Sorry for dropping off the discussion. I didn't want to get too far ahead of the thread or delay my listening, so I'm just finishing the first pass at my rankings now. Here are all the ones I've heard so far:
Records that Repo recommended for further listening:
Carl Wilson by Carl Wilson
Surfin' Round The World by Bruce Johnston
The Ultimate Collector's Edition 1963-65 by David Marks & The Marksmen
Is there anything else good that I'm missing?
Glad there's another fan of Wild Honey out there! 🙌
What's the story and connection between Van Dyke Parks and the Beach Boys again? What year did Song Cycle come out? Did Brian have any involvement? Like perhaps with production or use of his studio? Maybe there's a compelling case for us to circle back to Song Cycle after reviewing & ranking 20/20 (which I just started listening to)?
Would love to hear your thoughts, BayState! Also it would be GREAT to get your thoughts (in addition to your rankings) on the albums we've discussed so far. Like, why do you Wild Honey placed so high? Not that I disagree (I actually wholeheartedly AGREE), but it would be fun to get your opinions and perspectives thrown in here as well. We want your 2 cents! 🤓🫢 >
Moved: 11/19/2025 02:21 by Romanelli From Music Diaries to Music
I was not about to let this thread fall into page 2 obscurity. Beach Boys Thread forever! Let's talk about 20/20.
This album is all over the place. A couple leftovers from the Smile sessions (Our Prayer, Cabin Essence). A cover of a '40s folk song (Cotton Fields) sung by Al. A hard-rocking jam written by Dennis and sung by Mike (All I Want To Do). A cover of a pop song written by Phil Spector and first recorded by The Ronettes (I Can Hear Music). Needless to say, this album is anything but 20/20 (sorry, the pun was easy and had to be shoehorned somewhere). It isn't clear what The Beach Boys were aiming for here. It isn't clear who was the driving force of the band. Writing credits, production credits, instruments used, song structures/arrangements, and lead singers were seemingly different from one track to the next. Cover songs were abundant. Is the music good, though? Sometimes, sometimes not. I can live without their cover of Cotton Fields, though I am a fan of their cover of I Can Hear Music. Smile leftover, Cabin Essence is good, even though it's placement as the closing track feels incredibly off. I can't think of any blatantly terrible songs, but a few are underwhelming and/or forgettable. Overall, it may be their weakest set of songs post-Pet Sounds thus far. Given how jumbled together it is on top of that, 20/20 is not a good album in my opinion. At best, it's an interesting hodgepodge with some decent songs. At worst, it's a sub-par listen for die-hard fans, while casual fans would listen start-to-finish a couple times, then add a few favorites to their playlist and move on.
Wake the world with a brand new morning
Say hello to another fine morning
Got my face in the running water
Making my life so much brighter - "Wake The World"
It was a mistake. Order matters. I never should have listened to The Smile Sessions right after binging on Smiley Smilefor weeks. My brain just wasn't in the right headspace, especially since I LOVED Smiley Smile so much. No. It took listening to Friends, the freaking SEQUEL to SMiLE, a connection/comparison that for some reason NO ONE seems to talk about, for me to truly get it. "Thank you Friends. I wouldn't SMiLE> if it wasn't for you". 😉
Friends itself has a mellow "day in the life" quality to it and feels, in part, a low key, chill answer to The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper’s. To paraphrase CA Dreamin, it's a "charming, lo-fi breeze, and if Evan Dando, of Lemonheads fame, was into The Beach Boys, I could easily see this being his fave of the gang's albums thus far. Brian and the Boys sound relaxed and mellifluous. Brian himself seems totally in control, not trying too hard & comfortable just being who he is. In fact, Brian considered this his second solo album (with Pet Sounds being his first). It's like Brian had just read The Art of War and realized that while everyone else was running (trying to be political & edgy as CA Dreamin points out upstream), the appropriate response was to just take a leisurely stroll. I don't know much of its inception and influences, BUT if you told me that The Beach Boys pretty much invented Sunshine Pop, I certainly wouldn't bat an eye.
Despite this having Brian's fingerprints all over it, it’s also Dennis’ big breakout album. His two contributions - "Little Bird" and "Be Still" - are both highlights here. If you ask me, “Be Still” could pass as a Robert Wyatt song! Which leads me to another thought, one I wish I could take credit for it, but it actually comes courtesy of Spotify’s uncannily clever algorithm which immediately started playing Brian Eno's Another Green World at the conclusion of this very short album clearly recognizing the throughline which I hadn't up to that point. Brian's "Busy Doin’ Nothing" underlines the Beach Boys as leading lights of this '70s Soft Rock sound which would soon be taking over the airwaves.
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
Is it just me, or does Dennis even look a touch like Evan? 🫠
The Ranking: 13 albums. 1-3. And still as vital & pivotal as ever. Just absolutely incredible. Name another rock/pop band still vital after 13 albums?!?!
On first listen, after the first few songs I started thinking "sounds like just another Wild Honey" *an album I did not enjoy that much. But from "When A Man Needs A Woman" onwards, which although the lyrics are pretty cringe IMO it's actually a nice song, little by little I started enjoyed this album. I gave it a few more listens throughout the following weeks and I do think that side two is much better than side one.
The fact that it's slightly longer than "Wild Honey" and that this is the only Beach Boy album in a string of 5 in which the last track is not a scrapped Smile-project one (see "Wild Honey", "20/20", "Sunflower", "Surf's Up", and you could even say "Smiley Smile...), makes me feel that the band was particularly more inspired during the recording of "Friends" and had more things to say. Some of my favorite ones are "Little Bird", "Busy Doin' Nothin'" and "Transcendental Meditation". Regarding this last track, it's curious to notice how around this time, their respective incursions into Rishikesh ashram influenced both the Beatles and the Beach Boys (the former's "White Album" would be released just a few months after "Friends"), although "Transcendental Meditation" sounds more like a parody by Mike Love, which is funny considering he would later claim to have levitated at some point.
Rank 'Em: The Beach Boys
1. Pet Sounds [1966] 90/100
2. The Smile Sessions [1967/2011] 85/100
3. Summer Days (and Sumer Nights!!) [1965] 80/100
4. Friends [1968] 75/100
4. Smiley Smile [1967] 75/100
5. Wild Honey [1967] 70/100
6. Party! [1965] 60/100
Last edited by Filipe on 24 hours ago; edited 1 time in total
On first listen, after the first few songs I started thiking "sounds like just another Wild Honey" *an album I did not enjoy that much. But from "When A Man Needs A Woman" onwards, which although the lyrics are pretty cringe IMO it's actually a nice song, little by little I started enjoyed this album. I gave it a few more listens throughout the following weeks and I do think that side two is much better than side one.
The fact that it's slightly longer than "Wild Honey" and that this is the only Beach Boy, album in a string of 5, in which the last track is not a scrapped Smile-project one (see "Wild Honey", "20/20", "Sunflower", "Surf's Up", and you could even say "Smiley Smile...), makes me feel that the band was particularly more inspired during the recording of "Friends" and had more things to say. Some of my favorite ones are "Little Bird", "Busy Doin' Nothin'" and "Transcendental Meditation". Regarding this last track, it's curious to notice how around this time, their incursions into Rishikesh ashram influenced both the Beatles and the Beach Boys (the former's "White Album" would be released just a few months after "Friends"), although "Transcendental Meditation" sounds more like a parody by Mike Love, which is funny considering he would later claim to have levitated at some point.
Rank 'Em: The Beach Boys
1. Pet Sounds [1966] 90/100
2. The Smile Sessions [1967/2011] 85/100
3. Summer Days (and Sumer Nights!!) [1965] 80/100
4. Friends [1968] 75/100
4. Smiley Smile [1967] 75/100
5. Wild Honey [1967] 70/100
6. Party! [1965] 60/100
Friends is Brian's favorite Beach Boy's album! Even though he acknowledges that Pet Sounds is the superior record, Friends is still his fave as it captured what he was feeling at the time.
Probably why Brian felt free to completely check out on 20/20!!! 🤣 As CA Dreamin' points out, 20/20 was the first Beach Boys album without Brian's heavy-handed direction. Dennis goes further and says until this point, the Beach Boys were solely Brian's band and he, his brother Carl, Mike & Al were pretty much just Brian's puppets. Or did he say slaves! I forget. But you get the idea.
I'll get a 20/20 review up this week! Thanks for the push, guys!!! 🥰
“[20/20 was] a very un-Brian record, the first album where all the members of the band got to do whatever they wanted to do.” - Brian Johnston, THE 6th Beach Boy
The Setting: CDs don't travel well. You can't just fling 'em in the back seat and hope everything is gonna work out alright. Now, I really wish I could say I had a car with an 8-track. THAT would have been the coolest. But I didn’t. I trafficked (get it! 😉 ) in cassettes instead. And I LOVED 'em. I'd always have a veritable suitcase of them with me on any roadtrip. Or even just going out for a loaf of bread. In fact, cassettes rode shotgun with me back in the '80s & '90s more than pretty much anyone else! 🤣
Despite my trusty suitcase of cassettes, one of my favorite traditions on any road trip was pulling into one of those big ass truck stops and perusing their carousels of cassettes. The joy was picking something you'd never pick at any other time. Just a fairly reckless pick from the gut. And almost always a guilty pleasure. Stuff like Lynyrd Skynyrd and 38 Special. Not something chosen after hours of research combing through my dog-eared Trouser Press or the latest issue of Spin Magazine, but just practically a random grab into those magical revolving carousels.
And THAT is what 20/20 feels like to me. A random grab bag of "American" music with a touch of nostalgia and a slice of apple pie just itching to hit the ol' blacktop.
The Listen: If there is any doubt about The Beach Boys ushering in that 70s sound with either Wild Honey or Friends, all doubts are completely erased with 20/20. I mean just listen to this ...
I mean it sounds like the backing track to a Carpenters' song or something. So your tolerance for 20/20 in general will depend upon how much you like 70s soft rock /yacht rock. Overall, it feels like a bit of a love letter to American music; sort of like what the MC5 were going for with their 2nd release, the underrated Back In The USA. I would have hated this stuff in the 90s, but now I really dig it. All the songs are catchy and well-recorded. Nothing fancy here, but it goes down easy! Just as I'd always hoped any of those random cassettes from those magical carousels at those Flying J truck stops would sound like all those years ago.
The Ranking(s): It’s enjoyable. A fun, breezy release. AND, almost every track would be perfect for AM Radio on a road trip. BUT, if it felt out of the car if I took a turn a bit too strong,... well, let's just say I wouldn’t be heading back for it.
I also re-listened to All Summer Long and loved it FAR more than I did a few months back. I think that I was simply fatigued of that pre-Today! Beach Boys sound at that point. I certainly like it more than 20/20. It’s more distinctive.
Anyways, 14 albums in and I really can't help but thinking that The Beach Boys may be the best American band of all time. They are soooo American (whatever that means!😅 )
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Moved: 11/19/2025 02:21 by Romanelli
