Oof. Every so often you come across a hit album, be it a critical success or a popular success or both, which has aged really poorly. And the Mama’s and the Papa’s debut album has aged as poorly as their terrible use of the apostrophe in their band name.
Tag: Sunshine Pop
Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) by The Beach Boys
Record labels know best, right? They definitely understand what the people want better than the artists who do all the creative work that lets the label exist. Right?
All Summer Long (1964) by The Beach Boys
I just listened to A Hard Day’s NIght for the nth time before listening to this record, because they both came out in the same month. And the problem with doing that is that the Beatles record makes All Summer Long sound like it is from another time; as if popular music has passed the …
The Hurdy Gurdy Man (1968) by Donovan
Donovan put out so many damn albums in the late ’60s that I have a hard time believing it sometimes. So I stupidly assumed Mellow Yellow was the last one and was going to compare this to it. But no, there was a double album in between – which was confusingly released as two albums …
Aerial Ballet (1968) by Nilsson
Nilsson is just one of those guys I don’t get. I have listened to a few of his records now and every time my reaction is “This is what Nilsson sounds like?” You see, I am not really a fan of pop, and though this music is relatively adventurous – I stress the “relatively” as …
Pandemonium Shadow Show (1967) by Nilsson
I have been avoiding (Harry) Nilsson since I became aware of him through the Beatles (Lennon and McCartney were big fans). I guess I avoided him because of previous experiences of music the Beatles were fans of. And, well, I knew he was poppy, and for most of my life I have not been into …
Wild Honey (1967) by The Beach Boys
I am not sure anything could have prepared me for this record, a bizarre left turn from Pet Sounds and Smiley Smile (and Smile presumably) in terms of ambition and overall sound, but also in some ways a logical follow up to Smiley Smile‘s bizarre lo-fi aesthetic. The first record the rest of the band …