And they did so well with the Pacific Ocean Blue reissue… Yet, as everyone and their mums fell over themselves to praise the genius of Dennis Wilson’s lone solo album, little did we know that SonyBMG were busy in the back room tarnishing the legacy, polishing this Doug Hurd.
With more than blood on their hands, they hereby present us with 80 minutes’ worth of talking head footage where noted Beach Boy Al Jardine, noted Beach Boy scholar Dominic Priore, noted current Brian Wilson musician Jeff Foskett, plus relatives and a bunch of other people noted for very little get to bore us to death. There’s no narrative, few grainy black-and-white photos, very little in the way of constructive discussion, but a helluva lot of “My favourite Dennis song…”, “What I’ll miss about…” and “We were all jealous of his success with girls…” And that’s it. Badly shot, badly edited together, one after another, after another, after another. Lovely for a family funeral, rubbish for public consumption. Mike Love now has at least one reason to be proud of the way he’s approached Dennis’ legacy: he didn’t get involved. Our RC 351 feature was much better, and cheaper too.
