Robert Christgau: Dean of American Rock Critics

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Consumer Guide Album

The Beach Boys: Sunflower [Brother/Reprise, 1970]
If you can feature the great candy-stripes grown up, then this is far more satisfying, I suspect, than Smile ever would have been. The medium-honest sensibility is a little more personal now, soulful in its Waspy way. Maybe they weren't really surfers or hot rodders, but they were really Southern Californians, and that's what their music was about. It still is, too, only now they sing about water, broken marriages, and the love of life. Still a lot of fun, too. A-