Teenbeat: The Beach Boy's rounded off

Melting, heat stroke affected post this week.

In 1974 Capitol started a series two lp compilations that purported to gather together in themes the beach boys 1962-1970 output in eye catching artwork, starting with Endless Summer.

A issue with the first two the use of fake stereo versions of songs although commecially they did sell rather well.

Come 1982 they finished it off with Sunshine Dream that did get cleaner sounding copies of the songs and took us across the 1966-70 period taking in Pet Sounds, Smiley Sile, Wild Honey, Friends and 20/20 their last studio album for Capitol. 

This one was inexplicably not released in the UK so many were unaware of just what it had to offer although like the second one the artwork was by Roy Kohara and somewhat kitsch and cheap looking. 

This is a good companion to Endless Summer  which I have newer better sounding version of. 

Updating the Beach Boys on cd Pt.2

Continuing backwards I did pick up a number of other newer cd versions of late and we might as well kick off here.

 The Beach Boys albums begins with 1962's Surfin' Safari, a fairly basic set of surf, car and teen scene songs that include the single Surfin' Safari, a remake of Surfin', their first record in 1961, Ten Little Indians, a second 1962 single and the surf instrumental Moon Dawg that showed  promise when it came to playing and arranging a track.
This super audio cd is all mono as there's no stereo mix.

 That was followed by March 1963's Surfin' U.S.A. which included the Chuck Berry re-write title track that managed to mention all the States, the drag racing number Shut Down, a Brian Wilson masterpiece in the form of the Lonely Sea and two surf instrumentals Let's Go Trippin' and Misirlou.

Because this originally had mono and stereo mixes, you get both on this which as it has been ages since I heard them was well worth getting.

Surfer Girl issued September 1963, was a break through as while on the surface it seemed a mainly surf based album when the Surf Sound was riding the charts with Pipeline by the Chantay's and Surf City by Jan & Dean topping the charts, chief writer/composer Brian Wilson was getting the hang of making exceptional arrangements and using jazz influences.

Lyrically In My Room was a breakthrough, exploring what it meant to be alone, Surfer Girl was a paean to female surfers that showed the Beach Boy's amazing harmonies off while Boogie Woodie showed piano based jazz influences.

This also has noticeably different mono and stereo mixes, the Mono surfer Girl with its vocal gi-gi-girl enunciation differing compared the straight girl in stereo. 

 This album emerged one month after Surfer Girl being a protective grab the tracks and release as two tracks had been used by Capitol Records, their recording label for a Hot Rod compilation against their wishes.

Thus it adds 409 from Surfin' Safari with its roaring spin, Shut Down  from Surfin' U.S.A. plus Our Car Club and Little Deuce Coupé from last months Surfer Girl album to eight new songs.

It's almost a car themed album with just Be True To Your School a single whose high school simplistic non questioning innocence soon seemed a part of a different era weeks later after President Kennedy's assassination placed as the first song on the album .
The single arrangement with its wind marching band and cheerleader interjections is very different and all time favourite.

What lifted the subject were the arrangements, vocal harmonies coupled with Roger Christian co writing the lyrics that told stories of cars and riders you could relate to.

Again this has mono and stereo mixes with 409 appearing in Duophonic echo laden stereo as it did on original lp records in the stereo portion

 As America worked its way through the tremendous loss of President Kennedy - something that was just shocking at the time - America adopted and made stars of what had been a little known act in the States that was massive in their native Britain, The Beatles.

Even sharing the same record label, America it seemed embraced that act that offered hope and a new start and in some respects the musical world around American acts prior to that tragic loss just seemed dated to the point the achievements of the Beach Boy's with the Californian surf and car sound had been eclipsed.

Thus that this album would sound in places a bit tired shouldn't surprise anyone but this said an album that has Don't Worry Baby, The Warmth of The Sun, the close harmonies in In The Parking Lot and the high school sunshine of Pom Pom Play Girl can't be all bad.

 Augusts 1964's All Summer Long was however a stronger album whose lead off 45, I Get Around even managed to crack top ten in the Beatles backyard and offered signs the beach boys were back although it was the last time they visited teen car and high school life.

This is the home to "Wendy", the 50's homage We'll Runaway and two pieces of high school life, Little Honda, the two wheels of teen freedom and Drive-In, that american concept where couples would drive, park up and watch a movie in a car.

This album uses the original stereo album masters so I Get Around and All Summer Long appear in Duophonic fake stereo as they always did and the mono portion still has the rough sounding Drive In and Don't Back Down as every copy of the mono lp British or American had.
This is my favourite of the bunch followed by Surfer Girl.

Each disc is a Super Audio cd  with a regular layer for normal cd playing equipment and an extra layer for higher sound quality for those of us with super audio cd players in our stereos.

To conclude this length piece, I hope I have introduced a number of albums, what makes them stand out even over fifty years on from release and what makes these discs  special.

Updating the Beach Boys on cd

While the C virus is uppermost in our minds being all over news and affecting our everyday lives, I thought I'd revisit an artist that had been last mentioned on here in a 1990 entry and whose 'classic' sixties albums had come out by that year but the Beach Boy's like a few other artists don't have a consistently great set of cds so across the years I had been putting together the least imperfect set with the 1993 Good Vibrations box set and the DCC Gold editions from the mid nineteen nineties of the Endless Summer and Spirit Of America compilations to catch stray tracks and singles not on albums.

I had picked up the 1990 two on one cd series which wasn't too bad but the attempt to remove tape hiss and clicks did take something away from the sound of the best records so I did pick up the MFSL gold two on one Surfing' U.S.A with Surfer Girl albums from 1963.

That issue came out in May 1989.
For the reminder I got the Japanese "Past Masters" single album issues that while not perfect were more or less what was used for the lp issues and that bit better.
The issues of three albums in that series had their own issues which lead me to look elsewhere for their replacements.

 In 2015 Analogue Productions in the states issued on lp and cd a slice of the Beach Boys studio albums in slightly differing forms.
Those albums that never had an original stereo mix used an after the event version intended for the much criticized 2012 Capitol cds, criticized for being very bright sounding and relentlessly loud.
The Lp versions were on a separate mono and stereo issues but the cd, actually Super Audio cd playable on regular players too had both on one disc.
The Today album is the home to three singles, "Dance,Dance,Dance", "Do You Want To Dance?" and "When I Grow Up (To be a man) and five classic Brain Wilson love songs with delightful arrangements.

Summer Days (and Summer Nights !!!) issued in the Summer of 1965 found a way of making commercial songs that had some of lyrical and musical complexity group leader Brian Wilson had in his head.
This had the hits "Help Me, Rhonda" and "California Girls" on it.
Both it and the preceding album only originally had mono mixes that were mixed in to echo laden mock stereo  and of  these issues come with new true stereo ones as well as the original mono which I prefer.

These two cds are much better than my 1990 two one copy.

 Pet Sounds is a classic album that pushed the limits of both how a studio could be used to make sounds and also the lyrical concerns of popular music.
It contains the hit singles  "Wouldn't It Be Nice", "God Only Knows", "Sloop John B" and the much talked about track "Here Today".
For a long time on record all you get is an awful fake stereo version and the 1990 mono cd was thin and lacking in detail.

For a long time this had been my go to edition but while it was better than most others it was a little dull and had some obvious low frequency boost that just didn't sound natural.
This new Super audio cd edition is a lot better (I suspect the mono lp from it is too).

 A stereo mix was made in 1996 and revised a few years later when a few missing bits were found for the Pet Sounds 30th anniversary box set and that mix is featured together with the original mono one sounding better than ever in this issue.

It's good after many years of cd collecting to have great sounding versions of albums I grew up with.

Beach Boys [Pre-blog]

Christmas has been and gone this year but one thing I had was this special 6 lp box set entitled "The Capitol Years" to replace a couple of compilation albums by the popular American group, the Beach Boys that I wasn't too happy with.
I grew up with taped albums of theirs plus when I was younger I had a couple of compilations bought for me which I played on a home made stereo phonograph. Today I have a second hand stereo separates set to enjoy my music on.

For one thing the selection is quite generous with 104 tracks covering hits, a number of hard to find single versions and their b sides plus prime slices from the studio lps covering the years 1962 through 1970 when they were signed to Capitol Records, arranged into 6 themes with each lp jacket making a jigsaw like picture.

It was issued in November by World Records  a part of the EMI organization, and came with a bonus lp of productions that their singer and group leader, Brian Wilson produced for others such as the girl group The Honeys and the first Glen Campbell 45 which are otherwise hard to find today.
Although a number of tracks appear in fake stereo, perhaps because they couldn't find the mono originals, most of tracks are in either true stereo or mono which makes a pleasant change as this spoilt the 20 Golden Greats compilation I bought  four years ago and the singles versions of Be True To Your School and Help Me Rhonda are featured which spoilt 1974's Endless Summer double compilation.