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Brian Wilson.
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Critical Essay by Barry Fantoni
I think "Pet Sounds" is probably one of the best produced albums out, but it suffers because of it. I managed to listen to one side of it, and I heard jus...
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Critical Essay by Stephen Davis
Pet Sounds, aside from its importance as Brian Wilson's evolutionary compositional masterpiece, was the first rock record that can be considered a "concep...
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Critical Essay by Peter Fornatale
There are vast differences between the 1966 and 1972 Beach Boys. This fact becomes painfully apparent with the release of their new double set Carl and the Passions&#...
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Critical Essay by Richard Williams
["Holland"] contains more fun and beauty than any dozen efforts by more fashionable bands.
The overwhelming quality of "Holland" (so call...
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Critical Essay by Greg Shaw
[Except] for Dick Dale's, no surf music came out on major labels before the Beach Boys proved it could be more commercial than anyone had dreamed. They did it by ble...
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Critical Essay by Geoff Brown
No group has as consistently made music celebratory of sun, fresh air and youth as the Beach Boys and it is particularly appropriate that they should have two albums out ...
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Critical Essay by Bill Gubbins
Does Brian make that big a difference [in 15 Big Ones]? Not really.
There is no question that Brian Wilson is a genuine talent in American music (mind you, we're ...
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Critical Essay by Jim Miller
Gone are the white Levis, tennies and striped shirts. Gone too are the odes to affluent hedonism, replaced by a host of ecologic, mystic and poetic preoccupations. Yet des...
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Critical Essay by Richard Williams
The dilemma facing the Beach Boys today is created simply by their audience's expectations. Those who throng to their concerts do so in anticipation of swooni...
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Critical Essay by Steve Simels
[There] is one group—and one group only—for whom [a] preoccupation with the aging process seems to have no relevance whatsoever. (p. 67)
[Despite] the attr...
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Critical Essay by Billy Altman
The Beach Boys Love You is a truly wonderful album, and it is Brian's show from beginning to end. He wrote 11 of the 14 songs and coauthored the others. In light ...
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Critical Essay by Andrew Oldham
I think that "Pet Sounds" is the most progressive album of the year in as much as Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherezade" was. It is the pop...
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Critical Essay by Mitch Cohen
There is no TM song, no music-is-swell song, or "unfolding enveloping missiles of soul," or political/ecological commentary [in The Beach Boys Love You]. In...
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Critical Essay by David Leaf
Brian Wilson's special magic in the early and mid-1960s was that he was at one with his audience. There was no "writing down" to the listeners. Brian ...
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Critical Essay by Tom Carson
You go to a rock and roll show in the hope of being moved by the unexpected; you go to see an institution, like the Lincoln Memorial, or the Grand Canyon, or the Beach Boy...
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Critical Essay by Davitt Sigerson
The finest wit, the most affecting, and the most difficult to achieve, is the wit of tolerance. The Beach Boys have become masters of this medium in recent years. Alt...
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Critical Essay by Dave Marsh
The Beach Boys are easily the most overrated group in rock & roll history—which presents the reviewer with a problem: simply stating the facts invites an overre...
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Critical Essay by Arthur Schmidt
The Beach Boys have tried faithfully to render who and what they are. That what they are is in some ways a simply (existential but) foolish denial of reality, that Haw...
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Critical Essay by Paul Williams
[The Beach Boys] are moving forward all the time.
Each Beach Boys album since Pet Sounds has been (or seemed) a little less sophisticated. Retrogression? Not at all, bu...
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Critical Essay by Gene Sculatti
Brian Wilson and company are currently at the center of an intense contemporary rock controversy, involving the academic "rock as art" critic-intellectual...
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Critical Essay by Jim Miller
After a long period of recovery, mediocrity, and general disaster, the Beach Boys have finally produced an album [Sunflower] that can stand with Pet Sounds: the old vocal ...
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Critical Essay by Richard Williams
Just as it's tied to emotional memories, so most pop music evokes specific times of year. Most of the best pop picks on summer, simply because that (idealisti...
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Critical Essay by Michele Hush
Most people seem to love [Surf's Up]. They say the harmonies, production and instrumentation are perfect; they like the way it flows, its smoothness and sweetness...
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Critical Essay by Arthur Schmidt
I've been waiting impatiently for [Surf's Up] since Sunflower, and the small letdown I feel could be the other side of that impatience, the wish that the...
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Critical Essay by Barry Fantoni
