All Summer Long - The Beach Boys (1964)


The legend goes that The Beach Boys, the biggest band in the world in 1963,  were so frightened and shocked by The Beatles crashing onto American shores like a rock tsunami in early 1964, that Brian Wilson and Mike Love sat down with the intention of writing their best batch of songs yet. 

The Beach Boys had kept their heads above water during this initial wave of Beatlemania, but only barely. Most bands and artists were washed away into far to the HasBeen Sea, with only The Beach Boys, The Neo-doo wop group The Four Seasons and the mighty Motown many-headed hydra staying afloat in the British flash flood (man, the water metaphors...almost unavoidable, though.)

While the The Beach Boys' popularity and song-quality would increased due to this spirit of competition, they would never really challenge The Beatles on commercial terms, but they did deliver their best batch of songs to date here,  including the number one hit "I Get Around"and the familiar "Little Honda"...and most of them are excellent Wilson-Love originals with only a couple of exceptions: "We'll Run Away" (a leftover from the Wilson-Usher songwriting sessions of 1962),   the instrumental "Carl's Big Chance", (credited to Carl Wilson, it was really just a Carl Wilson improvisation over a Motown-inspired vamp) and a cover of the old doo-wop classic "Hushabye" (way superior to the original) and "Girls on The Beach", credited to Brian alone. A track most people don't know about that 

It does include one dud: "Our Favorite Recording Sessions", a collection of "bloopers". Brian's silly "comedy" tracks are probably his biggest flaw to most listeners, me included, and perhaps "Do You Remember" (a rewite of a 1963 outtake) feels a little half-hearted on the writing side (though the production and performance are still tops.)

 A hidden gem is "Don't Back Down", which seems like a surfing song (the last one they would do until the deliberately retro "Do It Again" in 1968) but is actually a thinly veiled metaphor for standing strong during adversity, inspired, no doubt, by the four Liverpudlians who had knocked the competitive, sporty   Beach Boys off their throne.

All Summer Long is the last of The Beach Boys early "fun in the sun" era, and definitely it is the best of that era, which saw an incredible six albums released in less than two years. In fact, from here on out, with the exception of the "for fans only albums", I think everything the Beach Boys did from this album until Holland in 1973 were balls out brilliant.

4.5/5

Spotify link:

https://open.spotify.com/album/6GnzWMUyNEETCq6eftD98v?si=RDdh1WTmQKq8ie3kWfnIEQ

I originally had a ripped copy of the 1990 Little Deuce Coupe/All Summer Long twofer (noise reduction used, not ideal); later I bought the Mark Linnett mastered 2012 mono/stereo two fer of All Summer Long(way too trebly, hurts your ears)...and later still, the 2015 iTunes version (flat transfer perhaps, but not detailed enough for me); finally in 2020,  I acquired the very expensive  2015 SACD Kevin Grey remaster, which is definitely the best sounding version of all of the ones I have. The stereo versions of both the iTunes and SACD feature duophonic versions of "I Get Around" and "All Summer Long" which sound terrible, the 2012 has new stereo mixes by Mark Linnett: "All Summer Long" sounds great, but "I Get Around" is a bit iffy, being an "extraction" mix. There's another extraction mix on this year's (2022's) reissue of Sounds of Summer, but it's also less than ideal. 

All other stereo mixes on the album are fine, but the album probably sounds best -- beefier drums, more rocking -- in mono.

Coming Up:

A.M. Wilco

A.T.O.M. - Carbon Silicon

ABBA - ABBA 

ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits

Abbey Road - The Beatles

Achtung, Baby! U2

Actually - Pet Shop Boys

Adult/Child- The Beach Boys

Aerosmith's Greatest Hits

After The Gold Rush - Neil Young

Afterglow - Crowded House

Aftermath (UK Version) - The Rolling Stones

Against The Odds: 1974-1982 Blondie (three disc version)

Aimee Mann Live at St. Ann's Warehouse

Aiming For Your Head - Betchadupa

The Album -- ABBA

The Album That Never Was - The Kinks

All Four One - The Motels

All Over the Place - The Bangles

All Summer Long -- The Beach Boys

All the Great Hits -- Diana Ross

All Things Must Pass -- George Harrison

All This Useless Beauty -- Elvis Costello & the Attractions

All-Time Greatest Hits - Neil Diamond

Alluvium -- Eddie Rayner

Almost Blue -- Elvis Costello & The Attractions

Almost Summer - Celebration

Alpha Mike Foxtrot -- Wilco*

The Alphabetchadupa - Betchadupa

Altitude - ALT

American Idiot Green Day*

American Prayer -- The Doors

Amnesiac Radiohead*

And I Feel Fine...The Best of the IRS years (1982-1987) - R.E.M.

Animals - Pink Floyd

Anodyne - Uncle Tupelo

Another Life - Another Life

Another Music in Another Kitchen: The Buzzcocks

Another Side of Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan

Anthology: Diana Ross & The Supremes

Anthology: Smokey Robinson & The Beatles

Anthology 1: The Beatles

Anthology 2: The Beatles

Anthology 3 The Beatles

Anthology: North South, East West - Tim Finn

Apple Venus: Volume One -- XTC

Apollo 18 - They Might Be Giants

The ArchAndroid: Janelle Monae

Are Well-Respected Men - The Kinks

Armed Forces -Elvis Costello & The Attractions

Around the World in a Day - Prince

Arthur (or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) - The Kinks

At My Piano - Brian Wilson

Autoamerican - Blondie

Automatic for the People - R.E.M.

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