Product Description:
The Beach Boys: Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson, Mike Love, Alan
Jardine, David Marks, Bruce Johnston.
Producers: Murry Wilson, Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, Alan Jardine, Bruve Johnston.
Compilation producer: Cheryl Pawelski.
Principally recorded in Hollywood, California between 1963 and 1970. Includes liner notes by Brad Elliot.
Digitally remastered by Ron McMaster and Andrew Sandoval (June 1999, Capitol Mastering).
The Beach Boys: Dennis Wilson, Al Jardine, Mike Love, Brian Wilson , Carl Wilson .
Recording information: 1963 - 1970.
Not everything here was a hit--some were B-sides, like the all-but-perfect ballad "The Warmth of the Sun," and others, like the brilliant psychedelicization of Ersel Hickey's rockabilly classic "Bluebirds Over the Mountain," were released during the period in which the Beach Boys had lost touch with the counter-cultural zeitgeist (i.e., before their early-'70s comeback). Nevertheless, most everything here is a gem. "Wild Honey" and "Darlin'" are highly credible R&B pastiches proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Beach Boys had soul.
"The Little Girl I Once Knew" is one of Brian Wilson's post-"California Girls" mini-symphonies, a structural marvel with the longest silent pause ever heard on a Top-40 single. "When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)" mates a drop-dead gorgeous melody line and harmonies to a remarkably sophisticated consideration of adolescent angst (eat your heart out, Backstreet Boys). PET SOUNDS capper "Caroline No" may well be the most beautiful love song written in the second half of the 20th century. And "Don't Worry Baby" remains the most poignant song ever written about a crisis of confidence brought on by drag racing--who else would even have thought to write it besides a tortured genius like Brian?
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