The Beach Boys – Surf’s Up (1971) [APO Remaster 2016]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 & DST 4.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 33:43 minutes | Scans included | 2,41 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Full Scans included | 648 MB

The Beach Boys’ post-1966 catalog is littered with LPs that barely scraped the charts upon release but matured into solid fan favorites despite – and occasionally, because of – their many and varied eccentricities. Surf’s Up could well be the definitive example, beginning with the cloying “Don’t Go Near the Water” and ending a bare half-hour later with the baroque majesty of the title track (originally written in 1966). The album is a virtual laundry list of each uncommon intricacy that made the Beach Boys’ forgotten decade such a bittersweet thrill – the fluffy yet endearing pop (od)ditties of Brian Wilson, quasi-mystical white-boy soul from brother Carl, and the downright laughable songwriting on tracks charting Mike Love’s devotion to Buddhism and Al Jardine’s social/environmental concerns. Those songs are enjoyable enough, but the last three tracks are what make Surf’s Up such a masterpiece. The first, “A Day in the Life of a Tree,” is simultaneously one of Brian’s most deeply touching and bizarre compositions; he is the narrator and object of the song (though not the vocalist; co-writer Jack Rieley lends a hand), lamenting his long life amid the pollution and grime of a city park while the somber tones of a pipe organ build atmosphere. The second, “‘Til I Die,” isn’t the love song the title suggests; it’s a haunting, fatalistic piece of pop surrealism that appeared to signal Brian’s retirement from active life. The album closer, “Surf’s Up,” is a masterpiece of baroque psychedelia, probably the most compelling track from the SMiLE period. Carl gives a soulful performance despite the surreal wordplay, and Brian’s coda is one of the most stirring moments in his catalog. Wrapped up in a mess of contradictions, Surf’s Up defined the Beach Boys’ tumultuous career better than any other album.

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The Beach Boys – Surfin’ USA (1963) [APO Remaster 2015]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 Stereo & Mono 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 24:02 / 24:23 minutes | Scans included | 1,98 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Stereo | 24:23 mins | Full Scans included | 461 MB

The real breakthrough, as Brian Wilson asserts himself in the studio as both songwriter and arranger on a set of material that was much stronger than Surfin’ Safari. Besides the hit title track and its popular drag-racing flip side (“Shut Down”), this has a lovely, heartbreaking ballad (“Lonely Sea”) and a couple of strong Brian Wilson originals (“The Noble Surfer” and “Farmer’s Daughter”). There are also a surprisingly high quotient of instrumentals (five) that demonstrate that, before session musicians took over most of the parts, the Beach Boys could play respectably gutsy surf rock as a self-contained unit. Indeed, the album as a whole is the best they would make, prior to the late ’60s, as a band that played most of their instruments, rather than as a vehicle for Brian Wilson’s ideas. The LP was a huge hit, vital to launching surf music as a national craze, and one of the few truly strong records to be recorded by a self-contained American rock band prior to the British Invasion.

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The Beach Boys – Surfin’ Safari (1962) MONO [APO Remaster 2015]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 24:26 minutes | Scans included | 1.0 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Full Scans included | 443 MB

The Beach Boys’ debut album, recorded in an era in which little was expected of rock groups in the way of strong LP-length statements, is mostly thin and awkward in both the songwriting and production departments. The title track, their first true smash, is great, as is its flip side (“409”), which was not only a hit in its own right, but was the first vocal hot rod classic. “Surfin’,” their debut single (and small national hit), is also good, and one of the few Beach Boys tracks that could be said to have a garage-like quality. Unfortunately, most of the other cuts (most of which are group originals) are substandard ditties, as Brian Wilson had a way to go before honing his compositional genius. It does, however, afford a glimpse of the group as they sounded when they were a true band in the studio, before most of their parts were played by session musicians.

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The Beach Boys – Surfer Girl (1963) [APO Remaster 2015]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 Stereo & Mono 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 24:02 / 25:23 minutes | Scans included | 2,08 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Stereo | 25:35 mins | Full Scans included | 488 MB

Surfer Girl is the third studio album by American rock band the Beach Boys and their second longplayer in 1963. Surfer Girl reached number 7 in the US during a chart stay of 56 weeks. In the UK, the album was released in spring 1967 and reached number 13. This was the first album by the Beach Boys for which Brian Wilson was given full production credit, a position Wilson would maintain for the next few years.

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The Beach Boys – Sunflower (1970) [APO Remaster 2016]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 & DST 4.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 37:01 minutes | Scans included | 2,63 GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Full Scans included | 697 MB

After Reprise rejected what was to be their debut album for the label, the Beach Boys re-entered the studio to begin work on what would become a largely different set of songs. The results signaled a creative rebirth for the band, a return to the beautiful harmonies and orchestral productions of their classic mid-’60s material. Though the songwriting didn’t quite reach the high quality of “California Girls” or “God Only Knows,” Sunflower showed the Beach Boys truly working as a band, and doing so better than they ever had in the past (or would in the future). Many of the songs were co-compositions, and the undeniable songwriting and performance talents of Dennis Wilson and Bruce Johnston were finally allowed to flourish: Dennis contributed “Slip On Through,” “Forever,” and “Got to Know the Woman,” while Bruce wrote “Deirdre” and “Tears in the Morning.” After a succession of spare, unadorned lead vocals on rock-oriented albums like Wild Honey and 20/20, Sunflower returned the Beach Boys to gorgeous vocal harmonies on the tracks “Add Some Music to Your Day,” “Cool, Cool Water,” and “This Whole World.” And the arrangements, tight and inventive, showed Brian Wilson once again back near the top of his game (though the production is credited to the entire band). Sunflower is also a remarkably cohesive album, something not seen from the Beach Boys since Pet Sounds. As with that album, Sunflower earned critical raves in Britain but was virtually ignored in America.

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The Beach Boys – Smiley Smile (1967) [APO Remaster 2016]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 Stereo & Mono 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 27:40/27:48 minutes | Scans included | 2,23 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | MONO | 27:48 mins | Full Scans included | 468 MB
Mastered for this SACD by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio

After the much-discussed, uncompleted Smile project – which was supposed to take the innovations of Pet Sounds to even grander heights – collapsed, the Beach Boys released Smiley Smile in its place. (To clarify much confusion: Smiley Smile is an entirely different piece of work than Smile would have been, although some material that ended up on Smiley Smile would have most likely been used on Smile. Also, much of Smiley Smile was in fact recorded after the Smile sessions had ceased.) For fans expecting something along the lines of Sgt. Pepper (and there were many of them), Smiley Smile was a major disappointment, replacing psychedelic experimentation with spare, eccentric miniatures. Heard now, outside of such unrealistic expectations, it’s a rather nifty, if rather slight, effort that’s plenty weird – in fact, often downright goofy – despite Brian Wilson’s retreat from both avant pop and active leadership of the group. “Wind Chimes,” “Wonderful,” “Vegetables,” and much of the rest is low-key psychedelic quirkiness, with abundant fine harmonies and unusual arrangements. The standouts, nonetheless, were two recent hit singles in which Brian Wilson’s ambitions were still intact: the inscrutable mini-opera “Heroes and Villains,” and the number one hit “Good Vibrations,” one of the few occasions where the group managed to be recklessly experimental and massively commercial at the same time.

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The Beach Boys – Shut Down Volume 2 (1964) [APO Remaster 2015]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 Stereo & Mono 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 27:34 / 27:52 minutes | Scans included | 2,06 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Stereo | 25:35 mins | Full Scans included | 483 MB

Shut Down Volume 2 is the fifth studio album by the Beach Boys, and the first of three they would release in 1964. Shut Down Volume 2 reached number 13 in the US charts during a chart stay of 38 weeks. The “Volume 2” in the album title refers to a multi-artist album featuring and named for the Beach Boys’ song “Shut Down”, released eight months earlier by the band’s label.

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