Don't know what that proves, since Van der Graaf Generator also rejects the label.

 

You could have saved yourself some trouble by reading the rest of this thread.  I pointed this out on page 3.

Please, if you will, allow me at least a few moments to explain myself before you shout me down...  The albums 'progressive' nature can be hard for modern ears to detect.  It may sound less than remarkable and noteworthy at first.  But one must approach it with ears tuned to the context of its time in order to understand its progressive nature.   To a much lesser extent, I find this to be true of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon".  When teenagers hear that album, I have to explain what a sonic "difference maker" it was, how incredibly it "stood out" from the soundscape of popular recorded music at the time.  Some of the innovative ways sounds were used musically in DSotM are now rather commonplace across multiple genres of very popular music.

 

And if the progressive musical nature of the Pet Sounds album is elusive, the manner in which it qualifies as a unified whole (concept) album is doubly so.  But that doesn't mean that it was any less uniquely and conceptually bound together at the time of its release.

 

Although it is true that Brian himself didn't see it as a collection of songs intended to tell a linear story, within the context of where rock and roll albums were at that time, he did intend it to be viewed as a unified conceptual artistic statement from start to finish, a cohesive unit, an inter-related collection of miniature sonic art pieces, each worthy of exhibition together (with absolutely no filler and no throwaways).

 

It was an entire album to be held together not by a single plotline like the day in the life of an average man... nor was it to be held together by a simplistic motif like every song being about water or love... 

 

Rather it was to be a collection of sonic gems integrally interconnected conceptually by a systematic approach to exploring relational themes in lyrics, using the studio as a complex instrument, expanding the instrumentation and tonal color used in popular rock music, and the introduction of unconventional vocal harmonies and atypical chord progressions, etc.

 

This would be the album to prod Paul McCartney to strive for the songs to be conceptually interrelated and perhaps even for John Lennon and George Martin to increasingly paint sounds with a wider variety of psych tonal colors on Sgt. Peppers. 

 

As usual, if the Beatles weren't the first to the party, they were certainly early adopters whose attendance heralded the subsequent rush of arriving multitudes (many of whom probably mistakenly thought the Beatles were the hosts of the party in the first place).

 

So Sgt. Peppers both reflected and paved the way (popularized) the concept of "art rock", rock music to listen to seriously, and very obviously hinted toward how very "hip" it would soon become to create "concept albums".

 

Since Pet Sounds wasn't an available choice, I'll select its closest companion.  Sgt. Peppers.

 

OK.  Thanks for waiting.  You may begin 'shouting me down' now.