The Beach Boys
Pet Sounds Capitol
The combination of LSD and The Beatles' Rubber Soul reportedly yields quite astounding results. But when Brian Wilson sat down with the album and a tab of acid, he set the framework for one of pop music's greatest albums, and one that continues to influence bands in almost all of rock's many sub-genres today.
After hearing Rubber Soul in December 1965, Wilson was so moved that he ran to his wife yelling that he wanted to 'make the greatest rock album of all time'. He was inspired by what he described as 'a whole album with all good stuff'.
Anybody who sets the goal of creating the best rock album in history is facing quite a task already, but for a man flanked by the rest of the members of the Beach Boys - a bunch hardly known for their contributions to intelligent masterpieces of rock - the challenge must have seemed absurd.
Luckily for Wilson, though, he had sworn off touring after a nervous breakdown in 1964 and, while the rest of the band were performing songs about surfing to teens in Japan, he quietly created a masterpiece in his own introspective and psychotropic-friendly image.
He worked fast. Within two months the rest of the band returned to California to find most of the album Pet Sounds pre-recorded, and some of them were more than a little peeved. Why, after all, mess with a formula that consistently produced hit singles?