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Beach Boys' Party!/Stack-O-Tracks

The Beach Boys - Beach Boys' Party!/Stack-O-Tracks Audio CD

A fair review of the The Beach Boys "Beach Boys' Party!/Stack-O-Tracks" 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: Beach Boys' Party!/Stack-O-Tracks
Rating:

Release Date: 2001-04-10
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Hully Gully [Live] 2: I Should Have Known Better [Live] 3: Tell Me Why [Live] 4: Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow [Live] 5: Mountain of Love [Live] 6: You've Got to Hide Your Love Away [Live] 7: Devoted to You [Live] 8: Alley Oop [Live] 9: There's No Other (Like My Baby) [Live] 10: Medley: I Get Around/Little Deuce Coupe [Live] 11: Times They Are A-Changin' [Live] 12: Barbara Ann [Live] 13: Darlin' [Instrumental] 14: Salt Lake City [Instrumental] 15: Sloop John B [Instrumental] 16: In My Room [Instrumental] 17: Catch a Wave [Instrumental] 18: Wild Honey [Instrumental] 19: Little Saint Nick [Instrumental] 20: Do It Again [Instrumental] 21: Wouldn't It Be Nice [Instrumental] 22: God Only Knows [Instrumental] 23: Surfer Girl [Instrumental] 24: Little Honda [Instrumental] 25: Here Today [Instrumental] 26: You're So Good to Me [Instrumental] 27: Let Him Run Wild [Instrumental] 28: Help Me, Rhonda [*][Instrumental] 29: California Girls [*][Instrumental] 30: Our Car Club [*][Instrumental]

Party at the Wilsons
This is live music at a party that Brian, Carl, and Dennis threw along with their cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine. If you are a huge fan of The Beach Boys this would be a great compact disc to buy.
This revised album has music on it that you are not going to find anywhere else.
If you like the 1960's,you like something a little out of the ordinary, and you like The Beach Boys this is for you.

Hard to understand this.
I realize they were released on vinyl many years ago, but I didn't understand them at that time either. It really is hard to understand either of these recordings. I know that Beach Boys Party was a stop-gap effort that Brian came up with to appease Capitol Records while he had time to work on more important stuff, but Stack O' Tracks really escapes me.
It's widely known by any Beach Boys fan that the Beach Boys rarely played on the albums. They were mainly a vocal group. So when you listen to Stack O' Tracks, you're not hearing the Beach Boys, you're hearing session musicians. Why is this important?.

Sensational Fun
Really was the first unplugged album, except it was fun, not all serious. Looooooooooooooooooooooove it! Such a fun album!!! I feel so good listening it! Free-style beautiful 60s harmonies, great acoustic strumming, love the party-like background chatter. This is a "party" album. It's meant for fun. This is not the outstanding album Pet Sounds. This is the have-a-good-time Party album. I think of good times and 60s southern california even though I wasn't even born yet.

Stack-O-Tracks has to be one of the first karaoke albums. Just instrumentals and I have a much greater appreciation for the breadth of musicianship either by the beach boys or the session musicians of the time who were abundant and outstanding at the same time. In fact some songs I prefer the instrumental to the actual songs. .

There ain't no party like a Beach Boys Party!
This whole all proper roads lead to Pet Sounds hogwash that's become gospel to music geeks and critics. Cuz a Beach Boys Party don't stop!

You know what I can't stand. This is an artistic step back, huh? I mean, it's just the Beach Boys playing really catchy songs, sounding great and showing off their pure musical gifts with limited studio trickery. Listen: Pet Sounds is a masterwork, but it's not the only game in Beach Boy Town. They were a rich and eclectic musical force. They had many sides. Brian Wilson had many sides as a composer, producer and performer. If you read his liner notes rather than the Pet Sounds obsessed music critic's, you'll see that Brian has a lot of love for this album and he had a blast recording it with the boys. Heck, just listen to the album itself and that's what you'll hear: One of the best pop acts in history having a great time in the studio. Does it matter anymore that it wasn't a real party than the fact that the Beatles weren't really Sgt Pepper's band? Think of Beach Boys Party as a concept album if that floats your pretentious boat. And whatever happen to rock & roll love? This is even more of a pure rock & roll album than the great Wild Honey. Really. Beach Boys Party is one of their best albums. And it's not an artistic retreat. Nor was Summer Days (and Summer Nights) which actually demonstrated the full RANGE of Brian Wilson's genius far more than Today or Pet Sounds did. The Beach Boys had the sadness, but they also had the euphoria. To ignore this latter side is to shortchange oneself. People don't focus on only the ballads and serious Beatle songs. They enjoy "Back In The USSR" and respect it just as much as "A Day In The Life". The same should be done with the Beach Boys. Beach Boys Party is just as much Brian Wilson as Pet Sounds. Stop thinking about the history surrounding music and just listen to music. This album just fills me with joy. It doesn't hurt that I drove down Sunset Blvd. on a Saturday night while blasting it last week. Try it sometime if you can. Bitchin' stuff, people.

Stack O' Tracks isn't bad either, but it's really the Party you're buying this for.
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Let's do "Luau"!
Capitol Records was pressuring him for a new Beach Boys album in time for Christmas, but Brian wasn't about to rush to finish Pet Sounds. In late 1965, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys was working on his masterpiece, Pet Sounds. So, a compromise of sorts was reached. The Beach Boys went into the recording studio and quickly banged out the Party album. It features the boys playing acoustic instruments and singing cover versions of some of their favorite songs. No new songs were written for the album. The performances are pretty sloppy, with forgotten lyrics, missed notes and lots of clowning around. The band's wives, girlfriends, relatives and friends were brought in to hang out and talk in the background, to make it sound like a real party was going on. In fact, friend of the band Dean Torrence shares lead vocals with Brian on the hit "Barbara Ann". It's a fun album, but not really one of the band's best.

Stack-O-Tracks featured just the instrumental tracks to 15 Beach Boys songs. That's right, a Beach Boys album without the Beach Boys on it! Well, I suppose that's not technically true, because they did play some of the instruments on their albums, but most of the instruments were played by session musicians. Anyway, hearing just the instruments theoretically allows Beach Boys fans to study how Brian Wilson put together the backing tracks to some of the bands classic songs. It's somewhat interesting to hear, but the songs definitely sound better with the vocals. The CD adds three bonus track instrumental backgrounds, the hits "Help Me Rhonda" and "California Girls", and the obscure "Our Car Club".
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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.