{"id":41556,"date":"2009-06-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/20-20\/"},"modified":"2009-06-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-14T00:00:00","slug":"20-20","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/20-20\/","title":{"rendered":"20\/20"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attempting to sum up the career of The Beach Boys in a word requires one to encapsulate 40 years of success, trials and tribulations. But when pressed, the term \u201cinconsistent\u201d comes readily to mind. Even during the early 1960\u2019s when the group became one of the few legitimate challengers to The Beatles\u2019 dominance, The Beach Boys suffered through half-baked odes to surfing and other minor dalliances. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Only through the sheer force of the personality of Brian Wilson did the group attempt to move beyond the expectations laid out for them. The onset of Wilson\u2019s mental problems meant the group had lost its most dynamic and creative member, resulting in a lengthy pattern of poor releases, punctuated by the occasional glimmer of glories past.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

It is ironic then that a collection of assorted singles, new studio recordings and scraps from the legendary SMiLE <\/i>recordings came together to give the group their best post-Pet Sounds<\/i> record of the \u201860s. 20\/20<\/i> existed mainly as the last record in a contract with Capitol Records and remains incredibly underrated by fans and critics alike. Whereas the \u201cscattershot\u201d approach failed on previous albums (and would with future works), The Beach Boys defied predictions here.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The \u201csounds of the \u201860s\u201d are present on 20\/20<\/i> in a manner that had not been previously explored by The Beach Boys. Coming at the end of the decade, it is apparent the group had been listening to what had been going on around them. \u201cI Can Hear Music\u201d comes as close to Crosby Stills & Nash as the group could possibly come, putting the focus squarely on the acoustic talents and vocal harmonies of the band. The close relationship The Beach Boys had with Three Dog Night is cultivated with \u201cBluebirds Over The Mountain,\u201d a dead ringer for Danny Hutton And Co.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The psychedelic aspect of the \u201860s is not ignored, presented primarily with the three final tracks of the records. The final two, \u201cOur Prayer\u201d and \u201cCabinessence,\u201d are tantalizing snippets from the aborted SMiLE <\/i>sessions; one cannot help but wonder what the impact of the release of that record would have been. \u201cNever Learn Not To Love\u201d is compelling, but for an entirely different reason. The song is credited to Dennis Wilson, but in actuality, the song was given to him by Charles Manson. Given Manson\u2019s actions within months, the experience of listening to the song has a degree of sordidness to it.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

More traditional behaviors for the band are far from absent on 20\/20<\/i>. The lead single and opener \u201cDo It Again\u201d purposefully recalls the glory days, conjuring up the well-known imagery of California and surfing. The group\u2019s penchant for covering old standards appears as well; \u201cCotton Fields\u201d marks an energetic take on the song, which when reworked months later would be a minor hit in Europe.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Few would have guessed, but 20\/20<\/i> marked beginning of a strong period for The Beach Boys; their next two albums would continue the level of quality set forth on this album. The time for the group to show its strength with a more democratic representation was now. Unfortunately, the time was relatively short-lived. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":29933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7136],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-41556","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-beach-boys","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41556"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}