Бич Бойздің «Surf's Up» альбомы туралы

Surf's Up is the 17th studio album by American rock band the Beach Boys, released on August 30, 1971 on Brother/Reprise. It received largely favorable reviews and reached number 29 on the U. S. record charts, becoming their highest charting LP of new music in the U. S. since 1967. In the UK, Surf's Up peaked at number 15, continuing a string of top 40 records that had not abated since 1965. The album's title and cover artwork (a painting based on the early 20th century sculpture "End of the Trail") are an ironic, self aware nod to the band's early surfing image. Originally titled Landlocked, the album took its name from the closing track "Surf's Up", a song originally intended for the group's unfinished album Smile. Most of Surf's Up was recorded from January to July 1971. In contrast to the previous LP Sunflower, Brian Wilson was not especially active in the production, which resulted in thinner vocal arrangements. Lyrically, Surf's Up addresses environmental, social, and health concerns more than the group's previous releases. After the release of Sunflower, band engineer Stephen Desper assembled a collection of songs consisting mostly of outtakes deemed suitable for a follow up LP, which he labelled "Second Brother Album". "Long Promised Road" and "Feel Flows" were Carl's first significant solo compositions and were recorded almost entirely by himself. Jardine said that it was "actually an old folk song" to which he "rewrote the lyrics to reflect the times". Rieley had asked Brian about including "Surf's Up" on Landlocked, and in early June, Brian suddenly gave approval for Carl and Rieley to finish the song. Carl overdubbed a new vocal in the song's first part, the original backing track dating from November 1966. The second movement consisted of a December 1966 solo piano demo recorded by Brian, augmented with vocal and Moog synthesizer overdubs. Johnston recalled, "We ended up doing vocals to sort of emulate ourselves without Brian Wilson, which was kind of silly." With the song completed, Landlocked was given the new title of Surf's Up.

Dennis Wilson's songs "4th of July" and "(Wouldn't It Be Nice to) Live Again" were recorded in early 1971 but left off the record. In a September 1971 interview, Dennis stated, "I have a belief in my music. And it sounds nothing like it should on the album – it should have a flow from one song to another It didn't sound like The Beach Boys. They thought it did. I said ‘Bullshit’ and pulled my songs off." According to Rieley, the absence of any Dennis songs on Surf's Up was for two reasons: to quell political infighting within the group concerning the album's share of Wilson brother songs, and because Dennis wanted to save his songs for a solo album, projected for release in 1971. "(Wouldn't It Be Nice to) Live Again" was written with Stanley Shapiro. According to Beach Boys biographer Jon Stebbins, Dennis had wanted the song to close the record, following Til I Die", but Carl objected. In 2013, it was released on the box set Made in California, along with a 1974 recording of "Barnyard Blues", a song that Dennis had composed during the Surf's Up sessions. Dennis also recorded "Barbara", a piano demo named after his then girlfriend, and a track called "Old Movie". "Barbara" was released in 1998 for the Endless Harmony Soundtrack. Other outtakes include Brian's "My Solution" and "H. E. L. P. Is On the Way". According to singer Terry Jacks, the group asked him to be their producer for a session. On July 31, 1970, they attempted a rendition of the Jacques Brel/Rod McKuen song "Seasons in the Sun", but the session went badly, and the track was never finished. Jacks later had a hit with his own version of the song in 1974. Afterward, Mike Love told an interviewer: "We did record a version [of 'Seasons'] but it was so wimpy we had to throw it out. It was just the wrong song for us. I'm glad Terry had a hit with it." Love's "Big Sur", recorded in August 1970, was later remade in a different time signature for the 1973 album Holland. In March 1971, Carl recorded a Moog synthesizer sound collage titled "Telephone Backgrounds (On a Clear Day)".

Rieley arranged for the group to appear in a series of commercials with the tagline "It's now safe to listen to the Beach Boys." He also arranged a guest appearance at a Grateful Dead concert at Bill Graham's Fillmore East in April 1971 to foreground the band's transition into the counterculture. For their performances this year, the Beach Boys enlisted a full horn section and additional percussionists. A journalist who attended the show later reported that Bob Dylan, who was watching from the sound booth, remarked aloud, "You know, they're pretty fucking good." Contrary to what is later written of the show, the Grateful Dead's audience was unfavorable toward the Beach Boys' appearance. On May 1, the band performed at The Peace Treaty Celebration Rock Show, an anti war rally concert organized by the Mayday Collective, with approximately 500,000 people in attendance. Footage of the band performing "Student Demonstration Time" later appeared in the 1985 documentary An American Band. On May 24, "Long Promised Road" (B side "Deirdre") was issued as the lead single, becoming their sixth consecutive U. S. single that failed to chart. That same month, Dennis accidentally punched his hand through a glass window, severing nerves and tendons. The injury left him unable to play drums for the band, and so he was replaced by the Flame's Ricky Fataar. Dennis continued to make occasional appearances at concerts, singing or playing keyboards. In July, the American music press rated the Beach Boys "the hottest grossing act" in the country, alongside Grand Funk Railroad. On July 7, the film Two Lane Blacktop, co starring Dennis, made its worldwide premier in New York City. Despite critical acclaim, the film was largely unnoticed by cinema goers. Surf's Up was released on August 30 to more public anticipation than the Beach Boys had had for several years. Aided by some FM radio exposure, At the end of the month, Surf's Up peaked on the U. S. charts at number 29, becoming their highest charting album there since Wild Honey (1967). In the UK, Surf's Up was released by EMI's Stateside label in October and peaked at number 15. Rieley was unhappy with the delay, remarking that the album "sold more import copies than they sold of British pressings." The UK singles, "Long Promised Road" (B side "Deirdre") and "Don't Go Near the Water" (B side "Student Demonstration Time"), failed to chart. In November, "Surf's Up" (B side "Don't Go Near the Water") was released as the last U. S. single and failed to chart.

Surf's Up received generally favorable reviews. Times reviewer described it as "one of the most imaginatively produced LPs since last fall's All Things Must Pass by George Harrison and Phil Spector". A Rolling Stone writer stated: "the Beach Boys stage a remarkable comeback an LP that weds their choral harmonies to progressive pop and which shows youngest Wilson brother Carl stepping into the fore of the venerable outfit." In his review for the magazine, Arthur Schmidt was effused with the record, highlighting "Surf's Up" and "Disney Girls" as his favorite songs, and wrote: "This is a good album, probably as good as Sunflower, which is terrific It is certainly the most original in that it has contributed something purely its own." Richard Williams of The Times called the record "mostly very good" in his review;" in another review of the album from 1972, he wrote that it "won't disappoint anyone at all they've produced an album which fully backs up all that's recently been written and said about them." NMEs Richard Green called it a "very good album, very different from anything they've done before." Robert Christgau of The Village Voice was less impressed. While highlighting "Take a Load Off Your Feet" and "Disney Girls (1957)", he found most of the other songs forgettable and the album the group's worst since 1968's Friends, before writing, "Van Dyke Parks's wacked out lyricist meandering is matched by the sophomoric spiritual quest of Jack Rieley, and the music drags hither and yon." In The Rag, Metal Mike Saunders lamented that most of the press furor over the Beach Boys' reputed comeback "has been rubbish" and opined that Surf's Up suffered from the same issues as Sunflower, namely "horrendous production and engineering" and a lack of "focus". He wrote, "At any rate, the Brian Wilson Enigma remains unanswered, and the Beach Boys without him are just another rock group." The Guardians Geoffrey Cannon felt that the album was inconsistent. In a 1971 interview, Paul McCartney praised the album, commenting while discussing contemporary releases, "Have you got the new Beach Boys album, Surf’s Up? That's good, too."

Surf's Up was the last Beach Boys album recorded with Bruce Johnston until 1979's L. A. (Light Album). He later criticized the record: "To me, Surf's Up is, and always has been, one hyped up lie! It was a false reflection of The Beach Boys and one which Jack [Rieley] engineered right from the start. It made it look like Brian Wilson was more than just a visitor at those sessions. Jack made it appear as though Brian was really there all the time." In another interview, Johnston said: "All I can say is that at the beginning, I thought that what he was trying to do was absolutely right on the money. He helped the band become aware of what our niche was in pop music."

Music critic John Bush wrote "[Most of the] songs are enjoyable enough, but the last three tracks are what make Surf's Up such a masterpiece." Mojo critic Ross Bennett regarded Surf's Up as "the definitive version" of the Smile recordings, "with those crystalline vocals imbuing Parks' cryptic verses with a grace and simplicity missing from the 2004 reboot". Keith Phipps from The A. V. Club called it "the darkest album of the group's career, a record that also spotlighted a growing social conscience". In 1974, the staff of NME ranked Surf's Up number 96 in their list of the "Top 100 Albums" of all time. When the magazine surveyed its writers again in 1993, the album's position rose to number 46. In 2000, the record was voted number 230 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. The record is also listed in the musical reference book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In 2004, Surf's Up was ranked number 61 on Pitchforks list of "The Top 100 Albums of the 1970s". Contributor Dominique Leone wrote:

Conversely, Scott Schinder wrote in Icons of Rock (2006) that Surf's Up "lacked the solid group dynamic that had elevated Sunflower" despite two "impressive songwriting contributions from Carl". James E. Perone, writing in The 100 Greatest Bands of All Time (2015), opined that "the album's lyrical themes are so wide ranging that the social commentary tended to get somewhat lost, and the year 1971 was late enough in the counterculture era that 'Student Demonstration Time' and 'A Day in the Life of a Tree' seem like a case of too little, too late." Stebbins opined that the album suffered from a lack of Dennis songs and was not as strong as Sunflower in its totality. Record Collectors Jamie Atkins said that the lack of Dennis songs was balanced by the strong offerings from Carl, although Rieley's "awkward wordplay was rather less clever than he had perhaps intended. Happily, they did not detract from the quality of the songs:"

John Wetton named Surf's Up his favorite prog album of all time, elaborating: "The summer of '71 had so many musical milestones but Surf's Up was a revelation. I was in Family, a major player in the first wave of British progressive bands, but this collection from the iconic California surf pop band shifted my parameters, blurring all the boundaries of my musical vocabulary. And the cover? Mega prog!"

In 2021, expanded editions of Sunflower and Surf's Up were packaged within Feel Flows, a box set that includes session highlights, outtakes, and alternate mixes drawn from the two albums. The set also includes the first ever releases of the Surf's Up era outtakes "Big Sur" (1970 version), "Sweet and Bitter", "My Solution", "Seasons in the Sun", "Baby Baby", "Awake", and "It's a New Day".

Chart (1971)Peakposition Australia (Go Set)32 Canadian RPM 100 Albums22 UK Top 40 Albums15 U. S. Billboard Top LPs & Tape29