Beach Boys- Beach Boys Party!

You’re at a party. The kind where you know three people personally and the rest by name or sight. Older crowd. White wine and brown liquor. In the living room some boys are playing some music, somewhere between a formal concert and a jam session. They’re playing older songs, a mix of covers and original songs sure to be crowd pleasers. Somewhere my dad is clapping deliberately offbeat.

To some of us who suffer from social anxiety, this might sound like your version of hell, the only reason that it isn’t for me is that I’ve spent many an evening just like this and learned how to lose myself in the music instead of focusing on how I don’t know anybody. That’s really the key to this album: that vibe of being in an intimate setting with some of the most energetic and fun music ever.

This album was released right before Pet Sounds and while Pet Sounds is a grab bag of production tricks made to sing in harmony, this album has only one trick, one conceit: that it sounds as if it is a live recording. It’s a pretty simple trick to pull off, just record the songs with everyone in the room then record a track of people talking and voila! you have an album that sounds like it was recorded at a party.

You can tell that Brian Wilson is rather bored by the whole thing by the way he deliberately botches “I Get Around” and “Little Deuce Coupe.” He may have been trying to reinforce the casual atmosphere, but it just comes off as a man who is tired of singing the hits. He was working on something much more interesting.

5/5 This album is worth it just for the bongo drums. Put it on in the background, or listen to it as if you were really at this party. One more note: I understand that this might be a little old school for some people, but the overall energy and just plain fun of the album shines through the patterns that have now become old hat.