 The Beach Boys I can't imagine there is any major artist out there with more unreleased albums than the Beach Boys. The label executives that had to deal with the endless, pointless dysfunction of the group must have gotten quite accustomed to rolling their eyes in a "what the hell are they up to now" kind of way each time a completed album was submitted for release. Judging by the albums that were ultimately released (anyone want to gather round and listen to MIU Album or The Beach Boys Love You? Thought not), it's kind of arbitrary what the quality control was regarding the Boys. This fantastic boot pairs the 1971 album Landlocked with Adult Child from 1977, both very different albums that have in common the fact that they were deemed unacceptable for release. Landlocked went on to become Surf's Up after various permutations, and Adult Child was chopped up into many different pieces. Almost all of the tracks collected here later appeared somewhere, but this is the best place to hear the albums as they were originally intended. Both are good albums, especially Landlocked, which has some amazing moments and certainly doesn't seem like it should have been shelved. This was probably the lowest ebb in the Beach Boys' endless summer, and I'm sure the Warner execs were looking at previous record sales and wondering how they could justify risking the release of songs like "Loop De Loop" (about airplanes), "H.E.L.P. is on the Way" (about healthy eating) and "Take a Load Off your Feet" (also about healthy eating). Certainly, starting a song with the line "Stark naked in front of my mirror/A pudgy person somehow did appear" isn't going to inspire great confidence in the average A&R person. But in retrospect, seeing as the Beach Boys albums in the 70s didn't sell no matter how they were configured, the refusal to release these two seems particularly dorky. The great thing about this disc is that it's packaged amazingly, in a glossy cardboard slipcase and featuring thorough liner notes that even get sarcastic – example: "Big Sur is a decent Mike Love song (Yes, they do exist!)" It's been assembled with the fan in mind, and I love bootleggers that go so far out of their way to make a superior product. The sound is great, and the whole package is so essential that the music is almost secondary. But the music is fantastic – the biggest draw being the seven-and-a-half-minute mix of "Til I Die," which was never intended to be released commercially but is probably the single best Beach Boys song ever recorded. This mix strings three full mixes of the song together to form a transcendent, ambient wave of pure beauty – it must be heard to be believed. Singlehandedly converted me to a Beach Boys fan when I heard it. It's really amazing that no one has released it commercially, especially given all the recent rarities that have been put out by the group. Other high points are the extremely atypical and haunting Al Jardine song "Lookin' At Tomorrow," Dennis Wilson's glorious "Lady," which would not have been out of place on All Things Must Pass, and Mike Love's more-than-decent "Big Sur," which is a great argument for that unjustly maligned Beach Boy. The disc starts out reeeeaallly goofy, with a couple of moron songs that are nevertheless pretty wonderful in their clueless little way ("Loop De Loop" and "Susie Cincinatti"), then the early 60s BB throwback "San Miguel," which is pretty good. The two health food songs follow, which are actually really catchy and earnest, though so painfully square. The album gets much better as it goes along, and the last five tracks are amazing. As a bonus track (to a bootleg?), they've added a percussion track called "It's About Time," which is pure Hal Blaine – most Beach Boys fans will be thrilled to hear this little studio spotlight of the group's greatest session drummer. Adult Child is more wholeheartedly ridiculous – mainly a big-band album, but with just as much goofy "get in shape" shit going on. The disc opens with the line "Life is for the living/Don't sit around on your ass smoking grass/That stuff went out a long time ago." Yeah, Brian Wilson is such a genius. Then there's the problematic "Hey Little Tomboy," which begins "Hey little tomboy/Sit here on my lap, I've got things that I've gotta tell you" and actually contains a spoken bit "Okay, now shave your legs for the first time!" It's like a jingle for the National Pedophelia Council, if such a group exists and is pro-pedophelia. The tracks alternate between weird easy listening songs with an orchestra and the regular weirdo Beach Boys "where the hell are they coming from" songs. Brian sounds terrible, at the peak of his mush-mouth days, giving the orchestral tracks a late-period Chet Baker kind of vibe, not in a good way. The album is not a total waste, and in fact it's intriguing to the max, but no one is arguing that it's good. It's like watching a really brilliant scientist make a really obvious mistake. A little painful, but very amusing. Covers of "Shortnin' Bread" and "On Broadway" are very unnecessary, as Salt 'N' Pepa might say, but tracks like "Games Two Can Play" and "It's Trying to Say" are pretty good, though the lyrics are abysmal – all part of the 70s BB experience, I think. The disc closes with the orchestral version of "Still I Dream of It," which is always welcome. This is an essential boot, fascinating in every respect even when the music is terrible.
Review by Lorna Mighty |