Wild Honey

The days of Brian Wilson breaking new, unheard musical ground had ended with the scrapping of *Smile*, and his future role in The Beach Boys would be limited as his mental clarity slipped from his grasp. Yet *Wild Honey* is still an important and much underrated album in The Beach Boys\' story. It features several classic songs, including the title track, \"Aren\'t You Glad,\" and \"Darlin\'\" (a No. 19 hit), and the production is brighter and funkier than on most of the group\'s albums. Brian Wilson is used in strategic positions, offering up his angelic vocals for \"I\'d Love Just Once to See You\" and \"Here Comes the Night\"; along with Mike Love, he wrote nearly all the songs on the album. A cover of Stevie Wonder\'s \"I Was Made to Love Her\" and the Love/Bruce Johnston/Al Jardine/Carl Wilson number \"How She Boogalooed It\" round off the songwriting credits. The members play most of their own instruments for the first time in years, and the album\'s overall feeling is one of a group working together, as further evidenced by the ensemble vocals on \"Country Air\" and \"Mama Says.\"

For the first time since 1992,Rolling Stone'sdefinitive classic returns to the scene, completely updated and revised to include the past decade's artists and sounds. When it comes to sorting the truly great from the merely mediocre, the enduring from the fleeting,The New Rolling Stone Album Guideprovides music buffs and amateurs alike with authoritative guidance from the best voices in the field. Filled with insightful commentary, it not only reviews the most influential albums of all time, but also features biographical overviews of key artists' careers, giving readers a look at the personalities behind the music.This fourth edition contains an impressive -- 70 percent -- amount of new material. Readers will find fresh updates to entries on established artists, hundreds of brand-new entries on the people and recordings that epitomize the '90s and the sounds of the 21st century -- from Beck to OutKast to the White Stripes and beyond -- along with a new introduction detailing changes in the music industry.Celebrating the diversity of popular music and its constant metamorphoses, with thousands of entries and reviews on every sound from blues to techno,The New Rolling Stone Album Guideis the only resource music lovers need to read.

After the Smile sessions shut down, the Beach Boys became much more of a band than they had been in the mid-'60s.

<p>Drugs, mental illness, incongruous jazz combos - the recent batch of reissues aren't pretty, says Alexis Petridis.</p>