What Beatles’ producer George Martin said about Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds”

George Martin was the producer of all The Beatles studio albums, except “Let It Be”, which was produced by Phil Spector. During the rest of his career, although he worked with other artists, he was nicknamed the “fifth Beatle” because he was an important part of the creation of those albums and captured perfectly the incredible music they were making.

Over the decades, the late producer spoke about other classic albums, including The Beach Boys’ masterpiece “Pet Sounds”, released in 1966.

What George Martin said about “Pet Sounds”:

“I knew that Paul and the others admired (the album) too, they wanted to write music as good as that or better than that. It was their yardstick and it was a competitive thing,” he said in History of Rock in 1995. “Most people think about The Beach Boys as a great harmony group and of course, they were. But even better than their harmonies were their wonderful melodies. Brian Wilson wrote, sang, played on, produced most of their best songs. ‘God Only Knows’ has always been one of my favorite Beach Boys songs. It’s a beautiful song on a beautiful record,” George Martin said in an interview featured on “Pet Sounds” 40th anniversary edition.

As pointed on Brian Wilson’s website, George Martin once described him as a Pop genius. He also stated that without “Pet Sounds”, The Beatles wouldn’t have made “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” the next year. “If there is one person that I have to select as a living genius of pop music, I would choose Brian Wilson. Without ‘Pet Sounds’, ‘Sgt. Pepper’ wouldn’t have happened. ‘Pepper’ was an attempt to equal ‘Pet Sounds,’” he said.

George Martin passed away in 2016 at the age of 90. During his career, besides The Beatles, he worked with names like America, Cilla Black, Jeff Beck, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Elton John, Celine Dion, UFO and Neil Sedaka.