We Gotta Groove – The Brother Studios Years, a new 73-track box set, picks up the story of the Beach Boys at a deeply peculiar juncture in their career. On the face of it, they were back on top. Their commercial fortunes had been revived by the huge success of some timely compilations: in the US, 1974’s Endless Summer sold 3m copies, while 20 Golden Greats became Britain’s second-biggest-selling album of 1976. Their leader Brian Wilson was apparently, miraculously, match fit after years of addiction and mental health struggles. “BRIAN IS BACK!” ran the advertising slogan for 15 Big Ones, the first Beach Boys album to bear his name as sole producer since Pet Sounds, and the first to be made at their newly founded Brother Studios. Buoyed by a media campaign that included an hour-long TV special, it duly became their most successful album of new material in 11 years.
But, as ever with the Beach Boys, it was more complicated than it initially seemed. As a succession of features noted, Wilson didn’t seem to be terribly well at all. A Rolling Stone writer dispatched to meet him was startled when Wilson asked him for drugs midway through the interview, and expressed grave doubts about Eugene Landy, the controversial psychologist supposedly responsible for Wilson’s recuperation. A Melody Maker journalist who saw the Beach Boys live that summer declared that Wilson “shouldn’t be subjected to being propped up onstage”, noted that he looked visibly distressed and made no musical contribution. Rather than a triumphant return, 15 Big Ones was a hastily thrown-together mess of cover versions and wan new material, its sessions marked by disagreements, not least over whether Wilson was even capable of producing an album. The band’s members openly disparaged it on release: Dennis Wilson bluntly described one track as a “piece of shit”. The public who bought it seemed to lose interest quickly: the Beach Boys did not score another Top 10 album of new material for 36 years.
