The Beach Boys Today!

It's quite spooky that I get my first Beach Boys album the day after the death of Brian Wilson ...

(edit: not spooky at all.. someone flicked a switch and it seems everyone got a Brian Wilson album. A nice touch)

....And what a great producer and studio technician he was. And he wrote some great songs too. Good Vibrations and God Only Knows are brilliant, absolute classic songs. You can include Wouldn't it be Nice, Surfin' Safari, I Get Around in that list.

Sadly none of them are on this album. I don't want to diss the guy when he's not yet cold, but if you throw enough mud at a wall then some of it is going to stick. And this is an album of unsticky mud. Beautifully produced mud and, for the early 60s, a great wall of sound, but it's virtually the same song for the whole album. It was a pleasant listen though. But 29 minutes and 12 songs was just about the limit.

RIP Brian

Beach Boys.

This is a precursor to the greatness of Pet Sounds, especially on side 2. In fact I think you could Please Let Me Wonder on that album without it feeling out of place. Brian's arrangements are starting to show a maturity that wasn't there in previous Beach Boys releases. A very strong four. RIP Brian.

Not my favorite from them but very well arranged and put together musically, a little repetitive in the songs and style.

These songs are classics for a reason.

Ok, the bboys are trying to leave their surfer roots behind and grow, but aren’t quite there yet.

RIP Brian WIlson. Respect to you.

The compositions and vocals elevate this far above the sappy subject matter of the tunes. Important to the history of Rock music, but it lacks edge, the second half is especially soft. Catchy as hell though, and so many of these songs are memorable 60 years on. The distinctive vocals are also important. Not my favorite style, fascinating to listen to nonetheless. I want to give it a higher rating than a 3 but side two loses me.

Can't be a coincidence that I get this today when Brian Wilson died yesterday. And I guess it's not - seems everyone got Beach Boys or Brian Wilson today.
Ok here's my stance on The Beach Boys - I feel like after their first album they were trying to be like a California version of the Beatles. I'm sure back in the early to mid 60s that was something that a lot of people liked. Listening to it now it's so sappy and saccharine. Pet Sounds is a good album, though overrated, and I like a few other Beach Boys songs here and there but wouldn't ever feel like throwing on a record of theirs. This album I kind of lump in with the rest of their music. It's fine. There's some interesting things going on but when it's over in the short and sweet 29 minutes I'm definitely ready to move on to something else. 2.5/5 will round up since Brian Wilson just died.

Parece que no hay grandes canciones en este disco, pero era el día adecuado para recordar a Brian Wilson. Aquí me parece que aún no está su sonido "surfero".

I love the Beach Boys, but this album didn't quite scratch the itch. I felt the audio quality wasn't great and it just didn't *hit* the way I expected it to. Also, for this to be my album, the day after Brian Wilson died. Quite a coincidence?

Great album, this band are so wonderful I smile when I listen to them. The production shines through but they have better albums so 3 from me.

At first, it felt surreal to receive this album today, following Brian Wilson's passing. But after a quick check of the r/1001AlbumsGenerator subreddit, I realized that this was a special occasion. The generous host of this site, who goes by the Reddit username SidledsGunnar, decided to treat everyone to either a Beach Boys album or Brian Wilson Presents Smile if they haven't gotten all of those already. This will be the last Brian Wilson-related work I need to cover for my journey. Without further ado...

By 1965, the Beach Boys had been moving away from songs about cars or surfing and into more complex arrangements, spurred on by Brian's desire for musical perfection amidst a growing jealousy towards Phil Spector and the Beatles. In the case of The Beach Boys Today!, most of the songs featured more orchestral instrumentation and a greater number of ballads in the second half, while lyrically exploring more vulnerabilities, insecurities, and mature perspectives on relationships. From the anxiety of coming adulthood on "When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)" to the one-night stand of "Help Me, Rhonda", to the attempt at repairing the relationship on "Kiss Me, Baby", to the unfound suspicions that the narrator's relationship will dissipate someday on "In the Back of My Mind", there's a profound emotional range that this album covers from an admittedly simple scope. Pair that lyricism with well-produced compositions that utilize more unconventional instrumentation for rock music at the same time, such as the harpsichord on "When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)" or the wide range of percussion on "Dance, Dance, Dance", and the experience feels a lot more elevated.

My only complaint is that the Beach Boys were still confined to their doo-wop beginnings and needed to go that extra step. These notions extend to both covers of "Do You Wanna Dance" and "I'm So Young" that feel indebted to previous renditions, as well as closing the album on the spoof interview "Bull Session with the 'Big Daddy'", which came off as the boys goofing around with each other.

Overall, The Beach Boys Today! is a solid record that helped set the tone for what would come a few records later with Pet Sounds. It was a pleasant listen. Rest in Power, Brian.

Very pleasant to listen to. Superbly well made.

I'm gonna choose to believe this is non-random because Brian Wilson just died :(
If so, I hope that other people who hadn't already had "Pet Sounds" get that one! Seeing everybody talk about how great an album it is really validated my giving it my first 5, so yay for that. (Of course I also enjoyed revisiting the classic Brian Wilson Norbit and Don Henley stories: https://bsky.app/profile/itsdings.bsky.social/post/3lrduzwv5e22s ; https://bsky.app/profile/margareteby.bsky.social/post/3lree6mui4227 )

But this album seems much less good, maybe because I never heard any of its songs before. Some of the lyrics are a little more perturbing. 'Help Me R(h)onda' made me want a song from R(h)onda's perspective (perhaps titled 'Help yourself, bucko'). There are no instrumentals, but it does end with what must be one of the first skit tracks. Kind of interesting just because it's so old now, but otherwise very mysterious.

Highlight: 'Please Let Me Wonder'

Lowlight: 'Good To My Baby'

This came on my rotation the day after Brian Wilson passed away. Very fitting

's Ochtends vroeg was dit echt teveel. Wilde gelijk terug naar bed. Heb het tijdens het eerste nummer maar uitgezet. Poging 2 tijdens het werk. Niet goed voor de werkgever. Ik zak helemaal weg. Ik kijk nog even terug naar mijn cijfers voor de andere 2 Beach Boys albums. Beide ook een 1. Blijkbaar is er een band erger dan de Beatles. Als ik deze lijst heb doorgewerkt zet ik nooit meer iets op met deze jaren '60 klanken.

I thought that The Beach Boys Today! was an alright album. In many ways, it does feel very dated from things like the production, the lyrics and many other things that clearly make this album a product of 1965. I still enjoyed this album a decent bit to be honest. I thought that the songs felt relaxing and had that Beach Boys vibe i got from hearing all their really popular stuff pretty well. The main issues with this album are the fact that every song sounds overly similar to each other and that the album went by a little too quickly. This made the album kinda forgettable but these issues never made it bad.
Best Song: Help Me, Rhonda
Worst Song: Don't Hurt My Little Sister

This is the album that I associate with the Beach Boys. It sounds so much like the mid-50s, fat Cadillacs, petticoats and portable radios. It was fun to listen to some of the old stuff again. But although the album is quite short, the last two tracks got on my nerves. 3/5

Love this early Beach Boys album 💿 3/5 #albumsky #musicsky

I cannot connect to this in the slightest. It is SO long before my time, and it is music made for a population and community that I am not a part of, and that I do not romanticize is the slightest. In short, it is nigh unlistenable.