REVIEW: Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) - The Beach Boys (1965)

Look at shirtless Mike Love. Behold him.

 Discounting the last filler track, Today! ended with a big question mark in the form of "In The Back Of My Mind", and it feels a little deliberate that this record begins with a saxophone line followed by a bit of decidedly low-key, lighthearted fun in the form of "The Girl from New York City". This album is viewed as a bit of a backwards step by a lot of people, mostly because the songs are about having fun in the summer time again, and not about relationship issues and being depressed. I don't think that assessment is totally fair, but it is a bit interesting how close some of Today! seems to be to Pet Sounds.

My big criticism with Today! is that some of the arrangements are a bit muddy. There just seems to be too much. This is also, probably not coincidentally, my big problem with Phil Spector's form of production! None of the instruments have any time to breathe and everything is just a big mush of session musicians and the whole arrangement ends up sounding like mush. I present the probably controversial argument that this album represents Brian paring things back a little and that's a good thing.

The actual songs are mostly weaker, though. I'm not going to sit here and make the argument that "Salt Lake City" is better than "Kiss Me Baby" or "When I Grow Up To Be A Man" because one of those songs just makes me wonder why Brian Wilson is going after Mormon chicks and the other two are really good. And "Amusement Parks USA" is probably the most self-consciously goofy Beach Boys song since "Cuckoo Clock", for better or worse.

There's a lot of things to like here, though! "Then I Kissed Her" is an excellent Spector cover, better than the original in my opinion. "Girl Don't Tell Me" is an unabashedly harmony-less, Beatlesque number, pretty unusually stripped back for a Beach Boys song of this era. (The little guitar lick is pretty obviously stolen from "Ticket To Ride", though.)

"Help Me, Rhonda" is definitely better than the version on Today, and one of the classic Beach Boys singles. It's very catchy! It's also a bit hard for me to earnestly review pop songs this poppy because there's not a lot intelligent to say here. Like, I don't know, I like the part where they sing "Help me, Rhonda yeah", and the chorus is catchy. Thank you, Captain Obvious.

"California Girls" is one of the Beach Boys songs that people love to write about because the instrumental is so ornate and pretty and complicated and then the vocals are just "Wow, girls are hot!" Controversial opinion, I think this is a good song. I think it's okay to write a song which is just about girls being hot if the rest of the song is good enough, and this song is definitely good enough. Also - and this is a big myth - a lot of people want to believe the part of this song Brian wrote 'under the influence' was the beautiful intro, because drugs make you make good art or something. It was actually the bass line, which Brian is adamant he stole from Bach, of all people.

"Let Him Run Wild" feels like a vastly sunnier and cheerier take on the lush romantic sadness of the second half of Today!, and while there's a fair bit of melancholy on this one, too, it's intensely outweighed by the sheer pop candyfloss of the chorus. "You're So Good To Me" takes the whole "sunnier and cheerier" thing to the logical extreme, being one of the most frighteningly catchy songs ever devised. I'm like 99% sure those "LA LA LA LA LA LA LA" backing vocals were cooked up in a lab somewhere. If the other pop songs on this album are hard to critically analyze, this song outright resists it - if you're reading into the lyrics to ascribe some sort of artistic importance, you are clearly doing it wrong. This is the type of song you're supposed to listen to and enjoy, not listen to and analyze, and you're listening to the fucking Beach Boys, so that's okay.

"Summer Means New Love" is the first non-surf instrumental on a Beach Boys record, starting a new tradition of orchestrally arranged, moderately easy listening-ish instrumentals. It's probably not going to win any awards, but the string arrangements here are quite good, and I'm not going to dislike anyone for making me listen to a relaxing and lush instrumental by one of the great producer-arrangers of all time.

"I'm Bugged At My Old Dad" is the closest thing to filler here. It's also intensely uncomfortable to listen to, knowing that Brian's dad, Murry, was in fact kind of a shithead. If you can convince yourself to ignore all of that it's sorta fun! I guess. Maybe. I'm probably giving it too much credit.

"And Your Dream Comes True" is a short and pleasant little acapella number to close out the record. Congratulations, Beach Boys! You actually chose a sensible song to end the album with!

I'm going to slap another 8/10 on this but I will clarify I do like Today! a bit better. The catchy songs here are just so goddamn catchy and considering my undeniably high tolerance for 60s cheese I am mostly okay with the rest! This is not a universal opinion and I am totally fine with that!

Catch me next time when I review one of the most iconic and critically acclaimed albums of all time, perhaps the definitive statement of one of the great American bands, the famous, the classic, the one and only... Beach Boys' Party!