The Beach Boys - "Pastmasters" Collection (7CD, 1965-1969) COMBINED & RESTORED

The Beach Boys Today! is the eighth studio album by The Beach Boys, and their first of three in 1965. Although few realized the significance of the album at the time, The Beach Boys Today! marked a major turning point inside the band's world, and in particular, leader Brian Wilson's personal life.
After Pet Sounds, the album is arguably the most acclaimed album of the Beach Boys' career. The album includes the original version of the classic hit, "Help Me, Rhonda" (titled on this album as "Help Me, Ronda" - features Al Jardine on lead vocals; this is the original version. Brian Wilson re-recorded a different arrangement of "Ronda", changed the spelling of her name to "Rhonda", and released it as the Beach Boys' next single.).
In 1965 The Beach Boys Today! hit #4 in the US during a chart stay of 50 weeks. It reached #6 in the UK in the summer of 1966.

Brian Wilson's retirement from performing to concentrate on studio recording and production reaped immediate dividends with Today!, the first Beach Boys album that is strong almost from start to finish. "Dance, Dance, Dance" and "Do You Wanna Dance" were upbeat hits with Spector-influenced arrangements, but Wilson began to deal with more sophisticated themes on another smash 45, "When I Grow Up", on which these eternal teenagers looked forward to the advancing years with fear and uncertainty. Surf/hot rod/beach themes were permanently retired in favor of late-adolescent, early-adult romance on this album, which included such decent outings in this vein as "She Knows Me Too Well", "Kiss Me Baby", and "In the Back of My Mind". The true gem is "Please Let Me Wonder", one of the group's most delicate mid-'60s works, with heartbreaking melodies and harmonies. Be aware that the version of "Help Me, Rhonda" found here is an inferior, earlier, and slower rendition; the familiar hit single take was included on their next album, Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!).

~ Richie Unterberger, all media guide

Tracklist:

01. Do You Wanna Dance?
02. Good To My Baby
03. Don't Hurt My Little Sister
04. When I Grow Up (To Be A Man)
05. Help Me Ronda
06. Dance Dance Dance
07. Please Let Me Wonder
08. I'm So Young
09. Kiss Me Baby
10. She Knows Me Too Well
11. In The Back Of My Mind
12. Bull Session With The Big Daddy


All Songs Arranged & Produced by Brian Wilson.

Original Release Date: March 8, 1965
Release Date: July 28, 1989
Format: Original Recording Reissued
Label: Toshiba-EMI
Catalog No.: CP21-6008



Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) is the ninth studio album by The Beach Boys and their second in 1965. As a follow-up to The Beach Boys Today!, the successor certainly had its progressive moments, but it was also weighed down by its adherence to the tried and true "formula" of sun, summer and fun.
Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) hit #2 in the US during a chart stay of 33 weeks. It reached #4 in the UK in the summer of 1966.

Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) was a bit of a regression from the success of Today!, lapsing back into that distressing division between first-rate cuts and lightweight also-rans that characterized their pre-1965 albums. The difference is that the very best tracks were operating on a more sophisticated level than the 1962-1964 classics. "Help Me, Rhonda" was a number one single and would be their last Top 40 exercise in sheer fun for a while. More impressive was "California Girls", with its symphonic arrangement, glorious harmonies, and archetypal statement of Californian lifestyle. On the other hand, subpar efforts like "Amusement Park U.S.A." and "Salt Lake City", throwbacks to the empty-headed summer filler of previous days, will necessitate that the CD remote button remains close at hand. The covers of "The Girl From New York City" and "Then I Kissed Her" are well done but don't break new ground. Yet a couple of cuts are among their most essential LP-only efforts. "Let Him Run Wild" is a soulful ballad with a great Brian Wilson falsetto vocal. "Girl Don't Tell Me", with its gorgeous melody, fine lead vocal debut from Carl Wilson, and subtle depiction of romantic rejection and disappointment, may be the best obscure pre-Pet Sounds Beach Boys track.

~ Richie Unterberger, all media guide

Tracklist:

01. The Girl From New York City
02. Amusement Parks U.S.A.
03. Then I Kissed Her
04. Salt Lake City
05. Girl Don't Tell Me
06. Help Me Rhonda
07. California Girls
08. Let Him Run Wild
09. You're So Good To Me
10. Summer Means New Love
11. I'm Bugged At My Ol' Man
12. And Your Dream Comes True


All Songs Arranged & Produced by Brian Wilson.

Original Release Date: June 28, 1965
Release Date: July 28, 1989
Format: Original Recording Reissued
Label: Toshiba-EMI
Catalog No.: CP21-6009



Only a small commercial success upon its original release in 1966, Brian Wilson's "teenage symphony to God" has grown in stature over the years, even spawning an exhaustive box set chronicling the sessions. To hear it is to understand why; Wilson and his contingent of fellow Beach Boys, guest lyricists, and session musicians expanded upon the lushness of LPs like The Beach Boys Today and Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) to create a song cycle celebrating–and tracking the downhill course of–a young man's romance. There are few lonelier sounds in pop than the last notes of the final song, "Caroline, No", fading into the sound of a distant train, Wilson's dog barking as it passes.

The best Beach Boys album, and one of the best of the 1960s. The group here reached a whole new level in terms of both composition and production, layering tracks upon tracks of vocals and instruments to create a richly symphonic sound. Conventional keyboards and guitars were combined with exotic touches of orchestrated strings, bicycle bells, buzzing organs, harpsichords, flutes, theremin, Hawaiian-sounding string instruments, Coca-Cola cans, barking dogs, and more. It wouldn't have been a classic without great songs, and this has some of the group's most stunning melodies, as well as lyrical themes which evoke both the intensity of newly born love affairs and the disappointment of failed romance (add in some general statements about loss of innocence and modern-day confusion as well). The spiritual quality of the material is enhanced by some of the most gorgeous upper-register male vocals (especially by Brian and Carl Wilson) ever heard on a rock record. "Wouldn't It Be Nice," "God Only Knows," "Caroline No," and "Sloop John B" (the last of which wasn't originally intended to go on the album) are the well-known hits, but equally worthy are such cuts as "You Still Believe in Me," "Don't Talk," "I Know There's an Answer," and "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times." It's often said that this is more of a Brian Wilson album than a Beach Boys recording (session musicians played most of the parts), but it should be noted that the harmonies are pure Beach Boys (and some of their best). Massively influential upon its release (although it was a relatively low seller compared to their previous LPs), it immediately vaunted the band into the top level of rock innovators among the intelligentsia, especially in Britain, where it was a much bigger hit.

~ Richie Unterberger, all media guide

Tracklist:

01. Wouldn't It Be Nice
02. You Still Believe In Me
03. That's Not Me
04. Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)
05. I'm Waiting For The Day
06. Let's Go Away For A While
07. Sloop John B
08. God Only Knows
09. I Know There's An Answer
10. Here Today
11. I Just Wasn't Made For These Times
12. Pet Sounds
13. Caroline, No
14. Un-released BKG's
15. Hang On To Your Ego


All Songs Arranged & Produced by Brian Wilson.

Original Release Date: May 16, 1966
Release Date: December 21, 1988
Format: Original Recording Reissued
Label: Toshiba-EMI
Catalog No.: CP28-1003



Smiley Smile is the twelfth studio album by The Beach Boys, issued in 1967. Released in the place of the much-touted Smile, Smiley Smile is widely considered to be under-produced, and it was received with indifference and confusion upon its unveiling. However, Smiley Smile has managed to grow in stature over the years to become a cult favorite in The Beach Boys' recorded catalogue.

After the much-discussed, uncompleted Smile project – which was supposed to take the innovations of Pet Sounds to even grander heights – collapsed, the Beach Boys released Smiley Smile in its place. (To clarify much confusion: Smiley Smile is an entirely different piece of work than Smile would have been, although some material that ended up on Smiley Smile would have most likely been used on Smile. Also, much of Smiley Smile was in fact recorded after the Smile sessions had ceased.) For fans expecting something along the lines of Sgt. Pepper (and there were many of them), Smiley Smile was a major disappointment, replacing psychedelic experimentation with spare, eccentric miniatures. Heard now, outside of such unrealistic expectations, it's a rather nifty, if rather slight, effort that's plenty weird – in fact, often downright goofy – despite Brian Wilson's retreat from both avant pop and active leadership of the group. "Wind Chimes", "Wonderful", "Vegetables", and much of the rest is low-key psychedelic quirkiness, with abundant fine harmonies and unusual arrangements. The standouts, nonetheless, were two recent hit singles in which Brian Wilson's ambitions were still intact: the inscrutable mini-opera "Heroes and Villains," and the number one hit "Good Vibrations", one of the few occasions where the group managed to be recklessly experimental and massively commercial at the same time.

~ Richie Unterberger, all media guide

Tracklist:

01. Heroes And Villains
02. Vegetables
03. Fall Breaks And Back To Winter
04. She's Goin' Bald
05. Little Pad
06. Good Vibrations
07. With Me Tonight
08. Wind Chimes
09. Gettin' Hungry
10. Wonderful
11. Whistle In


Produced by The Beach Boys. Engineered by Jim Lockert

Original Release Date: September 18, 1967
Release Date: July 28, 1989
Format: Original Recording Reissued
Label: Toshiba-EMI
Catalog No.: CP21-6012



Wild Honey is an album released by The Beach Boys in 1967. It was their thirteenth studio album and sixteenth overall. The closing track, "Mama Says", is a chant originally recorded for the abandoned Smile performance of "Vegetables". It was the first of several stray Smile tracks used to close a later Beach Boys album.

After the Smile sessions shut down, the Beach Boys became much more of a band than they had been in the mid-'60s. They began playing most of their own instruments on record for the first time since 1963, and Brian Wilson was no longer nearly as dominant a production mastermind. The problem was, as Wilson increasingly withdrew from a leadership role (and, subsequently, from the real world altogether), the Beach Boys were revealed as a group that, although capable of producing some fine and interesting music, were no longer innovators on the level of the Beatles and other figureheads. Wild Honey had a looser, funkier feel than any previous Beach Boys effort, at times approaching a kind of bleached-out white soul. The resulting music was often quite pleasant, for the great harmonies if nothing else, but the material and arrangements were quite simply thinner than they had been for a long time. The record does feature a nice Top 20 hit in "Darlin'" (even if it was a rewrite of a song that had been composed four years earlier, and recorded by Sharon Marie). The small hit single "Wild Honey", with its seductive theremin lines, was also a highlight, and "Here Comes the Night" (a group original, not the Them hit) also had a lot of appeal. But much of the rest was pleasing but inessential.

~ Richie Unterberger, all media guide

Tracklist:

01. Wild Honey
02. Aren't You Glad
03. I Was Made To Love Her
04. Country Air
05. A Thing Or Two
06. Darlin'
07. I'd Love Just Once To See You
08. Here Comes The Night
09. Let The Wind Blow
10. How She Boogalooed It
11. Mama Says


Produced by The Beach Boys. Engineered by Jim Lockert

Original Release Date: December 11, 1967
Release Date: August 30, 1989
Format: Original Recording Reissued
Label: Toshiba-EMI
Catalog No.: CP21-6013



Friends, their fourteenth studio release – The first Beach Boys album to be released only in stereo – was the only album released by The Beach Boys in 1968. It reached only #126 on American charts, as an indication of the band's depleted commercial fortunes at the time, but its later UK release was more popular, reaching #13.
As work on the album began in February 1968, Mike Love, a recent convert to transcendental meditation, departed on a two week trip to India (alongside The Beatles and Donovan) to study TM further with his new master, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In his absence, the remaining Beach Boys, Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson, Carl Wilson, Al Jardine and - now an official member - Bruce Johnston recorded the bulk of Friends along with selected members of The Wrecking Crew.
Friends was the first Beach Boys album to feature significant songwriting contributions from Dennis Wilson, "Little Bird" and "Be Still"; the former's bridge incorporated elements of "Child Is The Father Of The Man", a then-unreleased song from the aborted Smile. Although production was credited to the group as a whole, this was the band's last album until 1977's Love You to feature Brian Wilson as a dominant creative force, writing or co-writing every song with the exception of "Be Still" (he went uncredited on "Little Bird" so that Dennis and Stephen Kainich could collect more royalities), and actively participating in recording sessions. In mid-March, Mike Love returned from his TM retreat and contributed to the subsequent vocal sessions, with leads on the brief "Meant for You", which opens the album, and the understated "Anna Lee, the Healer", who was in reality a spiritual healer and not a masseuse as has been claimed (that was Marcella, on a later album).

Released when Cream and Jimi Hendrix were at their apex, the low-key pleasantries of Friends seemed downright irrelevant in mid-1968. Today it sounds better, but it's certainly one of the group's more minor efforts, as the members started to divide the songwriting more or less evenly among themselves, rather than letting Brian Wilson provide most of the material. The title track was a charming, if innocuous, minor hit. The bossa nova "Busy Doin' Nothin'" was a subtly subversive piece of rock Muzak, though hindsight reveals a rather worrisome indolence in the lyrics, as penned by Wilson, who was starting to withdraw into his own world. The production and harmonies remained pleasantly idiosyncratic, but there was little substance at the heart of most of the songs. The irony was that Smile had collapsed, in part, because some of the Beach Boys felt that Wilson's increasingly avant-garde leanings would lose their pop audience; yet by the time of Friends, the Beach Boys had done a pretty good job of losing most of their audience by retreating to a less experimental, more group-based approach.

~ Richie Unterberger, all media guide

Tracklist:

01. Meant For You
02. Friends
03. Wake The World
04. Be Here In The Morning
05. When A Man Needs A Woman
06. Passing By
07. Anna Lee, The Healer
08. Little Bird
09. Be Still
10. Busy Doin' Nothin'
11. Diamond Head
12. Transcendental Meditation


Produced by The Beach Boys…

Original Release Date: December 11, 1967
Release Date: August 30, 1989
Format: Original Recording Reissued
Label: Toshiba-EMI
Catalog No.: CP21-6014



20/20 is the sole 1969 album release by The Beach Boys, and their last studio album to be released with Capitol Records for the next seventeen years.

20/20 was not a proper album, being compiled from singles and leftovers in order to fulfill contractual obligations to Capitol. Nonetheless, it's one of their better post-Pet Sounds records, with a couple of good medium-sized late-'60s hit singles, "Do It Again" and "I Can Hear Music," that were fun retro sort of exercises. "Time to Get Alone," with its unusually shifting, jazzy melody, was one of Brian Wilson's last outstanding compositions. "Never Learn Not to Love" is far more notorious, not for the music (which is average), but for the fact that it was, according to some sources, composed by Charles Manson (although the song is credited to Dennis Wilson). The highlights, however, were a couple of Smile-session-era tunes, especially "Cabinessence," a suite-like collaboration between Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks that gives some idea of the complex directions that were being explored during that ill-fated project. Therein lay the group's dilemma: as hard as they were trying to establish their identity as an integrated band in the late '60s, their new recordings were overshadowed by the bits and pieces of Smile that emerged at the time.

~ Richie Unterberger, all media guide

Tracklist:

01. Do It Again
02. I Can Hear Music
03. Bluebirds over the Mountain
04. Be With Me
05. All I Want to Do
06. Nearest Faraway Place
07. Cotton Fields (The Cotton Song)
08. I Went to Sleep
09. Time to Get Alone
10. Never Learn Not to Love
11. Our Prayer
12. Cabinessence


Produced by Brian Wilson.

Original Release Date: February 10, 1969
Release Date: August 30, 1989
Format: Original Recording Reissued
Label: Toshiba-EMI
Catalog No.: CP21-6015

Huge thanks to the Original Releaser(s)!