The Beach Boys have announced the long-awaited “We Gotta Groove:The Brother Studio Years”, a 73-track, 3LP+3CD box set covering studio sessions from 1974-1977.
The set includes 35 previously unreleased tracks and 22 new mixes.
Disc one features a new remaster of Brian Wilson’s maverick masterpiece, 1977’s “Love You“, along with outtakes from the sessions. The second disc offers tracks originally intended for “Love You’s” abandoned follow-up, the much-bootlegged “Adult/Child“, along with backing tracks and miscellaneous outtakes from the period. And the final disc comprises new mixes of a clutch of tracks from 1976’s “15 Big Ones“, along with outtakes and backing tracks, plus “Love You” alternate mixes and demos.
“We Gotta Groove” focuses on the period that saw band leader Brian Wilson take centre stage for the first time since abandoning the SMiLE project in 1967. The huge success of the band’s 1974 greatest hits compilation “Endless Summer” (over three million copies sold in the US alone), along with their renewed popularity as a live draw, meant that demand for new material was the strongest it had been for years. The band – in particular Carl and Dennis Wilson – spent 1974 and ’75 demoing songs that showcased their growing maturity (some of which appear on “We Gotta Groove’s” second disc), but despite the best efforts of the younger Wilson brothers, their record label pushed for the return of the altogether more bankable elder brother.
Brian returned on production duties for “15 Big Ones“, a collection of new interpretations of rock’n’roll standards with a smattering of originals intended to ease him back into the fold. But if the label were expecting to sit back and watch the dollars roll in, they would be disappointed – Brian’s embrace of Moog and ARP synthesizers and gruff vocals were a world away from the nostalgia-filled hits of his youth. Still, the hype around the album was enough to make “15 Big Ones” their biggest hit in over a decade.
Most importantly, it led to a purple patch of creativity, with Brian throwing himself into sessions for “Love You” and “Adult/Child“. The songs he recorded for “Love You” are unfiltered and raw, all fuzzed-up synths, bizarre and often childlike lyrics, hoarse vocals and killer melodies. It’s difficult to think of a stranger and more uncompromising album released by a major artist.
“We Gotta Groove” includes “Love You” in its entirety, along with a bunch of previously unreleased outtakes and demos, including the set’s title track. Back in the day, Brian wasted little time on moving on to the tracks bootlegged as “Adult/Child” and here presented as “Adult/Child Sessions“. The best songs – the beautiful ‘It’s Over Now’ and ‘Still I Dream Of It’ – will be familiar from previous archive releases, but improved sound quality will be a massive draw for fans.
The three CDs in this six-disc multi-media package effectively repeat the content from the three vinyl records and then go beyond that by offering additional outtakes and alternate mixes that the LPs don’t have space to accommodate. Packaged in a 12-inch slipcase it includes a 40-page booklet with sleeve notes featuring new and archival band interviews and the Brother Studio engineering team, archival photos and a complete sessionography with detailed production credits.
“We Gotta Groove: The Brother Studio Years” is out 13th February via Capitol/UMe, although it should be noted that this box set is not available via traditional retail channels at all. It’s all D2C (direct-to-consumer) so you will need to seek out Beach Boys / Universal Music channels to order it – although at the time of writing it appears to be SOLD OUT (update: it is now newly available from The Beach Boys store in the USA and uDiscoverMusic.com in the US with a 20th March release date, which suggests a repress).
The Fat Angel Sings 