Mr.Eyore's Full Review: Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 by The Beach Boys
What do want me to say about The Beach Boys? Yeah, I know Brian Wilson is a freakin’ disturbed genius. I know all about how without Pet Sounds, there wouldn’t have ever been a Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. But remember, without Sgt. Pepper, the Rolling Stones would never have made Her Satanic Majesties Request, and I think we can all agree it would have been a better world if that one never came out.
I also know that Wilson and the rest of the Beach Boys pioneered flawless production, and that the band’s sound, and the Southern California that it exemplified, defined an idyllic period of post-war western expansion in this country. But you know what, I can’t figure the Beach Boys as anything more than relics of an unimportant bubble-gum blip in the development of Rock and Roll – the soundtrack to which Annette Funicello hypnotically bounced her bouncy things to delight suburban pre-teens. They’re Jan & Dean with a few extra recording years and a slightly less brain damaged creative leader; Ricky Nelson on a doo-wop backdrop, Jimmy Buffet without the Sensemilla and the puns.
The fact is, The Beach Boys became popular just in time to be irrelevant, and they’ve continued to be right on the cutting edge of irrelevance for more than 35 years. With The Beach Boys Twenty Good Vibrations, someone at Capital Records was kindly enough to divide the Beach Boys’ hits into five thematic categories, for those of us too simple to comfortably handle too much topical variation in one sitting.
But before delving into the muck, I should be fair and note that, in my opinion, the Beach Boys are actually under-acknowledged as pure musicians. Perhaps it’s a natural consequence of Brian Wilson’s perfectionism that his band-mates and the session musicians they employed would follow his lead and take seriously their jobs as vocalists and players, respectively. Even where the songs are lame, nobody could accuse them of being poorly executed.
Obviously, the Beach Boys need to be given credit for creating an original, signature sound. Nobody has ever confused a Beach Boys song with one performed by any other band, and that has a lot to do with Wilson’s impeccable arrangements and production. But at bottom, it was an innovation to no end. The other part of the reason you’ll never confuse a Beach Boys song with another band is that nobody has ever found them much worth copying.
1. The Surf-Monkey Songs
The album begins with three songs about surfing from 1962 and 63. Uh, I mean surfin’: “Surfin’ Safari”, “Surfin’ USA” and “Surfer Girl.” The first two are up-beat five part harmony rockers, if such a thing can be said to exist, with under-rated guitar work that would be comfortable filler on almost any Dick Dale album. The third, “Surfer Girl,” is a forgettable teen-crush ballad, except for the truly unforgettable line “in my woody I will take you everywhere I go”. All three songs would make any Ronco compilation proud. They got the surfin’ contingent covered.
“Catch a Wave,” which belongs at the beginning of the Greatest Hits album along with all the other Surf-Monkey songs, was misplaced as, like, song 17 or something. Maybe they didn’t want people to notice that in addition to being lighter than air, there is at least one Beach Boys surf song that’s also atrociously unlistenable.
2. The Grease-Monkey Songs
Next we have the odes to high school and hot rods, the sort of crap that’s demonstrably responsible for the development of cultural atrocities like mullets and Bruce Springsteen. It’s hard to take seriously a song like “Little Deuce Coupe”, “Get Around” or "409" which contain more needless lists of automotive specs than a jo.com epinion. “Fun, Fun, Fun” is similarly scads-filled, but it at least has the benefit of showing of some more of the fine Dick Dale-style guitar work.
“Shut Down” is the worst song on the collection. It was never really a hit, which is understandable. And other than the fact that it taps into the thematic trend of the middle of the collection, with its references to fuel injected this-and-thats, it has no business on a greatest hits album.
“Be True to Your School” taps into themes that were laughably out-dated before Richie, Potsie and Ralph Malph:were bothering with such concerns around the table at Al’s Diner. Even Bobby Rydell would have been embarrassed to sing:
When some loud braggart tries to put me down,
and says his school his great
I tell him right away
Now what’s a matter buddy,
ain’t you heard o’ my school,
it’s number one in the state
So be true to your school now
Just like you would to your girl or guy
(rah-rah-rah-rah siss-boom-bah)
“Dance, Dance, Dance” and “Do You Wanna Dance” fill out this, the least interesting, thematic section of the album..
3. The California Girl Songs
“Help me Rhonda” is actually sort of a sweet song of heart-break in the tradition of early black vocal groups, the harmonies clearly reminiscent of early Beach Boys’ influence The Hi-Lows. Likelwise, “Sloop John B” is a pleasant departure for the band. It’s basically an Irish drinking song or something about a small boat on the New England Coast. Not that I’d want to listen to Irish drinking songs all day, but as far as such things go, “Sloop” is a fine example.
But “California Girls” has become a novelty, no thanks to David Lee Roth’s hokey 80s version of that song. And “Barbara Ann”? What the f.uck? That song’s like waking up at a Sha-Na-Na concert? Where the f.uck is Bowser? Even the band can’t take themselves seriously here. They start laughing mid-song.
4. The “Will Somebody Please, For The Love of God, Invent Prozac” Songs
Finally, we have those songs that were written during the period when Brian Wilson had gone certifiably crazy, and was trying to convince himself that he’s wasn’t.. As OdellBurgess has noted, the Pet Songs tracks are creepily compelling. They retain that signature Beach Boys sound, but if you keep in mind at every moment you’re listening that Brian Wilson thought he had bugs under his skin, it’s clear that something sets these songs apart.
The opening keyboard segment on “Wouldn’t it Be Nice” reminds of the ominous, childlike playing in the credit sequence in To Kill a Mockingbird: simple, a little off key and tense, like a jack-in-the-box. And it’s a fitting beginning, because 8 seconds in, a drum smash leads Wilson’s popping, yearning, vocal strains. The lyrics are pleasantly bittersweet, in a way that many of their earlier “ballads” fail to achieve. Throughout, a schizophrenic set of pace changes shift the tone of the song back and forth from hopeful and naive to depressed and resigned. It’s a sophistication the Beach Boys rarely touched elsewhere, and it’s mitigated by the absurd, out-of-place, “oooooh-bop-bop”s.
The same weakness appears on what should have been the band’s finest song. “Good Vibrations,” the second of their three chart-toppers, shows the Beach Boys beginning to take in some of the influences that had come to the fore, mainly via British Invasion bands. Erase the choruses, with their typical “hmmm-bop-bop” nonsense, and the song is a legit 60's pop song, with dark undertones of obsession. In fact, get rid of the harmonies, and this song would be a masterpiece, both musically and lyrically. Could anything they ever wrote be as heart-wrenching and disturbing as Wilson moaning, Aah, I love the colorful clothes she wears, and the way the sunlight plays upon her hair? And could anything be creepier than that slide-whistle thing? It sounds like Greg Brady trying to convince Bobby and Peter that there’s a UFO in the back yard all over again.
“God Only Knows” carries the obsessive theme to its apex, with its threatening subtext of suicidal fears of lost love, set in front of jangly, monotonous keyboards and punctuated by muted horns and the clip-clop of what sounds like horse-hooves on wood.
5. The Kokomo Songs
The final thematic category on 20 Good Vibrations, consists of those songs which the Beach Boys wrote for Tom Cruise homo-erotic slasher flick Cocktail. That category is made up entirely of the song, “Kokomo,” an abomination on the order of Tom Cruise himself. The fact that the song’s nearly unparalleled miserableness is not even the worst song off that soundtrack sets in stark relief the puke-worthiness of Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” which was an even bigger hit. But where McFerrin had the good sense to immediately disown his song and retreat back to his career as a semi-respectable orchestral conductor and, uh, person who makes interesting noises with his body, the Beach Boys took Kokomo out on the road, with Full House star-slash-supermodel-fuc.ker John Stamos filling in for dead and missing Wilson brothers. For that alone, Mike Love and Al Jardine should be strung up by their testicles.
In conclusion, the Beach Boys had a few albums that are well worth picking up, but unless you are looking for a comprehensive survey of suckitude, 20 Good Vibrations is not one of them.
The compilation of the first volume, of greatest hits, include Beach Boys classics like Surfin Safari , 409 , Surfin U.S.A. , Surfer Girl , Help Me, R...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.