Sunflower/Surf's Up

by The Beach Boys

Overview

After anthologizing the Beach Boys' creative peak with several reissues during the '90s, Capitol turned its attention to the '70s recordings by acquiring the rights to the group's LPs for Warner/Reprise. The first fruits of this campaign arrived (after several long delays) in mid-2000, comprising a single disc with 1970's Sunflower and the following year's Surf's Up. It's a perfect place to begin, too, considering they were certainly the Beach Boys' best albums of the '70s. Sunflower especially is a beautiful work, stocked with excellent harmonies and the best songs the group had written since Pet Sounds; British critics and fans even deemed it a worthy successor. And for listeners more interested in the aborted Smile than Pet Sounds, Surf's Up is an eccentric work that displays the group's increasingly fractured genius. Even aside from the music, pairing Sunflower and Surf's Up provides a fascinating glimpse of a band in search of its identity after several years of commercial shutouts and dwindling critical interest. On Sunflower, the Beach Boys merged their fondness for sun and sand with a growing sense of their own maturity; the cover photo even features the group lounging in a park, playing with their children. Less than a year later, however, that hope for the future is not just replaced but completely obliterated for Surf's Up, as social/environmental paranoia and fatalistic resignation compete for attention on a set of skewed pop songs. These radically different struggles for attention during the early '70s -- whether to reprise the surf-and-sun sound or become a quintessentially '70s "aware" band, whether to ascend the mountain of Brian Wilson's heavenly production sense or surrender to his growing melancholia -- make for two dozen compelling tracks. It surely wouldn't have been quite as compelling if the music hadn't been able to match -- at least to a degree -- the fascinating midlife crisis going on in America's pop band. ~ John Bush

Product Details

Release Date:	07/18/2000
Label:	Capitol/Emi Records / Capitol
UPC:	0724352569229

Tracks

1. Slip on Through
2. This Whole World
3. Add Some Music to Your Day
4. Got to Know the Woman
5. Deirdre
6. It's About Time
7. Tears in the Morning
8. All I Wanna Do
9. Forever
10. Our Sweet Love
11. At My Window
12. Cool, Cool Water
13. Don't Go Near the Water
14. Long Promised Road
15. Take a Load off Your Feet
16. Disney Girls (1957)
17. Student Demonstration Time
18. Feel Flows
19. Lookin' at Tomorrow (A Welfare Song)
20. A Day in the Life of a Tree
21. 'Til I Die
22. Surf's Up

Album Credits

Performance Credits

The Beach Boys   Primary Artist
Al Jardine   Guitar,Vocals
Bruce Johnstone   Vocals
Dennis Wilson   Drums,Vocals
Carl Wilson   Guitar,Keyboards,Vocals
Brian Wilson   Keyboards,Guitar,Percussion,Vocals
Mike Love   Saxophone,Vocals
Jack Rieley   Vocals

Technical Credits

Stephen W. Desper   Audio Engineer,Mixing,Engineer
The Beach Boys   Audio Production,Producer
Paul Atkinson   Reissue Producer
Andrew Sandoval   Tape Research,Digital Remastering
Carl Wilson   Composer
Cheryl Pawelski   Reissue Producer
Dennis Wilson   Composer
Jerry Leiber   Composer
Ricci Martin   Cover Photo
David Larkham   Original Design Concept
Darren Wong   Reissue Art Director
Herb Agner   Project Manager
Gary Winfrey   Composer
Michelle Azzopardi   A&R
Ed Thrasher   Photography,Art Direction
Daniel Hersch   Digital Remastering
Michael Ross   Original Design Concept
Bob Burchman   Composer
Joe Knott   Composer
Jack Rieley   Composer
Mike Stoller   Composer
Mike Love   Composer
Al Jardine   Composer
Brian Wilson   Composer
Bryan Kelley   Producer
Timothy White   Liner Notes
Gregg Jakobson   Composer
Van Dyke Parks   Composer
Bruce Johnston   Composer