Fun, Fun, Fun –
Don’t Worry Baby –
Back on schedule! But for how long??? O.O
Shut Down Volume 2 (1964), The Beach Boys. This was a no brainer. Sunday I got the amazing opportunity to see Brian Wilson live and I’ve been hooked on Beach Boys for the past week. Sadly apart from a live album, this is the only album I have on vinyl by them…but still, what an album!
The Beach Boys got their start mostly as a family band. It consisted of the Wilson brothers Brian, Carl, and Dennis, their father as their manager, their cousin Mike Love, and their close friend Al Jardine. The lineup would slightly change over the years, but most of their music consisted of tunes created by Brian with lyrics written by Mike. Brian would also produce a large portion of The Beach Boys records for several years. Their early music would come to shape and define surf rock by fusing the rock and roll of Chuck Berry and the multi-part harmonies of bands like the Four Freshmen. Their later works would dive into more avant-garde fields and complex arrangements that would really push the envelope in the music industry.
This particular album came right at the beginning of Beatlemania, and would end up holding its ground during the rush of the British Invasion. The record hit before the Beach Boys and The Beatles rivalry became a thing; a friendly competitive spirit that would drive both bands to really strive to release some of their best work. It followed their previous record Little Deuce Coup, another album arguably ahead of its time, which is sometimes pointed to as the “first” concept album (and I’ve already said plenty about concept albums before). Shut Down Volume 2 is oddly named because the album Shut Down already existed, but it was not exactly a Beach Boys album. It is a compilation album that featured several different “hot rod” tunes. The biggest name on the record happened to be the Beach Boys, so they used the name of their song on the album as the album title, which was “Shut Down”
Alright, so maybe I didn’t get too creative with my song choices off this album (since I chose the two really famous tracks), but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth while! The first one is “Fun, Fun, Fun” which was originally titled “Run, Run, Run” and if you know the tune you can see how it would still work. The lead vocals on this one are handled by Mike, which was more characteristic of their faster tunes or the lower base parts. The second one is “Don’t Worry Baby” with the lead part done in Brian’s recognizable falsetto voice. The song provides an interesting contrast against “I Get Around” (which it was fittingly released with as a single), which presents a carefree depiction of a teen “living the life.” Whereas “Don’t Worry Baby” is more sad in tone and hints at danger as the singer must reluctantly take place in a race because he bragged too much about his car.
On a side note, my record player is practically dead. It is considerably worse than last week and I really don’t even listen to records anymore because it’s gotten so bad. This week’s Monday LP needed to be heavily edited to be listenable, which isn’t a terrible thing, but I feel you can hear it a little more in my poor editing skills. So not sure if I’m gonna be taking a break from these for awhile. We’re just gonna have to take it week by week o_o NOTE: I have rerecorded these songs on a new record player.