The Smiley Smile Message Board

Does anyone have available, or know of a website that has, reviews of Beach Boys albums that were done at the time of the albums' releases? I enjoy reviews, but most that are available that I've found are from recent years. I am more interested in what the critics thought and wrote in context, at the time.

I'd appreciate any help.

Lots of original comments in the "Back to the Beach" book.

The revews from that time are more interesting. Most LPs seem to be well recieved except for some horrible Rolling Stone reviews of Stlll Crusin and MIU. Not my favorite LPs but they tore them apart without really saying why they didn't work

I've got a lot from 15 Big Ones onwards in the UK (from the NME, Sounds and Melody Maker) and almost all are bad - and get worse as they go on. I've got a huge batch of clippings of interviews and stuff from about 74 onwards that was in the UK music press, including Nick Kent's original 4 week piece on the band and Brian in particular that I have kept.

I bought some old second hand teen magazines a couple of years ago.  In one of them, (I'll have to find it when I get home later today) there was a scathing review of the MIU album.  Went something like "when are they going to stop this charade and scam?  they haven't had a good album in 10 years"

Somehow I wasn't surprised that it was reviewed that way on its release.

I think Hit Parader or something had a good review of MIU, Ken Barnes (who wrote the first Beach Boys book) gave 15 Big Ones a great review but in his book panned "Surf's Up", "So-Tough", and "Holland". Go figure!

I've got a Hit Parader from "67" that has a review of Smiley Smile..they say It's ok in it's own way..but after all the hype for Smile it's kind of a letdow..and a PS...at the bottom...We still like Pet Sounds better.

                            Butch

It would be cool if we could have a section in the "Media-forum" where such original-reviews from magazines could be uploaded.

That's kind of what I was hoping for...

Robert Christgau has is original reviews for most of the albums from Wild Honey through 1985 up on his website http://www.robertchristgau.com   Can't say I agree with him on some of them though.

I don't think those are reviews from the time. For example, the Wild Honey one says "Tell me, what other pop seer was inspired enough to cover a Stevie Wonder song in 1967?", implying that it was written way after 1967.