Surfin' U.S.A.

Title

Surfin' U.S.A.

Trivia

The second Beach Boys studio album
Released on Capitol on March 25, 1963
Top chart position #2 USA, spending 78 weeks on the chart
The first Beach Boys album to chart in the UK, although only in September 1965. It reached #17 there.
Production credit is Nick Venet
This album has five instrumentals, easily the most on any Beach Boys album

Review

No other Beach Boys album captures the atmosphere of the surfing craze as well as the their second effort, which also happened to feature their first major hit, Surfin' U.S.A., while the album was also the first of the group's to taste major league success. Five surf-flavored instrumentals fill out the vocal tracks, which feature some of Brian's first falsetto-style lead vocals on Farmer's Daughter and Lana.Surfin' U.S.A and Shut Down are, of course, surf and drag standards respectively, but the real meat of this album is Lonely Sea which is the first time we see the band in introspective mode, and is an early pointer to the glories of Pet Sounds.

Overall, this is an entertaining if not completely substantial album, but given that most of the instrumentation is by the band, it shows that the Beach Boys were perfectly competent singing and playing the "surf" style of music. An album to crank up by the big waves on a lonely beach on a hot summers day!

Rating