Every Beach Boys album made in the 1970s was a comeback attempt. In the face of dwindling commercial returns, the group struggled earnestly in the first part of the decade to define itself outside the shadow of Brian Wilson. These attempts were abandoned after the success of 1974's greatest hits collection, Endless Summer, which established the group as the world's most successful oldies act. 1976 found the group attempting to maintain its revived fortunes in the recording studio as well as on the concert stage. While many of the other recent Beach Boys "twofer" releases contained music of similar tenor and approach, these two albums, issued during the most conflicted time period in the band's history, are immediately striking in their dissimilarity.
For these albums, one of the most crass marketing ploys in a group history dominated by crass marketing ploys was devised: the return of full control of the group to once-great bandleader Brian. Unfortunately, Wilson had spent most of the '70s descending into an abyss of paranoia, addiction, and obesity. He hadn't been in charge of a Beach Boys session since 1966, and that the group sought in 1976 to restore Wilson to the control that they had fought to wrest from him 10 years earlier is painfully ironic.
Given Brian Wilson's fragile state, it's difficult to understand what the group expected to achieve through this arrangement. The result of these sessions, 1976's 15 Big Ones, is a wreck of an album. The production is muddy and confused, the material largely comprised of uninspired covers and outtakes from earlier albums. "Susie Cincinatti" was a 1970 b-side. The group's covers of standards like "Chapel of Love" and "In the Still of the Night" are notable only for the morbid fascination they hold (the vocals on the former are truly cringe-inducing). Brian's once-sweet falsetto is reduced to a hoarse crackle; as a result, Mike Love's painful nasal whine is the dominant voice on the record.
Only a few cuts stand out from the mess. Of the originals, "Had to Phone Ya" and "Back Home"-- both of which are based on songs first written in the early 1960s-- are the best. Only those cuts, along with a truly inspired version of the Righteous Brothers' Spector-produced classic "Just Once in My Life" (actually benefiting from Wilson's raw vocals) save the album from being completely unlistenable. Strangely, 15 Big Ones was a huge hit upon its initial release, but to say that it hasn't stood the test of time is an understatement.
After the tour for that record, Brian Wilson planned a solo release, but the group quickly latched onto the project in an attempt to maintain their momentum. The product, The Beach Boys Love You, is totally Brian's, and is the last album produced under the group's name to be written and produced solely by him. It's nothing if not idiosyncratic, and sounds like literally no other Beach Boys album from any period. The record is dominated by Wilson's newfound infatuation with the Moog synthesizer, and his hoarse but heartfelt vocals.
There are a couple throwaways-- the early '70s outtake "Good Time," and the inscrutable Roger McGuinn co-write "Ding Dang"-- but for the most part, Brian's songwriting and arranging talents are intact and in full force. The format of the album recalls Wilson's first truly memorable LP, The Beach Boys Today, by placing uptempo, upbeat numbers on Side One, and a suite of slower, romantic songs on Side Two.
The lyrics here tend toward the childlike ("If Mars had life on it/ I might find my wife on it") to the simply bizarre ("Johnny Carson's a real live wire"). It's the ballads in the album's second half that elevate it to the level of a great Beach Boys album. "The Night Was So Young," with its beautiful harmonies, sounds like it could have been a Pet Sounds outtake, were it not for the bleating synths. "Let's Put Our Hearts Together" features a duet with Wilson's then-wife, Marilyn Rovell. This is Wilson's most personal set of songs, and he weaves a shimmering web of sound on them, his vocals as strong as they ever were.
The Beach Boys Love You stands in sharp contrast to the albums that preceded and followed it, because it was a product of genuine inspiration on Brian Wilson's part, with little outside interference. Soon after its release, both Brian and the Beach Boys resumed their separate downward trajectories: the group into mediocrity, disco mixes, and obscurity, and Brian back into addiction and mental instability.
That Brian Wilson has, in recent years, reclaimed some small measure of his sanity and now performs regularly, presiding over his rich legacy, can be considered a small miracle. Still, one can't help but regret that he has never again created music as original and individualistic as presented on this release in the ensuing years. It's a credit to the Beach Boys that for one brief, final moment, they allowed Brian Wilson the freedom to create the music he wanted, and the resulting album is, like its creator, frazzled, delicate, and beautiful in its sentiment.
