Out of all the albums I’ve listened to over the last year in a half (529 plus in a row, and counting) the one that has come out of the woodwork and struck me completely by surprise is this one. I’m not a huge Beach Boys fan by any stretch of the imagination, and outside of the hits and the magnum opus that was Pet Sounds, I haven’t really gotten deep into their discography. In fact, I was completely unaware that Dennis Wilson (Beach Boys drummer and middle brother of Brian and Carl) had even released a solo album. And therefore I was going into this experience completely and utterly blind. It was on a list on the internet somewhere, I loved the striking cover art, and so I saved it on my spreadsheet and made a mental note to listen to it at some point in the future.
Well that day was a few weeks ago and goddamn did it ever strike me. I was just coming out of a pretty bad bout of the norovirus which put me and the entire family on our ass for four days, so I was primed for a somewhat revelatory experience. And did Pacific Blue Ocean sure as hell deliver. It’s moody, groovy, beautiful, serene, dark, and happy all at the same time. It honestly felt like a spiritual experience listening to it for the first time completely raw and feeling so damn ecstatic when song after song would roll through like a beautiful blue wave off the coast of California and crash down on me in auditory bliss. There’s this wonderful tug of war that happens throughout the course of this album where you can feel this immense longing to be truly seen well up with Dennis and come pouring out, whether it’s in the uplifting bridge in the middle of “Dreamer” that is punctuated on both ends by an absolutely filthy groove, or the haunting delay-driven chorus of “Thoughts of You” that is an operatic masterpiece which chills you to the bone.
There are dozens of moments on this album just like that that have stuck with me ever since that first listen. I’ve been returning to it consistently in a way that I never expected, searching for more moments, and somehow unearthing them along the way. It’s a strange feeling to have that strong of a connection with an album you heard for the first time at the age of 36 years old (it just doesn’t really happen), especially one that was released nearly 50 years ago. And yet it feels totally familiar, like an old couch, a piece of me that was always there but just hadn’t yet been discovered.
And I’m quite happy that I did. I hope you do too.
Standout Songs: “River Song”, “Moonshine”, “Friday Night”, “Dreamer”, “Thoughts of You”, “Time”, “You and I”, “Farewell My Friend”, “Rainbows”
