When Brian Wilson first heard the Beatles’ Rubber Soul, his mind was blown. “If I ever do anything in my life, I’m going to make that good an album,” he thought at the time. He went on to explain, “I was so happy to hear it that I went and started writing ‘God Only Knows.’ ”

“Without Pet Sounds, Sgt. Pepper never would have happened,” Beatles producer George Martin said. “Pepper was an attempt to equal Pet Sounds.”

Everybody used to assume the Beatle myth was driving the music—it turned out to be the other way around.