‘Summer in Paradise’: The definitive proof that Brian Wilson was the best member of The Beach Boys
It would be easy to label Brian Wilson as the greatest asset that The Beach Boys possessed throughout their career and point to his most notable achievements in the group as being the best way to measure his importance. You can talk about how he reshaped pop production with the resplendent brilliance of Pet Sounds, or how Smile could have eclipsed that if he’d finished the album as intended, and you can make a strong case for how his influence and input on other records such as All Summer Long, Surf’s Up or Holland is what makes them stand out as lesser-known fan favourites by the band.
However, while most arguments about why Wilson was the most vital component to the band’s success point to his individual contributions, it doesn’t zoom in on the other side of the coin, which is establishing what the band would have had to offer if Wilson had not been involved or overseen the creative direction of the group.
It’s worth noting that the Beach Boys released some absolute stinkers with Wilson still in the band, and while he had relinquished some creative control during the creation of missteps like 15 Big Ones and M.I.U Album, he hadn’t fully stepped away from the band when these albums were released to widespread contempt. However, as dreadful and unlistenable as these records might be, they’re not as outright baffling or devoid of any redeeming qualities as their worst offering as a group.
Summer in Paradise, which was released in 1992, represents the Beach Boys at rock bottom; unable to recapture the magic of their earlier successes and appearing to be so radically out of touch with the cultural developments happening around them that any attempt to make themselves appear relevant became instantly laughable. If there’s one thing that Wilson can be proud of about the album, however, it’s the fact that he’s absolved from any association with the record due to not having any involvement with its creation.
As mentioned, his tenure with the band didn’t leave him with a clean record, but nor were the misguided creations that he contributed to enough to fully tarnish the Beach Boys’ reputation in the same way that Summer in Paradise managed to. He was never a stranger to recording covers of other artists or reworking older material of his own, but Summer in Paradise was so heavily reliant on these reimaginings that when attention is drawn to the original songs that the remaining members wrote for the album, they stick out as lacking in inspiration.
Wilson may not have objected to the band offering up interpretations of the Drifters’ ‘Under the Boardwalk’ and Sly and the Family Stone’s ‘Hot Fun in the Summertime’. He also probably wouldn’t have had any qualms with the band continuing to write about surfing despite all pushing 50 years old and probably suffering from arthritis that would prevent them from participating in extreme sports. He probably wouldn’t have even taken issue with the cheap production from Terry Melcher, having recruited him to work on their 1988 album Still Cruisin’ – even if it sounds like a crappy beginner’s experiment with ProTools (which it is).
However, there are few moments in the band’s output that are as horrendously ill-advised as their midlife crisis rap effort, ‘Summer of Love’, and the overall hollowness of the album feels so distant from the vibrant technicolour production of their earlier work. The Beach Boys had previously been hailed for Wilson’s groundbreaking and ahead-of-its-time approach to production – Summer in Paradise, by contrast, feels unbelievably dated for 1992.
Many bands have attempted to create music that sounds like the Beach Boys, only for it to come out as a mere pastiche of what the band were capable of, but no band has ever created a more lacklustre tribute to the Beach Boys’ legacy than the band themselves managed to produce on Summer in Paradise. Wilson’s track record might have been far from perfect, but at least he had nothing to do with what is undoubtedly their worst moment.
