Sunflower (1970)Album Score: 12It's not that difficult to figure out why The Beach Boys fell incredibly out of style in the late '60s and early '70s, because they were old and they didn't change their sound much since the mid '60s. But anyone going back to listening to The Beach Boys today don't give a damn about that... Sunflower was an unjustly ignored album today, but there is plenty of material on there that's beautiful and deserves to be heard by anyone who likes music! ... There are a number of people who even take it a step further and proclaim Sunflower to be their favorite Beach Boys album altogether. These are interesting people, but nothing they could do would ever surpass Pet Sounds. (Remember, the debacle Smiley Smile was what happened last time they tried to top Pet Sounds.)The style of this album is incredibly loose, incredibly tuneful, beautiful harmonies and sometimes wild shifts in style. And when I say wild shifts in style, I mean wiiiiiiiild. Seriously, there's a hard-rock song It's About Time sandwiched in between two more traditional Beach Boys ballads! These guys were incredibly confused and not being very album-oriented in their approach at all....... But hey, that rocker is actually pretty good! And weird diversity is something that always appealed to me, for some reason.But everyone loves The Beach Boys for their ballads, and Dierdre is jaw-droppingly gorgeous one. Any casual fan of The Beach Boys who know them just for the songs you'll find on one of their Greatest Hits compilations are really in for a treat... this relatively obscure tune is just as good as anything they did in the early '60s. The melody proved that Brian Wilson still had enough juice in him to create gems like that in spite of his personal problems. He obviously wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to 1970 music ... this seems rooted in the mid '60s. But the mid '60s were awesome, so who the hell cares? The folksy instrumentation is very charming, too. (Especially that trombone making a cameo appearance in the middle.) Another Brian Wilson tune, This Whole World, is another gorgeous ballad, and those towering vocal harmonies make my heart ache every time I listen to them.Brian Wilson penned the album's best songs, which isn't really a surprise, but Dennis Wilson had an incredibly strong showing here. I already mentioned his with-the-times Got to Know Woman, but he also co-penned a captivating ballad Forever, a quirky pop-rock tune Slip on Through and a surprisingly convincing blues-rocker Got to Know Woman. Perhaps you could accuse him of cluttering this album up with 'uncharacteristic' Beach Boys songs, but they're all incredibly charming and impossible to hate... and he even gives these incredibly likable vocal performances! A children's tune At My Window is charming, but the melody is way to predictable for me. The instrumentation is incredibly well-textured, though, making it very relaxing, and I also appreciate the opportunity to hear Brian Wilson mutter something in French. Cool, Cool Water is a very spaced-out leftover from the Smile sessions... The funny thing about that song is there's no real melody to it... It's mostly a vocal groove featuring a couple of the boys singing variations of cool, cool water over and over, and sometimes adding in a lyric or two about how good it is to drink cool, cool water. The middle is a strange, sort of new age thing. (This part sounds really cool on Wilson's completed Smile album released in 2004, by the way.) It's incredibly weird, but remarkably charming. It goes to show how confused they were... but certainly well-worth listening to!Read the track reviews:
Sunflower
The Beach Boys Live: Woodinville, Wash. (July 13, 2012) It struck me amazing when I read the announcement that every living member of The Beach Boys were going to release a brand new album (with songs co-written by Brian Wilson) and even embark on a world tour together. In particular since they hadn't released an album since 1992, and Wilson hadn't toured with the group since 1965. In other words: This was history. (Or at least an afterthought of history, to those of you scratching your heads why I like going to see these dinosaur acts.) So naturally, I had to go to this. And how lucky I felt when I learned that they were going to stop by the Chateau Ste Michelle winery, a local venue I've been to four times in the past two years? Tickets went on sale exactly at 10 o'clock on April 28, and I was incessantly hitting the refresh button on my Internet browser to get tickets the exact millisecond they went on sale. Last year, I claimed I was going to join their wine club for $400 a year, which would have allowed me to buy tickets a few days earlier. Doing that probably would have meant I could secure a seat somewhere in the first few rows. However, I didn't end up doing that. I after all don't have much use for wine, having approximately the culinary sophistication of a raccoon, and it's difficult to get me to spend $400 on something that's only liquid anyway. Nevertheless, I managed to score seats in the 13th row. Not too shabby at all.The line-up they were advertising of course made me very eager to part with my hard-earned cash: This was Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston and David Marks. Marks, in case you're not a total geek, was the rhythm guitarist for the band during their first four albums. He was the replacement for Al Jardine who had been temporarily absent from the group. (Although there was a brief period when both Jardine and Marks were part of the Beach Boys roster.) Of course these classic five couldn't have embarked on this tour to recreate live the lush sounds of their catalog without a little help. Or a lot of help, rather. As a matter of fact, they had so much help that I don't think the actual sound of the concert would have been very much affected if the core-Five played absolutely nothing. (That is with the exception of David Marks who let rip two or three spirited electric guitar solos.) Naturally, I'm still highly appreciative of at least watching these guys play. We all would have been at a loss without those visuals. But anyway, the backing band they toured with practically constituted an entire army. Among them were three percussionists, a guy who played various woodwind instruments, and many-an-extra-guitarist. Most of these performers also helped provide the thick background vocals required for virtually all Beach Boys songs. One guy of special note was Jeff Fosket who sings all the falsetto stuff in lieu of Brian Wilson, who's no longer able to reach such notes.I'll also mention with beaming eyes that I remember the very first song performed at the concert without help from reading set-lists. It was Do it Again. Although I figured that would be their first song, anyway. I mean, what a better choice? This would become the first of many, many, many songs they'd sing that evening. Fourty-seven in total for a concert spanning three hours. These songs were each performed each in their entirety (which wasn't impossible since many of them are hardly two minutes long), but quite a few were done in succession without pauses in between. These guys of course didn't go three hours without an intermission, but even the intermission seemed rather short. (I remember The Moody Blues last year taking their sweet old time to come back on stage after the intermission.) Mike Love announced a few times to the crowd that he was up for going late, late, late into the night; however, the winery forces them to stop the show promptly at 10 o'clock. (His kind of circus-ringmaster tone when he talked made it pretty obvious he was insincere about that; I'm sure if they actually performed an extra song, he'd be at the gate collecting a few dollar bills from everybody leaving.) Love was also adamantly peddling Beach Boys merchandise in a manner that somehow managed to be jokey and serious at the same time. He said they wanted to sell as many copies of their new album as possible, so they bundled them together 10 for $100. The reason you'd actually want to buy this is because one copy of the CDs has their autographs on it. (One thing I refuse to do in life: Acquire autographs.) I caught a YouTube clip of Love in 1969 begging the audience to buy copies of all their albums, so I guess this is part of his standard schtick. I've never seen Love in concert before, so I am new to this.By the way, I'm not a Mike Love basher. I might poke fun at him sometimes, but I'm not bashing him. As far as the mass-hatred this guy seems to receive, I don't think it's always so necessary. One thing that's undeniable is that he's an integral part of the band's history. So many of the group's classic tunes feature his vocals on lead, and they sure as hell wouldn't have been the same without 'em. (You might argue they would have been better without him, but how would you ever know for sure?) However, I suppose I agree it's annoying how often he seems to be suing his bandmates and perhaps even more annoying how proud he is of the #1 Hit Single Kokomo. Then again, I suppose he had good reasons for those lawsuits, and... er... Kokomo isn't so awful anyway. The worst thing I can say about "Kokomo" is there are at least 75 Beach Boys songs I like better. But that really only goes to show how many great songs these guys have come up with over the years.And I know writing this is going to be like a dagger in the heart to the Mike Love haters, but here I go: I saw Brian Wilson sing along a little bit with Kokomo. I know. A lot of people wish he would cover his ears and cower in pain every time that song pops up, but it was no dice. He was even grinning ear-to-ear as it was starting. ...Although that might not have been specifically because of Kokomo. He might have had a funny thought, or something....By the way, even though Wilson has approximately the stage presence of Frankenstein's Monster, I think he's far more lucid than he seems. Check out some of his recent television interviews where he not only talks coherently in a jovial manner but also jokes around and pulls out deep memories from childhood that he's never told anyone before. The reason for his heavy touring over these last 10 years, I think, must have been to make up for lost time. Though he does seem awfully out of it on stage; he was seated at a white baby grand piano for the vast majority of the show, sometimes watching the band almost as if he were an audience member. And I'm positive a teleprompter or something was telling him to turn to the audience occasionally and wave. Whenever he'd wave, those moments came off as sudden and quite awkward. (I remember vividly seeing him perform the Smile album in 2005 and he was even reading out loud things on the teleprompter written in brackets, such as [Instrumental].) But as awkward as he might be on stage, it's great he can still get out and tour with The Beach Boys. I know this has been said a million times already, but I don't think anyone would have predicted he'd have been the one to survive into his 70s without either of his brothers by his side. Perhaps it's nothing short of a miracle.And even though Dennis Wilson and Carl Wilson couldn't have been there in person (and I found myself really yearning for that), The Beach Boys found a way to bring them back in spirit. Brian Wilson read off a line stating that the next portion of the show we were about to experience was to honor their memories. What we got first was a video of Dennis singing Forever," and the remaining Beach Boys provided background vocals and instruments. It was quite a moment. That song easily is one of the most beautiful they have ever done--and by proxy, it's one of the most beautiful songs ever written. Amazingly, isn't as celebrated as it should be. (Hmm... I haven't even celebrated that song; I just looked at my review of Sunflower from four or five years ago, and I only gave it a B+. I'm going to write myself some flame-mail for that.) After that, we got a video of Carl singing God Only Knows, and this marked another intensely beautiful moment.The massive running length of this show certainly allotted them enough time to perform every Greatest Hit you could possibly think of. They lumped together all their famous cars songs like this: Little Deuce Coupe, 409, Shut Down, and I Get Around. The second song performed that evening, Little Honda, was not part of this group, because that's about a motorcycle, duh! (OK, OK, I don't think I knew that until now!) They also performed all their surfing/beach songs at the beginning of the show: Catch a Wave, Hawaii, Don't Back Down, Surfin' Safari, and Surfer Girl. However, they saved Surfin' USA for their final song of that night, sans the encore.They also played one song early on in the show that I couldn't quite place. It turns out it was Getcha Back from The Beach Boys '85. So far I've avoided what has been called their horrible '80s, but that will be rectified soon enough. Yes, I'm even going to take a gander at Keepin' the Summer Alive. Even though "Getcha Back" has nothing on their classics, it was quite a lot of fun to see them do. (This just goes to show that I found everything enjoyable at the show. And I truly did.) There was even a selection from vastly non-celebrated album L.A. Light Album, Good Timin'. ...Again, not that great of a song compared to their 'hits,' but it was nice to hear anyway. More than anything, this shows us that they're not blowing their noses at any particular part of their back-catalog. Naturally, of course the '60s was the best part of their back-catalog. Everyone in the crowd probably realized that immediately when they gave their highly spirited rendition of Wendy, which was clearly one of the highlights of the show's first half. One of my favorite portions of the second half was All Summer Long" from the same album, a song I've been listening to a lot leading up to this concert. (Whatever it is about that song *clicked* with me suddenly.)One album that was especially well-represented was Today!, which should have been good news to anyone who thinks that's their best album. All that stuff constituted some of the show's main highlights. Among them were Please Let Me Wonder and Kiss Me Baby. Their cover of Do You Wanna Dance? was the middle song performed in the encore, which lent its hand in helping the concert end on an explosive note. However, the final song from the encore was Fun, Fun, Fun, that ditty 'inspired' by Chuck Berry. That was some pure old-school electricity there. (Another massively upbeat song I would have wished to hear from Today! was Dance, Dance, Dance, but with a catalog like theirs, I guess it had to be left off!)But another song from Today! they did perform was When I Grow Up to Be a Man. When it started, though, it was only a few seconds before it was suddenly halted by Mike Love. He screamed in his microphone: Stop! This isn't right! The players on stage looked confused. Al Jardine said Well, we got a few notes out. What I thought Love was going to do next was a joke--something along the lines of Look at us! Haven't we grown into men by now? What he said instead was simply that the intro was botched and that we in the audience deserved better. So, he directed the group to start over. I'm not exactly sure what was botched about it, but I wouldn't want to question his judgement. Speaking of botching things, I could barely hear Love's vocals in Kokomo. Maybe there was a certain Brian-Wilson-fanboy in the sound-mixing station who did that on purpose?There were one or two pretty substantial cracks at their old ages at the show. Love knelt on the ground to sing the blaring-saxophone intro to Be True To Your School, but he had to enlist the younger members of the group to help him back up. As they did so, there were sound effects of bones cracking. Also, about three songs into the set, Love jokingly announced that it was time for an intermission, because they needed a nap. Another thing Love did was lay thickly some pretty big compliments on his band-mates, especially Brian Wilson. How do you like those chord progressions? That's pure Brian Wilson there, he said at one point. The cynic in me, of course, assumes Love only said those things to appease people in the crowd who wouldn't have attended this concert if Wilson wasn't there. But on the other hand, how about those chord progressions?Love's repartee with the crowd was usua