The Beach Boys, Smiley Smile

The chief sin of this album is being the castoffs of Smile instead of actually being Smile, but Smile has solely achieved its legend by not existing such that it becomes the tabula rasa justification for every pre-meme meme about Brian Wilson's genius. (In these later, more enlightened times, we have Wilson's own 2004 attempt, as well as the actual early recordings as The Smile Sessions. By also not being Smile, they enable Smile to continue being better than any album that ever existed.) This is not to say, however, that Smiley Smile is an unappreciated jewel cursed by cultural circumstance. The production is largely lo-fi home studio quality, and not in a good way, and the intentionally simplified nature of the recordings comes off more as lazy than inspired. Yet the damnedest thing about this profoundly unprofessional work is how earwormy some of it is: tracks like "Heroes and Villains" and "Vegetables" (crunch crunch) — and of course "Good Vibrations" — are so inventive and audacious they'll sit in your auditory tract for days, and you'll like it, as they're so appealingly original that the unapologetic technical faults (like, notoriously, the control booth's "good" in "With Me Tonight") end up just being part of the magic. That said, an album this haphazard is bound to throw more than a few duds, and it does; the "W. Woodpecker Symphony" probably sounded better as an idea than the actual track, "Wind Chimes" is unpleasant and particularly unfocused, and worse still for the baffling "She's Goin' Bald" and vaguely creepy "Gettin' Hungry." But it ends well on an atmospheric note, most strongly the gauzy, trembling first love story of "Wonderful" but also the amiable "Whistle In." The verdict still stands: not Smile, and the myth remains undefeated, but enough rough elements of it exist that the fans can still what-if with conviction. Capitol paired this album in CD reissues with the less adventurous but also less gonzo Wild Honey, also not Smile, and not nearly noteworthy enough to stand even with its unrefined predecessor. To fix this, they threw in a radically different "Heroes and Villains" with a differing bridge and ending, along with a couple good quality B-sides (especially their acapella version of "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring") and one of the longest versions of "Can't Wait Too Long" from the Wild Honey sessions. Unfortunately, the "various sessions" and early take of "Good Vibrations" are at best intermittently interesting, but I do like this two-for-one idea. (Content: mild adult themes on "Gettin' Hungry.")

🌟🌟🌟

The Beach Boys Love You

The chief problem with this album is the immature lyrics from a band (and a writer) then in their mid-30s; see also Adult/Child. The songs bop along ("Mona," "Honkin' Down the Highway," "Airplane") as if Brian Wilson hadn't a care since 1960, the synthesizers kind of work with the whole childlike feel (especially the purring growls in "I'll Bet He's Nice"), and some of the more whimsical pieces ("Johnny Carson," "Solar System") even evince a rudimentary sort of wit. But the intermittent fixation on young lust ruins the whole thing: when they talk about what they're gonna do "when her momma ain't around" ("Roller Skating Child"), even their attempts at something more mature ("The Night Was So Young") just feel gross, and even worse when the singing's bad ("Let's Put Our Hearts Together," "Love Is A Woman"). Even considering love as an abstract concept, with that context you wonder if the whole thing in "I Wanna Pick You Up" — apparently sung to a young kid — isn't actually one big pedophilic double entendre. This album is inappropriately entertaining in the way a lecherous old man shouldn't be, and musically it's definitely better than anything else they put out around this time, but that wouldn't be a very high bar. (Content: mild adult themes.)

🌟🌟

The Beach Boys, Surf's Up

Much as the Santa Monica surf can be, Surf's Up is an incredibly uneven album from a band itself not noted for consistency, but at its peaks it is without peer. A sudden left turn into the nascent ecological consciousness of the early 1970s, the album's best moments are when it mixes innovative, richly layered musicmaking with subtle message and lyric symbolism. This is certainly not the case for the cloddish "Don't Go Near the Water," a terrible way to start the album, and "Student Demonstration Time," a counterculture grind that reeks of desperate irrelevance; nor does "Lookin' At Tomorrow (A Welfare Song)" wear well with its hackneyed social message or the uninspired "Take A Load Off Your Feet," and it should not be considered a coincidence that none of these, save the last, had any involvement from Brian Wilson. Conversely, the final three were primarily or entirely his work, including "A Day in the Life of a Tree," the album's most intriguing track: its lyrics are transparent and almost laughably amateurish, penned by new manager Jack Rieley, but his quavery, faltering delivery against Wilson's stark and subdued arrangement makes it unexpectedly captivating. This goes double for "Til I Die"'s poetic symmetry and wall-of-sound shifting harmonies as well as the introspective title and final track, moody and circuitous but resignedly earnest, a metaphorical elegy for their surf rock days. I would be remiss, of course, not to mention the album's technical masterpiece "Feel Flows" with its sophisticated layer effect and a remarkable reverse echo double-tracked vocal from Carl Wilson, and the first (and only worthwhile) incarnation of "Disney Girls (1957)" later to be butchered by lesser covers and even Bruce Johnston himself. There is so much to like on this album that the low points are almost forgivable; although its vain attempts to invoke contemporary themes occasionally come off as forced, from time to time it still amazes me with its rarefied creativity and deep sincerity even if it can't manage to do so consistently. The 2000 CD reissue pairs this as a double album with the inexplicably less beloved Sunflower, a rare album for the band with its generally more uniform quality, but as such simultaneously lacking the inspired genius of Surf's Up's more outstanding moments — though, to be sure, the lugubriousness of its lesser ones as well. (Content: no concerns.)

🌟🌟🌟🌟