beach boys

Black Hole Discographies: Sorting It Out

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

The music world is filled with artists so prolific that it’s almost impossible to keep up with everything they do. But many of these same artists are either so experimental or so inconsistent that it’s almost impossible to know which albums to dive into and which to skip.

Plumbing the depth of their discographies to know which releases are worthwhile and which aren’t worth the time is such an ordeal that you might as well explore in the inside of a black hole instead.

But I’ve been down a few black holes myself, and I have lived to tell the tale. And today, I’ve come to give you some pointers on what discographies are worth plumbing and which are not.

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Record #269: The Beach Boys – Endless Summer (1974)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

The way the stories are told, it’s almost like there were two separate bands in the 1960s called the Beach Boys. One was a lush psychedelic chamber pop group that created some of the most ambitious and beautifully orchestrated pop music ever recorded led by a genius named Brian Wilson. The other was a chart-topping surf group that played easy pop tunes that almost guaranteed commercial success, and they were led by a master of showmanship named Mike Love.

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Record #244: The Beach Boys – Smiley Smile (1967)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

You’ve probably heard the story before: Brian Wilson hears the Beatles’ Rubber Soul, decides to make the greatest album of all time. He succeeds with an album called Pet Sounds, which Paul showed John, and they started working on Sgt. Pepper’s. Paul shows some of it to Brian, who is already trying to top Pet Sounds with an album called SMiLE (which everyone is rabid with anticipation for), and Brian collapses under the pressure, succumbing to drugs and mental illness. The project is abandoned. The world wouldn’t see SMiLE until he recorded a new version in the late twenty aughts, then pieced together the original tapes in 2011.

But the Beach Boys were under a contract–they had to release something. That release, called Smiley Smile, was a compilation of the most completed songs from the SMiLE sessions (a majority of which wouldn’t appear on the finished project). Continue reading →

Record #44: The Beach Boys – Surf’s Up (1971)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

After the demise of the Smile sessions and the varying levels of commercial and critical success of the albums that followed, Brian Wilson shrank behind the rest of the band members, letting De Facto Front Man Mike Love lead the group in a less ambitious, more commercially viable direction. Then in the wake of their most poorly received album ever, they hired a new manager who encouraged Brian to take back his role as band leader. He was reluctant, but his brother, Carl, who shared his artistic leanings, took the role. The result was Surf’s Up, considered by many to be a return to greatness.

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Record #24: The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds (1966)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Were I given to brevity, this post would say one thing.

“This album is perfect.”

However, I am not given to brevity, so I will be expanding that review to varying degrees of verbosity.
This album is perfect because…

Having heard The Beatles’ Rubber Soul, the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson quit touring with the rest of the group to focus on creating the greatest pop album ever. By all accounts, he succeeded. Pet Sounds so far surpasses the easy-going, vapid California-centric music the group had gotten famous for that it’s hard to understand that it’s the same five guys. While the lush harmonies are still present (What would the Beach Boys without their vocal interplay?), there’s less of the ba-bas and doo-wahs, with more emphasis placed on the small orchestra Brian Wilson hired to play on the tracks, to the point where there are two fully instrumental numbers (which are excellent, despite what anyone says).

And where their earlier material rode the waves of West-Coast beach culture and a nation’s desire to party, Pet Sounds finds them diving into personal waters for the first time. There’s a self-doubt that pervades Wilson’s lyrics, even on the love songs (“I may not always love you…” starts God Only Knows). While tracks like I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times and Don’t Talk (Lay Your Head On My Shoulder) are easily identified as sad songs, other, bouncier tracks are a bit more deceptive. Here Today, with its raucous orchestra and delayed bass solo, tricks you into letting the top down and singing along–until you realize he’s warning his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend about what a Jezebel she is. In fact, only Wouldn’t It Be Nice and the cover Sloop John B showcase purely optimistic lyrics; the rest of the songs are more complex, like the ballads You Still Believe In Me and I’m Waiting For The Day. Without exaggeration, this is the saddest happy record I have ever heard.
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When all is said and done, The Beach Boys haven’t made too extravagant a statement. None of the songs last much longer than three minutes, nor is there any experimental tinkering in the studio (not to discount the round-about process Wilson used to actually record the album). They simply made a pop record with lush orchestration and wonderful songs. But, it was (and remains) the Greatest Pop Record.