The Smiley Smile Message Board

Discuss, review and rate Sounds Of Summer: The Very Best Of The Beach Boys, released June 2003.

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Another year, another compilation. This one has all of the notable hits this time around, but the lack of album tracks is glaring. Still, I give it a 5. It brought the Boys back to the charts.

Did well on the charts.

Useful in that one can grab it when a large highly recognized selection of BB material is called for.

People like it at Cruise Ins.

Great compilation.  The Euro edition was marred by some crappy tracks on the last disc i.e. the nightmare version of Fun Fun Fun by Status Quo, Wipe Out with the Fat Boys, etc.

Was the Euro edition the so called platinum album that I've seen in stores?

And wasn't there a previous Platinum series or is the Euro the same thing

"The Euro edition" is a totally different beast. It's called The Platinum Collection - Sounds Of Summer edition and is the small matter of 30 tracks - or 100% - longer. EMI have been issuing 'Platinum Collections' of all its major artists: 3CD sets for about £15, and the BB one is an ideal primer as it takes you from "Surfin'" to "California Dreamin'", touching most bases along the way.

As for SOS lacking album tracks... well of course it would - the criteria for inclusion was that the songs be US Top 40 hits.

5 from me. It's thanks to this CD coming out that I was able to get into the Beach Boys again. I used to have 20 Golden Greats as a kid and I wanted something beyond Pet Sounds (which I had) to serve as a deeper introduction. Actually, I might have owned Smiley Smile/Wild Honey by the time I got this, too.

I give it four stars. It's got a fairly decent track listing and made a lot of new Beach Boys fans. What dissapointed me though was that a lot of the lack of early 70's songs. If one or two of them like "Long Promised Road" and "Marcella" was on here I'd be happier with it.

If you're a true fan and have got everything else... do you really need this one? Another hits package?

Yeah, I think the real knock against the collection is the fact that some of the later hits are lame covers, but I guess the same can be said for earlier hits, too. If they put Forever, Surf's Up, and Little Girl I Once Knew on there instead, well, that'd be pretty sweet. No single CD is ever going to be perfect because there are just too many songs.

Cool and good Best-of disc. Awful Liner Notes. I especially love the "Sights & Sounds of Summer", which comes with a DVD. I'm excited what Vol. 2 will be like, though I don't think it will climb as high in the charts if it happens to be in there at all

Probably the best single disc collection and nice to have one come out in recent years with better sound quality than the 80s discs.  As for the lack of quality 70s songs etc. Well, this is an old fashioned hits comp, and one that captures their singles, for better or worse.  At least someone who buys this one as their first BB cd, can hear little heard (outside of our world) gems like "Good Timin'" and "I can hear music."

It was designed a la Beatles 1, Elvis 30 #1 Hits, and the Stones' 40 Licks. The biggest hits all in one disc. One stop Greatest Hits shopping. It was put together quite nicely and the track list actually flows! And if Mike Love actually did compile the track list, he deserves a round of applause for the sequencing of tracks 27-30 - 4 cool blasts of Carl Wilson vocal brilliance!

It is surprising that all of these were Top 40 hits, and it's actually something that merits repeat listening, for The Beach Boys fanatic or the average music lover...or, somebody's spoiled teenage children, who require everything they hear to be in some shiny new package; ergo, new converts.  It serves many types, and serves them well.  I give it a 5.

This album kind of blew it's load in my opinion, because surely to god they've exhausted every possible gh idea now that they put basically EVERYTHING on this 1 cd.  I work in the coin-op business, and every jukebox we have has this CD and it gets played often.  It's cool to walk into one of your restaurant accounts and hear "I can hear music" playing. 

Sounds of Summer without The Warmth of The Sun...blasphemy.

"WOTS" would have been anomalous on "SOS" for one reason: it didn't chart.  Now, you could argue that it was the B-side of a top ten hit, "Dance Dance Dance"...

Besides, the greatest songs are the ones that languish in obscurity; meaning, once a great song is known the world over, it is not quite so great anymore, now is it?  Therefore, "WOTS" is a greater song for its absense being noticeable by you.

Hopefully, this made a smidgen of sense.

Wait for Vol. 2  8)

Makes perfect sense it would lose something special if it was naked to the world again on that release.

Won't have to, at least it was included on The Greatest Hits Vol. 2 which is my favorite colection of their songs.

And where is It's OK!?

Vol. 2 ...... ;)

Actually it would have made a great double cd complilation, Keepin The Summer Alive, Endless Harmony, California, The Girls On The Beach, Girl Don't Tell Me, Let Him Run Wild and In My Car would have been good additions.

I think there are a lot of songs which would make good additions, but we'll probably never gonna see such a compilation (at least "Warmth of the sun" won't be it imo)

That's a great compilation. It even contains tracks like Forever, Surf's Up, Til I Die and You Still Believe In Me. It's probably the best BB carreer overview so far apart from the GV box set.

Love the album,

But so many great songs left of,

Warmth of the sun, please let me wonder, All Summer Long for example

Sounds of Summer is what got me back into the Beach Boys for the first time since I was a little kid when my mom used to play Endless Summer (on vinyl-we  either didn't care about cds or were too poor to afford a cd player at the time) over and over again. Sounds of Summer achieved its purpose, but now that I own almost every BB album, I have to admit that Sounds of Summer is severely lacking. A true best of the BBs compilation should take up at least 6 or 7 cds, granted that material is pulled from every single album they released and that both singles and standout album tracks are included.

Ha! Knock it if you will, this is the one that got me curious after I bought it on a whim, thinking there'd be a song or two on there I would be able to play to classes.
My five-year-old got so into I Get Around, he played it over and over  and over again. After about a week, I realized I wasn't as sick of it as I should have been. I poked around youtube looking for other songs...found some "smile" stuff...Three months later....here I am.

I find this record hard to enjoy. The great early hits are intermixed far too liberally with the later day duds, like Rock and Roll Music (which certainly wasn't a #5 hit because of its musical merit). But at at least this collection saves me from having to buy, say, Surfin' Safari. 

3 stars.

Surfin' Safari is underrated, in my opinion. I love the innocence and humor of it. I think it was really soemthign new in 1962, too.

While there's no doubt that it's a good collection of songs, the track order is so all over the place that it doesn't really work as a cohesive album in my opinion.  I think Endless Summer or Classics Selected by Brian Wilson are better starting points for a casual fan looking for a good compilation.

I also think it should have been a 2-disc collection as there are some ridiculously glaring omissions (Warmth of the Sun, All Summer Long, Sail On Sailor, Surf's Up, I Just Wasn't Made for These Times...).  Yeah, those songs ended up on the "sequel" album, The Warmth of the Sun, but that album suffered from the same problems as its predecessor, with an equally baffling track order and still leaving out some great tracks.  For example, while Why Do Fools Fall in Love, Then I Kissed Her, and California Dreamin' are nice covers, it's ridiculous to include them while classic Brian Wilson tracks like Wonderful, I Just Wasn't Made for These Times, and Don't Back Down are completely ignored.

In my opinion, the Beach Boys are long overdue for a good, comprehensive two or three disc compilation.  The Platinum Collection import almost got it right with a good concept but failed by once again leaving out great tracks and including songs like Wipe Out, Student Demonstration Time, Sumahama, the Status Quo remix of Fun Fun Fun, and that stupid Beach Boys medley.  I understand it was a big hit but when all of the songs from the medley are on the disc, the medley itself is beyond unnecessary (and it was unnecessary to begin with).

I give Sounds of Summer, Warmth of the Sun, and the Platinum Collection each two and a half out of five stars and no more than that because of their inability to properly compile a compilation worthy of the Beach Boys name.

The Platinum collection is also way, way, way too loud. It's like twice as loud as the sounds of summer which is pretty loud itself.

I don't see how it gets so many 5 stars, tracklist is quite terrible at some point... the Platinum version even has Wipe Out and Here Comes The Night (disco).

4 stars. Lots of great songs, but some latter day duds.

Well said. Hmm, Student Demonstration Time and Sumahara... Wonder who insisted they were included? And yet just one song apiece from Carl and Dennis. Ridiculous!

A slight improvement over the usual generic BB's compilation.
Still, I wouldn't call it the best compilation. You'd much rather get something like The Platinum Collection or 50 Big Ones.
3 out of 5.

5/5  One stop shopping indeed.. Excellent sound , generic cover is lame tho.. Great to give as a present and it was on the charts for years so its a testament  to the greatness to the music.. Couple this with  Brother years cd and leave em in the car player + when some IDIOT  pulls up with loud rap music turn these on and grin   >:D >:D

5/5. 

Back in 2006, when I started to appreciate the music of The Beach Boys, I bought a copy of this on Amazon. 

Upon first listen, I forgot how great some of the songs were. 

This, coupled with Warmth of the Sun make a great compilation and introduction to one of the greatest groups in history. 

The mastering on this and WOTS is just awful, which is a shame as together they make what is probably the best BB's greatest hits album out of the hundreds available.