The Beach Boys album Brian Wilson hated making: “He forced us to do it”
If The Beach Boys had decided to rechristen themselves ‘The Wilson Brothers Band’ halfway through their tenure, no one would have batted an eye. Despite everything that Mike Love contributed to the group alongside Bruce Johnston and Al Jardine, the magical harmony between Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson was half the reason why the harmonies ended up sounding so well together. For as much as Brian seemed to own the band, Love was always fighting for a position, and Wilson was pissed when he had to go along with making 15 Big Ones.
By the time the 1970s started, it already looked like The Beach Boys had become yesterday’s news. Every single piece of their discography was still untouchable from a musical standpoint, but was anyone really going to go to bat for them in an age when acts like Led Zeppelin were roaming the Earth?
No matter what they were going to be, change was in the air, and Love felt the best way to get back in the public’s good graces was everyone’s favourite emotion: nostalgia. Rather than try to expand their craft, 15 Big Ones is a mix of covers and originals that feel like the group is trying to relive their glory years throughout every song.
Despite getting their start doing riffs on classic Chuck Berry tunes, their covers of songs like ‘Rock and Roll Music’ are far more toothless than they probably should be, especially with the harmonies sounding all out of whack. As much as Brian was the boss of the group, even he hated Love taking charge on this album.
According to Brian, he didn’t really have a say in the matter, saying, “15 Big Ones started out as an album of nothing but oldies, but then we ran out of them. Halfway through, Mike Love decided to make the record half old and half new. I didn’t like the idea at first, but he literally forced us to do it his way. I resented that”.
Granted, it’s not impossible to see where Love was coming from. He had famously told Brian not to stray too far from the formula when making their biggest hits, so throwing it back to the kind of baby-boomer nostalgia of yesteryear should have worked on paper. Considering acts like The Rolling Stones and even the former Beatles were moving on to better things, though, the whole album feels more like a giant step backwards.
Even though their next outing, The Beach Boys Love You, is far from a masterpiece from back to front, it’s at least a lot more authentic to where they were at the time than listening to them relive their glory days. Despite being one of the more forgettable entries in their catalogue, 15 Big Ones is more of a baton-passing moment between Love and Wilson.
Whereas Brian could still deliver outstanding music, Love started to sink his teeth into every piece of the band’s affairs, to the point where he ended up taking over after Brian left and turned some of the most mediocre Beach Boys tracks on albums like Summer in Paradise. Sure, Brian may not have had as many originals up his sleeve, but if 15 Big Ones had fallen on deaf ears, maybe we wouldn’t have had to endure songs like ‘Summer of Love’ later on.
