‘Pet Sounds’: The album Questlove thinks will “last forever”
Questlove is a musician renowned for multiple things. He is the drummer in The Roots, a neo-soul/hip-hop outfit that has been making prolific music for a long time. Every record brings with it a new style and sound; however, Questlove’s taste extends much further than just the music he makes with his band.
One of the things that Questlove cherishes the most is his record collection, which currently sits at over 200,000 albums. In that vast collection, there are bands and artists from every genre there has ever been, as the drummer listens far and wide not only for inspiration but also just as a music fan.
“I have been collecting things for as long as I can remember. As a very young child, when I listened to music, read interviews or watched movies, they lingered in my memory, and I didn’t want them to leave me,” he said when discussing his record collection, “Eventually, I got to thinking about the physical objects that brought me those experiences — vinyl records, print magazines. Collecting those items became a way to prevent the past from slipping away.”
However, even though he listens to so much music, even Questlove can’t deny the impact of legends. For instance, he has spoken at length previously about his devotion to Prince. Like many people, the drummer was swept up in Prince’s imaginative nature and unique approach to every piece of music he made.
“I had older half-brothers, but Prince — unknown to me then, but not unseen or unheard, thanks to magazines, TV, radio, and my secret stash — was a guide to me in every way,” he said, “I studied his fashion, I studied his affect. I studied his taste in women — carefully.”
He continued, “And he began to mentor me in musical matters, too. I wouldn’t have started listening to Joni Mitchell without him. And that led me to Jaco Pastorius, who led me to Wayne Shorter, who led me to Miles Davis. I had a simple rule: if Prince listened to it, I listened to it.”
His secret stash refers to the album 1999, which his parents refused to let him own because of the phallic nature of some of the images on the front and the fact that when you turned it upside down, it read the number of the beast. However, even though he loved the album 1999 so much that he had to hide the fact he owned it from his parents, it wasn’t the record he believed would last forever; that’s an honour reserved solely for the Beach Boys and their classic album, Pet Sounds.
“He’s a modern day Stravinsky, the way he constructs his music,” said Questlove, talking about Brian Wilson, “He was doing stuff (40 years ago) that modern people do now, looping his work and stuff. There’s a track on SMiLE with a whole bunch of tubas having a conversation with trumpets. It’s great.”
He concluded, “Pet Sounds is gonna last forever because everyone’s gonna know Brian Wilson was a genius.”
