What makes Pet Sounds Live much more than just a souvenir of Brian Wilson's 2002 shows at London's Royal Festival Hall is how the former Beach Boy seems to have lived and breathed every last word (Tony Asher's words, lest we forget) and sentiment of his very own masterpiece's candid, soul-baring vulnerability. It's not hard, for example, to interpret the magnificent "You Still Believe In Me" (freshened-up with a gorgeous and exclusively a cappella outro, it must be said that backing band the Wondermints supply awesomely faithful instrumentation and harmony throughout) as a direct tribute to those devotees who've stuck with Wilson through many wasted years of self-doubt. For all his latter-day flaws (yes, the voice is now a crumpled shadow of its former falsetto glory) Pet Sounds Live is conceivably-and remarkably-even more of a Brian Wilson personal artistic statement than the original classic album. For example, while "I'm Waiting for the Day" has far less of the high school marching band vibe about it, the noticeable difference is the absence of the original's big booming brick-by-brick production. Perhaps, then, Brian Wilson has finally got Phil "Wall of Sound" Spector-his great inspiration and delusional nemesis-off his chest and out of his paranoid dreams. One nitpicking criticism, though: While there are lovely strings on "Let's Go Away for a While" (as, indeed, there are on the original), just where are the cellos and violins which, by right, ought to be lending that familiar glowing melancholia to the 'listen, listen" segment of "Don't Talk" or elevating the second verse of "God Only Knows" to a state of tingling, spiritual transcendence? Proof that, even with genius, there's always room for improvement. -Kevin Maidment.

Clapton caught the "unplugged" trend just at the right time, when the public was hungry to hear how well rock stars and their material could hold up when stripped of elaborate production values. Clapton himself seemed baffled by the phenomenon, especially when picking up the armload of Grammys Unplugged earned him, including Record and Song of the Year for "Tears in Heaven", the heart-rending elegy to his young son, Conor. That song and a reworked version of "Layla" got most of the attention, but the rest of the album has fine versions of acoustic blues numbers such as "Malted Milk", "Rollin' & Tumblin' and "Before You Accuse Me" that make it worth investigating further. -Daniel Durchholz.