Perhaps no other American rock band in history has a back catalog so diverse, sprawled, complex, and confusing as the Beach Boys. This has something to do with the times they were in, but there are also creative decisions that led to this state of affairs, as befits a band guided by one of rock's most legendarily tortured geniuses. Then again, that very genius -- and the story of it -- has resulted in several books and videos on the band, as well. This guide aims to sort the best stuff out.
As much as "American Graffiti," even, this compilation helped kick off America's very first retro craze when it appeared as a double vinyl album back in 1974. There have been endless compilations of the group's material since then, of course, and with better sound, but this remains a great place to get started, because it covers the early years of the group -- and only those years -- better than any other. This is the CD for people who like their Beach Boys music about surfing and hot rods.
This, on the other hand, is the beginning of the band's "mature" period, when Brian Wilson's production and songwriting skills blossomed into full-scale genius. It's one of the most important albums ever recorded, a pop cycle about loneliness and confusion swathed in a strange yet stunning beauty. If you like "God Only Knows," "Wouldn't It Be Nice," and "Sloop John B," you'll like the album they came from. But hearing the songs in their original context makes them, somehow, even better.
As with the Beatles, seeing the Beach Boys live was never as exciting, in part because replicating Brian's studio genius was next to impossible. This disc is as therefore close as you can get to hearing the group in an informal session: a series of acoustic covers (featuring Jan and Dean, who help out with backup vocals) that, although assembled to sound more informal than it really is, predates the "unplugged" concept by three decades. If you've heard "Barbara Ann," you know what to expect.
So legendary was "Pet Sounds" that its never-released followup, "SMiLE," was thought to be even better. It's not. It is, however, one of the better Beach Boys albums, even if it only saw the official light of day -- after 37 years! -- once leader Brian Wilson went back to his source tapes and recreated the whole thing from scratch. It's not a proper BB album, but you'd have a hard time keeping it out of the canon, because while it may not match "Sounds," it remarkably sounds of a piece with it.
There are actually three sets of Beach Boys: the vocal group of the early "surf" years, the genius of the Brian Wilson-led middle period, and the "brother" years, that period in the late Sixties and early Seventies where Brian, for various reasons, stepped back and let other members assert themselves. This 1970 LP proved that it could work, even if, like most of the group's phases, it was short-lived. Bruce Johnston and Dennis Wilson make their own cases for immortality especially well.
Lots of folks are unhappy about the corporate mergers that have left music in the hands of a very few multinationals, but such consolidation does mean that compilations are more thorough now, such as this single-disc best of. This is the only CD to offer ALL the group's big hits, from 1962's "Surfin' Safari" to 1989's surprise Number One "Kokomo." You may want to program the disc so that it has a more chronological flow, but overall, this is the one Beach Boys disc to own if you only want one.
7. Lost And Found! (1961-1962)
Okay, not everyone will consider this collection of early outtakes "essential." It depends on how much you love the band, because these 1961-1962 sessions -- their first, done before they'd signed with Capitol -- suffer from the absence of Brian's studio polish and his knack for pop hooks. However, if you're dying to hear how a bunch of preps from California could have become America's answer to the Beatles, you can begin charting that incredible journey here. (The studio chatter is a bonus.)A Beach Boys box set was long overdue when this five-disc retrospective came out in 1993. And yet it still feels incomplete; after all, just assembling the band's charted hits would take up two discs. All those hits are here, but there are also quite a bit of non-revelatory demos, cute radio spots, and late-period album tracks that don't do the group justice. This is still worthwhile, even necessary, for fans who need more than one CD of hits, but it's not quite definitive.
This DVD clocks in at just over 22 minutes. Which would make it a very questionable purchase indeed, were it not for the fact that so little concert footage from this legendary group's glory days is available on video of any kind. As such, this closed-circuit TV broadcast from March 14, 1964 features only nine songs (although the DVD features make up for it). Remastered excellently after thirty years of limbo, however, it's still a gift for avid fans who just have to know what it was like, once.
You simply can't talk about the Beach Boys without talking about its de facto leader, resident genius, and force of nature Brian Wilson, and this stark 1995 documentary does an excellent job in detailing the tortured existence and fascinating mind of the most famous Wilson brother. It does this mainly by freeing Brian up to talk openly and candidly to the camera about his past, with a stable of musicians, friends, and family providing a larger context. A necessary glimpse into a troubled mind.
