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The real breakthrough, as Brian Wilson asserts himself in the studio as both songwriter and arranger on a set of material that was much stronger than Surfin' Safari. Besides the hit title track and its popular drag-racing flip side ("Shut Down"), this has a lovely, heartbreaking ballad ("Lonely Sea") and a couple of strong Brian Wilson originals ("The Noble Surfer" and "Farmer's Daughter"). There are also a surprisingly high quotient of instrumentals (five) that demonstrate that, before session musicians took over most of the parts, the Beach Boys could play respectably gutsy surf rock as a self-contained unit. Indeed, the album as a whole is the best they would make, prior to the late '60s, as a band that played most of their instruments, rather than as a vehicle for Brian Wilson's ideas. The LP was a huge hit, vital to launching surf music as a national craze, and one of the few truly strong records to be recorded by a self-contained American rock band prior to the British Invasion.
The Beach Boys
Surfin' U.S.A.
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AllMusic Review by Richie Unterberger
Track Listing
| Sample | Title/Composer | Performer | Time | Stream | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
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2:30 | SpotifyAmazon | ||||
| 2 | 1:52 | Amazon | |||||
| 3 | 2:05 | Amazon | |||||
| 4 | 2:02 | Amazon | |||||
| 5 | 2:24 | Amazon | |||||
| 6 | 1:52 | Amazon | |||||
| 7 | 1:54 | Amazon | |||||
| 8 | 2:05 | Amazon | |||||
| 9 | 1:43 | Amazon | |||||
| 10 | 2:14 | Amazon | |||||
| 11 | 2:00 | Amazon | |||||
| 12 | 1:40 | Amazon |
