The Beach Boys That’s Why God Made the Radio (2012)

From theguardian.com May 2012

There’s some rotten stuff on it too, but parts of the Beach Boys’ new album seem like the perfect way to end to their story

It’s easy to be sceptical about the Beach Boys’ reunion. Indeed, if you look at the messageboards, diehard fans seem the most distrustful of the lot, which figures: for all the warmth and open-heartedness of the band’s best music, if there’s one thing being a Beach Boys fan teaches you, it’s scepticism. There are only so many times you can be told Brian Wilson has been restored to full physical and mental health, the better to make himself and a lot of other people a great deal of money, before you develop what the Clash called a “bullshit detector”, and Beach Boys fans have been told that on a regular basis – and with a great deal of evidence to the contrary – for the last 36 years.

Anyone looking to the music itself to check for signs of cynicism need only turn to Spring Vacation. It opens with a verse in which Mike Love claims to be “living the dream … cruisin’ the town, diggin’ the scene”. The Beach Boys’ music has often involved a suspension of disbelief – all those songs depicting a perfect, gilded California youth, written by a man whose own youth had been mired in physical and mental abuse – but this seems to push unreality to its limit. You find yourself wondering why on earth a 71-year-old would be cruisin’ the town and diggin’ the scene: perhaps he’s plannin’ on askin’ them to keep the noise down so an old man can get some rest. Then it moves on to the subject of the reunion itself: “We’re back together, easy money,” he sings, as indeed you might if, after years of playing fairgrounds and casinos, you found yourself shifting $70m [£45m) of concert tickets simply by hooking up with the cousin you have spent most of the last 20 years suing. “All I can say is, we’re havin’ a blast!” he offers, which isn’t what a recent profile in Newsweek – depicting Brian Wilson “in various stages of distress” on stage with the band – suggested.

If the lyrics are disingenuous, the song itself isn’t up to much, the music slick but unremarkable. The first two-thirds of the album passes in similarly ho-hum style, notwithstanding the wordless introduction, Think About the Days, which is beautiful. The title track is a decent pastiche of Wilson in his prime, its cascading chorus equal parts Kiss Me Baby and John Barry’s Theme from Midnight Cowboy; The Private Life of Bill and Sue, however, a satire on reality TV, makes you want to curl up and die of embarrassment.

But just as you’re about to dismiss the album entirely, something extraordinary happens. The final three tracks – From There to Back Again, Pacific Coast Highway and Summer’s Gone – form a kind of suite that is easily the best thing Brian Wilson has put his name to in the last 30 years. Episodic, occasionally lapsing into silence, filled with shifts in tempo, the melodies impossibly beautiful, it takes the melancholy at the heart of Wilson’s greatest work – from Pet Sounds to Til I Die – and repurposes it. In contrast to the rest of the album, which relies on creaky nostalgia, it concerns itself with ageing (“sunlight’s fading and there’s not much to say”, sings Wilson on Pacific Coast Highway), death and the Beach Boys’ legacy. “Our dreams hold on for those who still have more to say … it’s time to go,” offers Summer’s Gone, undercutting all the gung-ho, we’re-havin’-a-blast guff that comes before it in the same way the wistful, autumnal intro to California Girls seemed at odds with that song’s sunkissed lechery. Wilson’s vocals sound engaged with the subject, which seems faintly incredible given that on every other recent record he’s made, he’s sounded like a man forced at gunpoint to read his lyrics off a broken autocue.

For all its flaws, That’s Why God Made the Radio is an infinitely better way for the Beach Boys’ story to end than their last album of new recordings, 1992’s disastrous country outing Stars and Stripes Vol 1, or indeed the last album that bore their name – Mike Love, Bruce Johnston & David Marks of the Beach Boys salute NASCAR – on which the trio rerecorded old hits for the benefit of a chain of US petrol stations. Exquisite beauty nestles alongside stuff that’s wildly misjudged, painful honesty alongside the constant burnishing of a myth about youth and sunshine and a California that everyone stopped believing years ago, the whole thing wrapped in stories of non-existent fraternity, harmony and good vibrations: it’s the Beach Boys in a nutshell. Perhaps without realising it, That’s Why God Made the Radio tells you almost everything you need to know about America’s Favourite Band.

The Beach Boys That’s Why God Made The Radio (2012)

From thesecondisc.com

In Part One of our special two-part series, we recalled the ups and downs of The Beach Boys and the band’s chief musical architect, Brian Wilson.  Today, in Part Two, we turn the spotlight over to That’s Why God Made the Radio, the new album in stores today from America’s Band!

Brian Wilson is still a cork on the ocean floating over the raging sea.  But is that a whiff of contentment I hear running through The Beach Boys’ “reunion” album, That’s Why God Made the Radio?  Despite the ups and downs survived by Wilson and The Beach Boys over the years, the emphasis in the band’s 50^th anniversary year is on the ups.  And I wouldn’t want it any other way.  This all-new collection of songs has been produced by Brian Wilson, recorded by Joe Thomas and executive-produced by Mike Love, for those keeping score of such credits.  And Wilson’s stamp is all over the new album, with rock’s ultimate survivor doing what he does best: writing and singing with The Beach Boys.  At its peak moments, That’s Why God Made the Radio surpasses all expectations, building on the legacy of a group for whom many felt history had closed the book.

“Old friends have gone, they’ve gone their separate ways,” Brian Wilson matter-of-factly sings in the album closer, “Summer’s Gone.”  But it’s a valedictory moment when he confirms that “dreams hold on for those who still have more to say.”  The greatest gift of That’s Why God Made the Radio is the knowledge that Wilson, Mike Love and Al Jardine, along with longtime cohorts Bruce Johnston and David Marks, still have plenty to say.  (While longtime Beach Boy Johnston is prominent on vocals, the recently-returned Marks offers strong guitar throughout.)  This won’t be a complete surprise to those who have followed Brian Wilson’s solo career.

In the years following 1998’s Imagination, produced with Joe Thomas, Wilson teamed with a group of young musicians who could brilliantly recreate the sound of the mid-1960s Wrecking Crew productions with a modern energy.  That vital aggregation had much to do with Wilson’s autobiographical concept album That Lucky Old Sun, which prefigures some of the more personal songs on That’s Why God Made the Radio.  For the new album and current tour, many of those same members of The Brian Wilson Band are present: Scott Bennett, Probyn Gregory, Darian Sahanaja, Nick Walusko, Nelson Bragg, Paul Mertens, and especially Jeffrey Foskett, whose prominent falsetto colors many of the group’s harmonies.  They have marshaled their forces with Joe Thomas and the Mike Love/Bruce Johnston Beach Boys group including guitarist Scott Totten and drummer John Cowsill.  The album’s production bears Thomas’ influence; it isn’t as explicitly pastiche-oriented as Lucky Old Sun, but it’s not merely a slick, glossy update, either.  Brian Wilson’s favorite instruments are all accounted for: flute, tack piano, accordion, trombone, saxophone, vibes and harpischord are just a few of the tools in Wilson’s arsenal.  The polished production brings all of these “pet sounds” to the fore.

A gentle tropical breeze wafts through many of these songs, but purists shouldn’t forget that sun, surf and sand have been an integral part of the band’s DNA since the very beginning.  The acknowledgment of those nostalgic themes doesn’t take anything away from the “coming of age” of Pet Sounds and the avant-garde beauty of SMiLE, nor the stripped-down rock of the early 1970s or even the lo-fi, off-kilter pop of Beach Boys Love You.  All of these are colors of “America’s band,” and indeed the new album is filled with allusions to the band’s past and present.

Grab some good vibrations after the jump!

The reflective choral opener “Think About the Days” can’t help but remind one of “Our Prayer,” the a cappella hymn that opens SMiLE.  A gentle piano joins The Beach Boys here, though, as well as French horn and vibes.  The short composition is more ruminative than urgent.  But the cascade of voices is at once soothing and spine-tingling.  It was also the first piece recorded for the new album, the vocal arrangement crafted on the spot by Wilson from Joe Thomas’ chord progressions.  This beguiling melody is recalled later on the album as prelude to “Pacific Coast Highway.”

Brian Wilson’s is, appropriately, the first solo voice heard on the album.  “That’s Why God Made the Radio” is a mission statement for the LP, “spreading the love and sunshine to a whole new generation.”  The title and central chord progression came during the Imagination era from Wilson, and the song itself was fleshed out by Thomas, Larry Millas and Jim Peterik of Survivor and the Ides of March (“Vehicle”).  Melodically, it also owes a debt to John Barry and his theme to Midnight Cowboy.  Earnest yet vibrant, it was a great choice for the album’s single, and introduces the album’s cannily-crafted Side One (so to speak!), dominated by retro nostalgia in the best sense of the word.  There’s even a clever turn of phrase or two: “Feel the music in the air/Find a song to take us there/It’s paradise when I/Lift up my antennae” and so on!  When the album later gives way from this rose-colored view of the past to a more sober declaration of the present, it’s all the more effective.

Wilson, Thomas, Millas and Peterik contributed “Isn’t It Time,” with Mike Love also supplying lyrics.  The song is a “Do It Again” rewrite for the present day: “Isn’t it time we danced the night away?  How about doin’ it just like yesterday?”  Wilson, Thomas and Love also are behind “Beaches in Mind” and the quintessential “Spring Vacation.”  The latter reiterates those themes of togetherness and reunion.  There are “I Get Around” and “Good Vibrations” lyrical references, and of course, Love could write these kinds of lyrics in his sleep: “Summer weather, we’re back together!  Hey, what’s it to ya?  Hallelujah!”  It could all be potentially hard to swallow, but longtime fans will embrace the notion that “As for the past, it’s all behind us/Harmony, boys, is what we believe in!”  Mike Love, not war, indeed.  Love is represented as solo composer and lyricist with “Daybreak Over the Ocean,” previously recorded (but unreleased) by Love as early as 1978.  The pleasantly languid song is built around a recording with vocals from Love, his children Hayleigh and Christian, and former touring Beach Boy Adrian Baker.  Wilson, Jardine, Johnston and Foskett have all added additional harmonies.  (Christian and Hayleigh are among the children pictured on the jacket of 1970’s Sunflower!)

Brian Wilson seems the driving force behind “Shelter” (with shades of 1967’s “Darlin’”) and the quirky “The Private Life of Bill and Sue.”  With an ironic, tropical arrangement and fantastic, intricate harmonies from Love, Jardine, Johnston and Foskett, the song is an observation on a reality show couple.  Yes, we’re definitely in 2012!  Lyrically, it’s not very pointed, but it’s nonetheless delightfully sly as Wilson deadpans, “The private life of Bill and Sue/Can you dig what I’m telling you/No one knows just why we care/We see their faces everywhere!”

As enjoyable as these songs are, though, the best has been saved for last.  Joe Thomas has revealed that Wilson has been at work at an album-length suite reflecting on his life, and four of the five songs on That’s Why God Made the Radio have been extracted from this work-in-progress: “Strange World,” “From There to Back Again,” “Pacific Coast Highway” and “Summer’s Gone.”  (A fifth track, entitled “I’d Go Anywhere,” may eventually be inserted between “Strange World” and “From There to Back Again,” but remains unfinished.)

A man drives California’s Pacific Coast Highway, the ocean at his side, the wind at his back.  But though the scenery is pastoral, ghosts are everywhere on this sweltering California night.  This is what informs the final mini-suite on That’s Why God Made the Radio.  “Strange World” offers a wistful riff on a familiar lyric (“It’s a strange world after all”) but the final triptych consists of songs which are the most ambitious, the most successful, and yes, the most that feel like the purest expressions of Brian Wilson.  This isn’t a putdown to the other group members, none of whom are represented as songwriters on the album other than Mike Love.  (Reportedly tracks from Jardine and Johnston remain on the shelf, perhaps for use in a future project.)  The voices of the Beach Boys have always been vehicles for Wilson’s compositional work and those transcendent harmonies.

Al Jardine takes the lead on the heartbreaking “From There to Back Again,” an unconventionally-structured song.  Jardine’s sensitive vocal soars over a gale of harmonies, flute and a bed of strings, reminiscing of a time “when life was still in front of you.”  A cappella begins the segue into “Pacific Coast Highway,” on which Brian, on lead, is at his most affecting: “Sometimes I realize the days are moving on…” and most frank: “My life…I’m better off alone…my life…I’m better off at home.”  He makes a chilling “Goodbye” as the song’s narrator continues his drive down the Pacific Coast Highway.

The album’s touching closer, “Summer’s Gone,” was intended by Wilson to be The Beach Boys’ final recording.  Should that come true, it provides the closure for which fans have long hoped: “Summer’s gone/I’m gonna sit and watch the waves/We laugh, we cry/We live, then die/And dream about our yesterday.”  Though undeniably melancholy, the song is a valedictory, too.  There’s a Pet Sounds vibe, recalling ripples on the water, or the final glistening of a setting sun.  Truly all that’s missing from this breathtaking song are vocals from the much-missed, late Carl Wilson.  There’s even a final, post-song coda of sound that recalls Pet Sounds’ finale.  “Summer’s Gone” also boasts the oddest writing credit on the entire album.  While Wilson and Thomas are responsible for the suite, Jon Bon Jovi made lyrical contributions to the track while visiting in the studio!

Seeing the reunited Beach Boys in concert today, Brian Wilson’s stare is often an impassive one, but hopefully it conceals a placid serenity at all that he’s accomplished, which after all, is quite enough.  But the fact that he is still creating, still in touch with the music of his soul, well, that’s much more than enough.  No longer in the thrall of the cutting-edge, he’s now making music strictly on his own terms and with his most famous musical family.  The final lyric of “Summer’s Gone” sinks in: “We dream about our yesterday.”  Yes, what sweet dreams they were.  But in the unpredictable realm of The Beach Boys, there’s no reason that we can’t hold on to our dreams for tomorrow.  Various band members have hinted that another album might be on the way from America’s band, perhaps finishing that suite.  But even if nothing further flows from these waters, That’s Why God Made the Radio is a fitting final statement.  Embodying the spirit of togetherness that had long been forgotten by the Beach Boys, and a particularly American spirit of tenacity as well, this album is simply nourishment for the soul.

The Beach Boys That’s Why God Made The Radio (2012)

From sputnikmusic.com

Being that I’m a massive fan of The Beach Boys, I approached their newest album with great trepidation.

After all, only seven months prior marked the triumphant release of The Smile Sessions, the mythical album that actually lived up to (and even exceeded) the years of anticipation built up behind it finally seeing the light of day. I didn’t want anything to lessen that accomplishment. More than that, I guess I just didn’t want to see Brian Wilson embarrass himself this late in the game. Which is why it honestly pleases me to say that, while their new album is (obviously) no Pet Sounds, it’s (thankfully) no Still Cruisin’ either.

More than half of the album is loaded with bright songs that bring to mind the first few post-Pet Sounds Beach Boys’ albums. First single, “That’s Why God Made The Radio”, even harkens back a little further, sounding like it could have fit right in the middle of the track-list for Today.

Admittedly it’s pretty cheesy lyrically, but the harmonies and production are as good as they’ve sounded in over thirty years. And honestly, the same could be said of the lyrics to a lot of the songs on their first ten albums, so it’s not detrimental to the essence of The Beach Boys.

That said, not all of the sunnier tracks are winners. “The Private Life of Bill and Sue” ventures a little too far into the schmaltz that plagued the Mike Love-driven incarnation of the band, for example. Still, most of them are adequate (“Spring Vacation”) to good (“Shelter”), with a few that are downright great (“Daybreak Over The Ocean”, “Beaches in Mind”).

However, what really makes the album work are the songs where the band gets introspective. Whereas the introspection on Pet Sounds focused on Wilson’s personal issues and his feelings of not belonging, this time it’s a more universal theme, dealing with the pain and sadness of growing old.

The final three tracks on the album, which deal with this theme in one way or another, are stunningly good–and in all honesty they push the album from “passable” to “good”. First up is the Al Jardine-fronted ballad “From There To Back Again”, which is their best ballad since the 70s.

Up next is the under-two-minute “Pacific Coast Highway”, which makes the most out of its short length with its soaring vocals. But the album closer, “Summer’s Gone”, is the definite album highlight, in which Wilson’s heartbreaking lyrics on aging, losing friends, and knowing he’s approaching the late-stages of his life are aided by mournful production and classic harmonization by the rest of the band.

By all accounts, a reunited Beach Boys album released in 2012 could have been the sound of a band coasting, resting on their laurels and simply putting out a quick cash-grab. Luckily they’ve shown more respect to their fans and themselves, and put out a piece of work that sounds like it had a lot of effort behind it. The band has never quite been the same–and never will be–without Dennis and Carl, so even with obvious effort it doesn’t always strike gold. But when it does it hits way closer to the highs of the band in their prime than it should.

If they never make another album, they can feel good knowing they went out on a high note, and I can’t think of a better song to close out a legendary career than “Summer’s Gone”—for a number of reasons.