Post by Dawn on Oct 4, 2005 14:00:41 GMT -5
As I mentioned in the last Roundtable post, beginning with this post I will be featuring some albums/artists from my collection that I discovered as a result of recommendations and comments by you all here on the Click. It has been very cool to get acquainted with some great music!
Today’s album is from The Beach Boys, a group I had always liked, but have grown to love dearly after Pete’s reviews and comments here and on YL led to me become more familiar with their music. This is a very unique album in their catalog, and one that I always enjoy listening to.
20/20
The Beach Boys[/b]
Released February 10, 1969
The track listing:
1. Do It Again
2. I Can Hear Music
3. Bluebirds Over The Mountain
4. Be With Me
5. All I Want to Do
6. The Nearest Faraway Place
7. Cotton Fields
8. I Went To Sleep
9. Time To Get Alone
10. Never Learn Not To Love
11. Our Prayer
12. Cabinessence
Following Pet Sounds and the abandonment of Smile in 1967, The Beach Boys released a series of albums – the stripped down but psychedelic Smiley Smile, the raw and soulful Wild Honey, and the mellow and laid-back Friends. This album was a departure from that trend in that there was no overall mood or style, but an extremely varied collection of musical styles with input from all the members. I’ve read reviews that liken this album to the Beatles’ White Album because of its “patchwork” quality, and that’s a pretty valid comparison.
Several tracks from this album were released as singles prior to and after the album’s release. Of these, Do It Again was the most successful, peaking at #20 on the Billboard chart and #1 on the UK chart in 1968. It’s a catchy track that echoes the Beach Boys sound of earlier years, and was the result of an increasingly rare collaboration between Brian Wilson and Mike Love. I Can Hear Music is a very nice cover of the Ronettes’ classic, with a superb lead vocal from Carl, who also produced the track – his first solo producing effort. Bluebirds Over the Mountain is an interesting take on the original, and was produced by Bruce Johnston.
The Beach Boys ventured into country with Cotton Fields, another cover, which was recorded for the album at the suggestion of Al Jardine, who provides the lead vocal. A somewhat different version was released as a single later in ’69.
Near the middle of the album are two adjoining tracks that couldn’t have been more different in style. I'm not sure if it was intentionally planned that way, but the contrast between the two makes for a very cool listening experience. Dennis Wilson’s All I Want to Do is a gritty rocker with some searing guitar work, definitely one of the hardest rocking songs in their catalog. I love to crank this one! Following that is Bruce Johnston’s The Nearest Faraway Place, a very mellow keyboard-dominated instrumental that, while very pretty and well-done, could almost be termed elevator music.
Denny also contributes the soaring Be With Me, a wonderful track with great horn accompaniment, and also some of the lyrics to Never Learn Not to Love, a track notorious because of its association with Charles Manson, who had originally written it as Cease to Exist when he was hoping to be considered as a recording artist for Brother Records. For some reason, I’ve never quite warmed up to this one as much as the other tracks Denny composed or contributed to.
Though Brian had withdrawn somewhat from the group at this point, he is still represented fairly well on this album with Time to Get Alone, a superb song originally intended for Redwood/later Three Dog Night, and my favorite track on the album. Another of Brian’s compositions, I Went to Sleep, is a very nice mellow number that would have been a perfect closer to the Friends album.
The remaining two tracks, Our Prayer and Cabinessence, were originally intended to be part of Smile in 1967, and as a result they sound a bit of place on this album, but are both excellent. Our Prayer is absolutely stunning, a great acapella blend of those wonderful harmonies, and Cabinessence is a wonderfully complex piece that illustrates how great Smile would have been (and is!). These are also Brian compositions, with Van Dyke Parks contributing lyrics for Cabinessence.
Though not among their very best albums such as Pet Sounds, this is still a very enjoyable listen. It’s paired with Friends on CD, and the two-fer frequently finds its way into my CD player. I have a minor gripe about the album cover in that Brian is not included in the cover photo, although he does appear on the LP gatefold (though not in the CD booklet for some reason) hiding behind an eye chart, a cool tie-in with the album title.
What are your thoughts on this album?
Today’s album is from The Beach Boys, a group I had always liked, but have grown to love dearly after Pete’s reviews and comments here and on YL led to me become more familiar with their music. This is a very unique album in their catalog, and one that I always enjoy listening to.
20/20
The Beach Boys[/b]
Released February 10, 1969
The track listing:
1. Do It Again
2. I Can Hear Music
3. Bluebirds Over The Mountain
4. Be With Me
5. All I Want to Do
6. The Nearest Faraway Place
7. Cotton Fields
8. I Went To Sleep
9. Time To Get Alone
10. Never Learn Not To Love
11. Our Prayer
12. Cabinessence
Following Pet Sounds and the abandonment of Smile in 1967, The Beach Boys released a series of albums – the stripped down but psychedelic Smiley Smile, the raw and soulful Wild Honey, and the mellow and laid-back Friends. This album was a departure from that trend in that there was no overall mood or style, but an extremely varied collection of musical styles with input from all the members. I’ve read reviews that liken this album to the Beatles’ White Album because of its “patchwork” quality, and that’s a pretty valid comparison.
Several tracks from this album were released as singles prior to and after the album’s release. Of these, Do It Again was the most successful, peaking at #20 on the Billboard chart and #1 on the UK chart in 1968. It’s a catchy track that echoes the Beach Boys sound of earlier years, and was the result of an increasingly rare collaboration between Brian Wilson and Mike Love. I Can Hear Music is a very nice cover of the Ronettes’ classic, with a superb lead vocal from Carl, who also produced the track – his first solo producing effort. Bluebirds Over the Mountain is an interesting take on the original, and was produced by Bruce Johnston.
The Beach Boys ventured into country with Cotton Fields, another cover, which was recorded for the album at the suggestion of Al Jardine, who provides the lead vocal. A somewhat different version was released as a single later in ’69.
Near the middle of the album are two adjoining tracks that couldn’t have been more different in style. I'm not sure if it was intentionally planned that way, but the contrast between the two makes for a very cool listening experience. Dennis Wilson’s All I Want to Do is a gritty rocker with some searing guitar work, definitely one of the hardest rocking songs in their catalog. I love to crank this one! Following that is Bruce Johnston’s The Nearest Faraway Place, a very mellow keyboard-dominated instrumental that, while very pretty and well-done, could almost be termed elevator music.
Denny also contributes the soaring Be With Me, a wonderful track with great horn accompaniment, and also some of the lyrics to Never Learn Not to Love, a track notorious because of its association with Charles Manson, who had originally written it as Cease to Exist when he was hoping to be considered as a recording artist for Brother Records. For some reason, I’ve never quite warmed up to this one as much as the other tracks Denny composed or contributed to.
Though Brian had withdrawn somewhat from the group at this point, he is still represented fairly well on this album with Time to Get Alone, a superb song originally intended for Redwood/later Three Dog Night, and my favorite track on the album. Another of Brian’s compositions, I Went to Sleep, is a very nice mellow number that would have been a perfect closer to the Friends album.
The remaining two tracks, Our Prayer and Cabinessence, were originally intended to be part of Smile in 1967, and as a result they sound a bit of place on this album, but are both excellent. Our Prayer is absolutely stunning, a great acapella blend of those wonderful harmonies, and Cabinessence is a wonderfully complex piece that illustrates how great Smile would have been (and is!). These are also Brian compositions, with Van Dyke Parks contributing lyrics for Cabinessence.
Though not among their very best albums such as Pet Sounds, this is still a very enjoyable listen. It’s paired with Friends on CD, and the two-fer frequently finds its way into my CD player. I have a minor gripe about the album cover in that Brian is not included in the cover photo, although he does appear on the LP gatefold (though not in the CD booklet for some reason) hiding behind an eye chart, a cool tie-in with the album title.
What are your thoughts on this album?
