ALBUM REVIEW: The Beach Boys - Wild Honey

    The Beach Boys, by late 1967, had committed career suicide, although not entirely by intention. The collapse of the SMiLE project left the creative helm of the group, Brian Wilson, increasingly MIA - the group, in time, would learn to pick up the slack with Brian's contributions becoming increasingly sparse as he battled with mental health for the next few decades. With SMiLE dead in the water, the compromise album Smiley Smile was nothing short of a flop from the group - critics didn't know what to make of it or the lead single "Heroes and Villains," and many were openly hostile towards it. Melody Maker, who had previously held up Pet Sounds as one of the greatest releases of 1966 called the album "the worst album ever released by the Beach Boys... prestige has been seriously damaged," while others denounced claims of Brian Wilson being a genius, a reputation that had been crowned upon him after both Pet Sounds and "Good Vibrations." It didn't help that the group had dropped out of attending the massive Monterey Pop Festival earlier in June, leading to a growing impression that the group was washed up - the resulting snowball effect would be huge, leading to the group being effectively written out of the 60s music scene, as focus shifted away from Los Angeles and towards San Francisco. It was an unmitigated crisis...

    ...So in the midst of their world crumbling, how did an album as joyous and beautiful as Wild Honey get made? For one, no other album in the group's catalog really sounds like Wild Honey, and for a reason that you may not expect - it's an R&B and soul album. Blue-eyed soul, yes, but soul none the less. Because of this, Wild Honey not only sticks out in the group's discography, but in the music scene of '67 in general, and while the group had drawn on R&B in the past, those were much more inspired by early 50s rock, while the influences on this album are from a rich respect for Motown (there's even a great Stevie Wonder cover on this album). Much of the album is punching, passionately sung, and focused around bouncing piano lines, catchy pop hooks, and rich horns added in. With all this in mind, the album is still decisively simple, and maybe even more-so than Smiley Smile. From interviews, it's obvious that this is what the band wanted - to make an album that was intended to be as back-to-basics as possible, and the experiment is a flying success. Moments like the title track, the single "Darlin'," and a personal favorite of "A Thing or Two" manage to hook the listener in spite of their simplicity, with the latter having some of the most creative structure on the entire album.

    This is all to say that Wild Honey is an incredibly consistent album, and one that's brief even by Beach Boys standards, clocking in at barely under 24 minutes. Every moment on the album is chalked full of pop sensibilities, and yet it's deeply rooted in the omnipresent beating heart of soul. "Aren't You Glad" is a joyous song that could've easily been on the radio had stations been inclined to actually play the group. It helps that through the recordings, it's apparent that the group went in to have a good time - "How She Boogalooed It," outside of being a great fast-paced number, is such a fun listen from the punching vocals to the semi-sloppy organ solo. "Here Comes the Night" is one of two songs sung solely by Brian Wilson, and it's a strong love song with a thumping groove and a palpable rhythm. "Let the Wind Blow" is a lovely slower ballad, which probably would've served as a better closer than the a-capella "Mama Says," a song that's the only mark of SMiLE anything on the album - it was recycled from "Vega-Tables." It's a powerful, heartbroken song that serves as one of the strongest moments on the album. Perhaps the only weak moment is the largely acoustic "I'd Love Just Once to See You," a song that, while fun, is instantly made a joke by the lyrics "I'd love just once to see you in the nude." Sorry, Brian.

    Yet again, Wild Honey made virtually no effect on its release in late December - times were changing, and it seems like The Beach Boys just couldn't keep up amidst the chaos. New acts like The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and Big Brother were already drawing attention away from The Boys, and the group would continue a fade into irrelevancy that would last until the mid-70s. In spite of this, they would press on in sheer brilliance, and Wild Honey is proof of that. Beautiful in its understatedness, powerful in its simplicity, and complex in its lo-fidelity. In being so out of touch with everything around it, Wild Honey manages to be a strange capture of the time of a group that's recovering from disaster and learning to continue from a near-chaotic end. For little while at least, it sounds like they thought everything was going to be fine, and indeed one may find that their worries melt away when putting on an album that's filled with as much joy and explosive passion as this one.

RATING: ✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

Listen to Wild Honey.