The Beach Boys - Surfer Girl/Shut Down, Vol. 2

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Music reviews of Surfer Girl/Shut Down, Vol. 2

Music Review: Some Brian Brilliance, Some Filler
Rating: 4 Stars

Great songs on this two-fer which are not on the greatest hits cds would be underrated gems such as "Hawaii", the gorgeous Brian solo ballad, "Your Summer Dream", and the anthemic "In The Parkin' Lot." Dennis Wilson (the only BB who actually surfed) gets to sing lead on the rockin' "Surfer's Rule", which lays down a lyrical challenge in its coda to the then hugely popular Four Seasons. "I Do" is an expansion of "County Fair" from the Surfin' Safari album. It has some of the most romantic lyrics of any Beach Boys song. "The Surfer Moon" is lyrically silly but, musically, an interesting ballad which features Brian duetting with himself. At this point, Brian was singing all the ballads and letting Mike Love sing all the uptempo hits. Dennis, like Ringo Starr in The Beatles, would be given an album track to sing on almost every album.

Throwaway tunes here would be sophomoric fluff like "South Bay Surfer", and the instrumentals ("The Rockin' Surfer", "Boogie Woodie", "Shut Down, Pt. 2", and "Denny's Drums.") "This Car Of Mine" is a junker, "Pom Pom Playgirl" is slightly interesting with some complex key changes, but a trifle at only about 1:25 long, and "Keep An Eye On Summer" is pretty but is one of Brian's least interesting ballads, featuring the conventional rock and roll ballad chords (I-vi-ii-V). It sounds as if it was churned out to meet a deadline, but it is superior to the version of the tune appearing on Brian's recent Imagination cd.

"Cassius" Love vs. "Sonny" Wilson is a weird recreation of a Beach Boys rehearsal with Mike Love and Brian ragging on each other's singing voices with really lame, sophomoric, and dated putdowns. The interesting thing here is that the putdowns reflected the true feelings of the participants, as Mike and Brian have always had an intense love-hate relationship, full of mutual fear and jealousy. "Cassius" and "Sonny" were from Cassius Clay (soon to become Muhammad Ali) and reigning heavyweight champion Sonny Liston, who were about to fight for the heavyweight title (Clay/Ali won). But even more embarrassing is "Louie, Louie" with the worst lead vocals ever laid down by Mike Love or anybody else. Confirms all of Brian's putdowns. On the other hand, "Why Do Fools Fall In Love" is a fantastic remake of the Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers 1956 classic doo-wop tune. Brian puts in his most complex production to date, using for the first time Phil Spector's production techniques, studio, and musicians (a practice which would be used for the entire Pet Sounds album). There is a stunning moment where all the instruments suddenly drop out and the group does about 15 seconds of amazing acapella work before the instrumentation kicks in again. Gives me goosebumps every time.

Interesting Note: "Don't Worry, Baby" was intended by Brian to be the follow-up for The Ronettes to "Be My Baby", hence the similiar drum intro and title lyric. But Phil Spector was too proud to accept tunes from Brian, who he admired but considered an upstart. So, thankfully, the BB's recorded it, and it later became the B-side to "I Get Around", making for one of the best singles ever done by anyone.

Unfortunately, Capitol, as they did in 1990, has issued this music in lame, primitive 1960's 3-track stereo (usually with double-tracked voices coming out the side channels with the instrumentation left in mono in the center channel) instead of either using Brian's original mono mixes, which packed more power (listen to how the mono single version of "Fun, Fun, Fun" shuts down the wimpy stereo mix.), or doing modern stereo remixes of all the material. But even this flaw cannot prevent one from enjoying the greatness present on this two-fer which is a great value, with about 16 great songs. Buy and enjoy hearing the genius, romanticism, and beautiful voice of the young Brian Wilson in his early bloom.

Description of Surfer Girl/Shut Down, Vol. 2

Classic Rock CDs

• Music > Styles
• Pop
• Rock