Awesome comic, terrible turn into Hoyish territory.
To get back on track, here's my latest entry, on
Surfin' U.S.A. (the album):
A fairly similar to album to its predecessor, Surfin’ Safari, but maybe a little more, I dunno, room to breathe. As I mentioned in my review of the lead-off (and only, as it happens) single for this album, I think we’re seeing the Beach Boys really starting to solidify the mythos with which they’d spend a good deal of their career playing in on this album. Of note, while Nick Venet is once again credited as the producer here, it’s generally accepted that Brian Wilson was probably the one really producing the album. In any case, let’s look at the tracks.
The album kicks off with the title song, Surfin’ U.S.A., and I’ve already discussed that one at greater length in my review of the single. In any case, it’s a great and energetic lead-off for the album. Farmer’s Daughter follows, which showcases a nice Brian Wilson lead vocal and continues the Beach Boys mining a sort of nostalgia for an age that never existed. It’s a sweet and fun little track, but passes the listener by fairly quickly. Next up is a respectable cover of Misirlou, the first instrumental of the album and a reminder that the Beach Boys were actually a pretty decent instrumental unit in their own right. Following on the heels of that is the Brian Wilson penned Stoked, another instrumental. Having a couple of instrumentals back to back screams “filler” but they’re good enough tracks that it’s really not a problem for me. Lonely Sea comes up next, and it’s probably my favorite song on the album. An utterly gorgeous Brian Wilson lead vocal and the prime example for this album of the Beach Boys using their surfing motif to connect to universally appreciable themes of love and loss. I fancy myself a bit of a rocker, but - especially in these early years - it’s the gorgeous slower numbers that seem to really do it for me. Shut Down, the b-side to the Surfin’ U.S.A. single, rounds out side one of the album. I mentioned this to a friend of the blog, but I actually prefer Shut Down quite a bit in the context of the album. I think the first handful of Beach Boys singles are most successful when they’re expanding the narrative of the Beach Boys Mythos, which Shut Down doesn’t feel like it really does. However, when placed in the context of a long-player, with a bunch of other songs playing in that same universe, it really lets the strong songwriting and musicianship come to the fore. A definite highlight of the album.
Noble Surfer leads off side two, and plays with the idea of “surfer as mythical hero.” Great stuff thematically, the song itself feels like it has as much in common with a story about Hercules as it does about an actual surfer. If we’re imagining a Beach Boys, er, beach with waves licking in from the Lonely Sea and trips being made from around Surfin’ U.S.A., it makes sense that it’s the Noble Surfer’s domain. Or something. Feel free to not read as much into it as I have. A nice Mike Love vocal here too, the whole song is very signature Beach Boys in style.
Honky Tonk - another instrumental cover - follows, which is finely done but ultimately fairly forgettable. Lana is another gorgeous song about a girl with a vocal but, of course, Brian. It feels like it belongs on the soundtrack to every 50s movie about two teens falling in love. It’s a pretty straight ahead track, which I think lets it get lost in the shuffle of time, but a definite minor highlight of the early Beach Boys catalog.
Surf Jam, featuring Carl Wilson’s first writing credit, follows. It’s another instrumental, and probably my favorite on the album. That’s coupled with a cover of the (yes, pretty much instrumental) Dick Dale classic, Let’s Go Trippin’. Really nicely performed here by the Boys. And the album closes with a bit of a slight throwaway, Finders Keepers. A nice song, but not as memorable to me as most of the rest on the album.
Surfin’ U.S.A. is the album which finds the Beach Boys - and Brian Wilson - coming into their own. Brian is (probably) the producer and asserts himself as principal songwriter here. It’s a shame we don’t get any Dennis Wilson vocal this time around, but Carl makes a nice songwriting contribution. The high number of instrumentals also does a good job showcasing the Beach Boys back when they were a regularly functioning band - before the Beach Boys split into two distinct studio and touring entities - and they acquit themselves well here. Instrumental numbers will continue to pop up here and there, but this album is almost unique in terms of showcasing both Brian Wilson’s leadership and the rest of the band’s musical chops.
So, I enjoy this album a lot. The most common way to hear it now is in the two-fer package with their debut album. And they sound similar when played back to back, but separating them out allows a listener to really appreciate the ways the Beach Boys are maturing and pushing themselves forward. I consider the next single the Beach Boys released after this LP to be a major high water mark for the band, but assessing these tracks one by one has actually made me higher on this album than I was when I started writing this post. Funny, that.
Anyways, here’s the best track off of this album:
Artwork, properly formatted entry, streaming song, etc:
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead
Pex Lives!