Frighteningly literal: the concept album about the tragic life of Brian Wilson
It’s impossible not to draw from one’s influences at some point. For every great original track that an artist puts out, there will always be a few comparisons made to people who either did it better years before or how the artist in question interpolated a collection of notes from some random indie record from 1985. My Little Cheap Dictaphone weren’t shy about their love for the classics, though, and their journey into the mind of Brian Wilson was something to behold on The Tragic Tale of a Genius.
When combing through rock and roll history, most songwriters have been pulling from Wilson’s playbook without realising it. Although no one is looking to listen to tracks about having fun in the sun as they did back in the 1960s anymore, what Wilson accomplished in the studio through pieces like ‘God Only Knows’ and ‘Good Vibrations’ are still among the finest pop ever made.
Wilson may have had a great upbringing trying to finetune his songs to perfection, but he didn’t get there without hardship. Because as much fun as being in The Beach Boys might have seemed back in the 1960s, that decade also saw the band getting involved with everyone from the psychological manipulator Eugene Landy to Charles Manson at one point, all while still trying to combat dealing with the Wilsons’ abusive father as their manager.
That kind of upbringing feels like it should be lifted out of some intense drama, so it’s no surprise that many people have tried to put it on screen at some point. Although there have been a handful of TV movies that try to depict the dark side of Wilson’s career and a pretty solid biopic of him with Love and Mercy, the best way to know Wilson is in the songs.
From day one, Wilson put his heart and soul into every recording he made, and to fully understand the man behind it all, My Little Cheap Dictaphone took all the hallmarks of their idol and channelled them into their album. Opening with the kind of overture that wouldn’t feel out of place opening a song like ‘California Girls’, the entire project toes the line between being an ode to Brian while also being frighteningly literal.
As much as fans like to pen tracks in dedication to their favourite artists, the band packs so much into songs like ‘Piano Waltz’ that they may as well be singing from Wilson’s perspective. Combined with their unique take on the traditional Beach Boys harmony sound, half of the record feels like the group is trying to create a version of what Brian Wilson would have made if he started making hits in 2010 rather than 1966.
While there are some phenomenal tracks to come out of this experiment, like ‘What Are You Waiting For’, the songs also fall into a strange, uncanny valley where they start to remind people a bit too much of The Beach Boys. As much as the album is a fine take on that flavour of rock and roll, it feels like the band is playing musical dress-up some of the time rather than actually breaking any new ground.
Still, that doesn’t discount what they’re doing in the context of music history. Artists like The Lemon Twigs are also heavily influenced by the sounds of the 1960s, and yet their music is still some of the best that indie has to offer. My Little Cheap Dictaphone may not have been the most high-profile band to bring the oldies back to people’s attention, but maybe we need a reminder of why those old songs sounded so good back in the day.
