Recommendations of the Editorial team
The Beach Boys were groundbreaking. And by that I don’t just mean the route to California. Sure, they sold a lot of people on the California Dream, but for me Brian Wilson was an example of how far you sometimes have to go to achieve your own musical dream.
I grew up in California and loved the music that Brian and the Beach Boys made. Later, I was able to empathize with Brian’s desperate struggle as an artist against the entrenched mechanisms of the music industry. For him, music was more than that. With his “Teenage Symphonies to God” he tried to create something much bigger. And in the process he changed the world.
The Beach Boys – “Please Let Me Wonder”:
When the Beach Boys started, Brian packaged European sensibilities into typical Chuck Berryformat and turned it into something entirely its own. But before that there was the second side of “The Beach Boys Today!”, where one ballad practically follows the next and which, for me, is one of the most beautiful sides on a rock album.
I heard “Surfin’ Safari” for the first time in sixth grade. The record literally jumped out at you from the radio
The harmony singing was based on the Four Freshmen, mixed with a bit of gospel and served with a good portion of rock’n’roll. The result sounded completely new and different.
I heard “Surfin’ Safari” for the first time in sixth grade. The record literally jumped out at you from the radio. It had that beat, that exuberant, explosive joy that rock ‘n’ roll meant to many of us. But also something incredibly constructive, a kind of chemical reaction that seemed to take place when you heard the song.
These are wonderful numbers – “Please Let Me Wonder”, “Kiss Me Baby”, “She Knows Me Too Well”, “In The Back Of My Mind” – that show Brian’s vulnerability.
A lot of what later appeared on “Pet Sounds” or “Smile” can be found here in a different form. “Pet Sounds” is now considered a masterpiece because Brian turned Phil Spector’s inspiration into something of his own.
It’s nice that Brian can do what he wants today without having to sell records or support so many people’s livelihoods. That’s great because he treated us all to a more than generous portion of good vibrations.