"Girl Don't Tell Me" again matches the Beatles punch-for-punch and introduces us to brother Carl Wilson as an important and expressive lead vocal contributor. We open up the second half of the album with another #1 hit single, "Help Me Rhonda," sung by Jardine, then follow it up with arguably the band's signature song, the Mike Love-driven "California Girls" (which features then-new member Bruce Johnston on the final vocal round). That weak spot aside, this album is non-stop awesome! From the Spector homage of "Then I Kissed Her" to the driving harmonies of "Salt Lake City," this shapes up to be a record of supremely varied sound and sophistication.
The band's second album of 1965 finds them in a bit of a holding pattern, but when you're "stuck" producing some of the most exciting music of your whole career, what does it really matter? Bluesy opener "The Girl from NYC" gives us a hint of what we're about to get hit with. While I could do without "Amusement Parks USA," as it hues a little too close to oldie "Palisades Park" for my taste, it's not without its charms. The Beach Boys - after seven albums - finally arrived, that's what!īONUS: If you're like me and first experienced this album on CD back in the 90s, then you had the added pleasure of having heard non-album track "Little Girl I Once Knew," which is as strong as anything on the album and one of Brian Wilson's most adventurous productions. Pepper's themes of proper adulthood (see: "She's Leaving Home" or the maudlin "When I'm 64") by two whole years. Non-singles like "Good to My Baby" and "Don't Hurt My Little Sister" would be the best songs on anything pre-1964, and that says nothing of the five ballads that occupy the second side - each one better than the next (save, maybe "Kiss Me Baby," which I've never been huge on). "In the Back of My Mind" gives us brother Dennis closing out the record, leaving us wondering what the heck just happened.
The centerpiece of the album is the sophisticated, harpsichord-driven, "When I Grow Up to Be a Man," a song that predates Sgt. Drummer Dennis Wilson gets his first major vocal with opener "Do You Wanna Dance," and Love follows the hit parade with the similarly-titled "Dance Dance Dance." But don't let the names fool you each song has its own strength, character, and kinetic energy. The Beatles released Help! so the Beach Boys - now officially considered competitors of near-equal stature by the Fabs themselves - needed to answer with their own exclamation-pointed album. And it matches the moptops nearly punch-for-punch.
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