Your favorite BEACH BOYS LP besides PET SOUNDS

The Beach Boys Christmas record is pretty dang cool. I was looking for something to put on over the holidays, forgot I picked it up from a long ago thrift store binge. Surprised me it did, but then again I didn't have high expectations either. 

After only Chuck Berry, Brian Wilson is my second choice for "Most Influential Artist (Rock n Roll Division)".  At the end of the day, "Smile" seems (to me) to offer the greatest insight into Brian Wilson's creative process.   On that basis, it's my favorite Beach Boys/Brian Wilson record, including Pet Sounds.  The music on Smile may be a bit uneven, but that's part of the charm, IMO.  It's also the BB/BW record that I revisit most frequently.

I somehow missed your 01-30-2016 post Marty, with which I concur 100%. There are others I listen to for different reasons: All Summer Long for it’s "before sex and drugs" innocence, Sunflower for The Beach Boys finally putting out a good album on a sympathetic label (Reprise/Warner Bros.), Wild Honey for it’s soul (yeah, The BB had it---at least Carl and Dennis did), Surf's Up, Holland and Carl & The Passions for a few great songs ("Marcella" and "Til I Die" are fantastic), Love You for it’s goofiness (Honkin’ down that gosh darn hiway :-). After that it got real bleak real fast, and Brian’s solo albums are a pretty sad spectacle. Dennis’ solo album is pretty dramatic, and his decline from drinking (I sat with him at a table in a bar in Venice in ’82; he was drinking alone, his face very puffy) and then death a real loss.

This should be on the music thread.