Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of the Beach Boys [Box] by The Beach Boys

Remember when the Beatles came out with their Anthology? No other single group could captivate as high a prime time audience for 3 nights. No other single recording act could sell 6 CDs worth of unreleased material in the same numbers as they did. The Beatles, after all, were truly one of a kind. Which brings us to how Capitol would sum up the career of the Beach Boys.

Of course, the BBs never did quite equal the Beatles when it came to record sales, either during the 1960s or in the decades that followed. To be sure, putting out 3 double CD sets made up of entirely unreleased BBs material wasn't going to be as financially lucrative as the Beatles Anthology sets were. So Capitol had to cook up something that would fall somewhere in the middle of the Beatles Anthology and the typical 1/2 CD greatest hits type collection. The result is the Good Vibrations box set.

GV is pretty comprehensive, presenting virtually all of their chart singles from 1962's Surfin' to 1988's Kokomo and a healthy dose of their stronger LP cuts interspersed in a chronological fashion. On disc one (1961-65), most of the early stuff is in mono, which are the mixes that Brian Wilson personally supervised. In addition, there are demo recordings (Surfin' USA, Their Hearts Were Full of Spring), songs that they had never released (Punchline, Things We Did Last Summer) as well as a few radio station jingles.

Disc two (1965-67) is where it gets really interesting. Besides the highlights from the Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!!) and Pet Sounds LP, you will get to listen to a handful of tracks from the legendary unreleased Smile LP. This was the album that was supposed to be the Beach Boys' response to the Sgt. Pepper album. Instead, this album was permanently shelved due to many factors, such as group in-fighting, litigation against Capitol Records, and personal demons that were haunting Brian Wilson. Supposedly, much of the Smile session tapes were destroyed, which precludes anyone from reconstructing the album as it was originally intended to be released. However, this CD presents the few fragments which have survived in the vaults, including Do You Like Worms and I Love To Say Da Da. Other Smile tracks (such as Our Prayer, Heroes and Villains, Wonderful, Vegetables) are presented in their original state, although they were subsequently released on later LPs in drastically altered form. As costly as the box is, I can say with confidence that this particular disc alone is worth the price of admission for hard core BB devotees.

The third disc (1967-71) encompasses some of the better tracks from albums like Wild Honey, Friends, 20/20, Sunflower, and Surf's Up. Although the Beach Boys will always be best known for all of their earlier recordings all the way up to Pet Sounds, it is songs from this era that show how each member of the group (especially Dennis and Carl Wilson) began to blossom as writers, vocal/instrumental arrangers, and studio producers in their own right and were no longer dependant on Brian Wilson to do all the creative work. Veteran collectors will be drawn to the tracks that were originally slated for the unreleased Landlocked album in 1970 (I Just Got My Pay, H.E.L.P is on the Way) and will find out (with good reason) why that album was rejected by their record company.

Disc 4 (1973-88) rounds out the group's later years with a selection of recordings that are comparatively uninteresting to those contained on the first 3 CDs. Still, if you are a novice collector who never heard 1970s gems like Marcella, You Need A Mess of Help To Stand Alone, Sail On Sailor and Funky Pretty, you might be pleasantly surprised at how contemporary their sound had become and how much soul the BBs could incorporate into their singing and playing, especially with the help of South African musicians Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar. Too bad most radio station programmers of the time ignored it in favor of whatever latest single was being put out by KC and the Sunshine Band.

The fifth disc is housed in a cardboard cover with a hand-written, rubber stamp-like cover that gives you the impression that this is a "bootleg" disc. This consists of a collection of demos, outtakes, radio spots, and live recordings from 1963-67. Unlike the first 4 discs, there are no previously released tracks here. Some of the tracks are presented in a new mix which has all the vocals on one channel and all the instrumental parts in the other. This gives you a chance to clearly hear and dissect the vocal harmonies on classics like Wouldn't It Be Nice or When I Grow Up To Be A Man. Or if you flip the balance the other way, you can be the star at your next karaoke party.

The 60 page booklet contains a wide range of pictures and narrative text that takes you along the long and winding path that the Beach Boys took, from their beginnings as a doo-wop garage band to becoming America's Band. The text also describes many of the stories behind the songs, tells about their triumphs, failures, and tragedies, not the least of which was Dennis Wilson's drowning in 1983. (Carl Wilson's passing is not mentioned as the booklet was obviously written years before his recent battle with cancer.)

Is there anything not to like about the GV box set? As I mentioned earlier, a 5 disc set which retails for about $50-60 might be too costly for someone who is only an average fan. Also, budget conscious collectors are sure to be irked at paying a high price for all the previously unreleased material that could have all fit onto 2 CDs for those that don't want to buy the commonly available material again. Still, I cannot recommend this box highly enough to all the dedicated fans. There is so much fascinating unreleased material here that the high price they pay now will surely be forgotten as they continue to listen and enjoy these CDs many times over.