Love You: За кулисами альбома The Beach Boys (1977)

1977 studio album by the Beach Boys
Beach Boys (Los Angeles)
| genre = hlist|Synth pop|rock|art pop Later in the interview, he remarked that he had recently left the band temporarily, citing a wish to have "freedom" and "to do my own album", and was undecided on whether he would stay as their producer or instead pursue a solo career. In 2021, five of these demo recordings were officially released as downloadables on Wilson's official website. The Love You sessions marked the first time that Brian was given free rein on a new Beach Boys album since the Smile sessions in 1967. He wrote almost the entire album and performed nearly every instrument, including keyboards, synthesizers, and drums. Carl and Dennis contributed some instrumentation, while Jardine and Love were rarely present for the sessions, and ultimately every member of the band sang several lead vocals. In biographer Peter Ames Carlin's estimation, "it was essentially [Brian's] solo album", while biographer Christian Matijas Mecca concurred that it was effectively "a Brian Wilson solo album with only brief contributions by other members of the band who added their parts after the bulk of the work was finished." Conversely, Jardine said, "In a way, [Love You] was Carl's tribute to Brian Carl wanted Brian to feel appreciated. He had the most to do with that album, him and Dennis, paying tribute to their brother." Biographer Jon Stebbins similarly viewed it as "pretty much a Wilson brothers album", adding that "it's clear that Dennis and Carl willingly checked their egos to help Brian get this one out." Contrasting his earlier records, which had used orchestras of organic instruments, electronic sounds pervade Love You, with Brian more reliant on the Moog synthesizer than he had been on 15 Big Ones. All of the bass lines were performed by himself with ARP and Moog synthesizers. Biographer Mark Dillon attributed the record's "oddball sound" directly to Wilson's use of these instruments. Jardine acknowledged, "The Minimoogs are all over the place." Carlin characterizes the total effect as having reframed the themes of past Beach Boys hits through Wilson's "warped" adult perspective, as well as "a tour through the cracked fun house mirror of [his] imagination". Dillon acknowledged that, given the age of the band members, the fact that they "sing these teenage ditties made the tunes a little creepy". Stebbins felt that the album "revealed more than the listener wanted to know", containing songs with "unsettling, pedophilic overtone[s]" such as "Roller Skating Child" and "I Wanna Pick You Up". According to biographer Timothy White, it was a "portrait of a man trying to redefine his shattered personality."

"Let Us Go On This Way" is a rock song in which the narrator, a young man, expresses to his object of affection, "To get you babe, I went through the ringer / ain't gonna let you slip through my finger", followed by a plea for God to "let us go on this way". Wilson said he wrote the song with Mike Love when they found that the rest of the album sounded too "deadpan and we needed something uptempo". His voice had deteriorated significantly in the years since, making it the only track on Love You in which his singing is not coarse. "Honkin' Down the Highway" is a rock and roll song about a man driving to a woman, at her father's behest, for an engagement that the narrator states will conclude with himself "Takin' one little inch at a time, now / 'Til we're feelin' fine, now". Wilson said that the theme of driving on a highway was inspired by country music. "Ding Dang" is a short song, consisting of a single verse and chorus, that Wilson had written with the Byrds' Roger McGuinn in the early 1970s. Wilson had recorded and reworked the song in the studio on numerous occasions during the mid 1970s, and Mankey noted that "everybody who showed up [to the Love You sessions] got subjected to 'Ding Dang'." It appeared on the album with a less than one minute runtime, virtually unaltered from how Wilson and McGuinn originally left it.

Early in 1977, Wilson completed a follow up album, Adult/Child, but its release was vetoed by his bandmates, partly because of the poor sales of Love You. He did not write and produce another LP until his first solo album, Brian Wilson (1988), and, according to Carlin, would not compose material that represented his true musical, emotional, and intellectual interests to the same degree until the aborted Andy Paley sessions from the 1990s. Love You marked the last Beach Boys album in which Wilson actively led its production. Critic Erik Kempke writes that it "stands in sharp contrast to the albums that preceded and followed it, because it was a product of genuine inspiration on Brian Wilson's part, with little outside interference." Mike Love commented in his 2016 memoir that the album was "undeniably original but fragmented and just plain odd". In a 2013 interview, Al Jardine expressed enthusiasm for performing the entire Love You album in concert, going on to note, "those are some of the best songs we ever did."

In the decades since its release, Love You has remained divisive among fans. It has developed a cult following, and it is regarded by some as one of the band's best albums. Writing in his 2017 book The Words and Music of Brian Wilson, Christian Matijas Mecca called it "extraordinary in its sheer originality and its rejection of contemporary trends in popular music", likening it to "the Smiley Smile of 1977". Matijas Mecca added that Love You was "the most unexpected album" of 1977 and unlike anything else released that year, concluding that it "remains as surprising and refreshing today as it did upon its original release." AllMusic reviewer John Bush praised the album and believed that "The Night Was So Young," "I'll Bet He's Nice," and "Let's Put Our Hearts Together" form a suite during side two that possesses a breadth of emotional attachment to rival Pet Sounds. In 2023, Love You was ranked number 26 in Paste magazine's list of the greatest synth pop albums in history. Contributor Matthew Mitchell pointed to "I'll Bet He's Nice", "The Night Was So Young", and "Roller Skating Child" as among the band's "purest compositions". Journalist Adam Theisan wrote that the album's "prescience" is one of its striking elements, having anticipated "new wave experiments, arty bands like Talking Heads and synth pop in general years before they hit the mainstream." Wilson remarked in a 2000 interview, "It's funny because now people are beginning to see that album as a classic – it was quite revolutionary in its use of synthesizers." Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth first discovered the Beach Boys through Patti Smith's review of Love You. R. E. M.'s Peter Buck praised the record as "a window into the heart of one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century." and he contributed his version of "I Wanna Pick You Up" to the multi artist tribute album Caroline Now! (2000). Other songs covered in the compilation were "Honkin' Down the Highway" (Radio Sweethearts), "Good Time" (Stevie Jackson of Belle and Sebastian), and "Let's Put Our Hearts Together" (duet between Chip Taylor and Evie Sands). In 1997, Darian Sahanaja released a cover of "I Wanna Pick You Up" as a single. Yo La Tengo's live rendition of "Ding Dang" was released on the 2006 compilation Yo La Tengo Is Murdering the Classics.