![]() ![]() Wendy was intended as a homage to the Beach Boys’ east coast competitors the Four Seasons: you can definitely hear the influence of their then-current hit single Ronnie, particularly in its intro. He’s an understandably controversial figure among Beach Boys fans, but Mike Love nevertheless makes Be True to Your School as exciting as it is: his lyrics are weirdly belligerent, and he sings them with a punkish snarl at odds with its perky cheerleader chants and ra-ra backing vocals, as if intent on provoking a punch-up rather than lauding his alma mater. ![]() Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Left to right … Carl Wilson, Mike Love, Dennis Wilson (under Mike Love), Brian Wilson and David Marks. The Beach Boys seldom rocked out convincingly – it just wasn’t their forte – which makes It’s About Time, a collaborative effort involving Dennis and Carl Wilson and Al Jardine, a truly rare pleasure: Dennis’s vocal is raw and powerful, the guitar solo stings, the Santana-inspired Latin percussion rattles along. Brian won, and the result was as close as the Beach Boys came to garage-rock toughness: nothing to scare the Shadows of Knight, but its vague hint of pounding aggression is really thrilling. Little Honda (1964)īrian and brother Carl had a row in the studio over Brian’s insistence that Little Honda needed a distorted guitar. It’s creepier and more compelling still in the ragged re-recording on Smiley Smile, and nothing like anything else the Beach Boys recorded. You can hear the fear in Smile’s supine, compelling but distinctly creepy Wind Chimes. LSD didn’t make Brian Wilson relax and float downstream: it scared the shit out of him. But the gentle, descending melody on his contribution to Surf’s Up – an evocation of 50s America that couldn’t have been less fashionable in 1971, decorated with wah-wah guitar or not – is disarmingly charming. Bruce Johnston’s songwriting could tend to schmaltz: see the ghastly Deirdre, from Sunflower.
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