380 - The Beach Boys - Sunflower

[csberry]

I have been a Beach Boys fan since 2nd grade. I grew up listening to my Dad's vinyl copies of their first five albums. In middle and high school, I discovered "Good Vibrations" and Pet Sounds. I never had any real desire to hear anything after that after seeing documentaries on the group and Brian Wilson. For me, Brian's breakdown was the end of The Beach Boys. I didn't want to hear Smile bootlegs because I thought that their unfinished qualities would sully my opinion of Brian's song writing. Why listen to music that will only make it clear that he was past his prime? After hearing Brian Wilson's completed Smile solo effort a couple of years ago, I started debating my stubborn avoidance of post-Pet Sounds releases for The Beach Boys.

I've been listening to Sunflower for over a week now and I don't think I'll be getting any emotional resolution soon. The central truth is that I cling to The Beach Boys playing Brian Wilson songs. I'm not used to hearing The Beach Boys performing music by several writers with different musical approaches. "Slip on Through" and "Got to Know the Woman" sound more like lost tracks by The Zombies or Steppenwolf. These are good songs, but I can't comprehend them as Beach Boys songs. Bruce actually hooked me with "Tears in the Morning," but he lost me with the eye-rollingly easy listening sound of "Deidre." "All I Wanna Do" sounds a lot like a lost Todd Rundgren song to me.

The album hasn't scared me away from exploring later Beach Boy releases. It hasn't made me any more eager than I was before to explore those albums, either. The lesson for me is that The Beach Boys didn't suddenly stop making good music after Pet Sounds...the quality went down gradually. For reasons I haven't discerned yet, I've found myself preferring the second half of the album to the first.

Songs I knew I liked: I was familiar with the portions of "Cool, Cool Water" that Brian later used for "In Blue Hawaii."

Songs I didn't know but now like: "Tears in the Morning," "All I Wanna Do," "Forever," "Our Sweet Love," "At My Window," and "Cool, Cool Water"

Songs I can go the rest of my life without hearing again: "Deidre" and "Add Some Music to Your Day"

Comments

[wc-helmets.livejournal.com]

Eh, there are a ton of gems post-Pet Sounds, and a lot of good material written by other members of the band. I bought this and Surf's Up about a decade ago, and a lot of the songs you mentioned were ones I kept going back to, and still go back to. Smiley Smile is a wonderful album, though you can tell it's the "Smile didn't work, so let's get wasted and record" album. Friends also has a lot of good material ("Be Still" being one of my favorite songs by them, and a Dennis penned tune).