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

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

Band: The Beach Boys Title: Beach Boys' Party!/Stack-O-Tracks Rating: Release Date: 2001-04-10 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Hully Gully - The Beach Boys, Goldsmith, Cliff 2: I Should Have Known Better - The Beach Boys, Lennon, John 3: Tell Me Why - The Beach Boys, Lennon, John 4: Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow - The Beach Boys, Frazier, Al 5: Mountain of Love - The Beach Boys, Dorman, Harold Kenn 6: You've Got to Hide Your Love Away - The Beach Boys, Lennon, John 7: Devoted to You - The Beach Boys, Bryant, Boudleaux 8: Alley Oop - The Beach Boys, Frazier, Dallas 9: There's No Other (Like My Baby) - The Beach Boys, Bates, Leroy 10: Medley: I Get Around/Little Deuce Coupe - The Beach Boys, Christian, Roger "H 11: The Times They Are A-Changin' - The Beach Boys, Dylan, Bob 12: Barbara Ann - The Beach Boys, Fassert, Fred 13: Darlin' - The Beach Boys, Love, Mike 14: Salt Lake City - The Beach Boys, Wilson, Brian 15: Sloop John B - The Beach Boys, Traditional 16: In My Room - The Beach Boys, Wilson, Brian 17: Catch a Wave - The Beach Boys, Wilson, Brian 18: Wild Honey - The Beach Boys, Love, Mike 19: Little Saint Nick - The Beach Boys, Wilson, Brian 20: Do It Again - The Beach Boys, Love, Mike 21: Wouldn't It Be Nice - The Beach Boys, Asher, Tony [Rock] 22: God Only Knows - The Beach Boys, Asher, Tony [Rock] 23: Surfer Girl - The Beach Boys, Wilson, Brian 24: Little Honda - The Beach Boys, Love, Mike 25: Here Today - The Beach Boys, Asher, Tony [Rock] 26: You're So Good to Me - The Beach Boys, Love, Mike 27: Let Him Run Wild - The Beach Boys, Wilson, Brian 28: Help Me, Rhonda - The Beach Boys, Love, Mike [Beach B 29: California Girls - The Beach Boys, Love, Mike 30: Our Car Club - The Beach Boys, Love, Mike

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. . 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". . The strangest twofer CD from the Beach Boys Some others have said that the first edition transfers sound better because of the NoNoise processing used but I haven't been able to compare the two yet. NOTE: I own the 1990 version of this twofer not the later remaster, so I'll comment on the songs rather than sound quality. It was June 1965. Capitol was becoming worried that too much time was going by as they waited for Brian to wrap up what would become "Pet Sounds" and they were pressuring him for a new album. Brian's answer was to gather a bunch of friends together in the studio as an "audience" and record stripped back covers of some of their favorite songs. It's not a "great" record, but it is a fun record and Brian succeeds in creating a party atmosphere. It also can be seen as pointing the way toward the "unplugged" records of the 90s and on. The album it's paired with is definitely for obsessive armchair quarterbacks and intrepid karaoke enthusiasts only, though. "Stack-O-Tracks" consisted of only the musical backing to Beach Boys hits and was released by Capitol in 1968 after sales they were less than happy with of "Smiley Smile" and "Wild Honey". "Stack-O-Tracks" was the only 60s era BB album that failed to dent the album charts. HIGHLIGHTS: Spirited versions of 50s party faves "Hully Gully" and "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow" stand out, Dennis turns in a tender rendition of the Fab's "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away", a close harmony from Brian and Mike on the Everlys' "Devoted to You", a cover of the Regents' 1961 hit "Barbara Ann" (with an assist from Dean Torrence of Jan and Dean) became a left field smash for the band. Among the instrumentals from "Stack-O-Tracks", it's nice to be able to hear the intricacy of the bass part for "Sloop John B. ". In the "do my lying and my sighing" portion of "In my Room" you can pick out what sounds almost like a church organ following the melody that isn't easy to pick out in the final version. "Wild Honey" sounds almost avant garde by itself with odd organ stabs here and there. It makes you more aware of how perfectly placed everything in a Brian arrangement is to make it cohesive when it's all put together. LOW SPOTS: A loose version of "I Should Have Known Better" fares poorly, Mike's sense of humour was weak at best much of the time. . (witness his "reworked" lyrics for "I Get Around/Little Deuce Coupe") and did anyone really WANT a "Stack-O-Tracks" version of "Our Car Club" to analyze in detail?? BOTTOM LINE: If you find it cheaply, you may enjoy having the "Party!" tracks but unless you're a fanatic about the BB music, you probably don't need "Stack-O-Tracks". Let your level of enthusiasm for their music be your guide. Should be 5 Stars Except for One Thing.... They explain the size was the reason in the new booklet but any Beach Boys fan devoted enough to want to get these albums is going to be a little pissed when they realize it's not in there. The Stack-O-Tracks part is missing the music booklet so I had to order the reissue of the original album on eBay in order to get it. Party is kind of interesting but there are about 2-3 songs on it that are really good. Barbara-Ann being the only hit. But singing along to to Stack-O-Tracks is a lot of fun and great vocal practice- especially if you love the Beach Boys!. Maybe better loved by early Beach Boys fans.... It could just be me, I'm definitely a fan of the artistic peak of the Beach Boys rather than the hits stuff, but the whole "Party!" concept sits wrong with me. This twofer pairs two albums that, honestly, I have little use for. The idea (if you don't know) was to record stripped back versions of songs like would be played at a party (acoustic guitars, hand drums, multiple lead vocals in sing-a-long fashion) and then add background noise to it to sound like a party. The result? Good performances are marred by background noise. Mind you, I don't really feel there's many good peformances on the disc-- its all pop songs from the past few years, largelyfiller except a pretty fun version of "Tell Me Why" and a great "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" by Dennis. "Stack-O-Tracks" is interesting, conceptually-- Beach Boys songs without vocals, but largely unnecessary-- the better of the material is the Pet Sounds stuff, all available as backing tracks in the Pet Sounds Sessions box, the balance of it is a couple songs from "Wild Honey" ("Darlin' and "Wild Honey") and a bunch of older tunes, most of which lack the complex instrumental arrangements that were present on later Beach Boys albums. Really only for completionists or anyone who would be interested in hearing the backing tracks isolated from the vocals. You can see a complete list of all The Beach Boys discography, or go back to the The Beach Boys tabs