Where we can only hope The Beach Boys are shut down from this transition from surfer rock to car-based lunacy, there is no such luck. Shut Down Volume 2 progresses not the sound but the image. It is of the times, certainly, and fails to get out of its safety-first, pop-rock radio styling. We are all the worse for it. For a band which would dominate the psychedelic sound and hangover which came with it five years later, the pre-Pet Sounds days are, at best, a chore. Moments in music which are better for historical reasons than enjoyment. Shut Down Volume 2 has neither. An aggressively poor album of filler moments from a band which would redefine the music landscape just two years later. What a transition. Contracts for releases in the early 1960s worked musicians to the bone, so it is no surprise this covers-laden album sounds flat at the best of times.
That is not to say Shut Down Volume 2 is a barren piece of music with no life to it. There are, as there were on Little Deuce Coupe, hopeful suggestions of where The Beach Boys’ sound will go. Cheerful songs from Shut Down, a compilation album which featured other artists playing typical music of the times, is the basis for this Beach Boys release. They get no further than adapting the tone of the times. Shut Down Volume 2 is defined by the times, not a definer of it. Opener Fun Fun Fun will be recognisable in the same way other artists who rip Chuck Berry riffs are recognisable. Aimless wordplay where the Indy 500 is compared to chariot racing, where both events are slower than the protagonist’s freewheeling adventures. It feels stuffy even with the freedom of the road behind it. Soft suggestions of rebellion are rounded off with a “listen to your parents” message to curb the teen revolution and hippie movement.
Light frills are fine enough in the hands of The Beach Boys, but there is a soft, spineless suggestion in these songs that hears the band failing to react to a fast-changing public mood. Don’t Worry, Baby is a track of worth because it begins questioning the tone of the times with a romantic twang to it. It works. In the Parkin’ Lot is a dud follow-up, a song which is seemingly written by The Beach Boys’ elders rather than the band itself as it charts clean-cut respect for the man in blue, the tidy parking lots of some idyllic land which would later be mocked by Pleasantville. Somehow, it gets worse with the faux studio banter heard on Love vs. Wilson, a truly horrific waste of time. Not just is it a sore spot for the album, but it highlights a frayed chemistry, a forced lightness to the studio recordings which would be plastered over the horrific fallout behind the scenes of Pet Sounds.
A frequently pathetic offering from the group. Their strait-laced image infects their music all too much. Louie Louie sounds lifeless in their hands, a great shame considering the talents of the band. Everything from their playing style to the cold back-and-forth of played-up studio thrills is a pain. The Beach Boys in this early period, when they were chasing nothing but the friendly radio tunes, are stuck playing up their car-obsessed image. It is not an honest identity, nowhere close to what Brian Wilson and the boys would eventually share themselves to be. Often repugnant because art should be truth, not chasing the waves of whatever is popular. Still, there was time to change, and Shut Down Volume 2 would be the worst of these early years.
The Beach Boys were Boss of West Coast Car Culture