Brian Wilson Reunites With the Beach Boys for New Album, Tour, Reissues ->
In the spirit of the holidays, I react to this in My Best Jimmy Stewart Impression: Aw…aw n-naw, naw-naw-naw!
The Beach Boys have been a perennially-touring joke for at least half of the 50 years they’re celebrating. I remember seeing that they were coming to Florida a few years ago, only to recoil in horror when I realized they were playing at Cypress Gardens, which was a theme park in the middle of nowhere that combined all the boringest parts of Sea World with, uh, trees (which is to say it was “old,” pre-Disney Florida, but not in a cool way, though now it seems it will reopen as Legoland Florida, which okay whatever).
Perhaps it was inevitable, given this century’s glut of reuniting boomer bands, but I’ve secretly hoped that The Beach Boys would never reconcile their differences and just continue to fade further off into the sunset. Like I said, Mike Love has been sort of milking them as a nostalgia act for decades anyway. They set a precedent for this way back in 1974, when Endless Summer came out. But the idea of Brian re-joining the band and writing new material together feels different, like they’ve taken a look around and realized there’s a boatload of cash to be made in trying to reinvigorate their fan base. Please just age gracefully, dudes.
