“Why don’t we feel the way we used to anymore?" ponders Al Jardine towards the end of That's Why God Made The Radio (out now), the first Beach Boys studio album of all original material in 20 years. Ostensibly recorded to celebrate the band's 50th anniversary, the album—as expected--finds Brian Wilson and the other surviving members (co-founding brothers Dennis and Carl Wilson died in 1993 and 1998, respectively) returning to the trademark, intricately layered harmonies and breezy, carefree summer time vibes of their mid-'60s heyday. All good and fine (The Beach Boys have built their entire career on youthful nostalgia, after all), but what makes the album such a resounding success is its underlying themes—behind the surfing and beach, there's a genuine undercurrent of sober reality. "Some days I realize my days are getting on," Brian Wilson admits at one point, "Some days I realize it's time to move along."
Remarkably, the album is still a consistently boisterous, joyful sonic godsend of lush arrangements, stunning melodies and (of course) those harmony arrangements, sounding richer and fuller than they have in more than three decades. The album's propulsive title track especially positively gushes with that classic Beach Boys sheen, layering its very-Brian Wilson '50s guitar rock arrangement with gorgeous counterpoint and breathtaking melodic phrasing. "Isn't It Time" layers handclaps and classic barbershop "doobie doobie dums" over spry ukulele strums, while Mike Love's effervescent "Daybreak Over The Ocean" works its opening a capella refrain through a thick mist of acoustic guitars and breezy island vibes. Sure, there are a few clunkers (the "Kokomo"-lite, reality TV musings of "The Private Life of Bill And Sue," for example), but songs like "Shelter" and "Strange World" positively glisten with their tumbling drums, baroque harpsichords and plucky electric guitar backdrops.
It's Brian Wilson's proper return to the fold that the best and brightest here, nowhere better than on the album's astounding final three-part suite, which kicks off with a glorious, adventurous chamber pop escapade called "From There To Back Again." Billowing layers of pianos and strings sweep gorgeously beneath Al Jardine's heartbreaking lead vocal—a multi-part tour de force, it segues seamlessly into the devastating "Pacific Coast Highway," where a reflective Brian Wilson ponders, "Sunlight’s fading and there’s not much left to say," over a gut-wrenchingly bittersweet orchestral bed. The album's final moment, a windswept and pensive ballad called "Summer's Gone" (co-written by Jon Bon Jovi, believe it or not), quite nearly reaches Pet Sounds melancholic heights, fading out gracefully beneath the gentle sound of falling rain.
Though "That's Why God Made The Radio" is the only hook likely to stick in your brain, the album is infinitely better than it could (or should) have been—Wilson's harmony arrangements are pitch perfect, the songs are resplendently produced and, like the best Beach Boys albums, the vibrations are definitely good. At its finest moments, That's Why God Made The Radio rivals and compliments the best of their classic work. It's no small miracle that the surviving Beach Boys were able to come together to record this album-- it's even more astounding that it's one of their all-time best.
SumOlogy: Apart from a few missteps, That's Why God The Made Radio finds the reunited, rejuvenated Beach Boys channeling the feel-good summer time vibes and prodigious harmony arrangements of their classic albums. The closing three-song suite alone was worth the 20-year wait.
Grade: A
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