Posted on 08/31/2024 3:34:01 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The group’s landmark 1971 album ‘Surf’s Up’ was both socially relevant and evocative of their initial glory.
By the turn of the 1970s, the world was a very different place from the utopian image of endless Californian surfing, cars and girls, as represented by the Beach Boys. But once again, the group rose magnificently to the challenge of making music that was both socially relevant and evocative of their initial glory. In 1971, they unveiled their new surfing sound of the 70s with the classic album Surf’s Up.
One of the great landmarks in the Beach Boys’ canon, the record was released on August 30 that year, at a point when their commercial fortunes had been at a low ebb. Their album of 12 months earlier, Sunflower, had only reached No.151 in a meagre four-week run on the American charts, and the group hadn’t had a top 20 single in the US since “Do It Again” (which topped the British bestsellers) hit No.20 in 1968.
The new project, produced by the band themselves for their Brother label, got the Beach Boys’ ship moving in the right direction again. They were now working with a new manager, Jack Rieley, and with his encouragement, they became a multi-faceted songwriting force.
Surf’s Up is rightly remembered for Brian Wilson’s brilliant double-header that closes the album, “’Til I Die” and the title track collaboration with Van Dyke Parks, filled with its enigmatic lyrics and stirring harmonies. But just as remarkably, the album showcased a group with multiple writing teams, all bringing excellent work to the table.
Mike Love and Al Jardine contributed an opening song with an anti-pollution lyric that was really ahead of its time, “Don’t Go Near The Water.” Carl Wilson and Rieley completed “Long Promised Road” and Carl’s sweet voice led his own “Feel Flows.” Al and Gary Winfrey added the short, equally relevant “Lookin’ At Tomorrow (A Welfare Song),” the pair working with Brian on “Take A Load Off Your Feet.”
Bruce Johnston’s writing contribution was the magnificent “Disney Girls (1957),” while Brian and Rieley composed the plaintive “A Day In The Life Of A Tree,” on which the group’s manager also sang. There was even room for Love to sing his adaptation of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller’s “Riot In Cell Block No.9,” renamed “Student Demonstration Time” for the social situation of the day.
Dennis Wilson’s reduced role on the project was partly because he was working on solo material and the film Two Lane Blacktop, and partly that the songs he contributed were omitted to avoid in-fighting within the group, and the album being dominated by only Wilson brothers compositions.
‘Back in fashionable favor’
Surf’s Up, newly celebrated for its 50th anniversary as part of the Feel Flows box set, was perhaps the Beach Boys’ most ecologically prescient work, and the press voiced their approval. “‘Don’t Go Near The Water’ is probably the best song yet to emerge from rock’s current ecology kick,” wrote Time magazine. Richard Williams added in Melody Maker that “suddenly, the Beach Boys are back in fashionable favor and they’ve produced an album that fully backs up all that’s been recently written and said about them.”
Listen to the best of the Beach Boys on Apple Music and Spotify.
After charting on September 11, the album climbed to No.29 in the US, their best showing since 1967’s Wild Honey, and No.15 in the UK. It’s since won its rightful place in Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time. Even if not all of the Beach Boys themselves regard it as a true classic, the album moved the Time reviewer to say that Brian’s music for it “has a high, soaring, quasi-religious vocal and instrumental character that even the Beatles of Abbey Road could envy.”
They beat Marvin Gaye to the punch.
I don’t recognize the title of any of these songs.
The Beach Boys were never not cool.
Bump
Same here. The music of my youth but don’t recognize any of this.
Shortly after that release, two greatest hits compilations did just fine, “Endless Summer” and “Spirit of America”. The Beach Boys aren’t supposed to be relevant. They are supposed to be fun!
Today, everything has to be judged relative to woke. Both past and present. Woke is peak morality in their opinion. They have no idea of the degree of their moral bankruptcy.
Favorite released album?
Jimi Hendrix in the song Third Stone From the Sun had the lines:
So to you I shall put an end
And you’ll never hear surf music again ...
That sounds like a lie to me
Come on man, let’s go home.
Background:
Music journalist Peter Doggett notes the irony of the surf music reference. In 1970 Hendrix wrote music for the soundtrack for Rainbow Bridge. His music is heard during surfing scenes. Pioneer surf guitarist Dick Dale (early hit with Misirlou) believed the mention was Hendrix’s way of encouraging his recuperation when Dale was seriously ill.
—Wikipedia
Unsurprising that the song titles would be unfamiliar. Nothing from the 1971 Surf’s Up album has been played on the radio, in the grocery store or on the elevator in the last 53 years. Conversely, the hits from the 1962-68 period have been inescapable for the last half century. The title track was actually written and partially completed in the ‘60s golden age, but it sat on the shelf with most of the rest of the tracks from Brian Wilson’s legendary unfinished “Smile” album, though Brian played a solo piano rendition on a TV show that aired in 1967.
[Favorite released album?]
I avoided Pet Sounds for years because the cover turned me off. George Harrison said “I think they should pay more attention to their album sleeves.”
But like judging a book by its cover that was a mistake of mine.
What’s wrong with the cover? It’s wholesome.
RE: Nothing from the 1971 Surf’s Up album has been played on the radio, in the grocery store or on the elevator in the last 53 years.
One of the funny aspects of What’s Up,Doc? (1972) is whenever anyone steps in or out of an elevator, the Muzak speaker is always playing one of a dozen different Cole Porter classics.
John Belushi? What is that from?
He looks “dough-y”.
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