Sorry if someone's already mentioned this (hard to see how it wouldn't have already been covered but I can't find any references)... there was a half hour radio  prgramme today on the fact that these two albums came out on the same day.  I caught the second half and thought it was great.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=16%205%2066&suggid=urn%3Abbc%3Aprogrammes%3Ab079pqct
If that link doesn't work, it was called 16 5 66

Slightly off topic but has anyone ever listed all the backing vocal lyrics? I don't want every doo-dit-doo-waah-ey or repeats of the main lyric but where, as here, the background lyrics add new vocals to the song I'd be very interested in reading about them.

This was my first Beach Boys album. It left me ... confused.

I am impressed that you continued to explore the band.

I bought an LP at a car boot at the weekend.  Generic surfer pictuure on the cover, no title just 'The Beach Boys' and these tracks:

Side One:
Hoow She Boogalooed It
Don't Talk
Car Crazy Cutie
We'll Run Away
Misirou
Whistle In

Side Two:
Summertime Blues
Anna Lee The Healer
Boogie Woodie
Tell me Why
Louie Louie
Good To my Baby

Why?  Can anyone tell me the rationale behind these choices?  Price, availability, some linking theme, finding ones that hadn't already appeared on compilations, fast buck?  I'd  like to know how an album like this came about..

There was an absolute rave review on the Radio Four influential arts programme Front Row a few days ago.  I don't know iif this link will work:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b060bwdx#auto

but if it doesn't, go to iplayer and look down the Front Row programmes - their content is described.  Sadly, I don't think iPlayer woorks outside the UK.

A lot. I'm always looking for references in the culture around me. If there's any article in the paper about music, the sixties, genius, California, mental health or whatever, I'm wondering if they're going to mention the BBs or Brian.  I read stories of people picking their favourite music in the hope the BB will be cited. I check out Scott Bennet's facebook page.  I work from home at my desk, and when I take a break from work, I'll watch some old BB footage for a minute or two. I visit car boots and markets a lot, and am prone to buy things because of BB connections, sometimes quite tenuous.  The original Pendleton shirt was an unsurprising purchase, but this week I bought a copy of Travels with Charley, purely because of its mention in California Saga.  On the Radio Four music quiz Counterpoint, there was a question about the name of the legendary album Brian Wilson was working on that was never completed and the questionmaster added that he finally played the album in a wonderful concert in 2004.  That's the kind of thing I like popping up in my day.  And, of course, there's the music, played every day.

Why do they say Barabra Ann was the bane of Carl's existence?  Why Carl particularly?  I've never heard anything that suggests he especially came to hate it - can anyone tell me what I've missed?

Carl was quoted saying that many years later, as reported in Andrew Hickey's book.

Thanks for that.  Sounds like a book I should read.

Why do they say Barabra Ann was the bane of Carl's existence?  Why Carl particularly?  I've never heard anything that suggests he especially came to hate it - can anyone tell me what I've missed?

PS - Please Let me Wonder is the big missing song on this list as far as I'm concerned.

Not bringing a horse into the studio.

Not to my political tastes, but The Times has a damn fine crossword, so I'm a subscriber.  Is this a fair review?  I don't know - I haven't heard the album yet :

Rated to 3 stars

When listening to the new album by the Beach Boys’ former leader Brian Wilson, consider his tribulations. This is the man whose monstrous father beat him on a regular basis. Who composed the Beach Boys’ 1966 masterpiece Pet Sounds and its aborted follow-up Smile while under pressure from his record company and fellow band members to write more songs about girls and surfing. Who never recovered from youthful experiments with LSD and who dissolved into drug addiction, depression and schizophrenia soon after.

Wilson’s brother Dennis’s death by drowning in 1983, rehabilitation of sorts by the controversial psychiatrist Eugene Landy, countless lawsuits from litigation-loving Beach Boy Mike Love and an ultimately triumphant solo career all followed. As anyone who has had contact with schizophrenia knows, even getting out of bed can be an insurmountable challenge. For Wilson, 72, to have made another album under its shadow at all is remarkable. That it is at least half of a great album is a small miracle.

No Pier Pressure evokes the sun-kissed happiness of most good pop, but bubbling below that shine of relentless cheer is sadness, longing and doubt. The frustration is that it sounds like it was made under a cloud of antidepressants with those poignant emotions suppressed in favour of a fantasy of happiness.

A host of famous guests pops up to keep the party going and to keep reality at bay. Actress-singer Zooey Deschanel adds breezy bossa-nova charm to On the Island, but with its Bontempi organ melody and ultra-light mid-tempo beat, this tale of a “seven-day cruise on a summer vacation” sounds not so much like the work of the most sophisticated composer in pop as a ditty knocked together by a cabaret singer in time for a Club Tropicana talent night.

Worse still is Runaway Dancer, a terrible lapse of taste featuring horrible Phil Collins-style synthesizers and nasty drum-machine rhythms. Our Special Love starts with romantic harmonies, but a tinny beat comes along and ruins them. You wonder if Wilson really made these musical decisions himself or took outside advice better left at the studio door.

Straight-talking Nashville country star Kacey Musgraves pops up on Guess You Had to Be There, a cheery jaunt about positivity and good times, while former Beach Boys Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin guest on Sail Away, a moneyed update on Sloop John B, the West Indian folk song on Pet Sounds (once there was a sloop, now there is a yacht). It’s fun but forgettable.

The real Brian Wilson magic shines through elsewhere. The affecting tinge of sadness in his voice makes This Beautiful Day, the opening song, quite moving. “If we could find a way, if you would only stay, if we could hold on to this feeling,” he sings over violin and horns with the sense of loss that made the Beach Boys classics In My Room and Caroline, No so special.

No Pier Pressure ends with The Last Song, intended originally as a duet with Lana Del Rey but probably better as a solo piece. Rich orchestration, restrained piano and deep harmonies make this lament on companionship a showcase for Wilson’s gentle nature. “There’s never enough time for the ones that you love,” he sings, a fitting message with which to conclude an album that, while absolutely worth buying, should be listened to with managed expectations, based on all that Wilson has been through. (Out Tues, Virgin EMI)

[I just thought it was funny so I kept it on the record.]

Who coughed during the recording of Wendy? Why did you keep it on the record? I love it though!
Dennis did. I just thought it was funny so I kept it on the record.

Interesting-- he had the exact same response when asked about why they kept the "good" in "With Me Tonight" when he was asked back in 1967. Way to keep it consistent, Brian!

Brian would seem to be an instinctive follower of the Buddhist belief of Wabi-sabi, which sees beauty in imperfection.
 
Wabi-sabi (侘寂?) represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete".[2] It is a concept derived from the Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence (三法印 sanbōin?), specifically impermanence (無常 mujō?), the other two being suffering (苦 ku?) and emptiness or absence of self-nature (空 kū?).

Thanks for the link - that was fascinating.  Once put in context, the bread comment is much more understandable.

Interesting article.  I enjoyed it - always like to read a new reason why my favourite band ever are to be admired.   I know it's the most minor of points in the context of what the author is saying, but is it really Carl who says the only thing that stuck out for him in Europe was the bread?  Because shortly afterwards the interviewer asks Carl by name what his memories of Europe were and he, much more impressively, says the Colosseum.  Which always evokes a little 'Yay, Carl!' moment in me after the crassness of the bread comment.  So who does say that?

Wind Chimes, easily the saddest BB's song ever.

But! Have you noticed, that none of the BB's songs are THAT sad, I mean sad sad sad, with no hope anywhere and depressing mood crushing your soul. The music always has some hope to it. Even Til I Die. The lyrics are frankly quite depressing, but the floating music rises the listener above all the angst described in the lyrics. One of the many, many reasong why I quite like their music. Brian couldn't help but be true to his mission, uplift people spiritually.

So true.

I'm not near Bristol.  Maybe some firm has donated a load of can't-sell LPs and Oxfam has spread them about.

Great, thanks very much..

The weirdest thing about this?

They didn't include a Beach Boy song on the LP.

Edit:  sorry, tried to post an image.  Failed.  Any advice?

The "most honored guest" title was a lovely touch.

Nice one mods 

Totally agree, a fantastic touch. 

Loved the excess of stars too - but how did you ever stop hitting that key?

Let Him Run Wild on Stack o' Tracks.  Revelatory.

It has been speculated that there is some bad blood between Brian and VDP. However, when asked for his favorite lyricist, he didn't answer Tony Asher, or Scott Bennett, or even Mike Love -- but Van Dyke Parks. I found that very interesting.

His reply to the question who was his favourite lyricist was  - 'Yes, Van Dyke Parks', which sounded as if someone might have prompted him with an answer.  On the other hand, the person  who was relaying the questions might have reframed it as 'Do you have a favourite lyricist' in which case the 'yes' makes more sense.

I can believe this took place, though not in quite those words.  People don't tend to remember a dialogue verbatim - they remember the essence, and maybe a few key phrases and then fill in the gaps to express  the sense of what was being said, but using the kind of language they themselves would use.  What Carl did sounds pretty friendly to me.  He's come off a concert stage, he's probably both tired and buzzing but he makes an unknown man he'll never see again welcome,  talks to him and even asks him about his dreams - how many stars take the trouble to turn the conversation to feature the ordinary Joe they're talking to?  And not just with a few perfunctory questions about where they live, but by asking them a  really engaged question that invites them to open up and share something big.?  Then, when the man says something about the dream of his life being to have a life like Carl's, I can imagine Carl sighing and calling him out on it -- not as aggressively as the man remembers, but still in a way that shocked him. The 'asshole' would be his attempt to render that sense of shock.  Besides, a snarling Carl fits the narrative of his redemption story better than a worn-out Carl telling him he's a bit of a fool to want that. And as several people have said, we all have our off moments.  No one gets through forty years of stardom without a point now and again when they're less than perfectly charming. It  doesn't diminish my esteem for Carl at all - if anything it enhances it.  And it's significant to me that the man writes without bitterness or anger towards Carl.

Well he has the honored guest tag. Nothing on his own site though.

Honoured guest ? Surely we can do a little better than that...

Reason to live?

Why does he describe Carl as a rhythm guitarist?

A vinyl Pet Sounds - made my day.

We Three Kings of Orient Are is beautifully sung but it really annoys me that they only sing two of the solo verses in the version I've heard.  Of all the songs to cut verses from, this really wasn't the one.  It suggests they had paid no attention to the lyrical progression that happens in the full song: the first verse introduces the three kings, then each king sings a solo verse relating to the gift they bring:  Frankincense for a God, Gold for a king, Myrrh for a sacrifice, before they come together again for the last verse.  It's one of the more intelligent and poetic Christmas carols and much of its point is killed if  only two kings sing their verses (it's called We Three Kings, for god's sake).  I know lots of people here don't really care about the lyrics and I agree the singing is sublime - but I'd just love to have heard Carl, Dennis and Brian doing the full three kings.