M.I.U. Album is the twenty-second studio album by The Beach Boys, released on October 2, 1978 on Brother/Reprise. Recorded during a fraught time for the band, only Mike Love, Al Jardine, and Brian Wilson appear consistently throughout the album, with Carl and Dennis Wilson audible on only a few tracks. Produced by Al Jardine and songwriter Ron Altbach, the album's title stems from Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa, where the majority of the album was recorded.
Contents[]
[hide] *1 Background
Background[edit][]
Main article: Adult/Child
After the release of Love You, The Beach Boys fell into dispute over the direction of the band, and were close to breaking up. Brian Wilson began regressing back into drug use and mental illness. Dennis was readying his debut solo album, Pacific Ocean Blue. Intended as a follow-up to Love You, sessions and mixing for a new album called Adult/Child were completed by The Beach Boys with Brian Wilson as producer, and it would have included "Hey Little Tomboy", which can be found on M.I.U..[1][2] The album was subsequently rejected by Reprise Records for not being commercially viable, although some of its tracks would reappear on later releases.
Recording[edit][]
Dennis was largely unavailable for the new project, of which he and brother Carl were not in favor. The idea, by staunch Transcendental Meditation follower Mike Love, was to record another new album—initially intended as a Christmas release—at the Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa, (hence theM.I.U. title). Consequently, when it was time to record the album in September 1977, only Love, Jardine and the eldest Wilson showed up.
The original intention was for Brian Wilson to produce the album, but it soon became clear he was unable to function in that role.[citation needed] The production credit on the album was given to Al Jardine and songwriting partner Ron Altbach, with Brian billed as "executive producer", though the exact nature of this role was never clarified.[citation needed]
The group submitted the Christmas-themed Merry Christmas from the Beach Boys in late 1977, but it was rejected by the record company, which demanded the band submit a regular studio album instead. New lyrics were overdubbed on to some of the original Christmas tracks the following spring, which, together with quickly penned new material, formed the basis of a new album entitled California Feeling, named after an original song recorded in 1975 which Brian refused to include on the album. The track listing was revised a final time in 1978, when the LP was now called M. I. U. Album, the band's last forReprise Records before embarking on their CBS Records (now Sony Music) contract.[3]
Reception[edit][]
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic | [4] |
| The A.V. Club | (Neutral)[5] |
| Robert Christgau | (C)[6] |
| Rolling Stone | (Negative)[7] |
Although the album peaked at only #151 in the US, and became their first since 1964 to miss the UK chart completely, "Come Go With Me" would become a top 20 hit in late 1981 when it was released as a single from the Ten Years of Harmony compilation.
Reflecting on the album in 1992, Mike Love noted, "It was too democratic. Everybody coming into it with their song, which is okay. It's like if you have an album and have a hit song on it, and it's very commercially viable. Doesn't it make sense to have another song that would also be commercially viable? And a third and a fourth."[8] When asked about M.I.U. Album in the British press, Dennis Wilson said that he "[doesn't] believe in that album" and that it was "an embarrassment to [his] life. It should self-destruct... I hope that the karma will fuck up Mike Love’s meditation forever."[need quotation to verify] In 1995, Brian said that he could not remember making the album, claiming that he had gone through a "mental blank-out" during this period.[9]
Music critic Nick Kent called the album "dreadful". He said that its "pitiful content" were ignored by critics.[10] The album received generally negative reviews. Upon its initial release, Rolling Stone stated, "M.I.U. Album seems contrived and artificial right from the start. The tracks strive to recapture the dreamy, adolescent innocence of the Beach Boys' earliest hits, and fail not so much because the concepts are dated but because the group can't infuse the new material with the same sense of grandeur that made the old songs such archetypal triumphs. [...] Throughout, the lackluster playing and singing has a melancholy edge, almost as if the Beach Boys are fully aware that they've outgrown this kind of teen fantasy, but can't think of anyplace else to go."[11]
Paired with L.A. (Light Album), M.I.U. Album was reissued on CD in 2002. Upon the album's re-release, The A.V. Club stated, "M.I.U. is competent enough, but it's also the sound of a group buying into its own mythology, a retrograde salute to the pinstripes and sunshine image it had abandoned years before."[5] AllMusic issued a more negative review, stating, "The mainstream late-'70s production techniques are predictable and frequently cloying. M.I.U. Album also included several of the worst Beach Boys songs ever to make it to vinyl. [...] Compared with what had come before, M.I.U. Album was a pathetic attempt at music making; compared with what was to come however, this was a highlight."[12]
Track listing[edit][]
| Side one | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Lead vocals | Length | ||||||
| 1. | "She's Got Rhythm" | Brian Wilson/Mike Love/Ron Altbach | B. Wilson/Love | 2:27 | ||||||
| 2. | "Come Go with Me" | C.E. Quick | Al Jardine | 2:06 | ||||||
| 3. | "Hey Little Tomboy" | B. Wilson | Love/B. Wilson/Carl Wilson | 2:25 | ||||||
| 4. | "Kona Coast" | Al Jardine/Love | Love/Jardine/B. Wilson | 2:33 | ||||||
| 5. | "Peggy Sue" | Buddy Holly/Jerry Allison/Norman Petty | Jardine | 2:15 | ||||||
| 6. | "Wontcha Come Out Tonight" | B. Wilson/Love | B. Wilson/Love | 2:30 | ||||||
| Side two | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Lead Vocals | Length | ||||||
| 1. | "Sweet Sunday Kinda Love" | B. Wilson/Love | C. Wilson | 2:42 | ||||||
| 2. | "Belles of Paris" | B. Wilson/Love/Altbach | Love | 2:27 | ||||||
| 3. | "Pitter Patter" | B. Wilson/Love/Jardine | Love/Jardine | 3:14 | ||||||
| 4. | "My Diane" | B. Wilson | Dennis Wilson/B. Wilson | 2:37 | ||||||
| 5. | "Match Point of Our Love" | B. Wilson/Love | B. Wilson | 3:29 | ||||||
| 6. | "Winds of Change" | Altbach/Ed Tuleja | Jardine/Love | 3:14 | ||||||
Personnel[edit][]
- The Beach Boys
- Alan Jardine - vocals, guitar, bass guitar, vocal arrangements
- Mike Love - vocals
- Carl Wilson - vocals, guitar
- Brian Wilson - vocals, piano, electric piano, vocal arrangements
- Dennis Wilson - vocals, drums
- Additional musicians
- Ron Altbach - piano, electric piano, organ, percussion, synthesizer, horns
- Gary Griffin - piano, electric piano, organ, synthesizer, string arrangements
- Ed Carter - guitar, bass guitar
- Billy Hinsche - guitar
- Mike Kowalski - drums, percussion
- Chris Midaugh - steel pedal guitar
- Michael Andreas - saxophone, horn arrangements
- Charles Lloyd - saxophone
- Lance Buller - trumpet
- John Foss - trumpet
- Rod Novak - saxophone
- Charlie McCarthy - saxophone
- Bob Williams - saxophone
- Roberleigh Barnhardt - string arrangements
- Recording engineering personnel & assistants
- Alan Jardine - producer
- Ron Altbach - producer
- Brian Wilson - executive producer
- Diane Rovell - music coordinator
- Stephen Moffitt - Started as Chief engineer & studio designer.
- Jeff Peters Finished as first engineer
- Earl Mankey - Asst. engineer
- Personnel involved with CD re-mastering are below:
- Bob Rose - Asst. engineer
- David Gertz - recording assistant
- Ira "Regina" Leslie - recording assistant
- Shawn Sullon - recording assistant
- Ralph Osborn - recording assistant
- Kevin Gray - mastering engineer
- Artwork
- Dean O. Torrence - album design, graphics
- The Beach Boys - album design, graphics
- Warren Bolster/Surfer Magazine - front cover photography
- Guy Webster - back cover photography