The Beach Boys Today!

Didn't think it was too spectacular or unique for what the beach boys are known for

Not nearly enough beach

Help me Rhonda, help, help me etc, the harmonies are beautiful . Pet sounds remains my favourite

I approached The Beach Boys Today! with a certain amount of scepticism. I adore Pet Sounds, but I’ve always had an uneasy relationship with the Beach Boys as a performing entity. The Beatles were, fundamentally, a working band whose increasingly elaborate recordings extended the abilities and imagination of its members. The Beach Boys, by contrast, were becoming a vocal group performing over instrumental tracks assembled by Brian Wilson with session musicians. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, and indeed Pet Sounds demonstrates how magnificent the results can be. But I find myself rather more attracted to the idea of musicians collectively discovering what they can do than to a group gradually surrendering its instrumental identity to the imagination of one member. I’m aware of the contradiction. It’s something I brought with me to this album, and something the listening would have to overcome. Initially, it didn’t. Opening a supposedly canonical album with a cover of “Do You Wanna Dance?” struck me as a rather unpromising proposition. I know the song extremely well, and the Beach Boys don’t transform it sufficiently to make the familiarity interesting. Bryan Ferry opening These Foolish Things with his extraordinary interpretation of Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” is one thing. This is another. Worse, the production sounds muddy. When the chorus arrives, the close-harmony vocal ensemble, supposedly the group’s principal distinguishing characteristic, becomes almost indistinguishable from the instrumental backing. I tried the original mono presentation as well as the stereo version, and the fundamental problem remained. Everybody seems to be enthusiastically occupying the same patch of sonic real estate. “Good to My Baby” was more interesting when I began examining the arrangement. There’s a lovely doubled guitar-and-bass figure, its melodic shape moving with the harmony, including a particularly pleasing glissando. You can hear Wilson’s developing ingenuity in the way he makes these little instrumental details do more than simply maintain the accompaniment. “Don’t Hurt My Little Sister” similarly becomes more interesting in its harmonically unusual chorus than in its relatively conventional verses. Yet neither recording particularly moved me. They were pleasant enough while I was cooking dinner, but I couldn’t imagine putting either on specifically to sit and listen to it. There was also a faintly uncomfortable sense of material drawn from different stages of development. Some of these songs had been recorded months before the album appeared, and the guitar-driven sound of “Don’t Hurt My Little Sister”, for instance, seemed curiously dated by March 1965. It’s not that the arrangements lack intelligence. It’s that their intelligence sometimes seems to be working in the service of material that doesn’t particularly deserve it. “When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)” finally made me pay proper attention. The close harmonies are achingly beautiful, and the recording gives them the clarity that was missing from the opening track. The lyrics are more interesting, too, revealing a young man’s apprehension about adulthood and all the uncertainties that accompany it. Unfortunately, the delivery remains so relentlessly cheerful that it makes H from Steps sound like Leonard Cohen. There’s an extraordinary discrepancy between the emotional questions being asked and the almost unbearable perkiness with which they’re presented. Nevertheless, those harmonies affected me. Here, at last, was something I wanted to hear for its own sake. The album’s version of “Help Me, Ronda” presents another curiosity. It’s the earlier recording, before the more familiar hit remake, and I rather like its comparative rawness. The harmonica is less aggressively foregrounded, the chorus harmonies are attractive, and there’s a suggestion of a group still discovering how best to present the material. But Wilson has also introduced an extraordinarily peculiar production effect: repeated dips in the overall volume that seem to be intended to manufacture rhythmic dynamics. I found them distracting. Dynamics can be achieved through performance and arrangement; reaching for the master fader to simulate them strikes me as a dubious substitute. The result feels oddly suspended between a finished recording and a preliminary version of something else. Then “Dance, Dance, Dance” produces the first moment of genuine astonishment. On the surface, it’s another relentlessly cheerful teenage pop record. The percussion is exuberant, with driving tambourine and what sound like castanet accents punctuating the repeated exhortations to dance. But beneath all that high-spirited nonsense is a piece of musical construction that made me sit bolt upright. Midway through a phrase, Wilson introduces an upward semitone modulation, and the singers enter almost immediately with perfectly coordinated block harmonies in the new key. That’s outrageous. Anyone who has spent time singing close harmony knows how much preparation and mutual tonal awareness such an entry demands. The singers have to establish their new pitches accurately and collectively, with remarkably little opportunity to settle themselves first. I found myself wondering whether the passage had required a recording punch-in, although I have no evidence that it did. The astonishing thing is the result itself. It’s a little like watching a professional cyclist complete an exhausting mountain stage and then produce an explosive sprint. Anybody can recognise the achievement, but someone who has spent time cycling understands the physical demands at another level. Experience of harmony singing makes Wilson’s audacity especially apparent. Its relentless perkiness disguises some remarkably adventurous musical thinking. And that led me to an important distinction. A great song isn’t necessarily the same thing as a great recording. Sometimes the decisive moment is a production decision, an instrumental entrance or a tiny irregularity in a performance that makes the listener think, what the fuck was that? I remember the first time I heard Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love”: that peculiar opening figure, the initially mechanical rhythmic pulse that somehow develops an extraordinary swing, and Marc Almond’s wonderfully human, slightly sharp second syllable. Mike Thorne made a genuinely extraordinary recording out of material that had already existed in other forms. “Dance, Dance, Dance” has something of that quality. The song itself is hardly going to challenge anybody’s understanding of human relationships, but the recording contains a flash of sheer musical audacity. By the end of side one, then, I was thoroughly ambivalent. I respected the craftsmanship, occasionally admired it enormously, and had been genuinely moved by one set of harmonies. But much of the material still seemed designed to accompany a pleasant afternoon rather than demand serious engagement. For all Wilson’s growing sophistication, the Beach Boys’ established musical personality was beginning to feel like a constraint. And then I turned the record over. “Please Let Me Wonder” immediately suggested a different world. Brian’s singing is extraordinarily restrained, almost exposed, and the arrangement possesses a delicacy entirely absent from much of the earlier material. The bass has a lovely, substantial thrum beneath the lighter instrumental textures, giving the music weight without overwhelming it. The intensity ebbs and flows naturally, not through the questionable volume manipulation of “Help Me, Ronda”, but through the relationships between the instruments and the sensitivity of the performance. For several seconds I was genuinely silenced. The middle eight introduces a wonderfully strange collection of sounds: a high, thin keyboard-like squawk, punctuated by clipped guitar figures with echo and tremolo. It’s an unexpected texture in such an intimate ballad, but it never destroys the atmosphere. Instead, it opens a slightly disconcerting little space inside the arrangement. Then, just as the song appears to be fading away, Wilson does something even more intriguing. There’s a sudden change of musical character, almost as though he’s beginning a new idea at the precise moment the recording disappears. I wanted to shout, wait, wait, wait, where are you going with that? It reminded me of the Fast Show character who suddenly remembers something else to say just as an irrevocable event is about to take place. The music seems to have more to say than the recording allows it to say. That ending immediately suggested Pet Sounds, particularly Wilson’s growing fascination with unusual instrumental timbres and the way tuned percussion can subtly transform the atmosphere of a recording. There’s an emerging willingness to introduce strange sounds not simply for their novelty but for the emotional possibilities they create. “I’m So Young” takes us backwards stylistically, returning to the doo-wop tradition that Wilson grew up with. But he’s embellishing it something rotten. The vocal harmonies are beautifully intricate, and there’s an odd rhythmic pulsing in the accompaniment that made me wonder whether some form of short, tempo-related echo or tremolo was involved. I couldn’t identify its mechanism conclusively, but the effect is fascinating. Even the earliest digital delay pedals required musicians to calculate intervals in milliseconds and maintain a sufficiently consistent tempo for the repetitions to remain rhythmically useful. Achieving anything comparable with analogue equipment in 1965 would have been no trivial undertaking. Whatever is producing that particular sound, the broader achievement is unmistakable: Wilson has taken an old-fashioned teenage ballad and surrounded it with an arrangement far more sophisticated than the underlying material demands. He’s revisiting the music of his youth, but bringing an increasingly adventurous imagination along with him. “Kiss Me, Baby” brings us closer still to Pet Sounds. What fascinates me is the way the instrumental backing seems to behave as one enormous, multi-timbral, polyphonic instrument. Individual instruments contribute separate lines and textures, but the listener often perceives the whole before recognising its constituent parts. The arrangement moves as a single musical organism. That’s a defining characteristic of Pet Sounds for me. You’re frequently unaware of the precise role of individual instruments until something gloriously improbable, such as a bass harmonica, suddenly wanders in from stage left. Or perhaps stage centre, since Wilson was constructing these recordings in mono. The mono presentation is important. Rather than arranging sounds across a stereo panorama, Wilson creates internal movement through register, density, rhythm and timbre. The instruments surrender much of their individual identity to become elements of a larger musical structure. But there’s still a problem with “Kiss Me, Baby”: the lyrics are rather moon-in-June. The musical imagination seems to have advanced considerably further than the language available to express it. I found myself thinking about the Beatles’ meeting with Bob Dylan at the Delmonico Hotel in August 1964 and the increasingly sophisticated lyrical concerns that followed. Brian’s own development is rather different, of course, and I wouldn’t reduce everything that happened between Today! and Pet Sounds to one event or encounter. But Tony Asher’s eventual contribution becomes particularly significant when you hear how much of Wilson’s mature arranging vocabulary was already in place. Asher helped him articulate emotional complexity in words that could stand alongside the musical complexity. Then “She Knows Me Too Well” suggests that Wilson was already making substantial progress in that direction. The harmonic opening is immediately unsettling, refusing to establish the reassuring tonal destination one might expect. And the lyrics are surprisingly grown-up. The narrator recognises his own jealousy, possessiveness and hypocrisy. He understands that he behaves badly towards his girlfriend and that his behaviour hurts her. But rather than allowing that recognition to produce change, he treats her understanding of him as a reason she will continue to forgive him. He mistakes being understood for being absolved. That’s an uncomfortable psychological position, and an extraordinarily perceptive one to find on an album that opened with “Do You Wanna Dance?” The narrator’s confession sounds sincere, but sincerity isn’t the same as responsibility. Indeed, his self-awareness becomes part of the machinery by which he excuses himself. The beauty of the music makes the situation more complicated rather than less. Those glorious harmonies invite sympathy for a narrator who is effectively admitting that he exploits somebody else’s affection. The song understands something about human relationships that the earlier material scarcely begins to investigate. And then comes “In the Back of My Mind”, which I think may be the album’s most extraordinary achievement. Dennis Wilson takes the lead, unusually without the familiar reassuring chorus of Beach Boys harmonies. His slightly rough, vulnerable voice is beautifully appropriate to the material. Here is a man whose circumstances appear to be happy, yet who cannot escape an inexplicable conviction that everything will collapse. There’s no obvious catastrophe approaching. Nothing in his immediate surroundings necessarily justifies the feeling. He can recognise the apparent irrationality of his apprehension without being able to dispel it. I found this remarkably affecting because I’ve heard men express precisely that experience in the volunteer work I do as a peer supporter for a men’s mental health group. Someone will describe a life that, on paper, is going reasonably well, before admitting that they cannot shake the expectation of disaster. They know they can’t explain it. That knowledge doesn’t make the anxiety disappear. Wilson’s musical treatment is extraordinary. The melody refuses easy turns, repeatedly declining the familiar resolutions that might offer reassurance. Without the usual vocal harmonies to support him, Dennis sounds almost stranded inside the arrangement. The music seems to share his inability to settle. And then the ending itself becomes indecisive. Rather than arriving at a satisfying conclusion, the arrangement appears to lose its footing. The music doesn’t so much finish as run out of certainty. It’s a marvellous little ending, and one that seems inseparable from the psychological condition the song describes. Wilson isn’t merely writing about uncertainty. He’s finding ways to make uncertainty audible. I was astonished by the distance we’d travelled from the first side of the album. The boy who wanted to dance has become a man who can’t explain why he’s frightened. Unfortunately, having arrived at this remarkable emotional and musical conclusion, the Beach Boys append “Bull Session with ‘Big Daddy’”, an inconsequential piece of recorded conversation that seems to have wandered in from another project entirely. I don’t particularly begrudge them a little daft studio chatter, but following “In the Back of My Mind” it feels like an extraordinary failure of judgement. The preceding song would have been a far more powerful way to end the record. So where does all this leave me? Certainly not with an uncomplicated declaration of love. I remain distinctly underwhelmed by much of side one. Some of its songs are pleasant, some are cleverly constructed, and one or two contain moments of genuine brilliance, but there’s relatively little I feel compelled to return to. Musical ingenuity doesn’t automatically make something emotionally engaging, and I’m not prepared to forgive the weaker material simply because I know what its creator would eventually accomplish. But side two is sometimes magnificent. What makes the album fascinating isn’t simply that it points towards Pet Sounds. It’s that Wilson’s musical development and his developing understanding of emotional life are beginning to converge. The extraordinary arrangements are increasingly doing more than decorating romantic pop songs. They’re becoming ways of expressing feelings that ordinary pop conventions struggle to accommodate. There’s a progression from romantic vulnerability to jealousy and self-deception, and finally to an anxiety that has no readily identifiable cause. The music becomes progressively less willing to offer easy reassurance. The emotional problems are no longer things that can necessarily be resolved with a kiss, a dance or an especially cheerful chorus. And I think that explains my ambivalence about the album as a whole. Wilson’s genius is unmistakable, but it emerges unevenly, sometimes brilliantly camouflaged beneath music I find merely agreeable, sometimes flowering into work of genuinely remarkable subtlety and insight. I began the album wondering whether I could take the Beach Boys seriously as anything more than a vehicle for one man’s increasingly elaborate arrangements. I ended it considerably more impressed by what those arrangements could express, and by how far Wilson was beginning to move beyond the limitations of the group’s established identity. But I didn’t entirely lose my reservations, and I don’t particularly want to. They’re part of what made the discoveries so interesting. The Beach Boys Today! is an uneven, divided, occasionally frustrating record whose second side contains some of the most affecting music Brian Wilson had yet made. I respect parts of it more than I enjoy them. Other parts moved me enormously. And by the time Dennis Wilson reached that wonderfully uncertain ending, I was listening to something far removed from the cheerful Californian pop group I’d encountered at the beginning. I wasn’t prepared for quite how far removed.

This is #day814 of my #1001albumsyoumusthearbeforeyoudie challenge, and... here's to my third and final record by The Beach Boys. I probably don't understand something about this band, but this music just doesn't move me the way it apparently should, I guess. Sweet orchestral pop tunes and all that, but I'd never choose to put this on my own, let alone revisit it. I'll go ahead and relisten to those other records of theirs just to reach a final verdict. Also, WTF is that last track? This is a 2 out of 5. Looking forward to #day815.

This is no Pet Sounds. It’s also no Surfs Up. I wonder if it’s just here for Help Me Rhonda. I didn’t enjoy this

I LOVE THE BEACH BOYS! And I mostly love this album too; it's a nice bridge between the more "sophisticated", well-groomed, and more emotionally grounded pop of Pet Sounds that came out shortly after this, and the more forced-smile good time surfer bro music of their early '60s stuff. The harmonies are the highlight as usual; Brian's falsetto especially is just undeniable all over this thing, especially on 'When I Grow Up (To Be A Man)', 'She Knows Me Too Well', and 'Dance Dance Dance' (i.e pretty much 'I Get Around' part 2). 'Please Let Me Wonder' is the album highlight; it has that subtly sorrowful and dreary after-dark pondering feel with that teary chord progression and harmonies in the chorus. Just a serene masterpiece and one of the BB's best songs, and a more introspective sound that they'd continue to flesh out on Pet Sounds. While this album does very much sound like mid-'60s pop, we're not super visionary yet (although it has its predictive moments); it's damn good '60s pop that's very much in that wall-of-sound vein of its time, a sound I'm a sucker for. Music you can so easily slide into and enjoy. Short, sweet, punchy, a little cheesy, but an undeniably good time. And you know good-time music is the best kind of music.

Many yesterdays ago

USA USA USA USA USA🇺🇸🇺🇸 JOKES— this rlly brought me back home and not in a good way. i don’t care for them too much but Please let me wonder was good. I liked the vibe kinda want a coconut and a nap on the beach idk. They kinda bother me

liked it alot but no particular favourites

Yeah obviously they do a harmony well that’s their gig but not really my thing I find it boring, maybe if I was a depressed 60s house wife I’d cry to it while my husbands out cheating and feel marginally better

Favourite - Do You Wanna Dance I’m a big fan of the beach boys. But not a fan of this album. Definitely think there is better beach boys out there

Lyrically a little trite, but the songs themselves sound just as strong as the best of the Beach Boys. I really dug this.

“We’re not real surfers and we never have been!” —Brian Wilson (Paul Dano), in *Love & Mercy* It’s a little bit hard to hear this for what it is rather than where I know it's going - specifically, *Pet Sounds*. But both the early teenage genius of this band and its mature melancholy are present in spades here. For the former see “Dance, Dance, Dance,” a perfect pop ditty anchored by Al Jardine’s rhythm guitar. For the latter see the frighteningly confessional “She Knows Me Too Well,” in which Brian Wilson lays his demons bare for all to hear. He is tired of pretending - that he surfs, that he’s okay, that he was made for these times.

The second half is amazing, but the first half has its highlights as well. A great showcase of Brian Wilson's growing talent. Favorite Tracks: "Please Let Me Wonder," "Kiss Me, Baby," "She Knows Me Too Well" 4.5/5

Is this the shortest album so far? Blink and you miss it. Bubblegum grooves.

Some good songs, some not so good. Words I've used before to describe the Beach Boys. Same applies.

I have very fond memories of listening to the Beach Boys on family driving holidays in France. It wasn’t this album! A potentially generous 3*

The artistry and production is stunning for its time. But it's just too saccharine for me. 2*

So sugary sweet that it dulls the senses. The Beach Boys Today! is all about the production and speaking to teenage experiences with love. The songs are so repetitive and simple without much else to prop them up. Listening to The Beach Boys Today! is like going through oxygen deprivation, in that I feel a little dizzy and a bit dumber when it's over. Just feels very empty outside of sounding pretty. The Beach Boys Today! makes 29 minutes feel like an eternity

Making my life hard. This is one of my favorite albums of all time. The only reason it isn't mentioned more is because 6 months later the Beach Boys released Pet Sounds. But this one... Starting with the never ending energy of "do you wanna dance" sang with the powerful voice of the dear Dennis Wilson. "Good to my Baby" is a stunning innocent banger. Brian Wilson's voice was so mature and complete at this point, and even Mike love delivers well. The harmonies are, of course, otherworldly. "Don't Hurt My little Sister" has an amazing bridge leading to the iconic chorus. Lovely 12 string electric guitar played by Carl Wilson. "When I Grow Up" is another masterful exchange between Mike and Brian. Preceding some themes later being developed on Pet Sounds. A sweet sweet song with a lovely coda. "Help Me Rhonda" is such a timeless banger. The harmonies are so powerful, the choruses give me goosebumps every single time. And Al Gardine SMASHES the lead vocals on this one. Wonder why didn't they let him do it more. A perfect song. "Danece dance dance" Is a bridge between the early 60's to the mid 60's . A very well executed hard hitting rocknroll tune , with a twist, the way the Beach Boys always new. Side B of the record begins with the incredible "Please let me wonder". We are now in the ballad section of this album, that is separated into to two halfs. This is a great way to open it. So intimate, and the production is amazing and impressive. "I'm so young", with the perfect and iconic Brian falceto, is like a throw back to the 50's. A simpler song (not harmony wise) but very effective. I love the code, where you can hear the character of each voice very well. With "Kiss me baby" we are in the masterpiece area of the record. A perfect song in every way. I can't get enough of it ever. Can't find other words, just listen to it. It'll blow your mind. The masterpiece section continues with "She knows me too well". Perfect. Goosebumps. Almost to much with Brian's vocals there. Wow... and the guitar solo, and than again... We close it up (kind of) with "In the back of my mind". What a brilliant move to bring it back to Dennis who also opened the album. His voice is so straight and sincere. A lovely mellower song that doesn't reach the hight of the influence of the last two, but for a good reason. A way to come back down the ground. Almost, because the last line there from Dennis- chefs Kiss. Than we have the "bull session". I kinda ignore it,  you can too. That's a masterpiece. Almost objectively. And it hold a very special place in my heart. I always loved Pet Sounds. For years. Watching Brian and his band preform it live was a life changing experience when I was 13. But the last two years (that have been in many ways the toughest of my life) I dived into the Beach Boys like I never did before. It's been a magical ongoing journey. This one is an important part in it. Well, a 5, I guess.

I think part of this might be their incredible reputation, but I really had higher expectations of this album. It's fun, and obviously the harmonies are incredible. But I thought this would change my life and it didn't

Coisinha paradinha algumas musicas boas mas achei meia bomba?

Altar boys singing about girls they like. Just cute sweet precious

Come on, it's a classic man!

When I was a freshman in college, I used to work in a 1960's tiki/cali-surfer themed ice cream shop with the girl my ex boyfriend cheated on me with and the owner exclusively played the Beach Boys. It was an okay job. The owner was slightly racist and enjoyed coke; my co-worker was nice, especially once we bonded over what a jerk our mutual boyfriend was. It was a mix bag experience which is how I feel about this album. A mixed bag of great catchy songs paired with tunes that feel completely unremarkable save for their harmonic vocals and beach vibe. They bring the energy up and then back down, with songs that are either nothingness or songs that are completely somethingness.

White motown

I didn’t hate it, which is a win. It’s frothy mid-‘60s pop, and of course I grew up with “Help Me Rhonda” as a pop culture mainstay. I understand there are elements here pointing towards Brian Wilson’s apparent (to everyone else) genius and creativity. Yes, there’s a track that just sounds like bullshitting around while in the studio, and there’s one that suddenly has an orchestral flourish as it fades out. Whoop-de-do. I still don’t get them I suppose. It was fine, inoffensive, and at times, fun.

Not bad.

Cbf pretty hard on this one. No longer essential. RYM: N Saved a song: N

Track By Track Do You Wanna Dance? - This sounds like early Beach Boys era, but also different and more mature (their voices I mean) than other surfin’ stuff they had done before. Nice enough, very Beach Boys-y! Good to My Baby - The harmonies are quite nice must say. They have a very distinctive sound and great vocal chops. I guess it’s a teen vibe still even though it’s a slightly more mature Beach Boys. Don’t Hurt My Little Sister - I read that some of these lyrics are a bit misogynistic and I can see the sexism and stereotypes here for sure. Dated. Quite nice tune though. When I Grow Up (To Be a Man) - How old were they when they recorded this? Unclear. It’s kind of weird and I guess a little sweet also this one, speaking about his hopes for the future I guess. Help Me, Rhonda - I like this tune and rhythm. It’s kind of classic Beach Boys and rock n’ roll vibe. It’s a good melody. Also is this low key about an affair? Just to throw that in there. Hilarious I just used that phrase :) Dance, Dance, Dance - Disappointed as I thought this was the tune from Fantastic Mr. Fox, but that was ‘Let Her Dance’ by The Bobby Fuller Four. Just thought I’d shout that out here as it’s probably not on this list. Anyway, this was another classic sounding riff. Dancey tune for sure. Fun! Please Let Me Wonder - Nice that they have a change of pace here. It’s very welcome. Great chords and harmonies here. I’m So Young - Oh, I recognise this! A classic, beautifully executed. Think it’s from ‘50s doo-wop. Kiss Me, Baby - Bit slow and slooopy. Almost muddy. It’s alright but not a stand out. She Knows Me Too Well - This sounds as if it’s in the same style as ‘Don’t Worry Baby’, which I think is also by them. Climbing up in the beginning and then going down melodically, resolving in the chorus. Nice. In the Back Of My Mind - Another slow one that I didn’t care for as much. Slightly preferred this to the other one though. Also nice addition of the strings and horns. Nice textures. Bull Session With “Big Daddy” - Studio/House ambience. The family of the album chilling and eating afterwards. Quite nice to hear them chatting and being themselves. Seeing them as humans in a way. Overall Review: Number 50! It’s funny, I didn’t know they had such a large discography. I also wouldn’t have thought this was their eighth album. They were very prolific as a band and I do appreciate hearing stuff I hadn’t really heard from their back catalogue so this was good in terms of discovery. I thought a fair few of these were decent and the whole thing was pleasant enough to listen to. Some of them were slightly samey. I do have a hunch there are better Beach Boys albums. 2.9/5 Favourite Songs: Help Me, Rhonda, Please Help Me Wonder, I’m So Young

Pretty fun entry in their discography, not blown away by it, but it’s nice. Standouts are Do You Wanna Dance, When I Grow Up and Kiss Me Baby.

Good one.

Even when there not yet at their heights. The Beach Boys send most of their contemporary competitors home.

It’s hard to rate this album because it was released so long ago it’s difficult to appreciate how groundbreaking it must have been at the time. I mean the songs are nice, they are listenable. But would I listen to this again on my own? Probably not.

Not their best

Høres ut som helt gjennomsnittlig Beach Boys.

Deilige 28 min. Blir på grensen til godt humør, her æ står og male.

Man kan høre at dem har nokka på gang, men det hele blir Per Sounds light. Kjempebra bakgrunnsmusikk, men ikke nokka æ skrur på 11. 3

I'm gonna acknowledge here that I've been going back to pet sounds a bunch and that it probably deserved a five anyway this was alright I might get into it if I listened to the B-side a little more

Of course they have great songs, but a lot of this album just kinda was there. I don't know.

Thought about putting "Help Me, Rhonda" on the playlist, but just not feeling it. It's a fine album.

The Beach Boys are all right. Something of an American institution. Our answer to The Beatles. This album was a decent listen.

Post surf era, pre pet sounds. Overall kinda meh

Nope

Honestly, not as good as I was expecting. Was expecting more surf rock stuff, but really only got ballads and vocal pop. Its fine. Same rating as Pet Sounds, and while I don't like the styles as much on Pet Sounds, it was much more interesting at least compared to Today.

Hell yeah Brian wilson

I cannot justify anything g higher than 3 stars. I also cannot justify anything lower than three stars. The second half was better.

I wonder what they'll come up with next!

Glimpses of Pet Sounds shoot off in this one. Always loved the version of Help Me Rhonda on this one...al jardine on vocals, a rare treat.

A little weird to read writing that calls this “one of the best albums of all time”…maybe you just had to be there. The harmonies are amazing, as always, but some of the songs themselves are kinda weird? Like the one about wanting to protect but also date your little sister. That one aged like milk. Anyway, 3/5.

07/10/2026 An average day was set up by an average album. Say no more. Spotify listeners: 11.5 million

Really enjoyed this. I don’t think it’s necessarily a 4 but better than a 3. I get comments about the matters that they’re singing about but almost no popular music of any era pop passes that test and those that might tend to be both boring and insufferable!

2,6/5

It's very 60's

Start of the magic.

Very nice, short and sweet. Prefer side 1 to 2 but a good intro to Beach Boys

The most 3/5 album, nothing seems special for me. Not bad but isn't something that will make me go back to it 3/5

Foot tapping and smile on my face . How many of today’s performers wee influenced by these guys.

If this was my list of 1001 albums to hear before you die there would be many more Beach Boys records included. If you’re new to the Beach Boys the starting point, obviously, is Pet Sounds. Your next step, in the British Isles, is 20 Golden Greats a TV Advertised best of that sold in such enormous quantities that you can pick it up for less than a fiver. Other countries will have their own versions. America’s is called Endless Summer. Next an early 70’s lo like Surfs Up, Sunflower, Holland. Probably then a version of Smile. Then a 60’s pre Pet Sounds lp. So the compilers restricting to Today!Pet Sounds/Surfs Up/ Brian’s Smile have done pretty well within the limitations of the format. Personally I would have gone for Surfer Girl or one of the full on Surf albums. Not because Today! Is a bad lp but because it’s the album before Pet Sounds where Brian is stretching his producer skills. I think the pure surf and harmonies belong on this list more than a transitional lp.

There's oddly little Beach Boys in this list, although I guess one could count some of the member's solo albums. Anyway, we're jumping earlier into their discography here. Not too early, though, as they began to ditch the car/surfing subject matter and started getting more intimate and orchestral. Honestly a bit of a precursor to "Pet Sounds" in some ways, considering that only released about a year later, but the seeds were still being sown. It's still fun though. Also interesting hearing the non-single version of "Help Me, Rhonda" here.

I mean, this album is fun and upbeat. It's not boring. It's just basic. It might be very influential and legendary, but this one doesn't hold up today for me.

I can appreciate the Beach Boys, but I have trouble enjoying the Beach Boys.

Beach Boys. 5

I gotta respect them for having a formula and sticking to it The Beach Boys at this stage of their careers were pretty good at making “fun” songs. Brian Wilson’s vocal contributions are good here, and definitely makes up for some of this albums shortcomings. Help Me Rhonda’s probably the best one on this, just a well executed track with some great instrumentals I think this one definitely suffers from a lack of variety; they don’t have nearly as much range as they demonstrate later in their careers. Musics definitely on the shallow side, which isn’t the end of the world since it sounds good but they’ve done better Pretty crazy to see the difference between this and Pet Sounds is just a year, they really refined their sound and made each song feel a lot more special. It isn’t bad by any means but rather a standard middle of the road album that doesn’t really fail or succeed

yeah its beach boys. paves the way for what they'll do next. they're singing about girls. the whole shebang. I liked the little studio sample recording of them getting food. probably the most memorable thing about it, which is pretty bad for a music album! Idk it's not bad but I can't say it grabbed me.

There’s still nothing quite like them.

love the beach boys

Do you wanna dance? - 4 Good to my baby - 3 Don't hurt my little sister - 3 When i grow up (to be a man) - 4 Help me, ronda - 5 Dance, dance, dance - 3 Please let me wonder - 3 I'm so young - 3 Kiss me, baby - 3 She knows me too well - 3 In the back of my mind - 3 Bull session with the 'big daddy' - na

좋아요

Butthole Boys on the beach slinging their fat hogs on their heads while they eat their own food and drink their own water and drink their own milk and milk and drink their own coffee and drink their own tea and their own milk and drink their bodies wyeiwywnnnnd

I can hear the appeal. Very young people music of that time. My fave on the album is “Help Me Rhonda.” The voices work well together, and would be fun to sing. Weird to hear songs about very young and wanting to get married.

Easy to listen to, couple Iconic songs.

Fun great music. Nothing all too deep and it works. (3.5/5.0)

Final Beach Boys already, huh? "Surf's Up" was exactly 40 albums ago. Truth be told, I was hoping I'd be more enthusiastic about these guys than I am in actuality. I gave Pet Sounds a 4/5 when I listened to it thanks to "God Only Knows" and "Caroline No", though I haven't felt compelled to revisit that album in the time since listening to it. Surf's Up was completely forgettable. I remember Wilson's distinctly warm voice and solid vocal melodies, though everything else about that album blew right over me. I don't have high hopes for this album given that it's the earliest in their included discography, though I shall go in with an open mind nonetheless. Let us commence forth. Hey, not bad! Quite concise too, which is something I can always rely on the Beach Boys to be. I guess I'd forgotten how adept the Beach Boys can be in the interlude between Pet Sounds and this album. I enjoy the quaint sound of this album, which is most notably conveyed through the elegant harpsichords and hokey brass/horn numbers. The leading pop rock guitar riffs and heartfelt songwriting are also solid staples of this album, even if they can be a little repetitious and samey. The album fumbles a little down the center thanks to some meager offerings, though all in all I thought this was an adept listen and something I wouldn't mind putting on in the future. I'll give this album a pre-emptive 3/5 for the time being. It'll have to stand the test of time if I'm to rate it any higher. For the first time in a while I don't need to check the book for reasons why this album is in here. Three Beach Boys inclusions seems about right for an artist of this standing, and this release was quite good! For those reasons, I'm content with letting this album through. I cosign this inclusion.

More of the same early beach boys. Dropped the surfing shtick for this album but didn’t change much else. Perfectly agreeable, nothing bad but nothing exceedingly great either. 3.5 stars. Will probs give it 3.

Enjoyable beach boys. I enjoy the harmonies and production. Very lush. Some of the song lyrics/subjects are just weird. 4 out of 5.

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Wow, what a fun little album! The vocal harmonies are on point, the songs themselves are fantastic, and you can almost feel the ocean breeze while listening to this album.

I'm quite surprised to see this album on the list, but I'm very glad to see it's on here. Released after All Summer Long (and not counting the Christmas album), Today! represents the complete departure of the Beach Boys songs from the beach and cars and girls (until you get to the 80s). This album still has covers, and the A-side is full of poppy, bubblegum tunes not too far off from what they were doing before. It's the B-side that's really spectacular and shows what Brian Wilson was capable of back in 1965. It foreshadows what's to come with Pet Sounds. The five songs that make up that B-side are simply magical. Two of them, Please Let Me Wonder and In the Back of My Mind, have to be a part of my favorite songs of all time. One's a blissful, harmony-filled yearning to a lover, and the other's riddled with insecurities wrenchingly sung by Dennis Wilson. The songs of the B-side feel very complete and cohesive. The album as a whole is fantastically produced, even the A-side hits. One side of upbeat classics, the other of anxious introspection. And then you have the last track, which legitimately ruins the album for me.

Yup, that's Beach Boys

absolutely not. the beach boys are always described as having ethereal harmonies but to me it's like being slowly smothered by a wet washcloth. jarringly juvenile song topics with not enough fun to make up for that. they continue to not be for me at all, 1/5

This isn't when it became clear that Brian Wilson is a genius -- that was probably a year earlier on his Be My Baby-ode Don't Worry Baby, itself one of the best pop songs of the 60s. But this is where he started thinking about the album as an artform to itself, with complex and inspired instrumental and vocal arrangements unified by his spin on the wall-of-sound aesthetic, separated into an upbeat first half and a melancholic second. The lyrics have evolved from the surfer beach stuff they began with, but I appreciate that, to someone coming into this new, it sounds like just a bunch of love songs. But much like on his masterpiece Pet Sounds a year later, there's a lot of his inner life coming into the writing, such as: “I'm so afraid that she'll unlock the door / And see me the way I really am instead of what I seem to be." With early to mid-period Beach Boys, much like the pre-Rubber Soul Beatles, you have to dig a bit deeper to see the brilliance in some of the musical choices, but the brilliance is there. Also, LISTEN TO THIS IN MONO! That's the only original mix, the stereo was created decades later, and it sounds far warmer and punchier in Mono. Also, i wonder how many people searching for something very different have been surprised to find what the track 'Bull Session with the Big Daddy' actual entails?

These sure are some fun silly tracks. Are they a cohesive *album* like all of the reception on Wikipedia seems to act as though they are? I'm not 100% sure. Maybe this is the problem with review an album retroactively, but it really doesn't seem like there's this ocean of depth that I'm reading about. Obviously, I can see that this was a departure for The Beach Boys, but it seems like it was a gradual transition rather than a leap into a new direction. It's not like I don't like the album, I just struggle to hear this bold new sound that is apparently pervasive within it.

Just positive stuff

Not my thing at all, didn’t like listening to it in the slightest

Ahead of today’s listen to The Beach Boys Today!, my experience with The Beach Boys and the Wilson brothers has been pretty mixed. Pet Sounds is easily my favourite Beach Boys album so far. I gave it 4/5 and loved the beautiful melodies, harmonies and songwriting. On the other hand, Surf’s Up only got 2/5. I found its moodier, more introspective sound pretty dull and really missed the energy and memorable hooks of their earlier music. So I think I know what I want from The Beach Boys. Give me the gorgeous harmonies, strong melodies and beautifully crafted pop songs, but lose some of the experimentation and self indulgence. The Beach Boys Today! is from 1965, so I was hoping this would be much closer to the Beach Boys I love. Thankfully, it was exactly what I wanted. Short and sweet, packed with brilliant two and three minute pop songs, fantastic melodies and those unmistakable Beach Boys harmonies. There’s something so effortless about this sound when they get it right. The songs are catchy, beautifully arranged and instantly recognisable as The Beach Boys. It’s not quite on the level of Pet Sounds for me, but you can certainly hear the band moving towards that sound. In places, this album is absolutely superb. There’s a simplicity to the songs, but underneath that there’s some brilliant songwriting and musicianship. This is definitely my kind of Beach Boys. Keep the songs short, give me a great melody and pile on those harmonies. A really enjoyable album from start to finish and one I’d happily listen to again. Favourite track: “Do You Wanna Dance?” Great tune and everything I want from The Beach Boys. Least favourite tracks: None. Every track was enjoyable and worth its place. Album artwork: Very much of its time! A classic mid 60s band cover.

Nothing objectionable about it. The Beach Boys sound is instantly recognizable. If somehow you've lived under a rock and never heard them, then you definitely should hear this. 3.5/5 rounded to 4.

Yup, that was definitely the Beach Boys.

too high pitch for this time of morning

Not tomorrow! Today.

Swings between wholesome and a bit creepy

Clearly the music, and the voices, and the harmonies are superb, but oh boy those lyrics.

3.5

Love the beach boys!

Peaceful and chill

If a barbershop quartet was a quintet at the beach

A joyous 1960s coming of age with some surprising little Motown sounds amongst the California surf rock. If the lyrics were problematic in 2026, I didn’t notice. “Help me, Rhonda” was the clear favourite.

Dance Dance Dance was the star. It's very good, but I think they have more potential than they displayed here.

The best thing about this album is the fact it’s only 28 minutes long. In that 28 minutes I hope they all had their balls clasped as hard as my head images they are from the pitch of their voices, I guess there’s some boy band harmonies, but to be honest I couldn’t understand half of what they where singing about, the most I made out was in the last track which was them all stood around talking I mean why did that need to be on the album?!? Should never be on this list. Best track- ‘don’t hurt my little sister’ Worst track- ‘dance dance dance’ the exact sound of every single beach boys track and this feels like the root problem to that! 1/10