Artists starting with B

Holland

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Beach Boys, “Holland” (Brother/Epic, 1972)
This is the Boys at peak mellow. With its drifting-cloud tempos and piano that sounds like it was recorded in the depths of one of the city’s canals, this gives every sign of having been fueled by bales of Amsterdam’s finest combustibles. As compellingly hedonistic-utopian a representation of life in the hammock as their early work was of life on the curls.
Try 1 and 3, 4, 5 (comprising an epic trilogy!)
10/21/16

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Love You

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Beach Boys, “Love You” (Reprise, 1977)
With Brian fully on board, the Boys offer their definitive statement of gently sun-baked late ‘70s SoCal eccentricity. Lots of dazzling but oddly dislocated piano and orchestral fanfare-sweeps that spotlight the naïve yet acute lyrics and melodies, driven along by Dennis’s languidly funky minimalist drum pulse. Maybe their last unequivocal class.
Try 1/ 2, 1/ 4, 2/1
4/7/19

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Summer Days and Summer Nights

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Beach Boys, “Summer Days and Summer Nights” (Capitol, 1965)
The Boys at arguably their peak, one foot still in the streamlined, ice-cream-paint-job pop-rockabilly-plus-hormones of their early era, the other stretching into the light-and-shadow mode of Brian’s melodically shifting introspections.
Try A/4, A/6, B/2, B/3
6/9/19

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Ten Years of Harmony

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Beach Boys, “Ten Years of Harmony” (Brother, 1981; original recordings 1972-81)
I happen to love the Beach Boys’ much-maligned ‘70s work; mellowing out in the studio with an ample supply of wine coolers and valium was the logical period-specific iteration of their evolving L.A. leisure ethos, and the sparse yet lush chorale-and-treated-instruments tunage often has a vastness and serenity that justifies itself in spades (and contains numerous pockets of serious weirdness).
Try 1/5, 2/4, 2/8, 4/7
8/16/15

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Cigars, Acapella, Candy

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Belmonts, “Cigars, Acapella, Candy” (Elektra, 1990; original recording 1972)
Dion’s backing boys get back together for a last blast of their youth, raw, loose and unaccompanied. This has a really unique feel, alternately exuberant and autumnal.
Try 6, 9
8/16/15

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Fade Away

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Best Coast, “Fade Away” (Jewel City, 2013)
After a well-loved noise-pop debut album and a more coolly-received follow-up that experimented with a more muted sonic palette, Best Coast are back with an EP that combines both approaches for their best work yet. Haunting melodies, towering swells of reverbed guitar and (the most dramatic development) sharp, incisive lyrics add up to something pretty special. New LP coming this spring and I can’t wait.
Try 1, 3
1/23/4

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The Only Place

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Best Coast, “The Only Place” (Mexican Summer, 2012)
Despite the big-name producer, this still sounds quite modest-sized, though most of the fuzz is gone. Essentially, this is just another fine Best Coast release, the feel less neon-beach surf and more Laurel-Canyon-folky than last time. The songs are more intricate and subtle, less immediate, but this is growing on me already.
Try 1, 4, 8. 11
4/30/12

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Crazy On You

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Best Coast, “Crazy On You? (Mexican Summer, 2010)
In moving from bedroom-4-track-land to a “real” studio, Ms. Coast inevitably peels away a layer of the mystery that gives her work its distinctive charge, the sensation that’s oceanic yet intimate. The good news: lifting the haze (and adding drums) reveals an excellent rock and roll band, jarring, propulsive and basic like Beat Happening or the Modern Lovers when they began, at the service of bittersweet melodies that linger in the mind’s ear. My favorites are “The End” and “When The Sun Don’t Shine.”

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Hard Times for Dreamers

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Beyond Veronica, “Hard Times for Dreamers” (Fetish Pop, 2012)
Pretty good garage-rock (not really “punk”). The sound is too clean and there’s not enough edge to the performances, except the spirited female singer, but they’ve got a nice pop sense, and it all has a charming, small-town feel.
Try 2, 10
7/26/12

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Never Look Back

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Bhang Revival, “Never Look Back” (Snake Eye, 1989)
Great lost all-female Chicago garage-punk act, fast, hard and melodic but also with a heavy/psych aspect. This captures a blinking-in-the-grey-dawn, lost-girls-in-the-city take on late-‘80s Chicago in all its adventure and mystery.
Try A/1, A/2, B/1
1/23/14

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