Audio CD review:
The Beach Boys - Sunflower/Surf's Up

The Beach Boys - Sunflower/Surf's Up

Band: The Beach Boys Title: Sunflower/Surf's Up Rating: Release Date: 18 July, 2000 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Slip On Through 2: The Whole World 3: Add Some Music To Your To Your Day 4: Got To Know The Woman 5: Deirdre 6: It's About Time 7: Tears In The Morning 8: All I Wanna Do 9: Forever 10: Our Sweet Love 11: At My Window 12: Cool Cool Water 13: Don't Go Near The Water 14: Long Promised Road 15: Take A Load Off Your Feet 16: Disney Girls 1957" 17: Student Demonstration Time 18: Feel Flows 19: Lookin' At Tomorrow (A Welfare Song) 20: A Day In The Life Of A Tree 21: 'Til I Die 22: Surf's Up

Editoral Review , ostensibly to capitalize on their phenomenal early successes. After an acrimonious split with their original record label at the end of the 1960s, the Beach Boys moved over to Warner Bros. But the move also coincided with band founder/creative genius Brian Wilson's burgeoning health problems and subsequent artistic abdication. That the boys were able to come up with what remain two of their more interesting albums is an enduring testament to the band's willpower. Sunflower, originally released in 1970, was a drastically revamped version of an unreleased album called Landlocked, and has an upbeat consistency that both built on the band's vocal strengths and somehow overcame schmaltzy pop and even the embarrassing, halting espanole of "At My Window. " Perhaps the album's greatest revelation is the brief flowering of Dennis Wilson as a writing and singing talent, especially on the lovely "Forever. " With Dennis largely succumbing to older brother Brian's demons, '71's Surf's Up is marred by cloddish efforts at agit-prop hipsterism (Mike Love's "Student Demonstration Time") and a nascent environmentalism that ranges from the naïve ("Don't Go Near the Water") to the bizarre ("A Day in the Life of a Tree"). Carl Wilson rescues the collection somewhat with "Long Promised Road" and "Feel Flows," but the album's twin jewels are both salvaged Brian Wilson efforts--the title track was one of the centerpieces of the unreleased Smile (cowritten by lyricist Van Dyke Parks and here given that album's "Child Is Father to the Man" as a glorious coda), while "Til I Die" hails from the scrapped Landlocked and remains one of Brian's most hauntingly introspective works. Both albums have been remastered on a single disc and include new liner notes by Wilson biographer Timothy White. --Jerry McCulley .. You can see a complete list of all The Beach Boys discography, or go back to the The Beach Boys tabs