The Beach Boys—The Beach Boys Christmas Album
This is the only record that I was tempted to skip so far. Despite its utter seasonal inappropriateness, my wife refused to let me get off track. So I listened to a holiday album in March. It felt a little wrong at first, but then I realized that the Beach Boys really did a great job with Christmas. And suddenly I didn’t mind at all; I just bopped my head and kept on.
The Beach Boys—Endless Summer
The contrast of my two Beach Boys albums is not lost on me. I would love to own Pet Sounds, my actual favorite Beach Boys album, on vinyl, but no one is giving it up easily or inexpensively. I look every time I’m at a used record store, but no luck so far. And I refuse to pay Newbury Comics $30 for a reissue. Anyway, I digress. Endless Summer, while it does not represent my favorite Beach Boys songs or style, is still fun times. I really like “True to Your School” and “Don’t Worry Baby,” in particular. My one complaint with this album, though, is the weird way it was pressed. The first LP contains sides one and four. The second LP contains two and three. If I want to listen to the entire album in order (which I do, because it’s part of my project), I must switch records in the middle of listening. Weird. Did the Beach Boys do this for folks with those stackable turntables? Is my copy an anomaly, a result of a mistake in pressing? I don’t know. But it’s weird.
The Beatles—1962-1966
Music enthusiasts will be shocked to find out that I own but one Beatles’ album and I don’t even listen to it much. For whatever reason, although my mother (in case you haven’t noticed, a big musical influence of mine when I was a kid) liked the Beatles a lot, she rarely played their music for us in the car (my chief vehicle—again, pun intended—for listening to music). She did own that multi-tape collection of Beatles outtakes and rarities that came out in the 90s and we listened to that a lot. But this is the one Beatles album she owned by the time I got to her record collection, and from the looks of it she played it a lot. When you open up the sleeve it nearly falls to pieces. I like the look; it makes me feel closer to my mom when I think about her loving music as much as I do, and playing certain records over and over, looking at the cover and inside art until the sleeve was worn. Anyway, I like this album not just for nostalgia but because it holds many of my favorite Beatles songs. “Paperback Writer,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “Yesterday,” “All my Loving,” all of these are great songs. It doesn’t have everything I enjoy, obviously, but it’s nice to listen to. I sometimes forget how much I do actually like the Beatles, so it was good to be reminded.
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