The Beach Boys - Only with You - Non-Album Tracks (1976-1977)

Here's the next installment of my Beach Boys stray tracks.

However, with this album, I'm changing things up a little bit. I started in the late 1960s, and moved forward chronologically to the mid-1970s. All through those years, the official Beach Boys studio albums were solid and sometimes even great. But starting around this time, 1976, those albums become much more hit and miss. Unfortunately, as time goes on into the 1980s and beyond they become much more miss than hit. So, from this point on, these albums will cover everything the Beach Boys did, solo and as a band, and on album, singles, or other.

The only exception to that is if there are still any albums that are so good that I would recommend any Beach Boys fan should get the entire album. Luckily, there still are a couple of cases like that. One is in the time period covered by this album. I'm referring to "Pacific Ocean Blue," the first of two solo albums by Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson. Drummers are not usually known for either their singing or songwriting, but Dennis (who died in 1983) was great at both. In fact, I'd argue he was the second biggest creative force in the group being his genius brother Brian Wilson. Thus, I'm not including any songs here from "Pacific Ocean Blue," though a couple are bonus tracks from some versions of that album.

The first five songs on this album come from "15 Big Ones," the Beach Boys studio album released in 1976. As you can tell from the numbers, there are 15 songs on that album and I only like five, so  I don't think it's a very good album. Not only did critics and the public not like it very much, but even some of the Beach Boys themselves have knocked it. One problem was they couldn't decide if they wanted it to be an album of originals or of covers, and split the difference, with seven originals. Furthermore, the album was touted as the return of Brian Wilson, who produced the album after not producing any of the band's albums since 1966. But Brian was going through troubled times, having an idiosyncratic musical vision that was at odds with the rest of the band.

Basically, the album is a mess, but they rushed it out anyway, because they hadn't put out a new studio album since 1973, and demand was high, since they'd become the number one concert draw in the US (thanks to their backlog of hits).

Luckily, I think I was able to make a strong album by drawing on various solo projects and songs that weren't released at the time. In my opinion, this will be a common theme for the rest of the 1970s: the band was still recording a lot of good songs, it's just that a big chunk of them weren't ending up on their albums.

I want to make a particular note about the song "I Write the Songs." Chances are, you're familiar with this as a huge hit by Barry Manilow. But actually it was written by Beach Boy Bruce Johnston, and he released a version of it before Manilow's. The song is written from the point of view of Brian Wilson, since he's the one who "writes the songs that make the whole world sing."

One could imagine an alternate universe where the Beach Boys got the number of hit with this song, which would have been a much needed shot in the arm preventing them from turning into a oldies act. But Johnston left the band for a few years in the mid-1970s, and his version came out on an obscure solo album hardly anyone noticed (except for, apparently, Manilow).

01 Rock and Roll Music [Extra Verse Version] (Beach Boys)
02 Had to Phone Ya [Alternate Version] (Beach Boys)
03 That Same Song [Extended Version] (Beach Boys)
04 Everyone's in Love with You (Beach Boys)
05 Just Once in My Life (Beach Boys)
06 Sherry She Needs Me (Beach Boys)
07 Still I Dream of It [Demo] (Brian Wilson)
08 Sea Cruise (Beach Boys)
09 Tug of Love [Feel the Pull] (Dennis Wilson)
10 I Write the Songs (Bruce Johnston)
11 Morning Christmas (Beach Boys)
12 Only with You (Dennis Wilson)
13 Brand New Old Friends (Bruce Johnston)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376788/TBECHBYS1976-1977OnlywthYu_atse.zip.html

The cover art here looks like a typical album cover photo, doesn't it? Actually, I looked for good photos of the band in 1976 or 1977, and the best one I could find featured them in an ad for car stereos. I removed some text up in the sky and replaced it with my own.