The Beach Boys Ranked
I love The Beach Boys. Most that have only done a surface level exploration as opposed to a deep dive know many of their hits and the critically lauded masterpiece, Pet Sounds. Some are aware of the lost classic that was the SMiLE album but there is lots of fantastic music that doesn’t receive the acclaim that it deserves. After Pet Sounds and the Scrapping of SMiLE, Brian receded to the background and the other members took charge of the band moving forward and they released a few more really good to great albums throughout the 1970s. Unfortunately, Mike Love realized that The Beach Boys made more money as a nostalgia act appealing to aging post-war Boomers than pursuing artistic creativity. This lead to many to wrongly assume that the band had little to offer outside of their early hits.
Anyways, without further ado, my Beach Boys albums ranked...
01.) Pet Sounds
02.) SMiLE
03.) Surf’s Up
04.) Sunflower
05.) Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)
06.) Wild Honey
07.) Today!
08.) Smiley Smile
09.) Holland
10.) All Summer Long
11.) Friends
12.) 20/20
13.) Surfer Girl
14.) Love You
15.) In Concert
16.) The Beach Boys Christmas Album
17.) Little Deuce Coupe
18.) Carl & The Passions “So Tough”
19.) Beach Boys Party!
20.) Surfin’ U.S.A.
21.) The Shutdown, Vol. 2
22.) Surfin’ Safari
23.) That’s Why God Made The Radio
24.) 15 Big Ones
25.) L.A. (Light Album)
26.) M.I.U. Album
27.) Stack-o-Tracks
*Anything outside of these albums is udder dreck and best not discussed.
*Honorable Mentions*
Some Unofficial Releases, Compilations, and Solo Albums that are probably better than the bottom half of the ranked releases listed above
Beach Boy - Endless Summer
a compilation of most of the great songs from the early pre-Pet Sounds Beach Boys albums, this is a much better album than most of the early Beach Boys records that were produced as fast as possible and basically set up as “singles delivery devices” as opposed to actual well considered albums.
Dennis Wilson - Pacific Ocean Blue
The best Beach Boys solo album by the black sheep of the Wilson clan
Brian Wilson - SMiLE
Prior to the release of The SMiLE Sessions, this was the first official release of this album. Unfortunately, it was a reworking and re-recording of the album. It’s not bad, and some prefer it to the original (I am not one of those people)
The Beach Boys - Landlocked
SMiLE wasn’t the only album The Beach Boys scrapped, prior to releasing Sunflower The Beach Boys scrapped a couple albums worth of music, some of the songs would show up in different forms on later releases but the unofficial release of Landlocked is worth tracking down.
Dennis Wilson - Bambu
Dennis attempted to follow up Pacific Ocean Blue but never completed it prior to his drowning death. Thankfully if was later pieced together into another fantastic album.
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...I'd bump Friends up into there somewhere too
