Friends

Bruce Beatlefan (July 26, 2008)

Friends was the first Beach Boys album to have no top forty singles (the single "Friends" ran out of gas at #61), and it seems to have no standout song, but nevertheless remains a very highly regarded album among Beach Boys fans due to its sanguine, peaceful spirit which remains throughout each song.

This might be due to Mike Love's time at Rishikesh, which (temporarily, at least) seemed to change the energetic, competitive striver into a blissed-out meditator. When this new attitude, he contributes to three lovely songs ("Meant For You", "Anna Lee the Healer", and "Transcendental Meditation") which blend in well with the already-mellowed Brian Wilson reaching a new high in the languid level (in spite of his inner turmoil) in his songwriting ("Friends", "Busy Doin' Nothin'").

Friends introduces a new middle phase in the Beach Boys' mucismaking, a phase in which Brian Wilson is not the central songwriter, and focuses the spotlight on the other members. Alan Jardine makes significant contributions in two fine songs, "Wake the World" and "When a Man Needs a Woman", and Dennis begins his astonishing writing career with his sensitive creations giving lie to his reckless hard-driving lifestyle. He is to subsequently do far better things than his first efforts "Little Bird" and "Be Still", but they are true harbingers for the delicacy and tenderness of his latter songs.

In the middle years the Beach Boys create a series of albums which will not energize you or cause you to dance or surf or go hot-rodding, but rather to listen to often and let the music bliss you out. Friends is the first of these middle-years albums, and will not excite you in its first listenings, but the quality of the music should win you over if you give it a chance.