Those of us finding it hard to get any satisfaction in this Semiquincentennial American year might get more satisfaction tuning into the bombs-burst/red glare of We Gotta Groove. Collecting over three golden hours of The Beach Boys' priceless circa-bicentennial weirdo-rock run amok, We Gotta Groove spans the years '74 to '77, righteously reilluminating the infamous sounds of the "Brian's Back" era in the transformative spirit of previous deep-dive comps Feel Flows and Sail On Sailor.
In 1975, the official line was this: after years of personal problems and musical inactivity, Brian Wilson decided to get himself "together" and return to the role that he'd abandoned years earlier. Now he was back making music and having a great time doing it! The unofficial part? Recovery-wise he was nowhere; he had to be constantly policed to prevent him from copping drugs, his physical presence was disturbing and his performances awkward. Most importantly, the music, an oddly candid combination of childlike naivete and slurring decadence, wasn't commercially sustainable. So far as rehabilitation was concerned, this was an obscenely shortsighted plan and truly terrible idea, yet the music of We Gotta Groove lives and thrives in its most positive glow, with the collected songs sitting among the most vibrant of all Wilson's efforts with The Beach Boys.
Wilson's damaged focus had turned inwards since the hits of yesteryear, with his smaller, more personal songs often retaining an eccentric blurt of shorthand even when finished. It was a weirdly upbeat sound, though capable of accessing unfathomably strange and lonely dimensions, and increasingly tacky ones too, as his life fell further out of control. The party was taking its toll, most shockingly on his voice, but also in the arrested development evident in his casual use of teenage romance tropes in his thirtysomething years (the worst offender, "Hey Little Tomboy" has been omitted here). The counterintuitive part of his songwriting, which was not concerned with pleasing people and desirous of putting them on, and the parade of hoarse voices in the barely contained chaos of the mix light up simple songs about love and companionship and partying, like "Solar System", "Honkin' Down the Highway," "Love Is a Woman" and "Johnny Carson," with the glow of personal apocalypse. Fifty years down the road, the sound of synth, organ and sax lines bumping and grinding together with the cracking snare and tom beats is a groove, sure, but more to the point, it's the sound of the most vital, biting rock music that The Beach Boys ever produced.
We Gotta Groove opens with Love You (1977), then unpacks a dizzying batch of oldies and further originals, focusing on the unreleased Adult/Child album's flophouse rock before moving on to the curation and radical remix of 15 Big Ones. Along the way, several remixes highlight elements of the studio process, including Wilson's still-thrilling tactile approach to musical arrangement. Love You deserves its rightful pride of place, with the mass of the extra songs adding profound depth to the encounter. The hits don't stop coming, to the body, mind and soul, in what proves to be an unlikely revisitation of Pet Sounds' fatalistic, forever-young romance.
The box set contains sufficient multitudes to ensure repeated listens for fans and rubberneckers alike. The sound of Brian Wilson taking a wild second (and final) crack at the record-making thing with The Beach Boys is a profound one. On We Gotta Groove, the party's still going, and at a length of 73 songs, even when it's not the best party, the never less than compelling real-life music is extra magnificent, extra absurd, and extra inappropriate.
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