i am sure most beach boys fans will have all these songs considering this is the umpteenth repackaging of them.However i have to give it 5 stars because these are timeless.Leading off with "fun,fun,fun" and finishing with "be true to your school"you can't help but sing along,tap your feet,& dance in your seat.The only thing maybe they could have differently was replace "surfer girl"with 1 more uptempo song.I love the song but the other 9 songs are mid-uptempo tunes,so the ballad doesn't seem to fit as well as another uptempo song would.
This Beach Boys CD makes you feel like you are on the beach even if you are not! I would recommend this CD to anyone who likes music. During the winter doldrums you can be "surfin USA."
The Beach Boys are one of the greatest bands of all-time in my opinion. With a career spanning five decades now, they have had many different personnel changes over the years, and have dealt with the deaths of two founding members (brothers Carl and Dennis Wilson), but they have continued on, albeit with only Mike Love and Bruce Johnston (Brian Wilson, Al Jardine, and David Marks, the other surviving members, are doing solo projects).
What you have here is 'Ten Best Series,' a CD series that collects ten of the best songs from the artist or band and puts them on one budget-priced compact disc. In some cases (take for instance Billy Squier, or perhaps The Red Hot Chili Peppers' installment), it works. In others (like this one), it fails. And it doesn't just fail. IT FAILS MISERABLY.
First, HOW CAN YOU COMPILE A DISC WITH ONLY 10 SONGS AND CALL IT A "BEST-OF"? Especially for a group as legendary as The Beach Boys. It just doesn't work. 'The Warmth of the Sun,' 'In My Room,' 'God Only Knows,' 'Sloop John B,' 'When I Grow Up (To Be A Man),' and 'Girl Don't Tell Me,' all essential Beach Boys tracks, are all not here. And I'm not even touching on their late-'60s, '70s and '80s material.
And this CD isn't even 24 minutes long!!! That's right. CDs can hold 80 minutes of music, and yet, not even 25 minutes worth of music is featured here.
What's here is great, don't get me wrong. But the packaging (no liner notes whatsoever -- yes, sadly, I own this CD), the lack of classic tracks, and failure to put at least 30 minutes of music on this CD equal only 1 star in rating. This is a ripoff and a pathetic attempt by Capitol Records to try to cash in on the legendary name of the Beach Boys and to take your hard earned dollar. They should be ashamed of themselves for offering this package.
Buy 'Sounds of Summer.' Buy 'Endless Summer.' Buy '20 Good Vibrations: Greatest Hits Vol. 1' (although I really don't recommend that one -- see my review). Or, just buy the two-fer studio albums (two studio albums combined together on one compact disc, with the exception of 'Pet Sounds'). ANYTHING but this horrendous release will do. Shame on Capitol Records for releasing such a crappy collection.
NOT RECOMMENDED.
