Pet Sounds (40th Anniversary)

Now regularly hailed as the greatest album of the rock era, Brian Wilson's 1966 masterpiece would prove to be as much troubling personal millstone as transcendent musical touchstone. While "God Only Knows," Wouldn't It Be Nice," and "Sloop John B" would become evergreens in his band's repertoire for decades, they weren't enough to push the album past #10 on the bestseller charts — which, to put the band's overarching success in the mid-60's in perspective, was considered a bitter disappointment in its day. This album's resiliency has defied most efforts to musically deconstruct it, which is as it should be; Wilson himself opined that it was an album to be "felt" as much as listened to. That nakedly spiritual appeal has crossed generations, embraced by a growing, fervent following that cherish it for what it is: a window into the fragile and wistful soul of Brian Wilson— and the hopeless, wounded romantic in us all.