![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/The-Beach-Boys-Summer-Days-And-Summer-Nights-1965-Capitol-Records-Far-Out-Magazine-F--1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Album Cover)<\/p>\n
Tue 13 May 2025 19:30, UK <\/p>\n
As anyone who saw the masterful Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy will tell you, being in The Beach Boys <\/a>was misery. Particularly for Brian Wilson, but basically, no one got out of that band without some severe psychological scars. They don\u2019t even have a flawless musical output to fall upon to claim \u201cit was all worth it for the great music\u201d because, after their 1960s imperial phase, actually good music from the Beach Boys is few and far between. <\/p>\n This does tend to happen when the titanic, capital G Genius behind some of the best songs in the history of popular music <\/a>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\u2019t entirely accurate, Dennis Wilson created some gems like \u2018Forever\u2019 and \u2018Be Still\u2019; the others in the band were absolutely responsible for their worst moments. <\/p>\n To be clear, this isn\u2019t simply because Brian was talented and the others weren\u2019t. 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\u2019s history, and nowhere is this more apparent than with 1978\u2019s absolutely sorry\u00a0M.I.U. Album. <\/p>\n The tragic part is that it came after a period of huge commercial success for the band. The mid-1970s weren\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n Why was this Beach Boys album so loathed? <\/p>\n After a pitched legal battle, the band\u2019s record label gave Jardine control of the album, which he ended up producing along with Ron Altbach. Upon Mike Love\u2019s 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).<\/p>\n On the one hand, the Wilson brothers\u2019 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\u2019s 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<\/a>. He and Carl chose the latter, barely appearing on the record. <\/p>\n 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\u00a0M.I.U. Album, named so for the Maharishi International University, where it was recorded, Dennis was typically blunt and utterly scathing. <\/p>\n He said: \u201cI hope that karma will fuck up Mike Love\u2019s meditation forever. That album is an embarrassment to my life. It should self-destruct.\u201d <\/p>\n 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\u2019s half a century long career, he\u2019s absolutely not wrong about it. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n Related Topics<\/p>\n Subscribe To The Far Out Newsletter <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Album Cover) Tue 13 May 2025 19:30, UK As anyone who saw the masterful…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[45995,77,269,33133,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-98962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-dennis-wilson","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-the-beach-boys","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114502416473112628","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}