The Beach Boys’ First Two Reprise Albums

In December 2018, I looked into the deep and convoluted history of The Beach Boys' album Sunflower, which of course will be turning 50 this coming August. All those words on the historical aspects of the album... Now what about the album itself? What about its follow-up album, Surf's Up? Sunflower's lengthy and often convoluted history does …

The Beach Boys vs. The Beatles – My Take

Is it a decades-old question? Is it the debate to end all debates in the world of music? One thing is for certain... I haven't heard the end of it for years, and I'm not very old. I'm, in fact, a 25-year-old music lover. Who am I to talk about the music of the 1960s, …

15 Underrated Beach Boys Songs

If you're new here or you don't really know me well, here's a few words... I am obsessed with The Beach Boys. I don't play favorites, but in terms of artists and bands? They would be in my Top Ten... Sitting comfortably alongside another 60s act whose name starts with B-E-A. To the intermediate Beach …

The Paul McCartney What-Could’ve-Beens…

Any great, prolific musician comes with a history of what-could've-beens, alternate albums, songs that haven't seen the light of day, and so on... I talked extensively about The Beach Boys' unreleased albums and alternate versions of finished albums. There's so much you can say about The Beatles' unreleased material, but I think Paul McCartney's solo …

Top 5 Weirdest Beach Boys Compilations

The world of compilations is a weird one. With some bands, it's controlled. In the case of The Beatles, EMI was in charge of compilations. With the break-up occurring in 1970, the label sat on their inventory until an illegitimate mail-order quadruple (!) album set called Alpha Omega made the waves, prompting EMI/Apple to not …

Breaking Down Disney’s “Dark Age”: Part 2

In the last part, I took a look at the first films that entered production after Walt Disney's passing in 1966, The Aristocats and Robin Hood. These were two very compromised films, the filmmakers behind them had to be very budget-conscious all the while delivering fun films that would get The Jungle Book's success, and …

Breaking Down Disney’s “Dark Age”: Part 1

It is often stated that Walt Disney Animation Studios went through a prolonged "Dark Age" after the death of Walt Disney and the posthumous release of The Jungle Book. A dark age that would end with The Little Mermaid in 1989, often called the start of Disney's Renaissance... What is true is that the studio …

LP Look #1: ‘Friends’ and ‘Moontan’

I just added two wonderful LPs to my collection, one from America's greatest pop force and another from perhaps the Netherlands' longest-running rock group. The first of which is the 1968 Beach Boys studio album Friends. The second is Golden Earring's Moontan. If all you know about The Beach Boys is the early era hits …