I have to add: "sophmoric" sounding it definitely isn't.
I may not particularly LOVE the album but I appreciate the sounds and the arrangements - ESPECIALLY considering the time the album was produced. And I'm not surprised that the Beatles were influenced by it (or even blown away by it) since the BBs WERE the Beatles contemporaries.
But listening to it today, in 2007 - it doesn't thrill me or hold my attention like the albums that came after from the early 70s prog rock bands like Genesis, Yes, Gentle Giant, ELP, etc., or the works of more contemporary artists.
Whereas the Beatles and Beach Boys took the basic pop sound and refined, heck - perfected it (may as well have patented it!), these other bands took rock music in a whole different direction and to new levels of technical achievement.
I'm not saying these bands had more talent than the Beatles or BBs - the elegant simplicity found in a Beatles or BB song takes just as much craft as a 20 minute multi-faceted progressive rock epic.
It's just that the Beatles/BBs sound is very comfortable, familiar, dated (not necessarily in a negative way). Whereas 1974's Genesis album, "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" sounds like it could have been recorded just last year. Or maybe 10 years from now. To me it sounds just as groundbreaking TODAY as it did when I listed to it in 1988 and this was recorded in 1974 (I was only 3 then, hehe).
But when I listen to Pet Sounds I can IMAGINE how listeners must have been wowed by it in 1966 but it does nothing for me.
It does bring me back to 1979 when I was about 8 and I spent the summer at my newly wed (much) older sister's house - her husband constantly played pop records from the 60s and 70s, especially early Beatles and Beach Boys.
And one particular song that's in my head to this day: "You Lost That Lovin Feelin" - by the Righteous Brothers I think, lol. :