Pet Sounds

The eleventh studio album was produced, arranged and mostly composed by Brian Wilson, with Tony Asher writing lyrics for most of it. They worked at Wilson's house over about three weeks in early 1966. Asher said the general tenor of the words was always Wilson's and the choice of words usually his own. Recording ran from 18 January to 13 April 1966 over 27 sessions, mostly at United Western Recorders with the engineer Chuck Britz. Gold Star hosted the backing tracks for Wouldn't It Be Nice and I Just Wasn't Made for These Times, and Sunset Sound the instrumental for Here Today. The backing tracks were played almost entirely by the studio players later called the Wrecking Crew, among them Hal Blaine, Glen Campbell, Carol Kaye, Larry Knechtel, Don Randi and Lyle Ritz. Vocals went down at Western and at Columbia from February to April, and five songs were done at Columbia, the only Los Angeles studio with eight-track machines. The total cost went past 70,000 dollars. Wilson mixed in mono, and a true stereo mix was not made until 1996.

Wilson said that hearing the Beatles' Rubber Soul led him to tell his wife he would make the greatest rock album ever. Mike Love got phone previews, but the rest of the band were not consulted until they came back to the studio on 9 February, and Love's objection was to the original lyrics of I Know There's an Answer. The cover shows the band feeding goats at the San Diego Zoo, photographed on 10 February 1966, and Mike Love wrote that Capitol had organized the shoot after proposing the title Our Freaky Friends. Johnston later called it the worst cover in the history of the record business.

In the US it reached number 10 on 2 July 1966 after debuting at 106, with total sales estimated at 500,000. In Britain it came out on 27 June, peaked at number 2 behind the soundtrack of The Sound of Music and stayed in the top ten for six months. Early American reviews ran from negative to cautiously favorable, while British writers were warm. Penny Valentine of Disc and Music Echo called it thirteen tracks of Brian Wilson genius, and Melody Maker named it, jointly with Revolver, pop album of the year. Paul McCartney has often named it his favorite album. Rolling Stone ranked it number 2 in 2003, and it was added to the National Recording Registry in 2004. The Pet Sounds Sessions box set of 1997 included the first true stereo mix. Pitchfork's review of the 40th anniversary edition noted a bonus DVD with interviews with Wilson, Asher, Hal Blaine and Elvis Costello.