The Beach Boys: All Summer Long - 1964

This is still very much a surfing, cars, girls, beaches and drive-ins album. There is just a great vitality and joie de vivre about it though that makes it irresistible. 

As always, the hit single, I Get Around is the best track on the album by far. Although the melody of All Summer Long is totally infectious. It could have been a huge hit single too to be fair. From the lyrics, it seems that miniature golf and Hondas were where it was at. 

Now for some true Beach Boys heaven. A wonderful vocal harmony intro ushers in Hushabye - just listen to the huge, crashing music intro and then more simply glorious vocals. Tracks like these two are certainly not "filler" (an accusation that has often been levelled at the non-single tracks on these early-mid sixties albums). 

Little Honda is a fun, lively song about their favourite brand of Japanese motorbike, "just a groovy little motorbike" with a throbbing bass line and great vocals. We'll Run Away is a harmonious romantic song about eloping and getting married, a very contemporary theme, as teenagers rebelled against their often dictatorial parents. 

Carl's Big Chance is an impressive, upbeat instrumental (with hints of Can I Get A Witness). Some nice guitar parts in it too. It sounds great in stereo. Wendy is another summery song with more great harmonies, a candidate for being on a "best of" compilation while not being a hit single, while Do You Remember is a breakneck tribute to the early rock'n' roll singers, with a piano intro straight out of At The Hop by Danny & Juniors. 

The already nostalgic (for a time they were living in) Girls On The Beach is vocally pleasing, but a little bit "barbershop". Drive-In is another of the group's regular celebrations of aspects of sixties Americana but, unfortunately Our Favourite Recording Sessions is another example of idiotic studio goofery left on the album as a supposed track. Unforgivable. No need for it whatsoever. Thankfully it segues via a great drum beat into the I Get Around-esque Don't Back Down. 

Overall, this is a pleasant album, without as much of the dreaded "filler" as popularly perceived. Yes, it is lightweight, but so was The Beatles' output at the time. The stereo version is a revelation, showing just how advanced US studio techniques were at the time (compared to The Beatles' rudimentary stereo from a few years later, even). However, the mono version is also enjoyable, with a full, bassy, powerful and balanced sound. Both are worth owning, to be honest.