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Carl and the Passions - So Tough/Holland |
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| Styles: |
Adult Contemporary - Oldies - Pop - Rock - Classic Rock - Classic American Rock |
| Media: |
Audio CD |
| Release Date: |
20 August 2001 |
| Label: |
Emi |
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| UPC Catalogue No: |
724352569427 |
| Amazon Sales Ranking: |
2849 |
| Number of Discs: |
2 |
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Description |
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Married together as a 2-CD package for the first time, these two long-haired, counter-cultural Beach Boys albums (from 1972 and 1973 respectively) make strange bedfellows. For all the cherry-red warmth of the record sleeve, Carl and the Passions comes across as pallid, brittle, sullenly graceful and every bit as introspective as staying in with the lights-out and the curtains drawn on a Saturday night. Respect due, though, to Brian Wilsons' cunningly disguised rocker "Marcella" and Dennis Wilson's ultimate downer; the sparse and mournful "Cuddle Up". Holland, on the other hand, is the Beach Boys "Great Outdoors" record, beating the retreat from the sand and surf of yore to the redwood forests and mountains of "Calfornia Saga" (purists still prefer the unreleased waltz-time version of "Big Sur"), with evocative stories of fur-trappers, traders, Native-American rights and dreamlike, hazy summer afternoons on riverbanks shaded by paddle steamers. It was also their last great studio album. --Kevin Maidment |
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Tracks |
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| 1 |
You Need a Mess of Help to Stand Alone |
| 2 |
Here She Comes |
| 3 |
He Come Down |
| 4 |
Marcella |
| 5 |
Hold on Dear Brother |
| 6 |
Make It Good |
| 7 |
All This Is That |
| 8 |
Cuddle Up |
| 1 |
Sail on, Sailor |
| 2 |
Steamboat |
| 3 |
California Saga/Big Sur |
| 4 |
California Saga/The Beaks of Eagles |
| 5 |
California Saga/California |
| 6 |
Trader |
| 7 |
Leaving This Town |
| 8 |
Only With You |
| 9 |
Funky Pretty |
| 10 |
Mt. Vernon and Fairway Theme |
| 11 |
I'm the Pied Piper |
| 12 |
Better Get Back in Bed |
| 13 |
Magic Transistor Radio |
| 14 |
I'm the Pied Piper |
| 15 |
Radio King Dom |
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Customer Reviews |
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AT LAST : overdue reissues of undersold gems |
Rating: 5.0 |
Here at long last, after however much wrangling in studios and offices, is the kind of music that the Beach Boys really deserve to be remembered for. Yes, Pet Sounds is very fine, but here are the real highs - still undermined with fay noodlings as always, but that's the price of the process. Make your own edits with the remote, and you won't be sorry to own this, or the sublime melodies and arrangements of the Sunflower/Surf's Up pairing. I'm off down to the beach to play frisbees with the early stuff. Happy listening, George Davis-Stewart. |
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Beach Boys on song again! |
Rating: 4.0 |
For any fan of the Beach Boys who respects or is curious about their progression as musicians from the early Sixties through to the Seventies,these two albums are a must.Songs like Marcella and The Trader show the Boys back on top of their game and the inclusion of two South Africans in the line up produces what I believe to be gems of the Seventies namely Here she comes,Hold on Dear Brother and Leaving this Town. But if none of this appeals to you then Make it Good by Dennis Wilson might; a song that is brimming with all the emotions in the world and could almost have been written for his funeral ten years later. Absolutely brilliant! |
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Holland is Great/Carl & The Passions-Couple Of Good Songs |
Rating: 4.0 |
'Carl & the Passions' sounds like an unfinished album. The good songs, 'Marcella' a Brian Wilson 'classic' at the time, really shows the group singing and playing very well together. 'Cuddle Up' by Dennis Wilson is overdrenched in strings, which buries a song that could have been really good without the over production. The rest of 'Carl & The Passions' is barely tolerable listening. 'Holland' is the best Beach Boys album of the 70's except for the, 'Beaks of Eagles'? Carl and Dennis shine on Holland as do Ricky Fataar and Blondie Chaplin. Blondie Chaplain's vocals on 'Sail On Sailor' really put the Beach Boys music into perspective. Dennis' 'Only With You' with Carl's sweet lead vocal is the standout song on the album. |
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Sublime listening - in no way a disaster |
Rating: 4.0 |
If you were to believe what you were told, Carl and the Passions is a murky, half-finished, unlistenable mess, and Holland is a couple of good songs unfortunately punctuated by a Mike Love-penned atrocity in 'California Saga'. So when I finally got the scratch together to buy this, I was delighted to find that both albums were not only listenable, but very good indeed. The addition of Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar makes this a different band even from the Surf's Up/Sunflower era (with Bruce 'I Write The Songs' Johnston's occasional twee numbers). It's a rootsy, live sound a million miles away from Pet Sounds. Carl and The Passions 'So Tough' is a sweet little 8 tracker, bookended by the highlights of Brian's loopy honky-tonk 'You Need A Mess of Help to Stand Alone' and Dennis' string-drenched, emotional monster 'Cuddle Up'. 'All This Is That' is as gentle and moving as anything they did in the 70s. 'He Comes Down' is kind of rotten but you can always put your fingers in your ears during the verses. Holland is a self-consciously weightier statement, full of tricksy arrangements (if someone told you 'Steamboat' was by some little band on Sub Pop, you'd believe them), great singing and playing. Carl Wilson is a colossus on both these albums and his 'Trader' is the high point - a great shame this was the last time he was in charge. The California Saga is insanely hippy-dippy in places, but if you can't draw pleasure from the amazing voices and melodies then you must be dead from the neck up. And the Van Dyke Parks-assisted 'Sail On Sailor' is a tour de force. Tacked on the end is Brian's EP 'Mt Vernon and Fairway', which I calculate you will probably listen to once, if you can get through it. It's meant to be cute, I suspect 'harrowing' is a better word. This isn't the place to start listening to the Beach Boys. If you want to pray at the church of Brian Wilson, these aren't the albums for you. But if you want to hear oddball, melodic, inventive, beautiful American music rich in ideas, I don't think at the price you'll be let down. |
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Very interesting. Very Beefheart. Very Zappa. |
Rating: 4.0 |
This is emphatically NOT Country-Rock. Blues? Soul? Do Wop? Rock'n'Roll? Possibly, with Americana folk flavourings featuring mandolins, fiddles, harmonica. This multi-ethnic Beach Boy line up are serving up proto-world music with traditional flavours and lovably quirky synthisizer noodlings and lots of experimentation. Very Frank Zappa and exceedingly Captain Beefheart in the collage of styles. As a Beefheart aficionado I lapped this up BIG TIME! It is wonderful. My first impression of 'Steamboat' with it's rolling chiming synth backing was 'Krautrock' like Bowie and Eno's 'LOW' or something.This is a chronically interesting collection that won't disappoint - it's not Pet Sounds, but it is wonderful arty blues/folk rock in the Beefheart and Zappa vein. Adding to the genre without mimicking Beefy or Frank. This will appeal to fans of comtemporary 'alternative' tastes. |
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