It is now officially summer, easily my least favorite season of the year. It's too hot, too many kids out and about during the day, no close parking spots, it's too hot, I get chastised for being in the house all the time, the only major sport in competition is baseball, there is a higher quotient of bad movies, overweight young ladies too scantily clad, mosquitoes, and did I mention it's too freaking hot.
Now, summer does offer a few positives: swimming, 4th of July, listening to the Beach Boys (who's latest collection of greatest not-quite hits, Warmth of the Sun, is very good).... Speaking of which, I feel the first day of summer is a fitting time to celebrate (one day belatedly) the 65th birthday of Brian Wilson, genius behind the Beach Boys, who gave us one of my favorite quotes of all-time, “Beware the lollipop of mediocrity; lick it once and you'll suck forever." and one of my favorite albums of all-time, Pet Sounds. Tom Petty put it this way, "I think I would put him up there with any composer - especially Pet Sounds. I don't think there is anything better that that, necessarily. I don't think you'd be out of line comparing him to Beethoven - to any composer. The word genius is used a lot with Brian. I don't know if he's a genius or not, but I know that music is probably as good as any music you can make."
As a means to get you through the doldrums of summer, a Brian Wilson track you may actually be unfamiliar with. Everyone knows the Beach Boys classics, but this one, Melt Away, is from his eponymous solo debut album. Not exactly a summer anthem along the lines of Surfin USA, it's more of a sunset on the beach song; one might call it a re-visiting of God Only Knows, 20 years later.
Anyway, enjoy. Here's to a surviving another summer. And stay away from that suck-inducing lollipop of mediocrity.
2 comments:
you're not kidding about it being too hot so far this summer. we've pushed 100 in Denver. thanks a lot, global warming, you bastard. he doesn't show up when we're freezing our nuts off in the winter and comes full gale in the summer. thanks.
that Petty quote is telling. perhaps they'll be saying that about Loney, Dear one of these days?
I'm still trying to get over a 5-6 day stretch we had last summer when the LOW temperature didn't get below 85 and we had a record low temperature of 90 one day.
As for Loney, Dear, I don't think he'll ever be lauded on the same level as Brian because he (along with Lennon and McCartney) was one of the progenitors of pop music as we know it and so many of his songs are culturally ingrained. Emil simply doesn't (as of yet anyway) have the same impact (here or in his native land). Talent-wise, though, he could potentially get there, but I've only heard the one album; I need to hear more.
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