My hmphs

Mark your calendars for Sept. 2 - that’s the release date for former Beach Boy Brian Wilson’s latest effort, titled That Old Lucky Sun. He’s released a video preview of the album, and judging from what’s on the preview, it sounds fantastic. Back are the strings from Pet Sounds, and the harmonies still take center stage. From the press release from Capitol (His old label):

A musical love letter from Southern California, That Lucky Old Sun shimmers with sun-dappled choruses and arrangements that swell and swirl as if carried by the Pacific tides. One of the songs, “Midnight’s Another Day,” has been described by MOJO magazine as “glorious.” The album is narrated in transitional interludes spoken by Wilson as ‘That Lucky Old Sun,’ the storyteller. The narratives, cameos on life and the heartbeat of Los Angeles, propel the album’s musical story.

Brian has led a difficult life, driven to a nervous breakdown during the recording of Smile and tortured by weight and emotional problems over the past 40 years. His solo work has always paled in comparison to his earlier work, but a few years ago he managed to finish Smile and surely felt some vindication as he performed the album live on tour. If anyone is due for a masterpiece, it’s Brian Wilson, and I hope the album lives up to the hype.

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• How I’ve Grown to Love the Beach Boys (2)

Judging from the title, you must be thinking that at one time, I didn’t like the Beach Boys.

Yep. Hated ‘em.

Growing up in the 80s, I was witness to only one Top 10 hit by the group, the horrendous “Kokomo” from the even worse movie, “Cocktail.” I found their sound formulaic, their lyrics inane and Mike Love’s voice like chewing aluminum foil.

Then I heard “God Only Knows.”

My first exposure to that song was a really bad cover by David Bowie from his 1985 album Tonight. But when I heard the Beach Boys’ version and started discovering chord progressions I never knew and hearing multiple harmonies intertwined, echoing each other and sometimes meeting in heavenly overtones, I knew I had to reassess this group.

I read Brian Wilson’s autobiography, Wouldn’t it be Nice, and saw how infatuated he was with creating harmonies as lush and intricate as his heroes, 50s doo-wop group The Four Freshmen. (It was his brother Dennis who was the surfer and suggested the subject matter for their early hits.) I read quotes from his ex-wife, Marilyn, recounting how “the difference was that Brian heard the music, the different instruments, the harmonies of the voices, and the production at the same time. He wrote, arranged, and produced it all! It was all there in his mind, and people would just look at him in amazement” (Charles L. Granata, Tony Asher: “Wouldn’t It Be Nice: Brian Wilson and the Making of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds“).

This sounded like a modern-day Mozart, in which all he had to do was write down what was playing in his head. With this new information, I dug deeper. I found that Pet Sounds was a major motivator for the Beatles to record Sergeant Pepper, and when Brian tried to top the Beatles with the revolutionary concept Smile, the music in his head began to betray him, and he began to crack up. He has since finished the album some 30 years later, but he is a shadow of his former self, shattered by years of mental illness and medication.

The Beach Boys’ catalogue finally began to take on a new light. I gained a new respect for the harmonies in “Surfer Girl,” listened more closely to the instrumentation in “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” and forgot David Lee Roth’s version of “California Girls,” opting instead to examine the non-conventional song structure and chord changes.

Some songs are still silly (”409,” “Surfin”), the lyrics about cars and surfing are still lame, and Mike Love’s voice still grates on my ears. But Brian Wilson is still affecting music lovers almost 50 years after he began his foray into rock and roll.

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