Another erratic early album from
the Beach Boys; few other rock LPs have such a wide gap between the best and worst material. On the good side, you have absolute classics in the
Chuck Berry-ish "Fun, Fun, Fun" and the superb "Don't Worry Baby," one of the most advanced pop productions of 1964 with its breathtaking harmonies and unusual lyric. "The Warmth of the Sun" is one of the most melodic (and melancholic) ballads they ever recorded, and "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" is one of their best oldies covers. Yet the rest reduces the oceanic scale of the classics to dishwater, whether they're throwaway hot rod tunes and instrumentals, innocuous high-school romantic ditties, or a soulless cover of "Louie Louie." When this album hit the racks in early 1964,
the Beatles were proving that you could make LPs that were all killer, no filler;
the Beach Boys would soon be forced to up their ante. [Capitol's 2012 reissue, mastered by Mark Linett earlier that year, contained mono and stereo versions of the album; the mono versions had never appeared digitally.] ~ Richie Unterberger