Another mostly non-Brian Wilson album, Holland finds the Beach Remainders continuing in their experimental whirlwind of anti-beach music, with a bunch of deliciously melodic tunes riding on tasty piano riffs, flavorsome steel guitar licks and appetizing background vocal harmonies, recorded in scrumptious stereo and displaying a yummy variety of tastes and textures, from the muffled emotional souffl‚ of the long-lost Wilson/Parks-written "Sail On Sailor" through the oddball ... read more

The Beach Boys don't sound like the Beach Boys at ALL anymore. This is yet another attempt to keep up with the times, but the times being what they were in 1972, the Beachles were probably kneedeep in alcohol-soaked blow and each others' wives when a better man (Gordon Lightfoot) would have concentrated on his craft (anal expression). The result? In the words of world-famous web site maintainer Rich Bunnell, "I can't tell whether it's a great album, or just really really bad."
The ... read more

Surf IS up, indeed! Conceived with this feller named Jack Rieley in an attempt to make the Beach Boys seem more "hep with the times," Surf's Up is a bizarre, laughable, strange and above all SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS Beach Boys album continuing the whole "democracy" concept forced upon them by Brian's loss of touch with reality. No Dennis songs, strangely, but the other guys pull through, even though the album doesn't really sound like the Beach Boys much at all. That's what you ... read more

Interestingly, (and I use the term "interestingly" about as loosely as today's modern inner city white youth wears his huge dumb looking pants) this was the album that made me go out and buy all the other Beach Boys albums, yet it really doesn't sound all that great to me now! I mean, it's GOOD, sure. An interesting approach too, that of combining `50s-style doowop vocals with mesmerizing, hypnotic hippy beauty. But with increased band democracy (four Dennis songs, two Bruce, one Alan ... read more

This is a hard one to put your finger on, and not just because the disc is packaged inside an active beehive. It's an odd one because it's made up of old rejects living in the past, bizarre cover tunes standing in the present and new songs pushing the band's sound forward into the sleazy cocaine violins-and-electric-piano sounds of the `70s. So there's no unified sound to any of it - you go from the nostalgia surf cheer of "Do It Again" to the sexy sweaty lust fuck orgasm vagina of ... read more

If you've ever longed to feel like you've joined a creepy brainwashing cult, now's your chance! From the moment Mike Love's zombie-sounding peacenik voice begins the album with "As I sit and close my eyes, I feel peace in my mind, and I'm hoping that you'll find it too," my head immediately fills with visions of a guru leader locking me in the basement, feeding me acid and selling my children into sexual slavery. And I don't even have children! (But if I did, I'd likely be upset if ... read more

Say! Do you ever get the feeling that you're never going to finish your Beach Boys reviews? That they're just going to drag on and on and on and you're never even going to make it to their `70s material? Well, my name's Mark Prindle and I'm beginning to feel that way right about this evening! It might also be a result of sickness. I'm sick. And I don't just mean sick of George Bush's bullshit either!
(seven months later)

Okay, I'm home from the internment camp, so let me continue. I'm sick. ... read more

This is where Brian's paranoid schizophrenia unfortunately began to take over his life. He was racing against Paul McCartney to create the perfect pop album (tentatively entitled Smile), but he spent so much time recording snippets of weirdness and remixing "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes And Villains" over and over again that Sgt. Peppers beat him to market and completely destroyed his will and self-esteem. Smile was put away somewhere unfinished and the band scurried to make ... read more

I've spent my entire life declaring this album overrated, and that's not right. I shouldn't have done that. There are many other "critics' faves" that are more deserving of that title, such as Patti Smith's Horses and Samir Sablini's Bellydance with Samir Sablini. But you must understand - having first become familiar with the record as a young boy growing up in the enigmatic Mound Builder civilization of the Mississippi Valley, I've always approached the album with the ears of a ... read more

The Beach Boys are throwing a party! Bring Your Own Hairpiece! Out come the acoustic guitars, bongos, cover tunes and overdubbed morons pretending to be at a party. This record is so much better than it has any right being, thanks to a fantastic set list which has the Beech Boys lending their beautiful voices to three Beatles songs (Dennis sings "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away"!), the Everly Brothers' "Devoted To U," a second rendition of my beloved ... read more

There are so many great singers in this band! Mike Love does a real gas of a job with the Motowny "The Girl From New York City," the sound effects- laden surf/boardwalk anthem "Amusement Parks U.S.A.," the gorgeous double- bass-quintuple-ascension-and-high-piano-plinking "Salt Lake City" and the classic rewrite of "Happy Trails" (later covered by Van Halen!) entitled "California Girls" (later covered by Van Halen's David Lee Roth!). He's always ... read more

Ahhh yeah, Oasis rules. Today! Is gonna be the day! It's gonna be the big ol' day! Buy now! You should somehow! And a shooby dooby doobity doo! Let me tell you something - those guys keep getting better with every album they release. I especially love Revolver.
But on to Brian Wilson's old band The Beastie Boys and their 1965 CD Today!. This was the first record Brian put together after having a nervous breakdown on a plane on tour and telling the boys that he wasn't going to tour anymore ... read more

It's a very sweet idea, and it even works for a while. What we have here are five GREAT new Beach Boys original Christmas songs played surf/beach style - and I do mean great; they clearly put as much thought into these vocal lines as they did with even NON-holiday songs. But then they start doing all these boring old Christmas carols and you'd might as well be listening to the Moron Tabernacle Choir for all the "fun" you're having. I'll give them "properties at a reasonable ... read more

Before I discuss this record, I really must bring up an important topic: Did you ever get a boner because you thought you were looking at a woman's nipple but it turned out to be a man's nipple? I did once and I got so angry, I took a scissor, chopped off the nipple and threw the rest of the guy into my Piel Large Handbag with Organizer, whose product features include the ability to open to a full organizer, a large main compartment with a center zipper, an inside zip pocket and rear zip pocket ... read more

This is totally what you're saying right now: "Hay Mark, You didn't review Shut Down, Volume One." Well, what you're saying is the truth, and I have nobody but myself and The Beach Boys to blame. Because the first volume is a compilation featuring The Beach Boys, Some Other Bands and That One Band with The Guy. In a poor excuse for bad ideas, somebody decided to declare THIS album the sequel of THAT album, which, for a modern-day comparison, would have been like The Ramones taking End ... read more

If this album were a woman, it would be a woman where four of her twelve boobs were on earlier women. This is a CAR-oriented album, aside from "Be True To Your School," which isn't about cars; presumably they intended at some point to overdub the word "Car" over "School" and didn't get around to it because Murry Wilson was busy bashing Brian in the side of the head until he went deaf in one ear. Some say it happened when he was a child - I choose, much like a ... read more

The Beach Boys continue their stream of 25-minute tossaside LPs by enjoying a Monkees-sounding organ ("I'm A Believer") that most likely has a name, and makes them sound like they're having fun in the arcade on the beach, rather than on the beach itself. Which may have been the case with Brian Wilson, who had never surfed even once in his life until some ridiculous NBC special in the mid-`70s. One of the songs has a saxophone too, perhaps played by a young Clarence Clemons while ... read more

Their best album yet!!!! (out of 2). Already, they've gotten over those Freshman scaredycats and now sound like the most confident, note-perfect and FUN FUN FUN (though that song isn't on this album - sorry if I confused you for a moment) beach blanket bingo rock and roll band in the history of Liverpool (though historians have tried to bury the issue, most of the Beach Boys' early material was actually about surfing in pools of liver).
What you have to understand and forgive is that Capitol ... read more

If you're a fan of this album, enjoy your life as a gay man!
No please, the jokes are getting ribald. The Beach Boys' sound still hasn't quite Gelled on this, their debutt album. The lead vocals are still pisspoor (I'm told that Mike Love sings most of them, and lord knows he was too busy beating the shit out of his wife to take singing lessons) and you can barely hear the music at all. At the time, the Boys played pretty rudimentary beach music anyway. Guitar had that Chuck Berry feel, but ... read more

Retrospectively ignore that special introductory paragraph, because it’s 2011 and I’ve decided to review the Battalion of Saints A.D. material. I’m now 402 years old (okay, 37) and have heard approximately 200 more hardcore bands than when I last touched this page (thank you American Hardcore and illegal downloading!). As such, my tolerance for generic patterns of high-speed bar chords has decreased significantly. And hooooo boy is this thing full of em aplenty.

I know what ... read more