(Credits: Far Out / Album Cover)
Tue 13 May 2025 19:30, UK
As anyone who saw the masterful Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy will tell you, being in The Beach Boys was misery. Particularly for Brian Wilson, but basically, no one got out of that band without some severe psychological scars. They don’t even have a flawless musical output to fall upon to claim “it was all worth it for the great music” because, after their 1960s imperial phase, actually good music from the Beach Boys is few and far between.
This does tend to happen when the titanic, capital G Genius behind some of the best songs in the history of popular music has a profound mental breakdown and can barely write songs for years. However, while crediting everything good recorded by The Beach Boys to Brian Wilson isn’t entirely accurate, Dennis Wilson created some gems like ‘Forever’ and ‘Be Still’; the others in the band were absolutely responsible for their worst moments.
To be clear, this isn’t simply because Brian was talented and the others weren’t. That would be a gross simplification and an insult to the other members. The truth is that the low-quality music came from the times when the band could barely stand each other. The problem was that this was the vast, vast majority of the band’s history, and nowhere is this more apparent than with 1978’s absolutely sorry M.I.U. Album.
The tragic part is that it came after a period of huge commercial success for the band. The mid-1970s weren’t exactly banner years for the band in terms of albums but they were still filling stadiums regularly. Within the band though, relations were getting strained beyond repair, with two factions forming. The free-living, artistic Carl and Dennis Wilson who wanted to make great art, and the strict, spiritually minded careerists Mike Love and Al Jardine. The fragile Brian stayed neutral, just wanting to make music again.
Why was this Beach Boys album so loathed?
After a pitched legal battle, the band’s record label gave Jardine control of the album, which he ended up producing along with Ron Altbach. Upon Mike Love’s insistence, the album would be recorded in the university town of Fairfield, Iowa, as far away from any distractions the Wilson brothers would be after (namely their dealers).
On the one hand, the Wilson brothers’ addiction issues were becoming a problem. On the other, this spat directly in the face of the solo records they were making with the band’s blessing. Dennis Wilson had just finished making Pacific Ocean Blue and was essentially given an ultimatum. Stop promoting the record and condemn it to failure, or leave his band in the hands of people he hated. He and Carl chose the latter, barely appearing on the record.
This left Dennis to give an interview to Melody Maker. One that was ostensibly promoting his absolute masterpiece of a solo album, but was clearly more focused on the internal conflicts surrounding The Beach Boys. When asked how he felt about the then-upcoming M.I.U. Album, named so for the Maharishi International University, where it was recorded, Dennis was typically blunt and utterly scathing.
He said: “I hope that karma will fuck up Mike Love’s meditation forever. That album is an embarrassment to my life. It should self-destruct.”
Given the limp, easy listening bilge that fills the album, made it a critical and commercial flop and one of the lowest points of the band’s half a century long career, he’s absolutely not wrong about it.
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