The Beach Boys:
Sunflower/Surf's Up; 15 Big Ones/Love You (Capitol/Brother)

Capitol's recent reissues covering the Beach Boys 70s output - recorded for their own Brother Records imprint - provide an occasionally entertaining, often bizarre, frequently painful portrait of a band in decline, grappling with changing tastes and the deteriorating mental health of its chief muse and legend-in-residence, Mr. B. Wilson. Fanatics, of course, will welcome the chance to re-experience such dubious milestones as Holland and M.I.U. Album. Butthose whose tastes run toward Endless Summer, Pet Sounds and Wild Honey would do well to start with the budget-priced two-fers covered here, which at least have the good sense to pair late-period highlights Sunflower and Love You with minor disappointments instead of major disasters.

As good as Sunflower and Love You may be, buyer beware: They're a war - and perhaps a shock treatment or two - away from "Fun Fun Fun" or even "Here Comes the Night." Released in 1970, Sunflower captures the Boys' humane SoCal aesthetic as well as any record they've made, without once delving into their familiar girls-and-cars bag of tricks. Brian has his moments here - "Cool Cool Water" and "This Whole World" conjure up triumphs of the past - but the album's personal, mature tone suggests he's a cast member in this one, not the maestro. Still, Sunflower's Brian-esque gentle honesty and unguarded hope are qualities the band lost when Wilson took to his sandbox, and it's a pleasure to hear them before they faded into the ether.

As things turned out, Brian the eccentric genius had one more in him, as well. 1977's odd and enthralling Love You sounds at first blush like an Ed Wood movie set to music (laugh at "Solar System," if you will, but try to pry it from your head). Give it a few listens, though, and the camp dissipates into something more difficult and more moving. Once and for all, Wilson reveals himself on Love You as the damaged man-child, - painfully naive, touchingly disconnected, brutally honest. But damaged men-children don't survive intact inside (or outside) the music business, so as indelible as moments like "Johnny Carson" are, it's impossible to hear them as anything but an inevitable swan song. Another fade away, and another not to be missed.

Ratings: Sunflower: 8; Surf's Up: 5; 15 Big Ones: 5.; Love You: 9
- Rob Brookman


 

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