The Beach Boys: Sunflower (1970)

When discussing the Beach Boys it’s all too common for someone to mention the fact that Brian Wilson is supposedly toting around some sort of mental infirmity that alternately renders him nuts or a creative genius. Bunk. The guy’s obviously a bit odd, but chalking up any part of his talent to being nuts is reductive and useless. Moreover, focusing on that single aspect of Brian’s persona disallows examining other contributions made to the group. Brian, after all, couldn’t have done all of this alone.

Towards the shambolic end of the ‘60s that found the group losing favor and ostensibly being shoved out of the charts by a clutch of bands that grew up listening to this SoCal band, the Beach Boys tried a few different approaches to rock and or roll. Smile (whatever version you might be familiar with) didn’t do for the group what Brian had intended. And in fact it cast the Beach Boys off into the wilderness as its contemporaries were working with similar concepts to form albums around.

Working out some plain rock music on Wild Honey, which wasn’t too successful in the market place either, the band began to incorporate some of its more wide ranging production approaches again on the 1970 Sunflower. Despite the albums cheese-ball title, the disc isn’t as fluffy as one would imagine. Of course, considering the fact that Surf’s Up followed this disc means that it can’t ever be considered as dark and meditative – but Sunflower’s not meant to be anyway, so it’s alright.

In fact, subsequent to the more stripped down approach of post-Smile albums, Sunflower incorporates some dense production work. There are still portions of the disc that maintain a simple approach to rock – Denis Wilson’s “Got to Know the Woman” for example begins as a traditional sounding ‘60s rock track before the chorus hits listeners with some group vocals. The song is one of the few places that this occurs. But just a few tracks later “It’s About Time,” or at least portions of the song, don’t get all that complex. And in these instances where the band plays it all straight like, they come off as some well rehearsed veteran ensemble. They were.

After releasing at least ten full length discs since 1962, the Beach Boys, when working together and not smothered by in-fighting, were able to crank out some intelligently written and well produced work, regardless of how folks figure the group’s inspiration.

There’s still a bit of sappy nonsense here – it is a Beach Boys disc after all. But in the reminiscing on relationships, the soulful side of the group is pushed to the fore as all go in on some crooning choruses: “Tears in the Morning” being a good example of such work. While the orchestration might not enter and leave the song seamlessly, the addition’s a nice thought and points to the fact that the ‘70s would wind up being a pretty artistically satisfying period for the group.

There’s bound to be disagreements regarding which of the discs from the ‘70s were tops, but Sunflower’s surely a contender.