BEACH BOYS Feel the flow
For the first time in years, The Beach Boys were hopeful about the future. It was a new decade, and they had both a new record label and a strong new album to release. “Sunflower is the truest group effort we’d ever had,” Carl Wilson told U.K. music weekly Sounds. “Each of us was deeply involved in the creation of almost all the cuts.” But when the album was released, on August 31, 1970, the response was underwhelming. Sunflower rose no higher than No. 151 on the Billboard 200 chart and sales were just as disappointing. None of the accompanying singles made much of an impression either. Sunflower was meant to jumpstart the band’s career. Now it appeared the relaunch had fizzled.
As it turned out, they wouldn’t have to wait too long for things to improve. Surf ’s Up, released the following year, made it into the Top 30 and reestablished the group’s relevance as a rock act. And over the years, Sunflower’s merits have been reappraised as well. Now, a new box set explores this underappreciated period in the group’s history: Feel Flows: The Sunflower & Surf ’s Up Sessions 1969-1971.
“It’s not like and just came out of nowhere,” says Alan Boyd, who compiled, mixed and produced the set along with Mark Linett, each of whom have worked on Beach Boys projects for decades. “You can certainly trace the progression from on. The Beach Boys reinvented themselves in some ways, but in a lot of ways they just kept doing what they had always done and progressed.” is designed to more fully illuminate that progression.
