bass drum and deaden the sound. This was complemented by placing the microphone closer then ever before and ending the chain with compressor/limiters. Lastly there was the clever implementation of ADT, which is described in detail above but played in big role in their sound.

As an industry professional Revolver had a serious impression on me just because it was a game changer and it revolutionized a lot of what is done today. A good example of this is ADT because this is still done; the difference is that we have much easier ways of accomplishing it.