Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4394 in Digital Music Album
• Published on: 2003-05-29
• Released on: 2003-05-29
• Running time: 4540 seconds

Customer Reviews

California conformin'
This is the music your Mum wanted you to listen to - a homage to a materialistic life in the sun, a life of smart cars, pretty girls and milk shakes, with not a hint of politics or protest. "Be True to Your School" sounds like a parody today. Hard to believe, but it was perfectly serious in 1963.

If you have grown up with synthesized and electronic music, you will find it hard to imagine the impact of The Beach Boys' music when it was first released. "Good Vibrations" in particular, created a sensation and a real sense that popular music would not be the same again. There was also considerable unease when it was realized they could not create the same sound live on stage. How times change.

Some listeners have expressed disappointment that not all the tracks have been remastered into stereo versions, but bearing in mind that it was often a deliberate choice to record them in mono originally (the fact that Brian Wilson was deaf in one ear might have had something to do with it), you could argue that it is wrong to rerecord them in stereo. You're hearing what they intended.

Their two main influences, Chuck Berry and The Everly Brothers, are very obvious in this compilation. It includes a Berry song, "Rock and Roll Music" which I could have done without, but it does help to show where they came from musically. They began as a fusion of hard rock and soft country.

Also obvious is their affinity with The Mamas and the Papas - complex vocal harmonies, a love affair with California, a smooth, tuneful sound. If you like one group, you'll almost certainly like the other. No surprise therefore that this album includes "Kokomo", a late hit co-written with a couple of Papas. Also no surprise that offspring of Boy Brian and Papa John went on to form Wilson Phillips.

The traditional "Sloop John B" serves to remind us that the 60s folk revival influenced The Beach Boys as well as it did the more obvious groups. Lonnie Donegan had already had a hit in the UK with this song, years before, and when the Boys' version was a hit, he re-released his, "Because there's renewed interest in it." Inevitably, his version bombed. When all is said and done, The Boys were more rockers than folkies.

There is a huge number of 'best of' Beach Boy collections to choose from, so you may want to shop around. This album has 30 tracks, comprising their big hits, and is available at discount prices (in the US). So I recommend this as your best single-disk choice, in the US. In the UK, at the time of writing this review, there is a box set of the same name, available at discount. That looks like a better bagain.

A very strong collection of their hits
So many of their songs are well known, and not just to those who were raised on this music, but to people of all ages. Part of the reason may be that surf music is inextricably linked with the sixties - you won't find any modern equivalent.

On this American compilation, you get the classic songs they wrote themselves - California girls, Fun fun fun, Good vibrations, Little deuce coupe, Help me Rhonda, God only knows, Darlin', I get around and Wouldn't it be nice to name just a few - together with songs that they covered in their own unique way - Do you wanna dance and Sloop John B.

There have been plenty of compilations of their music down the years and will be many more. Given the number of classic songs they recorded, picking just thirty inevitably means that some great songs get left out. A 30 track compilation released in the UK in 2003 contained 24 of the 30 tracks available here – the other six tracks being Little Honda, Then I kissed her, Caroline no, Break away, Cotton fields and Lady Lynda, instead of Shut down, Be true to your school, In your room, Getcha back, Come go with me and Good timing. Clearly, there isn't a lot to choose between the two, so I recommend that you just buy your local version.

A Joy
Truly a fantastic compilation album from one of the greatest and most treasured bands of all time.

The Beach Boys covered so much ground in their music, from girls, cars, heartbreak, romance man it is all here, and of course it ends with 'good vibrations' arguably the greatest song of all time.

'Sounds of summer' truly is a treat to listen to, put it on in the car, at home or best of all during a day out with friends or family and it puts you in a good mood.

I recommend along with this album that you should buy 'the warmth of the sun' kind of it's brother album for the perfect summer package.