Hey, everybody. Giggens here, and I am so stoked to be a part of Classics Week to talk about one of my favorite albums of all time, an album offering for you, Sunflower by the Beach Boys.

Sunflower finds the Beach Boys at an absolute peak of their creative powers, and at a time of transition. They had just finished their contract with Capitol Records, who had been their home since day one. Well, kinda since day one, if you know the Beach Boys story. They moved over to Warner Brothers Record's Warner Reprise, and they had to prove themselves not just to a new label a new recording contract, but to their fans.

If you can believe this, one of the biggest bands in the world, and in America, in the 1960s, the Beach Boys were massive. They had about four or five years there of absolute chart-topping success. They were the biggest thing going. They were the biggest rival to the Beatles. Every single they put out was a top 10 hit, numerous number ones. Their albums did really well. Their tours were extremely popular. They could do no wrong. Then came Pet Sounds.

Pet Sounds changed a lot, not just for the group, but for the way Capitol saw the Beach Boys. Pet Sounds, at that time, was widely accepted by music critics and a lot of fans, especially across the world. That was one of the first records to break in England for the Beach Boys in terms of big chart success where other people's ears were perking up. Everybody was, of course, aware of Brian and what the Beach Boys can do. But when Pet Sounds came out, that was a whole other level of pop sophistication that had never been seen, and, realistically, hasn't been seen ever since.

But it really scared Capitol because they were like, How do we promote this thing? These are the surf guys. These are the lovey dovey hook pop song guys. What do we do with this? These are all sad songs about happy things or happy songs about sad things. And there's a train at the end with dogs barking. How do we promote this?

Well, they promoted it for a little while, then put out Best of the Beach Boys, Volume One, and that was basically the end of their tenure at Capitol in the '60s. It was rough. Their records were really not promoted the way they should have been.

Even up until 1969, they were promoted as the number one surfing group in the country, and they hadn't done surf in years at that point.

So when their contract finally came to an end with Capitol, they had so much material ready to go. When they secured their contract with Warner Brothers, they had even more material because at this point, everybody was writing for the band. It wasn't just Brian. The great thing about Sunflower, too, is that you've had several years of the other guys owning their craft and getting better as songwriters. Al, Bruce, Mike, Denny, and Carl were contributing really great songs by this point.

When you get to the sessions for what became the Sunflower album, originally called Add Some Music to Your Day, this is the most incredibly dynamic, diverse, joyous, love-filled music they ever made. Sunflower represents more than just great music in a new recording contract. It signifies a rebirth for the band. They take what they had learned and what they had done, obviously, but they incorporate so many new flavors and new textures that they hadn't done yet. When you add on the production chops of the guys and engineering from Stephen Desper, you get a sound on this album that is angelic and harmonious and really, really atmospheric and beautiful.

Nothing on this album was done for gimmicks or tricks. They really picked out the best of the best because they recorded so many songs for this project. When they nailed down their final track list, they were so proud of this thing. Brian was 100% fully involved with the whole project because he hadn't been for 20/20 after the failure of the Friends album, which he really loved. Sunflower was the first really focused, really polished album they'd done in years. They had the session musicians come back and help out, which they had done through 20/20 as well. But this was the first time that everybody was all in, firing on all cylinders to create some magic.

It went nowhere. It was their worst selling album at that point. It just didn't do anything. No one cared. The radio didn't care. They were old hat at this point. The most uncool thing you can do was to be in America and be a Beach Boys fan in 1970. Which is ironic because all these harmony groups were popping up at this time. Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, the Eagles were about to come out, the Hollies were still big, even though Graham Nash had left.

It was an amazing time for harmony groups, and yet the harmony group was forgotten about. Throughout the rest of the world, they were kings. They were humongous concert draws. Their album sold super well, and Sunflower was a big seller in the UK.

Let's talk about the songs themselves. The album opens up with "Slip On Through", one of the grooviest, funkiest, glowing songs they ever did. Denny's voice on this thing is cool and sly, but also so full of love. The verses had this funky rhythm that plods along awkwardly. But when you get to the payoff of the chorus with these glowing background vocals straight from the heavens and Denny's just wailing the lead vocal – what a payoff.

At this point in the Beach Boys' career, they were doing a lot more underneath the lead vocal. They'd always done the bum bum bum stuff in the background. But now they were incorporating other lyrics. So the chorus of "Slip on Through" is one of the most amazing things I've ever heard. Just the background vocals alone would have been enough. Super clean, tight production. It's an incredible opener, and it really sets the tone for what you're going to get from this album. Texture, dynamic, joy.

"This Whole World" follows that one up next, and this is one of the cheeriest songs ever put to tape. Carl's lead vocal is pure magic. The way he belts it out, the way he reins it back in for a more softer delivery, the joy on this track is infectious. I have to give credit again to Stephen Desper and his engineering and the production the guys did because this song sounds like what Heaven might sound like. It's constantly fresh and it's constantly optimistic and it's constantly making you think of how good the world can be. You look for all the good things that are out there and you're like, You know what? Maybe the world doesn't suck so much.

"Add Some Music to Your Day" is a very calm, patient meditation on the healing powers of music, and it's pretty much the cornerstone of this album. It's the foundation that the rest of the record was laid on, as the original name for Sunflower was Add Some Music To Your Day. That line, "Music when uou're alone is like a companion for your lonely soul." Man, that hits. An absolute mission statement of a song. It's a call to arms. What if everything was okay because music exists? What if all the wars stopped? What if all the bad things went away because we have music? And isn't that enough?

"Got to Know the Woman" comes up next, and that is a complete 180 for this album. It's funky, it's funny, it's definitely Denny. It's a groovy jammer with Denny singing about his adoration for a girl. I love the descending melody lines that happen throughout this thing with some really good rolling toms throughout. It's a song that I think perfectly fits out of place on this record because everything else on this album has more of a, I would say, beauty to it. This is more of a straight up rocker, but I like that. You have that juxtaposition of really soft, beautiful things. It's nice to have a rocker on this one as well.

"Deirdre" is a really sweet song about working through the hard times and looking for the happy times, looking for the optimism. It's mostly written by Bruce Johnson. He takes the lead vocal, but Brian helped out here and there, and you can tell the parts that Brian jumps in on. Cozy woodwinds and light brass accent the really nice optimistic-signing acoustic guitars, peppy drums. There's a nice fluid, rubbery bass, and I like the xylophones on this one as well. It creates a nice warm, cozy blanket of a song. It feels nostalgic, but it also feels very fresh at the same time. A very rare Wilson/Johnson credit that almost sounds like it could be in a movie. It's got that cinematic quality.

"It's About Time" rounds outside one, and man, this thing is a charged up rocker. Carl's lead vocal on this thing is just killer. Some screechy guitars, drums that are just totally wild, and an atmosphere of excitement and this palpable upstart energy to go out and create something great, create something peaceful and positive. This was a song they'd play a lot to close their shows back in those days, and they actually brought it back for a little while in their shows when the Feel Flows box set came out in 2021, which was really cool to see that live again. Kind of a deep cut.

When you flip the record over, you get "Tears in the Morning". This song, for me, it's a Bruce Johnson song, but I've never interpreted this song as about a relationship. I've always seen this song to be about the Beach Boys themselves. I've seen this as Bruce writing an autobiographical track about the band when he sings, "So you moved down up to Europe / And you took your heart, you took your soul." It's like everything was going better for the Beach Boys everywhere else besides America. You're left with tears in the morning. You're like, What are we not doing right here? Everything we built over here, will that actually grow up? Is that the baby I'm ever going to see? Are we ever going to see things get better in America? Or do we have to go somewhere else for our dreams?

There's great harmonies on this track as well. But Bruce's storytelling, the emotion in his voice, really sells it for me.

"All I Wanna Do" – this song is the invention of Chillwave. I'm really glad that people have seen that over the last couple of years because this song, the production of this thing is absolutely unreal. It's shimmering and glowing. It feels like a frosty lake or something. It's something that you would expect to hear as a common track from the indie stuff of the early 2000s. It's one of those songs that I play for people often, and I don't tell them who it is. They're like, Wow, that's a really cool song. Who is that? Did that come out in the '90s, or when did that song come out? No, it's the Beach Boys from 1970. They're like, What the hell?

That dreamy atmosphere, and then the tons of layered vocals on this thing in the background. This thing is one not to miss. If you're going to play at least one song that isn't "Forever", or "Slip on Through", or "Cool Cool Water", put on this track. It's going to blow your mind.

Speaking of "Forever", Denny takes lead on this one with one of the most beautiful tracks he ever wrote. One of the most amazing tracks of Beach Boys ever did. A song about giving every single ounce of your soul to somebody and being so stoked. Again, the background vocals on this thing are just from the heavens. Hearing Brian riff at the end as the song fades out is just wonderful because he's got that. His voice is still so super sweet at this point, and you hear him echo on into foreverness, if you will. It's something special.

Speaking of something special, Carl takes the lead on "Our Sweet Love", a song that could have been a really nice minor hit on the charts. This song, for me, feels like the grown-up, more mature version of "God Only Knows". Where I feel like "God Only Knows" is one of the most beautiful songs ever written, but it's almost written from a new love feel, and you want to give your everything to this new love, this song feels like you've been with that love, and you're appreciating the small things in life, the walks on a sunny day, reading the newspaper together, just enjoying each other's company. This feels more mature.

"At My Window" is what I call Diet Psychedalia. It's one of the coolest songs in the album, and I feel like it's the most slept on song. It's from the point of view of a bird coming down to your window, and then you take it away with the bird. You're seeing the world from the bird's point of view and realizing that things could be pretty freeing.

We end with "Cool Cool Water", one of my absolute top 10 favorite Beach Boys songs of all time. This Smile-era track is the perfect closer for this album, and I think it's a nice little slip in to be like, Hey, we can still sing about water. This one literally falls into the actual waves at one point. You hear waves crashing and you feel like you're underwater with a num, num, num, now, now... part. You feel like you're like the density of the water and the heaviness of it that's surrounding you until you come up and get your head above it. And all of a sudden, there's the bright blue sky. You see dolphins jumping around. It's shimmering, it's glowing, it's happy.

The track eventually gets to this "drip drip" mantra that's repeated throughout the rest of the song. But the articulation and the gentle, careful delivery of the vocals on this thing or something to be admired. Mike has one of the best lines in this song with "In an ocean or in a glass / Cool water is such a gas." So good.

This is a track you need to experience, and I think it works better with headphones, but putting on a good stereo system works, too. But there's so many intricate things happening in the layering on this song that even I've heard this song a million times over the last 20 odd years, I still hear new things on it, so dig that one.

The Beach Boys' Sunflower is a wonderfully special album. An album that sounds like nothing else they did before or since. It was the band firing on all cylinders. They were all so hungry to create something special that would blow listeners' minds. It's truly sad that in America it didn't click. Luckily, with new management and a new stage show, things would get much better with their next release, Surfs Up, which was their best charting album since 1967's Wild Honey. But that's a video for another day.

Check it out. Add some music to your day. Add some Beach Boys to your day.

Anthony Fantano. Music review. Forever.