Consumer Guide Album

The Beach Boys: Holland [Brother/Reprise, 1972]
I admit that this sounds real good--it's engineered clear and bright as a redwood mountain stream--but to overlook what's doing the sounding is formalism as deliberate stupidity. That is, the actual music and words are murky and dim. I suppose that in time their tongue-tied travelogue of Big Sur may seem no more escapist than "Fun Fun Fun," but who'll ever believe it's equally simple, direct, or innocent? C