20/20 is the Beach Boys’ 1969 album, and it is exactly what its title suggests: a mixed bag. It arrived after the ambitious but commercially disappointing Friends, and it is largely a collection of outtakes, cast-offs, and new recordings. The record finds the group trying to reconnect with the simpler, sunnier sounds of their early hits while occasionally reaching back toward the experimental ambition of Pet Sounds. It is an uneven, transitional record, but it has real moments of brilliance buried inside it.
The album opens with a clear nod to the past. Do It Again is a deliberate attempt to recapture the surf-and-sun energy of their early sixties hits. It is a knowing, self-referential track that acknowledges the band’s own history. The song works because it is not a parody; it is a genuine, warm return to form. The harmonies are tight, the melody is catchy, and it sets a hopeful tone for the record. That hope, however, is immediately complicated by what follows.
I Can Hear Music and the First Standout
I Can Hear Music is the first real standout. It is a cover, and the Beach Boys turn it into a lush, gorgeous piece of pop. The arrangement is layered and sophisticated, and it is easily the best vocal performance on the album. It is a song that feels both of its time and ahead of it, and it proves that the band could still deliver pure, unadorned beauty when they chose to.
Bluebirds Over the Mountain follows, and it is a step back. It is a rock-and-roll pastiche that feels forced, a rough attempt at a heavier sound that does not quite land. The song is not a disaster, but it lacks the finesse of the tracks around it. It is the first sign that this album is going to be a bumpy ride.
Be With Me is a quiet, meditative piece that feels like a direct descendant of Friends. It is a gentle, introspective track that showcases the band’s melodic instincts. The song is subtle and understated, and it rewards repeated listens. It is one of the more cohesive and successful tracks on the record.
All I Want to Do and the Rough Middle
All I Want to Do is a noisy, cluttered track. It piles on distorted guitars and chaotic percussion without a clear structure or a strong melody to hold it together. The song feels like an unfinished experiment, a mess of competing sounds that never resolves into something coherent. It does not really work, but it is interesting as a document of where the band’s head was at. It is the sound of a group experimenting without a clear direction.
The Nearest Faraway Place is a short instrumental that feels like a sketch. It is pleasant but slight, and it does not leave much of an impression. It is the kind of filler that gives the album its reputation as a grab-bag of unfinished ideas.
Cotton Fields (The Cotton Song) is a return to the group’s folk-rock leanings. It is a straightforward, rootsy cover that is pleasant but unremarkable. It is the kind of track that shows the band trying to recapture a simpler, safer sound, but it lacks the spark of their best work.
I Went to Sleep is a brief, dreamy interlude. At just over a minute and a half, it is more of a fragment than a full song. It is pretty, but it feels unfinished. It is another piece of the puzzle that never quite comes together.
Time to Get Alone and a Stronger Stretch
Time to Get Alone is a much stronger track. It is a sweet, melodic pop song. The version here is polished and warm, and it shows that the band could still deliver a classic pop single when they wanted to. It is one of the highlights of the second half of the record.
Never Learn Not to Love is a dark, brooding track that stands out from the rest of the album. It is a reworking of an earlier composition, with the band changing the lyrics and the title from the original version. The result is one of the most compelling pieces on the record, a strange and unsettling artifact that feels entirely out of step with the sunnier material around it.
Our Prayer and Cabinessence Close the Record
The album closes with two of its most ambitious and celebrated tracks. Our Prayer is a short, wordless vocal piece that is stunning in its beauty. It is a choral arrangement that showcases the band’s harmonies at their most transcendent. It feels like a fragment of something larger, a piece of an abandoned project that finally found a home.
Cabinessence is the other outtake from the Smile sessions, and it is the album’s true centerpiece. It is a complex, multi-part suite that moves through several distinct sections. It is ambitious, strange, and utterly unlike anything else on the record. It is the sound of the band daring to challenge their popular, recognisable sound. It is a stunning moment, and it makes the case that the Beach Boys were still capable of greatness when they allowed themselves to be strange.
The Standout Moments
The tracks that work best are the ones that lean into their ambitions:
- I Can Hear Music — a lush, perfect pop cover
- Be With Me — a quiet, introspective gem
- Time to Get Alone — a classic, polished single
- Cabinessence — a strange, ambitious suite that reaches for the heights of Smile
- Our Prayer — a brief, transcendent vocal piece
20/20 is a blur of trying to get back into the groove of the thrill-seeking, safety-first attitude, but with a flicker of that experimental sound.
The weaker tracks — Bluebirds Over the Mountain, All I Want to Do, The Nearest Faraway Place, I Went to Sleep — are not bad enough to be offensive, but they are not good enough to be memorable. They are filler, and they drag the record down.
The Record’s Place
20/20 is a document of a band in transition. It is not a cohesive album, and it does not pretend to be. It is a collection of odds and ends, some of which are brilliant and some of which are forgettable. The highs are genuinely high, and they suggest that the Beach Boys still had a lot to offer. The lows are just there, taking up space.
The album is best understood as a bridge between the experimental ambitions of the late sixties and the simpler, more commercial sound that would define the band in the seventies. It is a record that looks both backward and forward, and it does not always know which direction it wants to go.
The problem is that those moments are surrounded by too much that is merely average. It is a record for fans, for people willing to dig through the rough patches to find the gold. For casual listeners, it is a frustrating listen.
It is an uneven record, but it is never boring. And in the end, that counts for something.
7 of 10.
- Do It Again2:25
- I Can Hear Music2:36
- Bluebirds Over the Mountain2:51
- Be With Me3:08
- All I Want to Do2:02
- The Nearest Faraway Place2:39
- Cotton Fields (The Cotton Song)2:21
- I Went to Sleep1:36
- Time to Get Alone2:40
- Never Learn Not to Love2:31
- Our Prayer1:07
- Cabinessence3:34
