Endless Harmony

08/11/1998 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Bill Holdship

They may have been "America's band," but the Beach Boys' story has been full of mighty bad vibrations almost from the beginning and as disharmonious as any band (or, sadly, any family, for that matter) in America's history. And yet Brian Wilson's music remains as pure, as beautiful, and as spiritual as any that's ever been produced--a fact once again fully revealed on at least 20 of the 25 tracks here.

Endless Harmony is being marketed as "the soundtrack" to VH1's current Beach Boys documentary of the same title, a program, which despite some superb vintage musical segments, has produced a bad vibration in the mind of this reviewer because it relies so heavily on the gospel according to the dude responsible for the lamest Beach Boys biography of them all, The Nearest Faraway Place--namely, the Bow-tied Hemorrhoid Currently Known as Timothy White, who makes frequent appearances throughout the special.

The documentary has a very strong White-like agenda, including, but not limited to, the beliefs that: a) Mike Love was nearly every bit as important as Brian was to the band's art (one listen to Love's dreadful solo composition, "Brian's Back," on this disc should dispel that notion); and b) Brian hasn't done a single thing of artistic merit--with the exception of his new, only so-so Imagination LP--since "'Til I Die" (a brilliant alternate version of which concludes Brian's contributions to this LP) in 1970.

Actually, for this reviewer, Endless Harmony--the album--is more a SoCal version of the Beatles' Anthology series than it is a "soundtrack" to anyone's version (and there are many) of this saga, with most of the music either unreleased or brilliant, alternate takes--including, but not limited to, an unreleased "jazzy shuffle" called "Soulful Old Man Sunshine" (complete with the writing session!); a binaural mix of the eternally gorgeous "Surfer Girl"; a live "Surf Medley" from '66; both the demo and a live version of "Heroes & Villains"; a terrific live "Darlin'" (featuring Carl Wilson at his best); and two unreleased tracks from Dennis Wilson, probably the group's second best composer.

Seems to me you'd almost have to lack a heart to dislike this stuff, proving yet again that Tim White really doesn't matter all that much in the Beach Boys' grand scheme of things...and that the magic was in the music--and the music was in Brian...