Most of all, it is the album that the group and Reprise hope will put the contemporary band back on top of the charts, in the same league with their former selves. It is Brian's first solo Beach Boys production since Wild Honey in 1967. It is the Beach Boys' first studio album since Holland in 1972. This context is crucial, for a lot is riding on 15 Big Ones. What few tidbits surfaced seemed equivocal: Brian's Christmas record for the Beach Boys in 1974, "Child of Winter," was extremely odd, and his production and singing on California Music's 1975 remake of "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" also sounded, well, off. By 1976, the man who had authored and produced all those early hits and much of their best later work, from Friends to Holland, was less a vital creative voice than a mute object of speculation and gossip. In fact, for the past three years, they haven't been able to cut much of anything.
Unfortunately, the once and future real-life Beach Boys haven't been able to cut a commercial new record. Meanwhile, the Beach Boys once again became one of the biggest concert draws in the United States, largely on the strength of a tight set that increasingly emphasized the surf and car oldies. It went on to sell over a million copies, spawning Spirit of America, a successful follow-up. In 1974, Capitol Records released Endless Summer, an anthology of Beach Boys material form the "Surfin' U.S.A."/"Help Me Rhonda" era, circa 1962-65. Brian Wilson, the group's absentee genius, hasn't toured with them since 1964 the last Top Ten hit he wrote and produced for them came in 1966.īut that chronology only tells half a story. Today, the reference point is Gregorian chant, and the rock is for the ages. "We're still singing that same song," the Beach Boys chime on 15 Big Ones, their long-awaited new album, and a check proves that the personnel hasn't changed since 1962.