The Beach Boys - "20/20" (double album)

 

It’s no secret that the Beach Boys and the Beatles saw themselves as friendly rivals and influences. Vocal parts of the Beatles’ “Paperback Writer” were influenced by the Beach Boys’ “I Get Around.” And the race was on: Rubber Soul begat Pet Sounds which begat Revolver. The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” single certainly upped the ante and expectations were high for the next album Smile.

But then the Beach Boys basically went off the rails with Brian Wilson’s drug use and resulting mental issues. Plus, I would argue that while interesting, the songs recorded for Smile just weren't strong enough. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band came out in May 1967, and when Smile was kind of salvaged with Smiley Smile issued four months later, there really wasn’t much of a competition anymore.

However, the Beach Boys' influence on the Beatles continued at least for a little while. It’s been suggested that the Beach Boys’ Wild Honey may have helped convince the Beatles to use a more of a back-to-basics approach for The Beatles, and certainly the opening track “Back in the U.S.S.R” is a Beach Boys homage.

I wondered if the competition was still in effect, whether the Beach Boys might have followed the Beatles with their own double album (and this is, of course, assuming Capitol Records execs would have agreed to this for a band whose market value was by now greatly diminished).

I wanted to take all the tracks the Beach Boys recorded in 1968 following the release of their Friends LP and expand the 1969 album 20/20 to two discs.

SIDE A

1. Intro 

2. Do It Again 

3. We're Together Again 

4. Well, You Know I Knew 

5. Peaches 

6. Be with Me 

SIDE B

1. All I Want to Do 

2. Walkin'

3. Away 

4. Cabinessence 

5. Sail Plane Song 

6. Been Way Too Long (Can't Wait Too Long) 

SIDE C

1. I Can Hear Music 

2. Old Folks Home / Old Man River 

3. Is It True What They Said About Dixie? 

4. Cotton Fields 

5. Bluebirds over the Mountain 

6. Mona Kana 

SIDE D

1. Oh Yeah 

2. Never Learn Not to Love 

3. Walk on By 

4. Time to Get Alone 

5. I Went to Sleep 

6. The Nearest Faraway Place 

7. A Time to Live in Dreams 

8. Rendezvous (Do It Again) 

Twenty-four tracks are taken from two sessions: May – July 1968 and September – November 1968. The two concessions are “Cabinessence,” originally recorded in 1966 for Smile but which received new overdubs in 1968 before being included on 20/20, and “Away,” an outtake from the Friends sessions.

In arranging the tracks for the four sides of this theoretical album, I considered humor (which was very important to Brian Wilson) and pseudo themes. My version of this album opens with a snippet from “The Gong,” taken from the I Can Hear Music: The 20/20 Sessions. I only use the 27 seconds of the Dennis Wilson's (3:16-3:44) "new day" speech as a lead-in for “Do It Again.” I use the alternate version of this song from I Can Hear Music that's about 25 seconds longer than the single version. I thought it was kind of humorous to have "Do It Again" followed by "We're Together Again." The rest of the first side is dominated by Dennis Wilson songs. One of these, "Peaches," was a demo and I've used a fan-created mix that helps smooth out the rough edges.

After opening with the rockin' "All I Want to Do," the second side has a vague travel theme with “Walkin’” followed humorously by “Away,” and then “Cabinessence” (“Who ran the iron horse? Have you seen the grand coolie workin' on the railroad?”) and “Sail Plane Song.” I ended the side with “Been Way Too Long” (aka “Can't Wait Too Long”) and used a fan-created, six-minute “ultimate mix” version.

The third side opens with “I Can Hear Music” and then focuses on covers of older music, including “Old Man River / Old Folks Home” (1920s), “Is It True What They Said About Dixie?” -- with the Wilson brothers' mother on lead vocal -- (1930s),  “Cotton Fields” (1940s) and “Bluebirds over the Mountain” (1950s), before ending with the instrumental “Mona Kana.”

The final side opens with the oddity “Oh Yeah,” and the last five tracks share a vague theme of “time” and “dreams.” To close the final side, I used an edit of only the last 42 seconds of “Rendevous,” an early version of “Do It Again,” to bookend the album.

Overall, I think this gives a much bigger picture of the Beach Boys at this time than the actual 20/20 album. But even if this version of the album had been released at the time, I can’t say if it would have been successful. Given that the actual 20/20 managed to make to only #68 on the Billboard charts indicates that the Beach Boys' career was for the times in the dumper. However, 20/20 surprisingly rose to #3 in Britain, so who knows?

For the album cover, I used a photo from the same photo shoot as the actual 20/20 cover, which I think is far superior.

Here is a YouTube playlist of the album, but it doesn't include the first and last tracks that I used personal edits for.

Sources:

• I Can Hear Music: The 20/20 Sessions - A1 [edit], A2, A4, A6, B1, B2, B5, C3, C5, C6, D1, D3, D7, D8 [edit]
• 20/20 - B4, C1, C4, D2, D5, D6
• Made in California - A3
• Mr. J Wilson - A5
• Wake the World: The Friends Sessions - B3
• Hawthorne, CA: Birthplace of a Musical Legacy - C2
• Summer Love Songs - D4
• forjustsomemusicstuff - B6