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Endless Harmony | 
| Artist: The Beach Boys
Label: Capitol
Category: Music
Buy New: $11.98
Rating:  31 reviews
Sales Rank: 158513
Format: Soundtrack
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 24002
UPC: 724352400225
EAN: 0724352400225
ASIN: B00004R95Y
Release Date: March 28, 2000
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Promotion: Save $10.00 when you spend $50.00 or more on Qualifying Items offered by Amazon.com. Enter code BMLSAVES at checkout. Terms and Conditions
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Tracks:
| • | Soulful Old Man Sunshine | | • | Soulful Old Man Sunshine | | • | Radio Concert Promo 1 | | • | Medley: Surfin' Safari/Fun, Fun, Fun/Shut Down/Little Deuce Coupe/Surfin' U.S.A. | | • | Surfer Girl | | • | Help Me, Rhonda | | • | Kiss Me, Baby | | • | California Girls | | • | Good Vibrations | | • | Heroes And Villains | | • | Heros And Villains | | • | God Only Knows | | • | Radio Concert Promo 2 | | • | Darlin' | | • | Wonderful/Don't Worry Bill | | • | Do It Again | | • | Break Away | | • | Sail Plane Song | | • | Loop de Loop (Flip Flop Flyin' In An Aeroplane | | • | Barbara | | • | 'Til I Die | | • | Long Promised Road | | • | All Alone | | • | Brain's Back | | • | Endless Harmony |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com essential recording
Those familiar with the Beach Boys' decades of familial squabbles and personal discord will find the title Endless Harmony almost too ironic. But this soundtrack from the band-sanctioned VH-1 television special wisely focuses on the band's undeniable vocal prowess and the vaunted composing/arranging/producing skills of its chief architect, Brian Wilson. It also manages a fresh take on one of the most over-exposed catalogs in pop, largely by raiding the vaults for some unexpected gems. Twenty-one of the 23 music tracks (two brief radio promos are also included) here are previously unreleased. Several Brian Wilson demos give insight in to his creative process. Worshippers of that grail of unreleased albums, Smile, will be excited to find that the piano demo of "Heroes and Villains" also includes snippets of "I'm in Great Shape" and "Barnyard," long-lost pieces of that legendary album/puzzle. Wilson's demo for "Breakaway" illustrates how he would arrange songs by recording each band member's vocal part himself--Wilson quite literally is the Beach Boys here. Also notable is "Surf's Up" engineer Steve Desper's radical (for 1970) remix of Wilson's fatalistic classic "Til I Die," early versions of "Do It Again," and "Help Me, Rhonda," and gorgeous (if heretical) stereo mixes of "California Girls" and "Kiss Me, Baby." The other band members' creative instincts are succinctly documented, but as always, it is the sound and vision of Brian Wilson that overshadows them. "Genius" might just be too weak an adjective. --Jerry McCulley
Amazon.com
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Endless Harmony DVD |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 26 more reviews...
 Thank you Brian! April 9, 2007
Joseph M. Davis (Boston, MA USA)
This cd is worth it's weight in gold just for the STEREO remixes of California Girls and Kiss Me Baby... let alone the previously unreleased and unique Soulful Old Man Sunshine. My neighbors must think I have a beach party going on in my apartment 24/7.
Great Carl material here. His barebones demo of God Only Knows shows how great Brian's masterpiece is even before erecting the wall of sound. Carl again SOARS on his live performance of Darlin'.
Like another reviewer mentioned, this cd is aimed at the sophisticated, advanced Beach Boy afficionado... but anyone will love the sounds here. Very special bonus- Brians demo of Heros and Villains on piano! Again Bruce Johnston comes up with a cool title (Endless Harmony) but his actual songs aren't quite Brian Wilson level material... but then again whose songs are? Terms like genius and legend get overused... but Brian Wilson is the definition of both. We should pull Bush and Cheney's secret service detail and have them protect Brian. He is our greatest national treasure.
 Good if not great, and not just for diehard fans! March 4, 2007
lighten_up_already2 (Kirkland, WA USA)
One of the frusterating things about being a Beach Boys fan is that sooner or later you own all the Beach Boys stuff that's out there, and then you wonder if you really do or not, and you go looking for more.
Well, if you already own all their regular studio albums, this might be the next thing to buy. I'm glad I did. Here's why:
The live Medley is a lot of blast-from-the-past high energy fun.
The Surfer Girl "vocal only" track is beautiful.
The alternate version of "Help Me, Rhonda" is great, and it makes you wonder how many other alternate version of their great hits are out there that you may never get to hear.
You get a minimalistic live performance of Good Vibrations that still totally works.
There's the rough-cut and live versions of Heroes and Villians for you Smile fans out there.
A moving live rendition of God Only Knows.
An early "draft" version of Do It Again without the "hey now" backing vocal, but it totally works for me.
The Sail Plane Song and Loop de Loop, which frankly I think are awful, but you get to hear two different takes on the same musical idea, so even that was interesting.
Finally, Brian's Back and Endless Harmony (Beach Boys singing about themselves in retrospective) which are very different but both beatiful in their own ways.
All in all, a fine addition to your Beach Boys collection.
This one's for the diehards March 25, 2005
Greg Brady (Capital City)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
If the only Beach Boys songs you know are the 10 that get played on "oldies" radio, this collection isn't for you. "Endless Harmony" gathers together a variety of live cuts, demos, unreleased material and alternate versions of some of their most well-known and some of their least-known but critically guarded tunes.
The drawbacks are minimal..The radio concert promos are only interesting to see how "square" promotion for concerts once was. "Brian's Back" appears in good sound but it's really just a pastiche of cliches. "Endless Harmony" is somewhat better at capturing the essence of the sound Brian Wilson put together if still only a middling track. "Loop de Loop" is a bizarre sound collage from Al Jardine that shows him overreaching his grasp artistically.
Outside of these, there's a treasure trove for the Beach Boys connoisseur, and not only the Brian enthusiast. "Soulful Old Man Sunshine", a 1969 outtake Brian co-wrote with the Sunrays Rick Henn, is phenomenal and really leaves you to wonder how they let it languish in the vault. This song is better than a lot of the material they did release in 1969 and some of what ended up on "Sunflower". It's a vocal tour de force with a somewhat jazzy feel. "Help Me Rhonda" is here in an alternate take that ALMOST became the single. It's almost identical to the released version except for a very high "wah wah wah" vocal (I'm guessing from Brian?). It's obvious it still would have been a hit this way but it sounds odd to my ears because I'm used to hearing it differently. Still the "wah wahs" are pretty catchy..hard to say if the "official" version is better or not. You also get a demo of Brian and Van Dyke Parks writing "Heroes and Villains" at the piano that lets you hear a vintage performance of SMiLe section "I'm in Great Shape" and "Barnyard" in their infancy. A rare 1972 live version of "Wonderful" appears as part of a medley with a Flame song (recorded at Carnegie Hall). As a sidenote, Mike intros it by saying it's "from Smile..which should be out this year". Obviously history proved him wrong until 2004. The demo of "Break Away" shows you both how well formed a musical idea was when Brian brought the others into the studio and how much he added to give it extra "oomph" before release. It's OK here..but the final version with the added "Feel the vibrations...and all the sensations" coda make it really sing (regardless of whether others felt Brian "undersold" it..) The early version of "Do it Again" is more spare and would not have been a hit. It doesn't yet have the toned down guitar solo, handclaps on the verses, and the "hey now" part on the bridge that helped make it magical. A fine 1972 live version of Carl's "Long Promised Road" is packed with energy (though it does show how important the 'trombone' part is to the song via its absence here..). Dennis fans will love "All Alone",a fantastic ballad from never released solo album "Bamboo".
BOTTOM LINE: If you own both box sets and the 70s material, you need to have this.
Essential for Beach Boys fans/collectors March 10, 2005
Michael Stack (North Chelmsford, MA USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is not a good release for a casual fan or someone exploring the Beach Boys, but for fans and collectors, this is essential material. A compilation of random, scattered unreleased tracks from the Beach Boys' career, the focus is their late '60s/early '70s material.
There's a number of live tracks, alternate mixes, etc., most of which I won't speak of because while they're great, they're not exactly extraordinary-- I'll discuss that stuff.
Opening with the unbelievable "Soulful Old Man Sunshine", filled with jazzy big band-esque arrangement and stunning harmonies, this is an essential lost gem in the Beach Boys catalog finally being released.
Also essential-- a demo of Smile sections! Brian at the piano singing several sections, including the main H&V theme, Barnyard, I'm in Great Shape, this is really essential-- Smile in two and a half minutes!
A couple other pieces that deserve noting-- we get some early versions of "Do It Again" and "Break Away"-- the latter is actually Brian's demo and is really revelatory in terms of his construction of songs, as much so as the Smile demo.
There's also two unreleased Dennis pieces, "Barbara" as a solo piano number and "All Alone", both are brilliant, particularly the former, and an extended mix of "'Til I Die".
All in all, a great value-- collections of unreleased tracks run the risk of being extraneous, but there's precious little here that could qualify in that light, and much of this are incredible finds that any fan will be grateful to hear.
Highly recommended if you're a Brian/Carl fan August 20, 2004
Benjamin Lukoff (Seattle)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
If you're a fan of Brian Wilson and his brother Carl, you should pick up this CD if only for "Soulful Old Man Sunshine," a previously unreleased 1969 track that's unlike anything else in the Beach Boys' catalog. Beyond that, there are wonderful new stereo mixes of "Kiss Me Baby" and "California Girls" that make you wish everything from before "20/20" could get the same treatment, plus Brian's demo of "Break Away." This, the greatest thing Murray Wilson ever did besides fathering the Wilson brothers, makes you wonder why Brian let Carl and Al take the lead vocals on the released track instead of doing it himself. (It also demonstrates that every other Beach Boy save Carl was superfluous when Brian was in full control of his faculties).
However, if you're new to the Beach Boys, a fan of their car and surfing songs only, or just getting into their post-"Today!" period, I'd avoid this for now.
PS: Lowlights include the last two songs, Mike's "Brian's Back" and Bruce's "Endless Harmony."
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