CD Review

Artist: Brian Wilson

CD: That Lucky Old Sun

Release Date: September 2^nd, 2008

Record Label: (EMI/Capitol Records)  

Reviewed by: Gabor Pertic (Toronto Correspondent)

Looks like all the Vitamin D has really got Brian Wilson in a good mood. On That Lucky Old Sun, the former Beach Boy tells tales of sun-soaked California life. The Beach Boys made music history singing about California girls and the Sun that shines over all the beach bodies, but this record provides a different angle. Wilson is getting older and has had his share of ups and downs and now he sings not as a young man who is living the surfer dream, but instead an older, wiser man sitting back and looking at the places that defined his life.

The album weaves in and out of solid pop songs and minute long narrations that evoke wistful imagery. “That Lucky Old Sun” pops up four times throughout the course of the record and it is always a welcome reminder of the happier side of life. It seems as though Wilson is chronicling the heyday of his youth, not in the sense that he wishes he was there again, but rather happy that he gets to now look back on it.

The fantastic nostalgia of “Forever She’ll Be My Surfer Girl” brings back the classic Beach Boy sound and would work wonderfully in the closing credits of an early 1960’s teenage-romance flick (screened, naturally, at the local Drive-In). It is delight to hear Wilson’s matured voice crooning about a love from long ago.

Wilson acknowledges the hardships he has faced on “Oxygen to the Brain”, singing “I cried a million tears/I wasted a lot of years,” and this album functions as the day after all that. The past is the past, be it good or bad, and now Wilson is mature and stable enough to acknowledge the wild ride he has been on. He invites the listener in on his reflections of a simpler time and we are lucky to be able to sit beside him and catch some golden rays.

Track Listing:

1) That Lucky Old Sun – 0:57

2) Morning Beat – 2:55

3) Room with a View – 0:45

4) Good Kind of Love – 3:20

5) Forever She’ll Be My Surfer Girl – 2:52

6) Venice Beach – 0:45

7) Live Let Live/That Lucky Old Sun (Reprise) – 2:35

8) Mexican Girl – 2:42

9) Cinco de Mayo – 0:46

10) California Role/That Lucky Old Sun (Reprise) – 2:41

11) Between Pictures – 0:48

12) Oxygen to the Brain – 3:28

13) Can’t Wait Too Long – 0:54

14) Midnight’s Another Day – 3:57

15) That Lucky Old Sun (Reprise) – 0:43

16) Going Home – 3:04

17) Southern California – 4:55