The three albums mentioned are Revolver, Blonde on Blonde, and Pet Sounds. I recommend to anyone reading to, most certainly, listen to Revolver, or a similar such Beatles' album, as it is quite excellent, and perhaps have a gander at Blonde on Blonde just to spot the musical bits that are rather common now, but weren't so much in 1966. Pet Sounds is meh, I'm afraid to say, despite the hype it gets from critics. That is, of course, an opinion; you are free to hold a differing one and even argue with me over the topic, so long as you're cordial.
Anyways, hope you enjoy this, either for the content or for the quality.
Best Pop Album of 1966 by Mackinley Clevinger, February 12, 2016
The year 1966 is considered perhaps the greatest year for pop music of that era, with the release of three highly influential and popular albums by similarly famous bands: Revolver by the Beatles, Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys, and Blonde on Blonde by Bob Dylan. In a time popularized by the revolution of the inherent sound of music, these three managed to raise themselves above the rest in truly landmark albums that changed the course of music history and development.
The Revolver album was the first to really use the studio as another instrument to be fine-tuned and perfected, inventing new methods that have since been expanded upon and widely used in modern music recording and mixing. The use of this new technique revolutionized the music of that period, which, alongside the Beatle’s high-quality musical works, produced an album that shocked and enamored the world. The album Pet Sounds introduced a new style of music; complex melodies interwoven with one another and a variety of sound effects from non-traditional sources, which, alongside other experimental efforts by The Beach Boys, resulted in an album widely regarded as one of the most influential albums in pop music history. Blonde on Blonde is the basis from which much of modern music was influenced and born, the sound of the album oftentimes seeming to leap into the present despite it being from half a century ago. To say it influenced modern music is an understatement; this album may well be the very spring that the course of music has flowed from since its arrival to the world, and the quality of its lyrics (though there may be some disagreement in singing capabilities) are right on track with the unquestionable value of the rest of the album.
Now, this is not an answer that can be found by quantifying matters and watching how the numbers add up. This piece you are reading is, to no surprise, written by a human (Hi!) who has bias and preferences. On top of that, the standards by which these will be held will not be those of a pre-musical revolution, but from modern considerations and thoughts on the subject. Obviously, the world has changed much since 1966, and while one album may have been considered a landslide win back then, there has been a considerable shift in musical taste in the last fifty years. To try and view this matter from the perspective of that time period and from a more modern one, we are going to first take a look at each album’s popularity and success in their year of creation.
On August 5 in the UK, and August 8 in America, Revolver was released to a waiting public as the seventh studio album by the Beatles. Though it met a shaky reception in America due to John Lennon’s controversial remark that they were ‘more popular than Jesus,’ it’s UK reception was more in line with the recognition that such a landmark album deserved, predictions made by critics of the importance this album would have on the future history of music, worldwide. Compared to the Beatles’ former release of Rubber Soul, this new album was “twice as good and four times as startling as Rubber soul, with sound effects, Oriental drones, jazz bands, transcendentalist lyrics, all kinds of rhythmic and harmonic surprises, and a filter that made John Lennon sound like God singing through a foghorn.” (Robert Christgau, Esquire.)
Pet Sounds, the eleventh studio album by The Beach Boys, was released on May 16, and also met a middling reception in the states, but found considerably greater success in the UK where it was widely considered by critics to be the most progressive pop album of all time, receiving rave reviews on the UK front. Some critics, however, found it lacked the wide-spread reach of other artists, being revolutionary in comparison to The Beach Boys’ previous work, but not so much to the wider world of music. Either way, it took the UK by storm and lodged deep within the hearts of many of those who heard it, remaining popular in the charts and among the people after its introduction to the world.
In contrast to the other two albums, Blonde on Blonde met raging success in the United States and the United Kingdom, the depth and complexity of Bob Dylan’s music exciting critics and catching the attention of millions. From its inception in May (or July, there is some dispute) in 1966, this album has found a home in the hearts of critics and fans alike; even Bob Dylan finding it to be the epitome of his career, saying: “The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the Blonde on Blonde album. It's that thin, that wild mercury sound. It's metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up.” It is no wonder that this album has been found to be a cornerstone of modern music, considering how the elements Bob Dylan put into his music, elements that are quite regular and common in modern music, were, at the time, entirely new to both the musicians and the listeners, inspiring all who heard it as much as it entertained and spoke to them on a deep level.
By the standards of the year 1966, due to a much stronger presence among Americans and clear influential ties to modern day music and a clear expectation at-release for the album to revolutionize all music that would follow, Blonde on Blonde is the superior album among these three. It was capable of reaching a far wider audience than Revolver (unfortunately due to John Lennon’s comparison of themselves to Jesus) and, as such, was able to influence the development of music greater in the immediate years following. This is, however, only by the standards of critics and the public in 1966. On a more personal, modern level, these albums have progressed differently along the last half century to reach different levels of prominence in our consideration of which album is the best by writ of the quality of its sound, not by influential capabilities on an unprepared populace.
In the question of which album has superior sound in today’s musical climate, the answer is quite clear. The Beatles’ Revolver album, despite its influence on music culture and it being a half century old, has remained unique in its peculiar nature. We award musicians the compliment that their sound approaches that of the Beatles, because it is such a singular one that cannot simply be copied and repeated by new musicians trying to make big on the lain groundwork. Blonde on Blonde’s influential nature on modern music is, unfortunately, its downfall in this category; elements that Bob Dylan essentially invented are now so common in today’s works that the album, while meaningful and revolutionary in its time, does not have that same unique and untouchable nature that Revolver, and much of the Beatles’ other works, possess still to this day. The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album belongs to another era, and, perhaps with some misfortune, is simply not appreciated as greatly as it once was by today’s standards of music.
All three of these albums are correctly cited as being madly influential of the music we enjoy and take for granted today, and this praise is well-warranted. From its inception in 1966, it is clear from listening to Blonde on Blonde that it has had a strong hold on the development of music in our culture, and when coupled with the understanding that the sounds and techniques that seem secondhand to modern music were, at that time, a startling advent to the world, it is no stretch of the imagination that Bob Dylan’s work is the superior album of that time. However, by modern standards and, as mentioned before, a bias in the writer, Revolver holds up to the test of time much better than the other candidates, keeping ahold of that unique sound immediately identifiable as being of The Beatles while also inspiring the musical world considerably in the advances they made in both techniques and the quality of their work. To this day, despite it being fifty years since its introduction to the world, Revolver is still an album that does not dilute the multitude of choices that stand before an individual making a choice as to what to listen to, a pit that Blonde on Blonde has fallen into due to how strongly the music itself was influenced by his works. Pet Sounds was, perhaps, a niche being filled; one that has not emptied itself since its arrival to the world, and one that does not need re-filling today.