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Carl & The Passions - So Tough / Holland

The Beach Boys - Carl & The Passions - So Tough / Holland Audio CD

A fair review of the The Beach Boys "Carl & The Passions - So Tough / Holland" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all The Beach Boys reviews here, or go back to the The Beach Boys tabs.

Band: The Beach Boys
Title: Carl & The Passions - So Tough / Holland
Rating:

Release Date: 2000-08-15
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: You Need a Mess of Help to Stand Alone 2: Here She Comes 3: He Come Down 4: Marcella 5: Hold on Dear Brother 6: Make It Good 7: All This Is That 8: Cuddle Up 9: Sail on Sailor 10: Steamboat 11: California Saga/Big Sur 12: California Saga/The Beaks of Eagles 13: California Saga/California 14: Trader 15: Leaving This Town 16: Only With You 17: Funky Pretty 18: Mt. Vernon and Fairway Theme 19: I'm the Pied Piper 20: Better Get Back in Bed 21: Magic Transistor Radio 22: I'm the Pied Piper 23: Radio King Dom

Bah, Critics
(That's right, I said it!) Carl and the Passions - So Tough is a strong album, with beautiful songs (including little know Brian Wilson compositions) and great playing. The Amazon reviewer, Jerry McCulley, either has a tin ear, or didn't bother to listen to So Tough before he wrote his review. As a long-time fan, I will agree that many of the Beach Boys albums of the 70's and 80's leave much to be desired, but neither Carl and the Passions nor Holland belong on that list. Ignore the critics and listen for yourself.

Transcending everything
This doesn't sound like standard Beach Boys music. No. This is a musically varied affair. It's got rock 'n' roll, R&B, progressive rock, jazzy moments, a ton of keyboards/synths, and spiritual lyrics. They sort of took the concepts and sounds of Feel Flows and spread them out over a number of songs. . . This pair of albums has a good amount of great material that didn't get an enormous amount of airplay. Many Beach Boys recordings can be considered timeless, but these songs practically sound NEW. So fresh. . . Some excellent production graces faves like Marcella and Sail on Sailor. Marcella has a now is retro vibe drenched in reverb. . . the instruments and vocals are gritty, smoothe, soulful, and rockin' all at once resting on a bed of great guitars and moving to the support of a great and slightly tempo shifting drum beat. Listen to it ASAP. Sail On Sailor has great soulful vocals, a great beat, harmonic background vocals galore, neat guitar, and inspiring lyrics with a reassuring chorus. . . It sounds retro, modern for it's time, and fresh for contemporary listening. Trader has a fantastic Carl Wilson vocal, background vocals worthy of any great Elton John recording, with keyboards driving the song at a good tempo. . . The second half of this song is FANTASTIC-A Transcendant prayer that transcends the song itself and leaves you feeling so calm inside. AMAZING! All This Is That is thoroughly transcendant. . . it transcends transcendental meditation! Great group and lead Vocals. Carl's are the best, of course. . . Very beautiful and gentle. . . even a bit soulful. Fantastic Falsetto during the chant that goes to the fade out. Mike's lead vocals are actually beautiful and kinda sexy in a way (i'm a straight guy admitting this), but you can detect that "hipness" thing that plagues too many of his vocals in its delivery. Funky Pretty is mesmerizing. I could imagine Stevie Wonder diggin' it. . . Great lead vocals from Carl, Blondie, All, and Mike. The song is all soul and synthesizers, baby. . . with some awesome astrological verses. All of these elements make the tune far out and funky even for today! Leaving This Town is a fantastic song, despite it's downer lyrics. . . Fantastic lead vocals give the lyrics meaning. . . The piano is fantastic. . . The song has this Traffic thing going for it during the instrumental section with a somehwhat free form synth solo and Low Spark percussion. This section adds an interesting progressive jazz-rock element to the Beach Boys usual musical and vocal stylings. You Need a Mess of Help to Stand Alone is a bit country rock in a Stones, Faces, or even Big Star way. A fun tune for sure. . . Fun vocals, fun lyrics. . . making it thoroughly Beach Boys. Interesting bridge, too. . . check it out, listen to it. California Saga (On my way to sunny etc. ) has a great moog bass line, catchy vocals from Mike, and some more traditional Beach Boys harmonies and vocals. The lyrics are epic in a way, but the overall production with the instrumentals, vocals, and definitive Beach Boys sound should've made it a hit. Steamboat has a bunch of interesting elements in it. The beat is a bit robotic, as someone pointed out before, the keys "float" along the river stream, Carl's vocals are soulful and old timey in a very Band way, the background vocals have an older than doo wop feel while maintaining the doo wop style. For me, i guess the song has a bit of a dreamy vibe. It's relaxing to listen to, despite the mechanical drum beat and a guitar solo that sounds a bit similar to the solo in It's Over by badfinger. Only With You is a very tender and beautiful love song. Carl sang a beautiful lead, but a ragged Dennis vocal would've suited it much better and would've given it more heart. I love the production, though. Understated strings, tasteful keyboards, solid melodic bass, just the right amount of guitar. Here She Comes is a great song with some great bass playing. This one sounds like Traffic. It's a rock 'n' roll stew of jazzy and bluesy elements. Hippie lingo lyrics definitely make it sound like an early '70's track. The most Beach Boys thing about it would be is that the lyrics have a strong emotional premise. Go listen to these songs and the rest on the two albums! You may be in for some surprises. If you'd rather hear a more consistent take on a varied musical approach with more traditional Beach Boys elements, skip this and get Sunflower. Another fantastic album. We'll talk more about that one later.

Good Price....Get It
I'm not sure why they put Holland and Carl and the Passions together, but it doesn't really matter. This is a great set.
The beautiful thing about Carl and the Passions is that the Beach Boys actually used some of Dennis Wilson's music. My favs are Make It Good and Cuddle Up.
Holland was certainly a different sound for the Beach Boys. If they had followed down that path, they may have become a Northern California band as well. Sail On Sailor was the hit here. Personally, I enjoyed Brian's fairytale at the end. With the origianl LP release, they included the fairytale as a 45 single. I remember not knowing at what speed to play it. It wasn't until I bought the CD set that I realized I had played it at too fast a speed for all those years. It actually sounded better sped-up.

Pretty good stuff . . . from a forgotten but talented band

This "twofer" is no different. Long after their chart-topping heyday, the Boys settled into Life After Brian by patchworking together several generally sub-par 70's albums that were typically littered with isolated gems and way-out, freaky attempts at psychedelia. "Carl & the Passions" is a decidedly mediocre work, but contains minor masterpieces of obscurity like the shimmering, haunting "All This is That", featuring the kind of vocal performance by Carl Wilson that only confirms him as one of rock's true angels. There are other tracks worth hearing - but they have gained most of their cache by virtue of hindsight and the way history now sees this seminal band.

A much stronger overall work, "Holland" is widely regarded (now) as one of the Beach Boys' best 70's albums. Panned upon it's release, it contains some of the non-Brian Boys' best contributions: The Trader (Carl Wilson); Leaving This Town (Blondie Chaplin) & Dennis Wilson's strange, Tom Waits-esque "Steamboat". The clincher, however, is the Brian Wilson-Van Dyke Parks-Tandyn Almer-Jack Riley gem, "Sail on Sailor". Ranking with the Beach Boys' absolute best work, this may truly be the Last Great Beach Boys Song. Without this track, Warners rejected the album; with it, the Beach Boys finally added a respectable addition to their canon - without Brian's dominant song writing, composing and producing.

Excellent sound and remastering, nice package. If you're a Beach Boys fan/completist, this is one you won't pass by.

Good, Better, Best
Together they form a great combo. Both albums are good in their own right. Holland is ,imho, the best Beach Boys album after Pet Sounds. With great contributions of Carl & Dennis.

You can see a complete list of all The Beach Boys discography, or go back to the The Beach Boys tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.