Brian Wilson- That Lucky Old Sun

Brian Wilson has something left in the tank.

25 years ago, Wilson was a crazy fat drug addict nobody thought would ever speak a coherent sentence again.  Call the long-long-long-long-awaited release of Smile the final rehab project.  Brian is making new music again- good new music.  That Lucky Old Sun has moments of Wilsonian brilliance.  It is nowhere near the sustained quality of SMiLE or Pet Sounds, but please excuse Brian Wilson for this album's surprisingly few faults.  Even forgetting what he's been through, Wilson is 66.  Add in all the history, and this album is a miracle.  It's also pretty good.

The album's premise is really corny.  It's a tribute to Wilson's native Southern California.  I could have lived without the narratives that split the music, but aside from the one where Wilson tries to use Spanish, they're not as bad as you would imagine.  The album's worst moments have to be when Wilson and the Wondermints try to rock.  They're just too clean and polished to pull off a 3-chord rocker like "Morning Beat", but even that song has a really cool motive at the beginning of the track.  Wilson is too old to sing something like "Mexican Girl".  That one could have been given to one of the younger singers.  "California Role" sounds like the Beatles' "Honey Pie" in the wrong hands.  "Oxygen to the Brain", Brian's admission to his past drug use, sounds too much like a bad SMiLE outtake.

But then there are some real gems.  "Good Kind Of Love" is the kind of whimsical pop-tune that reminds me that there is something left in the tank.  "Forever She'll Be My Surfer Girl" is clearly self-referential, but it's good enough to work.  "Live Let Live" is 70's Beach Boys done right.  I absolutely loved hearing the opening of the brilliant outtake "Can't Wait Too Long" rerecorded.  It sounds exactly like the original, but better.  I wish they did the whole thing.  "Midnight's Another Day" is a beautiful ballad.  It's a little bit overdone, but it is very effective, and it fits Wilson's range.  "Going Home" sounds like a lost corn-rocker from Love You, but it works.  Love that harmonica.  The closing ballad "Southern California" is really effective, and it ends the album on a good note.  So yeah, good album.