People say Pet Sounds is good because it invented modern studio recording. That's interesting but Birth of a Nation invented feature films and it's unwatchable.

People say Pet Sounds is good because it invented modern studio recording. That's interesting but Birth of a Nation invented feature films and it's unwatchable. I really like Pet Sounds. It's The Beach Boys, who sing songs about beaches and girls and surfing, but the whole album is suffused with melancholy. Every song is sad. It's an interesting juxtaposition. The article references A Love Supreme, which is also great. But in some sense what The Beach Boys are doing is harder than what Coltrane is doing. They're taking a subject matter and art form that are broad, trashy, often associated with kitsch, taking them really seriously, and producing something that avoids all the usual pitfalls when someone writes pop songs about their feelings.