Move Right Along Dept. - Light Album

I'm hoping this post will go unnoticed in the heady excitement of the U.S. election. It's an indulgence. But it's an album configuration that's given me massive pleasure overload, and so here it is. I apologise. Please don't download it or even finish this post. Go away, and leave an old man alone with his harmless pleasure in the twilight of his life.

L.A. (Light Album) was the last full Beach Boys album. Brian hardly figures at all, but that's okay, that was his role back then, that's what they paid him for. The key players are Carl and Dennis, and if you dismiss this album (as most critics do, with language more suited to judging mass murderers) you're missing some excellent late work by the brothers. Bruce Johnston And His Eternal Fucking Shorts came back in, but his contributions are production and singing, and he's swell at both. So what's the problem? Why does this near-great album get such a kicking? Disco, mainly.

Unforgiveable, right? W.T.F. were they doing? Re-imagining one of their old Rn'B stompers as a ten-minute disco workout was a crazy idea, inciting Beach Boys fans to tiki-torch protests and creating a tsunami of meh among the glitterball crowd. But if you can purge yourself of all that cultural conditioning and listen - don't dance - you're rewarded with an extraordinary piece of music. Curt Becher helped produce, so you know it's going to shimmer. Think of that pounding beat as hip motorik if that helps. Or the four-on-the-floor pump of the Hot Club. Screw in your ear buds and listen to everything else that's happening - mainly the amazing full-on Beach Boys harmonies, the almost symphonic development you don't usually hear in disco, and that million-dollar-delicious sound.

Shortenin' Bread? Filler. It's gone, because it's shit, and I don't care if you do like it. So that leaves two Tracks Of Cheese by the Cheese Boys, Mike and Al. They don't stink. Pretty melodies, nicely sung, what the fuck. It's a Beach Boys album, and we should allow for this stuff.

I've added California Feeling as the lead-in track. Slated for the album, this is the composite from the Made In California set. I've not included a couple of other possibles because they're excess Cheese Brothers, but Dennis' Constant Companion (originally intended for the album) from Bambu fits fine. Carl has two of his swooniest tunes, and what not there like to is?

Critics seeking hip credibility praise Love You and loathe this album. But they don't have a lounger in the shade on th' Isle O' Foam© like you do. Relax, while there's still time!