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The Beach Boys Love You
Beach Boys
Love You
(Reprise, 1977)
Love You is for those who’ve familiarized themselves with the Beach Boys saga. It’s for that exceptional soul who sits for hours pondering the impact of Smile’s non-release. Eventually they’ll pick up this record right before they hit bottom. And they’ll wonder: Why? Why, Brian, did you fuck up your legacy? What audience did you intend this for? What sick pleasure could be derived by them staring at a photograph of your shirtless, hairy, 300-pound ass grinning dumbly under the influence of ice cream and cocaine? This is the end of the road… hearing this reclusive whale of a man (as depicted on the back cover) sing gruffly about making love with roller skating children (“when mama’s not around”), Johnny Carson, and dinner time—all of this over the ’50s rock hum of a synth blast? Where can the Beach Boys go after all of this?
Oh silly, silly Wilson, waking up each morning to obsess over Phil Spector’s “Be My Baby”, bumming cigarettes from his daughter’s school bus driver, blowing his angelic girl/boy voice, freebasing cocaine, and smoking pack upon pack of Marlboros. Oh, haunted Brian Wilson of the bedroom where shades are drawn and no one is home. The maid makes up another sandwich for Surf Elvis.
Do the rest of the boys love you like they say, Brian? Did they tear you from bed with promises of cake and success? Were they greedy to capture your last remaining light before it was finally snuffed out? Will they finally trade in your Spector sound for synthesizers and disco? You all must be partied out because it is 1977, and this record is a solid document of where you were then. Your brothers even thank you like businessmen in the liners: “We wish to express our appreciation and acknowledge your willingness to create and support totally the completion of these songs.”
Love You is a Brian Wilson production with all songs written by him, and it shows. I’ve never heard a Brian-helmed song that didn’t at least interest me. This album has particular impact because it is so decrepit. Love You jars the listener with space organ. Dennis Wilson’s drums are charging and distorted, like the sound of banging together trashcan lids. It’s strange to hear Brian’s signature production style under the influence of Moog and half-assedness. Plus, some of these songs are way old. There’s even a song Brian wrote with the Byrd’s Roger McGuinn, “Ding Dang.” “The Night Was so Young” is another great leftover and hearing it with synths adds a Nintendo dimension. My favorite track on Love You is “Good Time”, which even has real horns on it, and it just kills. This is clearly a leftover from another session though. It doesn’t sound like the others. Most of this record sounds like Brian Wilson rolled over, plugged in the distorted keyboard, and went off about how mediocre his day was. This album is so dated and un-hip, and yet somehow it succeeds in its cocaine-tinged, mechanical fashion.
Maybe some Beach Boys freaks throw on Side Two and get all heady hearing Brian ask, “What do your planets mean?,” and then they find out later that “Solar System brings us wisdom” and they’re enlightened or something. And then there is the scariest of all, “I Wanna Pick You Up”, sung incredibly badly (so bad it’s good, as they say) by Dennis. Has anyone seen video of that guy partying it up in the early ’80s singing “You Are So Beautiful”? It was on E! True Hollywood Stories. I recommend it. But back to Dennis, in this case singing, “I wanna tickle your feet / Wash your body and shampoo your hair / When it’s night I’ll put you in your bed”… that creeps me out. Some further Michael Jackson shit ensues when Brian adds in (for good measure), “Pat pat pat pat pat her on her butt / SHE’S GOING TO SLEEP.” What?! Did you know Brian’s first wife was 16 when he married her? It’s sort of like when you watch early Woody Allen films and they’re hilarious, but then he has all these jokes about lusting after little girls. Art imitates life and all that (for more evidence listen to Brian’s “Hey Little Tomboy” from the unreleased Adult Child album from the same period… frightening!) This record is the last gasp of the Beach Boys’ spirit, unless you’re into “Kokomo.” Love You is the sound of the American dream dying as the Little Deuce Coupe putters on.
Listen: Songs from Love You [at youtube.com]
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18 Comments
I was 19 when Love You came out. When is was debuted in my brother’s record store, it was lifted before the 1st cut was over.
At first the listener is shocked but in the day it was quite innovative.
I recall an issue of BAM magazine approximately 1978 where Lindsey Buckingham credited “Love You” as a influence on his solo work.
The Drum Sound: The snare sound was the bomb. It sounded like it was 10 feet deep. With the exception of Stuart Copland virtually every hit record of the next 10 years mirrored the sound from Love You.
The content: They were all Dads. Back then I was disappointed but later I understood it. Rock is a young man’s game and It’s near impossible to sustain into true adulthood. see: Sir Paul, Paul Simon, Neal Diamond….
The Night Was So Young: Is sublime but shows BW disregard for the pop boilerplate form.
Johnny Carson: The keyboard parts are incredibly innovative.
Yes some old tracks are thrown in but that had been happening since SMiLE was canned. See: all albums between it and Love You.
The album was disturbing to hear at first especially Brian’s rasp.
About 14 years ago at the Morgan Wixton Theater in Santa Monica a tribute for BW was held with unknown (to me) local bands. Too my surprise many did songs from Love You. Go figure. I believe Brian met the Wodermints there.
kudos to Brian Brown for telling the honest truth. The Beach Boys/Brian Wilson hit rock bottom on this album. Critics try to look through the music for some superior meaning when it is all right in front of them a collection of junk.
I hated this record when it came out — I was 16 and had spent the previous summer listening to all the hits on Endless Summer.
It really hasn’t got any better with age for me. The song Johnny Carson does stick in my head though.
I would agree that this is the last record that the Beach Boys actually tried. I just don’t like this song set or where Brian was at this point — it’s really childish.
His solo records — and, for that matter, Dennis and Carl’s are much better than this.
I go about 50/50 on this record. It followed “15 Big Ones” which also had some juvenile arrangements and horrible vocals. Some.
As for the sound, I don’t have Zimmy’s perspective. For me the electric piano hearkens back to “Wild Honey”, a classic BB record, but not their most popular.
I listen to this occasionally, but think of it as when the organization got Brian to stand on his feet in front of a microphone (and camera, in an embarrassing TV special). Nothing brilliant here.
This is an awesome record, you just need to understand it!
This is a real love it or hate it album. I love it. The arrangements, both vocal and instrumental, are amazingly intricate and unusual. The songs are well structured, with beautiful harmonies. And many of the songs rock in a way latter day BB songs rarely do.
Yes, the world view of the album is weird, distorted, and yes of course this has something to do with Brian’s mental health issues. But you can say the same about Van Gough. Sometimes a screw loose helps to open up new worlds, new ways of being.
People will be marveling about this album hundreds of years from now. It only sounds dated now because we still associate synthesizer rock with the 80s stuff that followed a few years after “Love You.”
I saw Alex Chilton in the 80s once. Most of the set was a rather “ehhhh” collection of disinterestedly delivered covers, but I’ll never forget the exquisitely wistful version of “Solar System”. At that moment, I GOT the song.
“Love You” is kind of a precursor to Jonathan Richman’s post-Modern Lovers career and the whole Olympia, WA twee-pop thing. Brilliant, twisted and often skin-crawlingly uncomfortable.
I’m with Zimmy on this one: the snare sound on Love You is da bomb.
Brian Brown, are you sure it’s not you who’s taking the drugs? Sing, arrange,or write songs half as good and maybe I’ll give you credit for knowing what you’re talking about. Untill then you’re an ill-informed ass without cred. Oh that’s right a music critic…Hop on back to American idol and leave the real music alone…You’re in over your head and you’ll only hurt yourself…idiot…
I picked this cassette tape up in a used bin about 10 years ago. My buddy and and I loved it although I do have to agree with pretty much everything the author has said here. This is an album written by a Baby Huey genious. His melodies are always great. Even with his then soggy brain he managed to put out a very enjoyable piece of work. Brian is a big kid and he brings that out in all of us with this project. Good Time!
I enjoy this album because it is so darned weird. The songs are ridiculous, the arrangements were from way out in left field when this was released which is also when I first heard it. I listen to it every couple of years and reach the same conclusion: Brian Wilson was nuts but still creative.
You have to think about the context of the times an album was made in, before you review it. Maybe today we’re creeped out by the idea of blitzed rock stars with kids, but back in the 70’s, it was still ok to mature and sing about being a father. To try and add a creepy element to it just because it generates buzz is lowering rock criticism to the level of E or Extra or whatever those paparazzi tv shows are called. Let’s get back to talking about music.
i love “love you” – never fails to show another previously unseen little part of itself ever time i play it. how dull it would have been for the bbs to follow the same california cocaine MOR forumal that everyone else was trying their hand at around this period. as ever, brian was out on his own doing his own thing. sure, some of the subject matter is questionable, but there was always a little bit of that with the beach boys, wasn’t there ?
By coincidence, I listened to TBBLY (TBBLU?) yesterday as part of my ritual Depression-Lifting Beach Boys Kick. I don’t get to every album when this mood takes me, but I always make it a point to include Love You as part of the therapy. It’s the most recent non-compilation Beach Boys album I own, and the last sign of honest progress from the group as a whole (before the Endless Summer mentality set in for good).
It’s also the weirdest album the Boys ever officially released. It’s got moments that make me cringe (the “falsies” line in “Good Time”, both Brian and Marilyn’s vocals in the otherwise-sweet “Let’s Put Our Hearts Together”) and one song I cannot sit through without feeling a need to shower (you guessed it, “I Wanna Pick You Up”).
But I love it right back. “Let Us Go On This Way”, despite its “fire”/”desire” rhyme lapse, begs to be CRANKED in the car. Forget “All I Want to Do” or “Student Demonstration Time”…”Let Us Go On This Way” is the heaviest track in the Beach Boys’ canon.
“The Night Was So Young” is the hopelessly romantic Brian we first stood in awe of, and the closest he came to being “BACK!!!” on Love You. In my bachelor days, I lived this song many evenings, even down to the glass of milk. “I’ll Bet He’s Nice” is also a winner, and I love the way Carl sings “flow-uh” in the bridge. Then there’s that percussion noise at the end of “Roller Skating Child” that sounds like a giant celery stalk or some similar vega-table.
I could go on talking about what I love and find fault with, but I run the risk of rambling as it is. So here’s my parting thought: when Brian’s solo debut (another flawed record close to my heart) was released, the PR pundits predictably (and misguidedly) took to calling it Pet Sounds ‘88. If they had to tie it to something in his back catalog, the most appropriate buzz phrase would have been…Brian Wilson Loves You.
myspace.com/soundawakeradio
Looking back at age 53…
Thanks Brian for “Warmth of the Sun” when the snow was up to my knee-caps…
Thanks for calming my teenage angst with “In My Room “…
…For fueling my longing to surf off the old Huntington Beach pier…and hang at Jack’s Surfboard Shop.
Thanks for “Caroline No” and “God Only Knows”……..
tunes for the Soul.
….And for the melancholy ” Surf’s Up” and “Disney Girls”…songs that hit home when dreams of a California that may have only existed in my mind… went un-realized.
May you always have an ” Endless Summer ” Brian…
and thanks for the Dream….
Did anyone else besides me to to the record store to buy “Surf’s Up” instead of “Greetings From Asbury Park”? Maybe it was the guy behind the counter who was wearing a dress (that looked liked my Grandma’s old housedress–wow was he stylin!)) that wierded me out at the time…
Interesting, I wonder if Brian Brown realizes how much he reveals about himself in this review – there is so much critical mindedness, and self hatred -
Why so angry BB ? I also wonder if Brian Brown would ever have the courage to face and reveal himself so directly and honestly as Brian Wilson has.
I Want Spent The Time With You Bruce I Love Your Smile So Much I Am Your Fan’s With My
Favorite Band Beach Boys Bruce Johnston I Love Your Song So Beautiful Song Barry Manilow
Didn’t Wrote I Write The Songs My Boyfriend Bruce Did Wrote The Songs All Your Bruce Tell
You Truth?
Amanda