BRIAN WILSON: GETTIN' IN OVER MY HEAD (2004)
1) How Could We Still Be
Dancin'; 2) Soul Searchin'; 3) You've Touched Me; 4) Gettin' In Over My Head;
5) City Blues; 6) Desert Drive; 7) A Friend Like You; 8) Make A Wish; 9)
Rainbow Eyes; 10) Saturday Morning In The City; 11) Fairy Tale; 12) Don't Let
Her Know She's An Angel; 13) The Waltz.
Cured as he was, it is notable that Brian did
not actually engage in that much new songwriting ever since getting rid of the
evil Dr. Landy: the majority of his new albums either revisited old territory,
or were filled with covers and tributes, or, like this one, were a rather
choppy-chompy mess. Here, at least four or five of the songs were re-recorded
from Sweet Insanity, an abandoned
project from 1991 — and quite a few others were pulled from various older
projects as well. And for the really new songs, Brian gets himself extra
security with the presence of three giants as guest stars: Elton John, Eric
Clapton, and Paul McCartney.
Knowing Brian, though, «messy» is not
necessarily a bad word when it comes to assessing the albums of a man who had
once made it his business to arrange genius in messy ways, and wrenching
beauty out of chaos. The songs written for Sweet
Insanity were more or less on the same level as those written for his
self-titled debut; the presence of such eminent guest stars on a Brian Wilson
record could hardly hurt, and, most likely, many fans had waited an eternity to
hear Brian and Paul on the same record (technically, they already did, but
Paul's carrot chomping is not nearly as distinctive and recognizable as his
singing). There's even the ghost of brother Carl making a cameo here on ʽSoul
Searchin'ʼ, an old outtake from which brother Brian erased all the vocals but
Carl's, then added his own touch. Possibilities ahoy!
Critics and fans alike destroyed the album,
though — almost literally knocked it to the ground, in a rather vicious way at
that — and I am somewhat at a loss as to why, because I kinda like it. Now it
is certainly true that it is not at all ambitious: clearly, the idea was to
make a simple pop album, without aspiring to scale Smile-type heights. It is also possible that true fans, who were
already well acquainted with Sweet
Insanity through bootlegs, were disappointed about not getting their
money's worth (not that they paid that earlier money to anybody except
bootleggers). And it is also true that the lyrics to most of the songs are
kinda crappy, but then Brian's never been a great lyricist on his own anyway.
But on the whole as well as in parts, Gettin' In Over My Head still offers
enough cute, harmless fun — enough to empathize for the old guy and brighten
your day, particularly if you're an
old guy too (this is very important: ever since his «revival», Brian has stayed
completely out of touch with the young generation, while at the same time staying
young at heart — this is a paradox that can either irritate or amuse, depending
on your initial attitude). The songs are reasonably well (self-)produced,
relatively catchy, completely amicable, and each one contains a small drop of
the Brian Wilson essence — maybe that ain't enough to love it, but I sure do not see that many reasons to hate it, either.
Of the three superstar collaborations, ʽHow
Could We Still Be Dancin'ʼ is probably the best one. You really can't go wrong
with Elton banging the keys like crazy on this sort of «pub pop» (his vocals,
unfortunately, are rather dusty), the harmonies are top-notch, and the
optimistic vibe of this typical «old geezer anthem» feels totally sincere. (Also,
kudos to the line about "how could we still make music after MTV?",
which is delightfully ambiguous). ʽCity Bluesʼ, with Clapton, has an almost
surprisingly harsh blues-rock lead guitar part all over it, and although the
Clapton / Wilson link is far from the most natural thing on earth, it is not
the least credible, either: Brian's sad, melancholic side ("the strange
loud people made a mess of the world", he complains) is quite compatible
with Eric's trademark blues licks.
Weakest of the three, unfortunately, is the
Wilson/McCartney collaboration. ʽA Friend Like Youʼ is just a bit too obvious a
title for such a collaboration, and things get even more confusing when you
realize that the title is the only
line in the song that Paul is allowed to sing solo — when his is clearly the
stronger of the two voices at the time (in fact, Brian now sounds like Ozzy's
younger brother at certain times, which is all the more eerie considering how
much Ozzy is a fan of sentimental piano ballads, too). Even so, denying the
song's catchiness or sincerity would be an insult to both of the elder
statesmen.
Occasionally, the retro vibe does get corny —
ʽDesert Driveʼ is a flat-out re-write of ʽ409ʼ that does not even try to mask
this fact, and we do not usually take lightly to self-plagiarism, even if it
invites us to take it symbolically and realize that Mr. Wilson still feels a
very tight connection to the old days of pre-Beatlemania. It is also hard for
somebody like me who is almost alergic to make-merry musicals to harbor
positive reactions on cheerful dreck like ʽSaturday Morning In The Cityʼ (sorry).
But, if anything, this all contributes to the rather colorful diversity of the
record: having its relative ups and downs is probably a better fate than
staying permanently jammed in consistent mediocrity. Even if Brian is not
pushing for greatness, he is at least continuing to experiment with format,
and that's unequivocally a good thing.
Ultimately, a thumbs up here: missteps and dumb
lyrics ("she had a body you'd kill for / you hoped that she'd take the
pill for" would be moronically sexist if it weren't already so completely
ungrammatical) aside, it's too much of a fun-fun-fun carousel ride to be dismissed
with an intellectual or musicological blast of arguments. You'll probably have
to wait to hit at least forty to make an objective assessment — a twenty-year
old hipster who reveres Brian Wilson for Pet
Sounds and/or The Beach Boys Love
You will hardly be impressed at this stop.
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