Review Summary: Mid-Life Crisis: The Album.
The reputation of The Beach Boys’ 1992 foray into nostalgic circle-jerking, known as
Summer in Paradise to those masochistic enough to investigate it further, precedes itself to no uncertain degree. It was at this point where Mike Love’s efforts to steer the band further down the commercial tightrope fell apart in the most spectacular of ways. Highlighted by sanitized covers of old Beach Boys songs and doo-wop numbers, low-lighted by perverted expressions of affection to girls a third the age of the band members, and filled out by
Full House star John Stamos drumming, singing a bit and overall serving as nothing but a commercial ploy of the most bizarre kind. Thankfully, even the record-buying public responsible for making “Kokomo” a #1 hit were not having anything to do with the album, and after selling less than 1000 copies, it sank beneath the waves, only reappearing occasionally in the form of a collector’s item that fetches $30 on eBay fairly consistently.
And yet, for all of
Summer in Paradise’s faults, at least the album had some sanity provided in the form of guitarist and best vocalist in the band, Carl Wilson. Even though his appearances are limited to maybe half the songs on the record (and his lead vocal duties restricted to about 2-3 songs), hearing him in the harmony stack or out front is a burst of fresh air that keeps the madness at bay, if only temporarily. Having Al Jardine and Bruce Johnston in the mix helps as well (even though both were still roped in with Mike’s nostalgia-oriented line of thinking at the time). At least the listener doesn’t have to be subjected to the Lovester being front-and-center for literally every minute of every song.
Looking Back with Love does not afford the listener this luxury. The first, and (until 2017) only, Mike Love solo album to be officially released, it’s a record that has entered the realms of “meme-dom” amongst hardcore Beach Boys fans, and for good reason. The front cover alone is a disturbing image in and of itself, as Mike stares into your soul with the expectation that you’re about to spend some “quality time” with him (32 minutes and 26 seconds, to be exact). Considering that even in the band’s heyday, the Wilson brothers were considered their so-called “sex symbols”, it’s debatable whether many wanted to spend “quality time” with a 20-something year-old Love, let alone a 40 year-old Love. While it is true that Mike holds a special place in most Beach Boys’ fans hearts, it’s more similar to how cholesterol holds a special place in your heart; it’s best to have it in moderation, because too much of it can *** you up for good.
To be fair to Love, it’s not as if
Looking Back with Love would have been salvageable with anyone else singing lead; the production is as cheap as can be and would have sounded dated in 1987, let alone 2017. The song choices are even more uninspired; about half of the tracks are bland covers of 50’s tracks, highlighted by a loping cover of the classic “Be My Baby”, which has none other than Brian Wilson on backing vocals so low in the mix it’s impossible to distinguish him from the other Beach Boys imitators who supplement Love’s nasal leads. There are a few new “original” tracks on the record, though Love himself only contributed to the writing of one. The title track opens the album with numerous lazy lyrical references to previous Beach Boys songs and 60’s hits, culminated by a section where they blatantly steal the chorus from the Jan and Dean hit “Surf City”. Some call it “paying respectful homage”, I call it “opportunistic, commercialized plagiarism”.
But this brings up the topic of Mike Love himself; beyond just his being a nasally and annoyingly pitchy singer, there’s a pungent aura surrounding almost everything he creates that is just inescapable throughout this entire album. As true as it is that Love’s primary motivation has been $$$ since the 60’s (hence his pushback against
Pet Sounds and the aborted
SMiLE project), there’s something else at play here, as well as on
Summer in Paradise and virtually every nostalgia-filled project he’s helped create. Together, Mike and his music are the aural manifestation of a mid-life crisis; a middle-aged man heavily pining for his “glory days”. The difference is, while most middle-aged men are content with purchasing a motorcycle or an expensive car and playing with that toy until they get bored and their mid-life crises are, in effect, over, Mike Love has never moved on. He has constantly tried to promote the idea that if he writes and performs music which harkens back to the 60’s, somehow he will be considered “cool” for re-living such a potent and idealistic time in American history. Sadly, it appears that for at least the last 25 years, the only person convinced of this being the truth is Mike himself. And at this point it appears he will never be persuaded otherwise.
So as much as I want to laugh at
Looking Back with Love and its numerous cronies that have appeared (officially or not) throughout the years, truthfully it’s a situation that’s almost sad more so than it is amusing. This isn’t a case of an artist epically ***ting the bed in an attempt to be creative, nor is it an album that’s offensively bland. It lies in a sort of “no-man’s-land” between the two, a terrible record that manages to be offensively bland on top of that. And the overall vibe you get from it is that of a middle-aged man who has not mentally moved past the age of 25, and even today still hasn’t. Sadly, Love has dropped other solo material since then (including another full-length studio album in November 2017; a double-album at that). Unless you are such a devout masochist that you take pleasure in hearing an older man’s mid-life crisis committed to tape over a period of almost 40 years, I would not recommend checking them out. Or this.
