Sunflower - Beach Boys

Seeing as the Sunflower album is now only available on a twofer with Surf's Up I will review both albums here. . First up is Sunflower and what a splendid album it is. At the time this was recorded Brian Wilson was withdrawing more and more into his own world and the other band member took it upon themselves to create an album using their own talents along with whatever input Brian was willing and able to offer. That may not sound like a recipe for making one of the best post Pet Sounds albums but it actually works. Brian Wilson's contributions on Sunflower totals 7 of the 12 songs, mostly co-writing but the one written solely by him is the two minute wonder ...  Read the complete review

Sunflower is one of those albums which is critically acclaimed but has had little commercial success. Recorded at the end of the 1960s and finally released in 1970, it featured a lot of individual effort from the five Beach Boys and combined their talents in one album, taking many different guises before finally being released with these 12 tracks: Slip On Through This Whole World Add Some Music To The Day Got To Know The Woman Deirdre It's About Time Tears In The Morning All I Wanna Do Forever Our Sweet Love At My Window Cool, Cool Water Another version was released in Europe which included the ...  Read the complete review

Because the current layout of this album incorporates two records sandwiched together ('Sunflower' and 'Surf's up'), I will review both, but separately, as they show different musical representations and periods in time. Sunflower: My interest in the music of The Beach Boys, like many others, began with Pet Sounds. After allowing the genius and magnitude of that 1966 recording to sink in, I grew curious about their other albums, and so took in the rest of their late 60's and early 70's output. Whilst the steady run of albums post Pet Sounds are still high on my overall list of favourites, at first listen Sunflower seemed to have the greatest ...  Read the complete review

Sunflower catches The Beach Boys at an odd stage in their career. Having basically single handedly created their sound up until Pet Sounds (1966) and beyond, Brian Wilson stepped back, and a more democratic period followed, embodied by several patchy, but lovable albums for capitol. This was their first album for new label Warners, and it really sounds like a new start for the group. Gone is the muddy, cobbled together production of the preceding few albums- replaced here by a glorious ambient stereo production, light years ahead of anything else at the time, some KILLER songs from Brian, (cool cool water and this whole world are up there with anything he's ...  Read the complete review