大象传媒

by Bob Stanley of

are now so venerated that it's hard to recall a time when you risked ridicule if you admitted to being a fan.

Yet after they withdrew from the Monterey festival and pulled their much-touted Smile album in the spring of 1967, the critics who had acclaimed as a masterpiece just a few months earlier turned their backs on the group. Two lo-fi albums at the end of the year - the loopy Smiley Smile and the soul-influenced Wild Honey - only served to confuse.

By 1968 it seemed their career was over. As far as the American public was concerned they were an embarrassing relic of the pre-psychedelic era, the car crazy California quintet in stripy shirts, decidedly uncool. Europe didn't associate them with all of this cultural baggage, and their popularity was undimmed. Compare their British and American chart positions at the end of the sixties: (UK no.1, US no.20); (UK no.6, US no.63); (UK no.4, didn't make the US Top 100).

The lost gem of this era was their Friends album from 1968. One estimate has its 1968 US sales at a paltry 18,000 - all of their albums prior to Pet Sounds in 1966 had sold a million. But it was a healing album for the troubled group, with a very grounded kith and kin philosophy on songs like the title song and When A Man Needs A Woman, and a gentle resignation to nature on Little Bird and Be Still (Dennis Wilson's first ever contributions). It has a timeless quality in its simplicity, underlined by the basic instrumentation; being a Brian Wilson production, though, there's always room for an unexpected tuba or glockenspiel.

"It's simple and I can hear it anytime without having to get into some mood" said Brian Wilson when the album appeared on CD in 1990. "Pet Sounds carries a lot more emotion, at least for me... Pet Sounds is by far my very best album. Still, though, my favourite is Friends."