Beach Boys Cover Review: The Beach Boys' Christmas Album (1964)

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!

Beach Boys Cover Reviews: All Summer Long (1964)

As James Joyce famously wrote, "Yes". Yes yes yes yes yes. Here it is, the first great Beach Boys album cover. Jazz labels had been doing great covers for over a decade--why did it take Capitol so long to get going? Whatever the reason, I'm just glad they got there. This one is a home run.

Beach Boys Cover Review: Shut Down, Vol. 2 (1964)

Look at Al Jardine's smilin' mug. Way to make the cover, Al! Both more and less goofy lookin' than David Marks (probably because he wasn't fifteen years old), will his first cover appearance alter the score of Shut Down, Vol. 2?

Beach Boys Cover Reviews: Surfer Girl (1963)

There is an obvious mark against 1963's Surfer Girl album cover: This is just another photo from the cover shoot for Surfin' Safari. So it gets no points for originality. It does feature an image of the band themselves, which is a step up from Surfin' USA, but in this one they look like a bunch of dorks, whereas only a couple of them looked like huge dorks on Surfin' Safari. So Surfer Girl is kind of a toss up.

Beach Beards

Here is a quick explanation of the Beach Boys Beards scale. I am officially using this photo of bearded Beach Boys, as it seems representative of each beard's respective life cycle. Also, it's convenient that they are all together, even Brian (though there exist worse photos of bearded Brian).

Here are the explanations of the specific ratings.

1. Brain Wison-This one is just rough. The other Beach Boys (barring maybe Dennis, who was naturally cool) grew beards to look hip and with the times, and managed to do so with some level of success. Brain grew his beard because he was too detached from the world to even shave any more. His beard is a portrait of defeat, and is sad for me to look at. Obviously, that is the bottom of the scale.

Beach Boys Cover Reviews: Surfin' USA (1963)

1963 was a big year for the Beach Boys. They released three albums, two of which would go gold (including this one), and one (Little Deuce Coupe) which would go platinum. I guess you could say this was the year they really made it. And they made a lot of music, very quickly. Which brings us to their second album, Surfin' USA.

Beach Boys Cover Reviews: Surfin' Safari (1962)

The Beach Boys are, without question, one of my favorite bands. Their story is complex, unpredictable, and ultimately tragic, and it represents almost everything quintessential about mainstream rock music.

But who wants to hear about that? I do, but I'd rather talk about their album covers instead. So, over the next while, I am going to review each of their album covers in chronological order, on a scale of 1 to 5 (or possibly some ratings system based on the [core five] members' beards, from 1 [Brian Wilson] to 5 [Carl Wilson]). So, let's start with the 1962 debut, Surfin' Safari.