I'll admit I'm kind of late getting this review out there, but let's use it as a chance to reflect on the time time which was. It's The Beach Boys' Christmas Album! This one is goofy and wonderful, and you'd have to be a Mr. Potter to not love it. There is nothing not to love about a silly picture of our heroes decorating a Christmas tree. This is the kind of thing that set these guys apart from the Beatles. They would only do something this wholly silly if it was some Butcher Cover protest. The rest of the time they were either mugging like little kids or, with time, looking all serious at the camera. Either way, they were taking themselves pretty seriously. Not our boys. They probably love Christmas. Everybody loves Christmas. Let's decorate a tree!
Of course Dennis is stretching out to top the tree, of course Carl is sort of looking a way keeping to himself. All of the standard Beach Boys personas are showing through here in a pretty fun way. Besides that, I should use this space to point out some foreshadowing. Note the appearance of what looks an awful lot like a couple of the sweaters which will appear next on Beach Boys Today. The sweaters are even less diversified here, but these covers were never about attention to detail, really. Also, perhaps most significantly, note the first use of the Green/Yellow color scheme which will come to define the cover of Pet Sounds. Was there a grand Beach Boys cover master plan??
Of course not, but it's fun to notice, and helps it fit nicely in the cover canon.
Finally, note the proper use of apostrophe in the title. You have to give props to that. It was a 1964 Christmas album cover, who is going to call them out if they don't do it? Nobody. But somebody in the art department had the presence of mind to put a little bit of care into this.
This one gets a point for every original song on the album. Minus one. Kids, that's a 4 out of 5, or an Al Jardine on the Beach Boys Beards scale. Merry late Xmas!
You can buy this at the checkout line in Whole Foods.
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