15 Big Ones / Love You [Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered]

The Beach Boys | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 15, 2000)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Label: Capitol
• ASIN: B00004W55M
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #62,933 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Touted by a highly suspicious media blitz ("Brian is Back!"), 1976's 15 Big Ones caught the nostalgic wave generated by the surprise success of Endless Summer and Spirit of America, the double-album compilations of the Beach Boys' mid-'60s, summer-music prime, and rode it close to the crest of the charts. One doesn't have to get much further than the tepid (albeit top 10) cover of Chuck Berry's's "Rock and Roll Music" to realize that band founder/original creative spark Brian Wilson may indeed have been back, but sounded like he was working under duress--if he was working at all. With a covers-heavy tack best described as a parody of the band's original trademark sound, wed to some of the mid-'70s worst production trends, it's an album that shows just how much the public still yearned for the band's classic sound, even if their faith ended up being "rewarded" by the likes of Mike Love's embarrassing "Everyone's in Love with You" and "T.M. Song." Conversely, Brian was definitely back for '77s Love You, an album that's become something of a critic's darling, if only because it hews so bravely to the strange musical vision that seeped from Wilson's then-troubled mind. Brian's synth-heavy production managed to be at once dense and minimalist, while the songs remain some of the most consistently loopy concoctions the band ever recorded. While his vulnerable romanticism is also on display, it's Wilson's playful sense of humor that dominates, from strange odes to "Johnny Carson" and the "Solar System" to innocent romps like "Ding Dang" and "Mona." A quarter-century later, it's an album that can still both surprise and delight. Both albums are digitally remastered on a single disc. --Jerry McCulley

Product Description

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 1976/77 all over again..., August 17, 2000

By 

Kirk Curnutt (Montgomery, AL USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: 15 Big Ones / Love You (Audio CD)

When I first played this CD I was instantly transported back to 1976/1977, an innocent time of high-unemployment, double-digit inflation, and anomie, all of which made these albums such a giddy escape when I was much younger and not at all concerned about what was "hip" music. You will hear 15 BIG ONES attacked endlessly, but what made it seem like a letdown that Bicentennial summer wasn't the music but the "Brian is Back!" hype. In retrospect, the ablum is perfectly apiece with John Lennon's ROCK N ROLL or Bowie's PIN-UPs, cover albums that invoke the performer's love of the music of his youth. 15 includes do-wop, gospel, Spector, and amusement-park anthems. The originals are self-consciously lightweight, but who---beside the Eagles, for heaven's sake---didn't want to be lightweight in 76? The message can be summed up by Track 2: "It's OK." Not great, but good enough for fun.

LOVE YOU, by contrast, IS great. Go try and find another album less interested in image or self-consciousness ... it doesn't exist. It's a group of goofy, sweet, innocent odes to roller skating, young love, babies, and Johnny Carson (and not necessarily in that order). The compositions, however, are not as simplistic as their lyrics suggest. There are complex chord changes, time registers, doodle-bugging bass lines (most played on a Moog), and melodies galore. The innocence is infectious. Yes, your friends will think you're the squarest of the square when they catch you mouthing the words "Honkin down the gosh darn highway" or "Solar system brings us wisdom." But then again, the truly hip and in-the-know don't care if they seem goofy. Buy it, try it, share it with your little kids. They'll make you understand just how fun and sweet it is to love LOVE YOU.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You can't ignore Love You!, August 15, 2000

By 

A. G. Gladwin "Andrew Gladwin" (Cape Town, South Africa) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: 15 Big Ones / Love You (Audio CD)

Let's get 15 Big Ones out of the way first. This was Brian's first step back into production after a hiatus of the last three years. It consists of 8 covers, and 7 originals some of which were exhumed from the outtake archive. It's pleasant but mostly disposable,the high points being the vocal trading on "Had To Phone Ya" and the cover of Spector's "Just Once In My Life" in which Brian and Carl sound like they really mean it.

Love You! is just about all Brian in terms of production, composition and instumentation. Carl and Dennis help with some of the music, but Al and Mike are almost guest vocalists. This album is dominated by ancient (for 2000) synthesizers, making it very different to any other Beach Boys album and on another planet to Pet Sounds. Some people hate it for that, and you will probably see many different opinions in these reviews, so here's mine. It's brilliant. The songs are strong with tunes that survive any production treatment, the album is revolutionary in some ways in pre-dating new wave, and Brian writes as a disturbed thirtysomething pretending to be a teenager, and looking for love and acceptance and someone simply to hold him through the night.

You won't want to start your Beach Boys collection here, but if you are in any way serious about the group, you have to get this.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brian's Back - kind of, August 15, 2000

By 

matt (Cincinnati, OH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 15 Big Ones / Love You (Audio CD)

15 Big Ones contains some good new songs from Brian Wilson, "It's Ok" is a fun song. "That Same Song" is also pretty fun. I really love "Back Home," and although it was written in 1963 and not technically new, I think it is a good song to have here. I could do without most of the covers except "Just Once In My Life" which I think sounds great. Overall 3 stars for 15 Big Ones.

Love You is an album people seem to love or hate. I love it. I really like the song "Let's Put Our Hearts Together" I even recorded my own version of it. Other stand outs on this album are: "The Night Was So Young," "I Wanna Pick You Up," and "I'll Bet He's Nice." Overall 4.5 stars for Love You