How many number one songs did The Beach Boys have?
It’s hard not to attach The Beach Boys’ legacy to Pet Sounds. The groundbreaking album has since made them the pin-up boys of studio experimentation, showing musicians how to craft a melodically concise album while also allowing standout singles—‘God Only Knows’ and ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’—to step forward into the spotlight.
Despite being regarded as one of music’s most influential albums and inspiring Paul McCartney to say, “I figure no one is educated musically ‘til they’ve heard that album”, Pet Sounds has never hit number one on the Billboard charts.
While Pet Sounds saw The Beach Boys create their magnum opus, they were a prolific pop band before that. Their surf-rock soundscape was performed with sunny smiles and slicked-back hair in an idyllic representation of early 1960s cultural America.
While Pet Sounds was a source of education for McCartney, The Beach Boys’ preceding body of work was more of a soundtrack. “The early surf records… I was aware of them as a musical act, and I used to like all that, but I didn’t get deeply interested in it,” he said. “It was just a real nice sound… We used to admire the singing, the high falsetto really and the very sort of ‘California’ lyrics.”
It was a wholehearted musical product that fed into a wider narrative about American prosperity and limitless romance, and it understandably endeared itself to a worldwide audience. So it comes as no surprise that the first three of their number-one hits came from that era.
1963’s ‘Surfin’ U.S.A.’ was their first number one, which was quickly followed by ‘64’s ‘I Get Around’ and ’65’s ‘Help Me Rhonda’. The former of those tracks is perhaps their most iconic outside of any Pet Sounds track, for it was symbolic of a sunny West Coast America. With a catchy vocal hook showcasing their signature harmonies, it was quickly adopted as a soundtrack for West Coast living, garnering massive radio play and chart success.
Once ‘Surfin’ U.S.A.’ introduced the world to The Beach Boys harmonies, it was a sound fans continued to yearn for. When laid on top of fairly rudimentary instrumentation, in ‘I Get Around’ and ‘Help Me Rhonda’, the harmonies became a sort of symbolic sound of the white teeth, bob haircut ‘60s in which they began to define. And while ‘Help Me Rhonda’ showcased a little bit more melodic texture than its counterparts, it still showcased The Beach Boys as the slick-haired, inoffensive boys next door that the music industry so clearly rewarded.
After the success of Pet Sounds in 1966, The Beach Boys returned with ‘Good Vibrations’ later that year, which was somewhat of a commercial olive branch after the experimental Pet Sounds. Reverting back to sweet melodies and even sweeter harmonies, the track rolled on down the Pacific Coast highway wearing sunglasses and a beaming smile, taking The Beach Boys back to sunnier albeit predictable climates.
But was Pet Sounds their biggest-selling album?
Despite the sort of creative limitation their aforementioned singles tried to confine them to, Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys truly captured the zeitgeist with Pet Sounds, which, to this day, remains their biggest-selling album. A kaleidoscopic album brimming with ideas yet existing within the confines of coherent melodies, it’s laid a blueprint upon which so many contemporary records have been influenced.
The floppy-haired, surfboard innocence has been swapped with introspective depth, which fluttered between melancholy and euphoria in what remains, to this day, a fitting soundtrack for modern life.
Moreover, the record’s continued commercial success cements its influence as the forefather of LP experimentation. Pet Sounds took songs way beyond art as atmospheric placeholders and instead engaged listeners to try to decode the multilayered production approach while feeling emotionally engaged.
