The Beach Boys ‎– Sunflower

Though the Beach Boys are best-known for their classic summer-fun hits, the group's resident genius, Brian Wilson, sculpted several underrated albums of complex, inspired orchestrated pop. Sunflower (1970) depicts a true group effort, with each member pitching in. Harmonies flourish, co-writings are strong, and Dennis Wilson and Bruce Johnston emerge with some of the album's most touching moments. Johnston's "Deirdre" evokes memories of the old days, while updating the sound and groove with a smart yet elaborate arrangement. His "Tears In the Morning" takes the Beach Boys' classic sound and gives it an early-70s feel. "At My Window" retains a psychedelic flavour. Dennis' "Got To Know The Woman" provides an upbeat, vintage rock 'n' roll sound, while "Forever" ranks among the band's greatest ballads. Brian and Mike Love join forces for the vocal weave of "All I Wanna Do," while Carl Wilson and Brian are in fine spirits for "This Whole World." The United Kingdom press and fans have always acknowledged the group's achievements, while, ironically, their United States counterparts were slower to find the brilliance in their own backyard.

No idea why people are overpaying for this (or any of the other Beach Boys AP LP's), they're all still in stock and readily available from Acoustic Sounds' website:
https://store.acousticsounds.com/d/95592/The_Beach_Boys-Sunflower-200_Gram_Vinyl_Record

Probably the best cd version of this album. I’ve heard NR was used on it, but I can’t tell, still sounds warm and tape like actually.

A tremendous reissue from Analogue Productions. Definitely bass heavy, but sounds fantastic.

With some instrumental and vocal harmonic complexities that were certainly better than those delivered on Pet Sounds, The Beach Boys finally seemed poised to lay down an album that could fill a huge space, provided that huge space is a supermarket, or even a confined space, like an elevator, in need of some mindless lovable muzak, just perfect for browsing the high end yogurt section, where girls in oversized linen trousers and head scarves smile on endlessly, as if trying to remember the punchline to a joke they overheard while having a latte on the other side of the store … and while unable to, giggled anyway at the memory.

The album is primarily composed of love songs distributed across the record in varying degrees of effortlessness, breezy dreaming and mindless intoxication. With Brian continuing his own personal exploration of what makes up a good song, he’s stepped knee deep into the contemporary mellow soft rock California realm of all things pleasant. It’s a self-conscious homogenized affair, where in 1970, the album and the backwards step into naivety, making the album and the band totally irrelevant.

On a positive note, finally the Boys have graced us with an album of original material … matter of fact the guys handed in over thirty songs and let the record label sort the mess out. Of course, in the end there’s a floating warmth to the record, and certainly the production and engineering are flawless, yet it all comes across as quite mindless, and dare I sound, jaded, the conception sounds far too out of focus, where again, the Beach Boys manage to create an even worse album than before, staying on the charts for less than four weeks and peaking at the #151 slot. The single “Add Some Music To Your Day” was the record’s saving grace, where based on that single alone (which peaked at #64) was responsible for nearly all the album sales.

With Brian hopelessly addicted to cocaine at this point in time, he rambled on to friends and the music press that the band was broke, that their funds had vanished and they were considering filing for bankruptcy. What strikes me as most compelling, is that so many critics claimed that the album was great, yet their claims were never validated, with those claims comparing Sunflower to other failed adventures by The Beach Boys … though that certainly begs the question, is almost anything not good when compared to something really bad? Others have said that Sunflower marked a return to some balance within the band, with few outside musicians playing, meaning that the Beach Boys were once again responsible for their own sound. Yet again, when you listen to folks talk about this record, they point to this minute, or that aspect, or how this chord transitioned into these harmonies, though no one stands up and touts Sunflower as being the greatest album of all time, the Beach Boys defacto Sgt. Pepper.

So, discounting “Add Some Music To Your Day” what song found here holds up as well as “Good Vibrations,” “Sail On, Sailor,” “Good Timin’” or even the blistering slow dance number “Surfer Girl.” Even with all their studio double tracked double vocals, spilt stereophonic textured effects, and overtly considered harmonic balances, for me this is nothing more than a late summer bit of interlocking playfulness that is entirely forgettable.

Listen, the Beach Boys have always loomed much larger in my mind than they came across on records, they never actually made the transition into the hazed 60's, they weren’t really good at this whole easy going concept thing either. So if you think along the lines that I do, but have never given voice to those thoughts for fear of being criticized, go get yourself a Greatest Hits album, I promise, you’ll be much happier.

*** The Fun Facts: Working titles for the album were as follows Reverberation, Sun Flower, and Add Some Music, before they finally agreed on Sunflower.

Review by Jenell Kesler

After you get over Pet Sounds and all the myth and legend of SMiLE, you quickly realize how beautiful and oft-overlooked Sunflower really is (despite it's critical acclaim, it was a commercial flop). Of course this pressing sounds great. I'm happy to finally own a clean copy without distracting surface noise!

Amazing album that really kicked off the blue eyed soul era for the Beach Boys. This album should be much more celebrated than it is.

This release is very bass-heavy. It's got a nice sound but Jesus, you'll have to use tone-control on your amplifier. It's like someone pressed the "MEGA-BASS" switch on a car stereo. Also I doubt that's it's 100% analogue very much. The Sunflower master tape is notorious for being plentiful in tape hiss - this release shows some tape hiss but it is totally absent between tracks. The tape to lacquer process is a continuous process, therefore there would be hiss between tracks if this were a true analogue release. The HDTracks version of this album has more hiss.