BeachBoys.com: The Complete Guide

NOTE: An interesting change has occured within the years 2009-2010, especially in regards to Beach Boys "tribute" albums - no longer can you find them in physical formats (so long, LP, Cassette, & CDs!) - now, anonymous companies (and artists) can simply record the odd tribute album in their basements, and sell them online via digital download! Quick and easy. Well, perhaps a bit TOO quick and easy for my tastes - many of these so-called tribute albums are nothing more than karaoke-level sound-alikes, with no effort made to reinvent or even sound slavishly like the orignals. Tread carefully.

REVIEW: This German release certainly has a strange idea of which Beach Boys songs are good for dancing. Have you ever tried to dance to "Sloop John B" with its mid-tempo Carribean rhythms? Or "Breakaway" with its odd thumping beat? Besides those odd choices, there's nary a "Do You Wanna Dance" or "Dance Dance Dance" to be found. There are a couple of good slow dance choices: from a dreamy "California Dreaming" to "Slow Summer Dancing" - but what's "Then I Kissed Her" doing here? It's clip-clop castinets make it seem more attuned to clogging than club-mixes. And dancing to the clumsy beat of "Barbara Ann?" Oooooo-kay. Getting away from the whole "dance" idea, however, this is a pretty good covers album of Beach Boys songs - Klaus Hallen posesses a good, "generic" sort of voice that doesn't attempt to ape Brian's or Mike's timbres, and his choice of tracks, although heavy on the standards, reveal a deeper knowledge of the Beach Boys canon; "Breakaway" "Full Sail" and "Slow Summer Dancing" not to mention "Cottonfields" are all interesting choices. And although Hallen doesn't veer too far from the original arrangments, his tempos sometimes go haywire, as on the supercharged "Cottonfields" and "Fun Fun Fun" which close out the Beach Boys section of the album. Closing out the track listing are two very odd inclusions: the heavily synthesized "Brautchor" which you'll recognize as soon as you hear it, and the wedding-conscious "Hochzeitsmarsch" both of which seem to belong on a completely different album. Good, but not essential.

REVIEW: I was hoping that this album (released on both CD and MP3 formats) would be akin to the curiously-refreshing Pickin' On The Beach Boys bluegrass tribute (which I reviewed earlier), but - no such luck. This somber, sleepy album, instead of picking up on the good-times vibe present in the afore-mentioned disc, takes a traditional country-instrumental approach, with lots of electric slide guitar and dobro, but precious little in the way of hayseed chawin' foot-stompin good times. I mean, ye gods, there's even a saxophone blaring away during "Fun Fun Fun!" that's like, ANTI-country music, isn't it? Shouldn't the entire disc explode at that point? Regardless, this is competent playing, but I found the program extraordinarily boring; more in line with elevator music than anything you'd find on a hot country radio station. The only song approaching lively was the cover of "Dance Dance Dance" but even that felt restrained - more rehearsed than the wild free-for-all approach I wanted. OK - I'll even give them a point for including "Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)", a daring choice, but the entire album is so soporific, so lacking in any of the joyful abandon present in the Beach Boys own carefully crafted, but still primitive recordings, that I wanted to grab hold of these session players shoulders and physically shake them. A good disc to put you to sleep on a drowsy country evening.

A Tribute To The Beach Boys - Academy Allstars
Ectypal Music OMP [MP3];
Released August 17, 2009

REVIEW: This so-called "tribute" to The Beach Boys is one of the more painful ones I've had to endure for the sake of this site; performed by "The Academy Allstars" (AKA some Bryan Adams-soundalike plowing his way through the hits), you'll be favored to listen to the vaguely on-key ramblings of an anonymous hack singing along to tweaky synthesized backing tracks, adding nothing to the songs he's supposedly paying tribute to, and torturing the listener with his so-called "falsetto." I'm pretty certain that most breeds of dogs, if exposed to this singer's whining, will howl along in sympathy (and the recording will be all the better for it). OK, maybe I'm being a bit too harsh, but with so little to go on except what I hear, it's difficult to give this release some slack. It's so heartless, so cold and robotic that I ached to hear the real thing when the playing was done. Tribute is at its heart a cheap product, recorded with the sole intention of duping the public into buying what they think must be the songs they love, only to be flattened by the realization that they've downloaded a steaming heap of crap-o-la. Too bad it's only available in MP3 format - the disc would make a perfect drink coaster.

A Salute To The Beach Boys - 60's Rock Heroes
Big Eye Music [MP3];
Released November 1, 2009

REVIEW: From a "Tribute" to a "Salute", I was charmed by the hilarious cover image, which looks like Barry Gibb (circa 1979) dressed up as the leader of a biker gang on holiday in Malibu, to the processed vocals within that sounds as if The Rip Chords (circa 1964) had done the vocals, this is one trippy "tribute/karaoke" album. Clocking in at a hefty one hour forty minutes, you get a lot of music here for the price, with forty tracks in total, but half of them are the instrumental backing tracks, (a so-called "sing-along" version) included for each of the vocal versions. I have no problem with either the robotic, compressed vocals, or the thin, bloodless backing tracks, as they're about what you'd expect from a karaoke package, but the tempos, vocals, and playing are all competent, just stripped of any personality or spark. The vocals sound as if they were thrown together by one guy, but he's good at apeing the specific harmonies of the Beach Boys - there are no obvious flubs or harmonic goofs; just the same cookie-cutter exactness song after song. The track listing is fairly obvious as well, with a couple of surprises (for me, at least) - there's the expected hits, from "Kokomo" to "California Girls" with a large chunk of The Beach Boys "car songs" thrown in for the 'beer-and-babe' crowd. You won't find any of Brian Wilson's introspective Pet Sounds songs here, although "Surfer Girl" and "In My Room" make an appearance; but I was surprised to see "Don't Worry Baby", "Let Him Run Wild" and the real odd-man-out: "Rock and Roll Music" (the Beach Boys sole representative song from the 1970s) making an appearance. Other than those three, the rest of the track-listing could be taken from any of the Mike-and-Bruce truck shows. Still, if you enjoy the basic Beach Boys bundle of songs present here, this is a pretty-good "sing-along" package for bedroom and shower warblers.