Turning Points: Yusuf/Cat Stevens' 13 Favourite Albums | Page 13 of 15 | The Quietus

Baker's Dozen

Artists discuss the 13 records that shaped their lives

12. The Beach BoysPet Sounds

Nobody had been doing intricacy and harmony, arrangements and detail in the recording studio as much as Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys. He just made us all think again, certainly to stand up and listen again too, just like The Beatles did with Sgt. Peppers.

Pet Sounds was also influential in my career because Mike Hurst, the producer who discovered me if you like, was absolutely infected with this album. So when it came to recording me, he tried his best to make it sound like Pet Sounds. That’s why I have such large arrangements in my early songs. It was not really something that was connected to me, but rather to that record, so it was quite interesting about the history of that.

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