ABSTRACT
Musicologists are beginning to turn to the recording itself as an object of analysis, and to take seriously observations in other fields about the interactions of record production, aesthetic values, song writing and commercial concerns that jointly determine that object.2 However, it is rare that these interactions be theorized per se, as a weighted ensemble of determinations that shape a recording and its reception; instead scholars have tended to focus on only one aspect, ignoring the relationships between them. This essay attempts such a weighted assessment, focusing on one of the most discussed albums in the history of pop music, namely The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds (1966).
