The Beach Boys Album

This collection perfectly captures on a single disc the career arc of one of America’s most important pop groups. Stuffing 30 songs into a small space, SOUNDS OF SUMMER checks in with these West Coast sunshine pop wizards at each phase of their development.

With the Absolute Best collections out of print at the end of the ’90s and 20 Good Vibrations: The Greatest Hits missing about as many great singles as it included, Capitol’s release of two generous Beach Boys Greatest Hits discs in 1999 was welcome. Unfortunately, they got it only half-right. Since the Beach Boys had too many hits to fit onto one 20-track collection, it made sense to have two separate 20-track discs, but the dividing line is arbitrary.