Disco de The Beach Boys: “15 Big Ones/Love You”

Let's get 15 Big Ones out of the way first. This was Brian's first step back into production after a hiatus of the last three years. It consists of 8 covers, and 7 originals some of which were exhumed from the outtake archive. It's pleasant but mostly disposable,the high points being the vocal trading on "Had To Phone Ya" and the cover of Spector's "Just Once In My Life" in which Brian and Carl sound like they really mean it.

Love You! is just about all Brian in terms of production, composition and instumentation. Carl and Dennis help with some of the music, but Al and Mike are almost guest vocalists. This album is dominated by ancient (for 2000) synthesizers, making it very different to any other Beach Boys album and on another planet to Pet Sounds. Some people hate it for that, and you will probably see many different opinions in these reviews, so here's mine. It's brilliant. The songs are strong with tunes that survive any production treatment, the album is revolutionary in some ways in pre-dating new wave, and Brian writes as a disturbed thirtysomething pretending to be a teenager, and looking for love and acceptance and someone simply to hold him through the night.

You won't want to start your Beach Boys collection here, but if you are in any way serious about the group, you have to get this.

Love You is a smart album for smart people.

The vocals are not the smooth, angelic grace that most people associate with the Beach Boys. Instead, the are just rocking! And they are warm and human and a little rough around the edges. Give it a couple of listens, and you'll be hooked. The songs are goofy and strange, yes, but they rock. They are also sweet and infectious. How can anybody not like "Mona," for example? Or "Good Time"?

My girlfriend Penny, she's kind of skinny, and so she needs her falsies on. She don't like cookin', but she's so good lookin', I miss her when she's gone.

And when she gets to dancin', I feel just like romancin', especially when we're dancing close. she'll do the dirty boogie, and that's when I go up in smoke.

I mean, come on! This is a great tune on a great album. Loosen up, listen to Love You and groove on!

First of all I have to explain that this review will concentrate on The Beach Boys Love You. 15 Big Ones is okay but Love You is one of the most beautiful pure pop masterpieces ever made.

Many people consider Pet Sounds to be Brian Wilson's great masterwork but I would argue that this album, although very different, is at least it's equal. If Pet Sounds is the masterpiece of pop sophistication, this is the masterpiece of primitive pop. The lush, complex arrangements of a wide selection of "real" instruments blended together and angelic smoothe voices of Pet Sounds are replaced with clunky chunky synths and gruff vocals close to breaking up. However, as always with Brian, the songs aren't as simple as they sound at first. Beautiful melodies combine with, mostly, Brian's own pure and honest adult-child lyrics..." if Mars has life on it I might find a wife on it" WOW!. Solar System, I Wanna Pick You Up and The Night Young Was So Young are personal high lights but there isn't a bad cut on it. I've had the great pleasure of interviewing Brian and he has told a couple of times, unprompted, he considers Love You the Beach Boys finest album. He also confided his use of synths was inspired by Walter Carlos' Switched on Bach, which he still has in his CD jukebox.

For first time listeners the extreme difference from what they think of as the typical BB's sound can be a shock to the system but stick with it, the rewards are great. This is an album that was a radical step forward for pop music's single greatest artist. The use of synths and the songwriting are groundbreaking on many levels (check out that synth bass)... BUT Brian also succeeds in keeping the naivety, truth and childlike wonder that were in his very first recordings.

So go and get it, flip round the CD booklet so it shows Love You (and not 15 Big Ones) on the front, start playing the cd at track 16...then go out and spread the word to anyone who'll listen. What the world needs now is Love You.

(Honourable mentions go to Once in my Life, It's Ok and Had to Phone Ya from 15 Big Ones.)

15 Big Ones is a really corny album. It's over-produced, has way too many covers, isn't a full-fledged Brian Wilson album on any level with Pet Sounds. The production is pretty similar to Mark Hudson's (he has commited production overkill on many Ringo albums.)The production was an attempt to sound retro while taking advantage of the current recording technology and production trends. Therefore, even though this album is a tribute to rock and roll, the album doesn't rock. Any time that the Beach Boys really rocked, it was when the instrumental and vocal rawness rose above the production values. Mind you, there's not one bad instrumental sound or bad vocal. In fact, this album is really quite enjoyable despite the gripes. It's a really well-made prodcut. It just doesn't have quite enough soul. Carl still manages to get soulful and Brian does some pretty good, but slightly ragged singing. Just Once In My Life has the most emotional vocals from Brian and Carl. It's probably the best song on the album. The second best song Had To Phone Ya... which happens to be a Brian original. I also really enjoy That Same Song. It's a happy mixture of corny music and wonderful lyrics that talk about how music went from Gregorian Chant to Rock over time. A song like That Same Song almost makes 15 Big Ones feel like it's a lesser version of a concept album. Mike Love doesn't add much to this album. His originals are lame and his vocals don't make matters better for the cover of Rock And Roll Music. Carl's leadership and songwriting is missing on this album. He's relegated to his old role of best vocalist.

Once you get past that commercial stuff, we get to the real art. We get the REAL Brian Wilson. He was back and he delivered the goods! This album has production that works, fun lyrics, rocking songs, intricate instrumentals and vocal harmonies, and some songs that even have the same emotional power as the songs from Pet Sounds. Best of all, this album actually ROCKS. Even with the complex chord progressions and layers of synths! The lyrics are mostly simple, but fantastic. From the childlike fascination in the stars of Solar System to the fantastic love song The Night Was So Young. Solar system is actually a marvelous song and you feel Brian's wonderment evoked through his vocals. Brian actually sings the best vocals on the album. He sings with a true passion and more emotion that nobody would've expected back then. He did a wonderful and beautiful job on the vocals for The Night Was So Young and Let's Put Our Hearts Together. Both songs are actually pretty moving and poigniant. I Wanna Pick You Up and I'll Bet He's Nice have really sentimental lyrics and Brian and Dennis both provide great, ragged vocals. Carl's vocals are the best on the latter song, though. Carl Wilson sings a great lead vocal for Let Us Go On This Way and Roller Skating Child. He has soul that goes back to Wild Honey and it sounds like he's having a lot of fun. Mike even sounds pretty good during Roller Skating Child. Mona does EVERYTHING that 15 Big Ones failed to do. It's a fantastic tribute to rock and roll before The Beatles. I could imagine Phil Spector loving it... and being flattered for the mention of some of the songs he produced and his name. Great job, Brian. Johnny Carson is this great bluesy... um... rocker about... Johnny Carson! The lyrics are funny, but brilliant. Once again, Carl steals the show. He sings with such convincing soul... and Mike did another decent job. Honkin' Down The Highway has a great lead vocal from Al who sings the song's somewhat silly lyrics with fun and passion. Airplane has great instrumentals and harmonies... It actually would've been a good song for Bruce to sing during the choruses. Both Honkin' Down The Highway and Airplane actually sound like classic Beach Boys songs. The only song that i don't really like is Love Is A Woman. The synths are great, but this song is too much like the stuff from 15 Big Ones... You'll hear why. Ding Dang is better and way more fun. It's a nifty little rocker with catchy lyrics and more fun vocals from Carl. The Night Was So Young is the best song on the album. Everything about it is GREAT. Carl turned in fine lead vocals, the harmonies are perfect, Brian's couple of lead vocal parts and his falsetto vocals are fantastic. Long story short, this is a great Brian Wilson album and every song has fantastic lead and harmony vocals from the group. I CAN'T complain about the music OR production... everything is tastefully done down to the experimental use of synths and keys... so go listen to Love You. You will feel the love and you will love this wonderful album.

In the last year I've discovered "song poem" music: what you get when people answer ads in magazines and send their self-written lyrics to sharpsters who put music to them and make a record. (See Rodd Keith's "I Died Today" or "The American Song Poem Anthology" both sold by Amazon). The result is usually a combination of ridiculous lyrics matched to professional, (if often slapdash), music. The effect is often like an unintentional parody of pop music.

The Beach Boys Love You is very much like Brian's "song poem" album. Lyrics Brian sent words to Music Brian and Music Brian made a demo record. Lyrics that can be disturbing (I Want to Pick You Up), intentionally funny, I think, (Johnny Carson), clueless attempts to be current and hip, (Roller Skating Child), or that express common pop song sentiments in an inept way (Love Is A Woman), are set to music by one of the very few "rock 'n' roll" musical geniuses. The heavy use of 70s synths and Brian's not-quite in tune lounge-singer vocals give this LP a special aura of cheesiness. The effect is the same clash between amateurishness and professionalism that many song poems display.

And it's brilliant- unintentionally so. It doesn't come off as cute, clever or contrived. It comes off as real, no matter how hyped or phony the circumstances of its release (Brian's back- we gotta release something...anything). It's one of those albums with no precedents and no decendents.

15 Big Ones is really "It's OK" plus 14 small ones. Very small ones. It's what happens when Mike and Al get too involved. That's something you want to avoid.