Review: The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds/Carl and The Passions-So Tough

The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds/Carl and the Passions – So Tough

For all practical purposes, Surf’s Up, the last Beach Boys album, sounded too Van Dyke Parkish. The whole record sounded like a commercial. The first time I heard “Don’t Go Near the Water” I kept waiting for a voice to formulize saying, “Yes, friends, pollution today is quite a menace. What can you do about it? Try the all-new . . . ”

Well, this LP serves the purpose of presenting the best of Beach Beach Phase One and Two. Pet Sounds, half of this two-album set, is a re-release of the classic financial failure of several years back. Here the Boys wail and shoop with the best of taste, while on Carl and the Passions-So Tough they take a different course.

So Tough finds some excellent music with no trace of anything left over from the Pet Sounds days. I coulda sworn “Hold On Dear Brother” was The Band.

Courtesy of the Door (aka San Diego Door) – Cameron Crowe –  June 22, 1972  – July 6, 1972