The Beach Boys-Love You (1977)
Artist: The Beach Boys
Title: Love You
Label: Reprise/Brother
Format: LP
Cat #: MSK 2258
Year of Release: 1977
Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 1977 Los Angeles Pressing
Listed Condition: G+/VG
Sell Date: 8/15/25
Sell Price: $12.33
Discogs Last Sold: 8/11/25 VG+/VG+ $9.99
Low: $3.95 NM/VG+ 2/15/22
Median: $9.99
Average: $10.58
High: $26.20 3/27/24 VG+/VG+
Current low price: $12.16 VG+/G
Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 2
Have/Want: 322/136
Where Sold: Chicago, IL
Time it took to sell: 2 years
Where and When Bought: new Facebook marketplace $2 lot
Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: C+
Sad To See It Go: No
The Beach Boys Love You was a long time curio for me. I knew Christgau gave it an A and it was slaughtered in the first two Rolling Stone Record Guides. I'm somewhere in the middle of these opinions. It has since been reassessed as later period good Brian Wilson-led album. The songs themselves didn't make it with the band out of the 70's, but "Roller Skating Child," the song that was to my ears the best song on the album, was played quite a bit in 1979 but never after that. The roller rink died with Disco called Disco in the 80's. The song however was a straight up Beach Boys-style song. It just replaced surfing with the trend of the day. Once that was over, the song had served it's mass audience purpose. More so than "Honkin' Down The Highway," the single that didn't chart.
I bought this for the first time a couple years ago and decided to throw it on a few weeks after Brian Wilson died. After I heard it once, I felt that might be it for a lifetime, but now that this sold, I'm familiarizing myself enough to write about it.
There were a few other songs that stood out. The first listen "Johnny Carson" made my ears perk up for it's filler/not so quality. The song before it, "Mona" has a bit of a haggard quality vocally that I like. The closer "Love Is A Woman" has it's melodic charms in the verse.
This brings us to the seemingly most insignificant track that to Brian Wilson was perhaps the most significant song of them all. It was co-written with Roger McGuinn on SPEED and "fleshed out" while McGuinn retired for the night. Wilson was still going at it 8 hours later. Like "Dig It" by the Beatles, there is a much longer version that didn't make the cut. For good reason! It was rehashed recently by AI. In this case, the version is relentless and better than anything on the album. Ding Dang.
Spinnin' in circles like a wild boomerang.
FOR FURTHER REVIEW:
California Girls/All Summer Long (1971)
Various Artists-41 Original Hits From The Soundtrack of American Graffiti (1973)
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