Editing Pet Sounds (section)

===Record production, popular music, and ''auteur'' perspective===
{{Further|Recording studio as an instrument}}
{{quote box
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| quote = It's been said that, although hardly anyone bought [[the Velvet Underground]]'s records, those who did ended up being inspired to start their own bands. In the case of the Beach Boys' 1966 opus ''Pet Sounds'', it's likely that each of its 13 songs inspired its own subset of pop offspring [...]
| source = —Music critic Jeff Straton, 2000<ref>{{cite news |last=Stratton |first=Jeff |title=Bandwidth |url=http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2000-10-26/music/bandwidth/ |newspaper=[[New Times Broward-Palm Beach]] |date=October 26, 2000 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131105120357/http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2000-10-26/music/bandwidth/ |archive-date=5 November 2013}}</ref>
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''Pet Sounds'' is widely regarded as among the greatest and most influential albums in music history.{{sfn|Abjorensen|2017|p=40}} Critical recognition typically emphasizes its ambition, innovative studio production techniques, and high compositional standards,{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=54}} solidifying Wilson's reputation for pioneering studio craftsmanship with its unprecedented attention to detail.{{sfn|Moorefield|2010|pp=16–17}} Philip Lambert, a university music professor who had authored book-length analyses on Wilson and [[Charles Ives]],<ref>{{cite news |last1=Salazar |first1=Amanda |title=Baruch music professor of nearly 35 years dies at 63 |access-date=April 14, 2022 |date=March 18, 2022|url=https://theticker.org/6591/news/baruch-music-professor-of-nearly-35-years-dies-at-63/}}</ref> later described the album as "an extraordinary achievement – for any musician, but especially for the 23-year-old Wilson".{{sfn|Lambert|2008|p=110}} Larry Starr, in ''American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MP3'' (2006), writes that ''Pet Sounds'' epitomized "state-of-the-art pop music in every sense", systematically crafted to challenge conventional creative limits through its "diverse and unusual instrumentation", "virtuosic vocal arrangements", "advanced harmonies", and "occasional formal experiments".{{sfn|Starr|2007|p=265}}

[[File:Pet Sounds Mixing.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Wilson usurped standard studio protocols of the era that limited console use to assigned engineers.{{sfn|Granata|2003|pp=123–124}}]]

Wilson wrote, arranged, and produced the album with meticulous control over every phase of its creation, an approach that Charles Granata—in his 2003 book covering the album's making—credits as redefining the role of record producers. While artists such as [[Les Paul]], Sinatra, and [[Bob Dylan]] had previously functioned as their own producers, Wilson became the first major pop artist to comprehensively oversee all aspects of an album's production.{{sfn|Granata|2003|p=115}} Virgil Moorefield, in ''The Producer as Composer: Shaping the Sounds of Popular Music'' (2010), wrote that Wilson, building on the work of [[Leiber and Stoller]], had sought to realize the full potential of the recording studio, effectively "composing at the mixing board" and using the studio itself as a musical instrument; as both songwriter and producer, he was involved in every detail of the sound production, making on-the-spot decisions about notes, [[articulation (music)|articulation]], and timbre, thereby merging the roles of composer, arranger, and producer—a model later adopted industry-wide.{{sfn|Moorefield|2010|p=19}}

Despite limited initial commercial success, its impact was immediate and far-reaching,{{sfn|Smith|2009|p=38}}{{Sfn|Howard|2004|p=64}}{{sfn|Covach|2015|pp=200–202}}{{sfn|Starr|2007|p=265}} later influencing artists across rock, pop, [[Hip hop music|hip hop]], jazz, [[electronic music|electronic]], [[experimental music|experimental]], and [[punk rock|punk]].<ref name="Pitchfork50">{{cite web |last1=Hart |first1=Ron |date=April 12, 2016 |title=The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds Celebrates its 50th Anniversary: Artists Pay Tribute to the Eternal Teenage Symphony |url=http://pitchfork.com/features/article/9870-the-beach-boys-pet-sounds-celebrates-its-50th-anniversary-artists-pay-tribute-to-the-eternal-teenage-symphony/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220309091718/https://pitchfork.com/features/article/9870-the-beach-boys-pet-sounds-celebrates-its-50th-anniversary-artists-pay-tribute-to-the-eternal-teenage-symphony/ |archive-date=March 9, 2022 |website=[[Pitchfork (website)|Pitchfork]]}}</ref> [[Lenny Waronker]], then a staff producer at Warner Bros. Records, said that ''Pet Sounds'' elevated studio artistry among West Coast artists: "Creative record-making took a giant step and it affected everybody who was caught up in it. It was a landmark record".<ref name="HereToday96">{{cite magazine |last1=Morris |first1=Chris |author-link1=Chris Morris (music writer) |title=Here Today|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_zQkEAAAAMBAJ/page/n45/ |magazine=[[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]] |date=October 12, 1996 |url-access=registration}}</ref> In the UK, where it became a focal point in music circles, it signaled to songwriters that pop had ascended to a new level of creative ambition{{sfn|Hoskyns|2009|p=106}} while numerous groups furthered their exploration of experimental recording techniques.{{sfn|Gillett|1984|p=384}}{{refn|group=nb|English record producer [[Bobby Irwin]] echoed that Wilson's integration of songwriting, arranging, and studio experimentation set a new precedent, stating that "no one was doing what Brian was doing" in the contemporary pop landscape.{{sfn|Granata|2003|p=115}}}} Historian [[John Robert Greene]], in his 2010 book ''America in the Sixties'', credits "God Only Knows" with redefining the popular [[love song]];{{sfn|Greene|2010|p=155}} it is frequently praised as one of the greatest songs ever written.{{sfn|Downes|2014|pp=36–38}} 

The album's production techniques remained foundational in modern music production through the 2010s.{{sfn|Zager|2012|p=181}} Composer [[Philip Glass]], comparing its legacy to that of the Beatles' and [[Pink Floyd]]'s recordings, felt that the album's "structural innovation", incorporation of classical elements in arrangements, and novel "production concepts", with hindsight, clarified its status as a defining work of its era.<ref>{{cite web |date=September 2007 |title=Brian Wilson |url=https://www.kennedy-center.org/Artist/A18317 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181109112733/https://www.kennedy-center.org/Artist/A18317 |archive-date=November 9, 2018 |publisher=[[The Kennedy Center]]}}</ref> ''[[The Atlantic|Atlantic]]'' contributor Jason Guriel wrote in a 2016 editorial—headlined "how ''Pet Sounds'' invented the modern pop album"—that Wilson's approach had anticipated contemporary methods reliant on digital tools and prefigured artists like [[Michael Jackson]], [[Prince (musician)|Prince]], and [[Radiohead]], whose expansive studio projects echoed the album's ambition.<ref name="Guriel2016"/>

Guriel argued that Wilson served as a precursor to modern producer-centric pop through ''Pet Sounds'', marking popular music's first extended exploration of ''auteurism'', from which Wilson "patented" the archetype of the reclusive studio-bound genius.<ref name="Guriel2016"/>{{refn|group=nb|Guriel further characterizes the work as a catalyst to the concept of high-stakes, album-length statements, exemplified by artists such as Kanye West, whose releases had generated widespread cultural discourse: "Wilson brought an ambition to pop that it hadn't previously known and helped make heroes out of producers."<ref name="Guriel2016">{{cite magazine |last1=Guriel |first1=Jason |title=How Pet Sounds Invented the Modern Pop Album |magazine=[[The Atlantic]] |date=May 16, 2016 |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/05/how-pet-sounds-invented-the-modern-pop-album/482940/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220520165843/https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/05/how-pet-sounds-invented-the-modern-pop-album/482940/ |archive-date=May 20, 2022}}</ref>}} Wilson's delivery of a masterwork album, together with his subsequent decline and aborted follow-up, later served as the object of comparisons between [[Syd Barrett]], original frontman of Pink Floyd, and [[Kevin Shields]], frontman of [[My Bloody Valentine (band)|My Bloody Valentine]],<ref>{{cite magazine|last1=Hill |first1=Scott |title=An Open Letter to My Bloody Valentine's Loveless |url=https://www.wired.com/2011/11/my-bloody-valentine-loveless/ |magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]] |date=November 2011}}</ref> whose 1991 album ''[[Loveless (album)|Loveless]]'' was described by journalist [[Paul Lester]] as "the ''Pet Sounds'' of UK [[avant-rock]]".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2004/mar/12/2 |title=I lost it |first=Paul |last=Lester |date=12 March 2004 |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |access-date=27 December 2020 |archive-date=8 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201208033237/https://www.theguardian.com/music/2004/mar/12/2 |url-status=live|authorlink=Paul Lester}}</ref>