Pacific Ocean Blue

Product Information

Fornatale, Pete (November 3, 1976). "Interview with Brian Wilson" (MP3). NY Radio Archive. WNEW-FM 102.7.

Recorded at roughly the same time as The Beach Boys' Love You, Pacific Ocean Blue shares that record's 'return-to-form' nature, after a few rough years in the group's camp. However, while Love You has a rejuvenatory spirit throughout, Pacific displays both more euphoric highs, and dispiriting lows.In the end, Pacific Ocean Blue is a classic album that still resonates with power and vitality. Included in Robert Dimery’s book, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Mojo’s “Lost Albums You Must Own” and GQ’s 2005 list, “The 100 Coolest Albums in the World Right Now!,” it’s greatest claim to fame is that it unleashed the hidden genius and creativity burning inside of Dennis Wilson. What a shame the Beach Boy drummer, who drowned in 1983, didn’t live to see it bloom in all its glory and magnificence decades after its release. Written and recorded in fits and starts since the mid-70s, Wilson took his brother Brian's painstaking approach, but came to the studio as a non-musician, with boundless possibilities that had to offer. The bass harmonicas and Dixie jazz of Dreamer; the layered vocals of River, Time with its flugelhorn, all dazzle in their understated way. Wilson's voice is the real revelation. It's barely there, sounds like its on the brink of collapse, and has a charm all of its own. Bowen, Rebecca. "Beach Boy Dennis Wilson's Solo Album Finds Re-release". Paste Magazine. Archived from the original on 2008-03-07 . Retrieved 2008-02-28.

Friends yet to be alienated by Dennis in his final years, recall an increasingly incoherent, unstable character – who felt no need to curb the excesses that were losing him friends. In a sense that’s not surprising. The seventies had offered Dennis Wilson and his lifestyle nothing but positive reinforcement. While his brothers floundered, he did whatever he wanted to and creatively found himself in the process. Only when he lost his studio in 1978 – and, with it, the ability to record spontaneously – did that winning streak finally end. Original album recorded at Brother Studio, Santa Monica, Calif. Mastered at L.R.S. in Burbank, Calif.

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And yet, if he had regrets, he rarely voiced them. “They say I live a fast life. Maybe I just like a fast life. I wouldn’t give it up for anything in the world. It won’t last forever, either. But the memories will.” It seems he was right. Instead, when 15 Big Ones came out in 1975, effectively marking the band’s inexorable decline into becoming an oldies act, Dennis took the songs he had co-written with old pal Gregg Jakobson to Jim Guercio, head of Caribou Records – and duly became the first Beach Boy to release a solo album. Pacific Ocean Blue went head-to-head with The Beach Boys’ next album Love You, Dennis outsold his brothers by two-to-one.

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Brian Wilson, who did not attend the ceremony, told the Guardian in 2002 that his younger brother’s burial “seemed wrong to me”. People magazine reported that the arrangement had also upset Carl, who wanted him buried next to their father in Inglewood, near where the boys grew up. But Love insisted her late husband had wanted otherwise. “Wherever he is,” she once said, “I know he’ll be glad that we’re doing it.” List of Pacific Ocean Blue Accolades". Acclaimedmusic.net. Archived from the original on 2008-03-09 . Retrieved 2008-02-28. When Pacific Ocean Blue came out in ’77, it was met with critical praise but only modest commercial success. Then, over time, it became something of a lost cult classic. It was out of print for years and Wilson was dead: Between those factors, it seemed a piece of ephemera left decades behind. Upon its reissue in 2008, its stature rose to some extent. But, like the Beach Boys themselves, Pacific Ocean Blue still feels outside of the main narratives we remember and apply to its era. At the time of its initial release, the album didn't do well commercially: Despite a significant promotional campaign, the album peaked at No. 96 during a short 12-week Billboard chart run. [27] [28] The disappointing performance of the record, combined with Wilson's increasingly unreliable professional behavior, led his record label to pull support for a modest West Coast tour that had been scheduled to promote the album. [29] a b Cohen, Jonathan. "Wilson's 'Ocean' Set For Expanded Reissue". Billboard. Archived from the original on June 1, 2008 . Retrieved 2008-02-28.

Dimery, Robert. "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". Cassell Illustrated . Retrieved 2008-02-28.

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Six months later, Wilson was dead. At 39, drug and alcohol addiction had consumed him; both were reported in his system when he drowned three days after Christmas. “It was just a few days before he was supposed to get involved with some serious rehabilitation,” says Gregg Jakobson, Wilson’s co-writer and producer. “And he never made it.” After Dennis died, people used to ask me all the time what I thought about his solo record, Pacific Ocean Blue. I have said that I never heard it, that I won't listen to it, that it’s too many sad memories and too much for me. That’s sort of true, but not really. I know the music on it. I was around for much of the time in the mid-'70s when Dennis was cutting the record. I loved what he was doing. My favorite song that he ever made was ["You and I"]. ... I love that cut. But I haven't ever put the record on and listened through it the way I have with other records, or the way that other people have with that record. [33] Release history [ edit ]