Holland (album)

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Holland
HollandCover.jpg
Studio album by The Beach Boys
Released January 8, 1973 (1973-01-08)
Recorded June 3–October 9, 1972
Studio <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
Genre Soft rock[1]
Length 36:28
Label Brother/Reprise
Producer The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys chronology
Carl and the Passions – "So Tough"
(1972)Carl and the Passions – "So Tough"1972		 Holland
(1973)		 The Beach Boys in Concert
(1973)The Beach Boys in Concert1973
Singles from Holland
  1. "Sail On, Sailor" / "Only with You"
    Released: February 5, 1973
  2. "California Saga: California" / "Funky Pretty"
    Released: April 16, 1973
Mount Vernon and Fairway (A Fairy Tale)
EP by The Beach Boys
Released January 8, 1973 (1973-01-08)
Recorded September 1972 (1972-09)
Studio <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
Genre Fairy tale
Length 12:05
Label Brother/Reprise
Producer The Beach Boys

Holland is the nineteenth studio album by the American rock group The Beach Boys, released in January 1973. It was recorded in Baambrugge, Netherlands over the summer of 1972 using a reconstructed studio sent from California, and with two Brian Wilson tracks rush-recorded in Los Angeles and added to the album at the last minute. The photograph on the album's front cover is an upside down image of the Kromme Waal, a canal that runs through the center of Amsterdam.

Holland included a bonus EP, Mount Vernon and Fairway (A Fairy Tale), a musical fairy tale written by Brian Wilson about a magical transistor radio who appears to a young prince. Narration was provided by the group's manager: Jack Rieley.

Background

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Just as Carl and the Passions – "So Tough" was coming to print, the Beach Boys, at manager Jack Rieley's urging, decided to pack up and record their next album in the Netherlands. They felt the change of scenery would make for some inspirational sessions, and perhaps even snap former leader Brian Wilson out of his deep depression.

By mid-1972, a combination of Wilson's focus waning from the Beach Boys to other creative outlets teamed with a growing addiction to cocaine led to Brian producing less music for the band than ever before and so the Beach Boys were hoping to jump-start his creative juices. Although he did make the trip (after three separate attempts to get on the plane), Wilson contributed little to the album, concentrating his musical efforts on "Mount Vernon and Fairway", a ten-minute long "musical fairy tale" which was later included with the album as a bonus EP. With Carl Wilson in charge, the rest of the band had to carry the album, and the resulting effort, named Holland, was one of The Beach Boys' more respected 1970s releases.

Due to homesickness, Al Jardine and Mike Love conspired to create a three-part song cycle as an ode to California. Mike Love donated the country-laced "Big Sur" (written three years earlier and here presented in 3/4 waltz time), while Love and Al Jardine delivered the partially spoken-word of Robinson Jeffers' poem "Beaks of Eagles" and the shuffle-arranged "California", which features Brian on its first two lines and departed member Bruce Johnston on backing vocals. A remix of "California" was issued as the second single from the album and retitled "California Saga (On My Way to Sunny Californ-i-a)". Dennis Wilson, who was not given a lead vocal on Holland, offered up "Steamboat" and "Only with You". Carl included "The Trader": an anti-imperialist two-part epic that starts with a gleeful "Hi!" from his 3-year-old son, Jonah.

Upon the band's return from the Netherlands in the fall, Holland was rejected by Reprise Records for not having a potential hit single. It was decided to add an old, unfinished song, "Sail On, Sailor," which Brian Wilson had co-written with Van Dyke Parks. After some lyric revisions were made by Ray Kennedy, Tandyn Almer and Jack Rieley[citation needed], the group delivered what would become Holland's most famous track. "Sail On, Sailor" was one of two songs recorded at home (the other was Ricky Fataar's and Blondie Chaplin's soulful and moog-tinged "Leaving This Town") and added at the last minute to a re-sequenced and re-submitted Holland. One of the casualties of this tracklist reshuffling was another Fataar/Chaplin song, written with Mike Love, called "We Got Love", which resurfaced at a live concert in 1973.

Early test pressings of Holland, made in the US and in the UK, feature the album in its original group-intended running order. Side one kicks off with "Steamboat", then the three-part Saga, followed by "We Got Love". The German distributor for Reprise records failed to implement the changed side-one line up correctly and mistakenly pressed 300-400 copies with the earlier running order. Early French and Canadian pressings of Holland still mention "We Got Love" on the sleeve, although the song is not on those albums. In 2015, iTunes remastered the Holland album and added "We Got Love" as a bonus track.

Mount Vernon and Fairway (A Fairy Tale)

Holland's bonus EP, entitled Mount Vernon and Fairway (A Fairy Tale), was based on the intersection where the Love family lived in Los Angeles, and was primarily composed by Brian Wilson. Wilson originally intended it to be the centerpiece of a new Beach Boys album, consisting of the tracks from the EP and "Funky Pretty". It was initially rejected by the other band members, which effectively caused Brian to quit the sessions until Carl decided to include it as a separate EP. However, by that point, Wilson had lost interest in both the project and the Beach Boys - reportedly for denying his artistic output towards the group.

Wilson would not record with the Beach Boys again as a group until 1974 for the aborted Caribou sessions. While narrated by Jack Rieley (as it was mostly unfinished when Wilson effectively walked away from the project), the voice of the Pied Piper was supplied by Brian in a slightly grainier-sounding voice, exemplifying the effects of his considerable drug abuse at the time and forecasting his raspy vocals on the next Beach Boys album, 1976's 15 Big Ones.

The instrumental tracks for the album were later released on Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of The Beach Boys as "Fairy Tale Music", with Jack Rieley's vocal narration removed.

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic 2.5/5 stars[2]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music 5/5 stars[3]
Mojo positive[4]
Robert Christgau C[5]
Rolling Stone positive[6]

Released in January 1973, Holland received mostly encouraging reviews and helped The Beach Boys establish their critical standing further. It peaked at No. 36 in the US and No. 20 in the UK. At the end of the 1973, Rolling Stone named Holland as one of their picks for "album of the year". In 2000, Elvis Costello ranked the album as one of his favourite records of all time.[7] Not all reaction to the album has been positive. Robert Christgau praised the production qualities of the album, but believed the album had strayed too far from what the Beach Boys did best, stating "I suppose that in time their tongue-tied travelogue of Big Sur may seem no more escapist than "Fun Fun Fun," but who'll ever believe it's equally simple, direct, or innocent?"[5] Camper Van Beethoven have disclosed that when recording their album La Costa Perdida, Holland was enormous inspiration to them.[8]

Accolades

Publication Country Accolade Year Rank
The Guardian United Kingdom Top 100 Albums That Don't Appear in All the Other Top 100 Albums of All Time[9] 1999 21
OOR Magazine Netherlands 100 Best Albums of All Time[10] 2007 100
Vanity Fair United States 500 Albums You Need[7] 2000 *

(*) denotes an unordered list

Track listing

Holland, side one
No. Title Writer(s) Lead vocals Length
1. "Sail On, Sailor"   Brian Wilson/Tandyn Almer/Ray Kennedy/Jack Rieley/Van Dyke Parks Blondie Chaplin 3:19
2. "Steamboat"   Dennis Wilson/Rieley Carl Wilson/D. Wilson 4:33
3. "California Saga: Big Sur"   Mike Love Love 2:56
4. "California Saga: The Beaks of Eagles"   Robinson Jeffers/Al Jardine/Lynda Jardine Love/Jardine 3:49
5. "California Saga: California"   Jardine Love/B. Wilson 3:21
Holland, side two
No. Title Writer(s) Lead vocals Length
1. "The Trader"   C. Wilson/Rieley C. Wilson 5:04
2. "Leaving This Town"   Ricky Fataar/Chaplin/C. Wilson/Love Chaplin 5:49
3. "Only with You"   D. Wilson/Love C. Wilson 2:59
4. "Funky Pretty"   B. Wilson/Love/Rieley C. Wilson/Jardine/Chaplin/Fataar/Love 4:09

All narration by Jack Rieley, except "Magic Transistor Radio", narrated by Brian Wilson.

Mount Vernon and Fairway (A Fairy Tale), side one
No. Title Writer(s) Lead vocals Length
1. "Mt. Vernon and Fairway – Theme"   B. Wilson   1:34
2. "I'm the Pied Piper – Instrumental"   B. Wilson/C. Wilson   2:20
3. "Better Get Back in Bed"   B. Wilson C. Wilson 1:39
Mount Vernon and Fairway (A Fairy Tale), side two
No. Title Writer(s) Lead vocals Length
1. "Magic Transistor Radio"   B. Wilson B. Wilson 1:43
2. "I'm the Pied Piper"   B. Wilson/C. Wilson B. Wilson 2:09
3. "Radio King Dom"   B. Wilson/Rieley   2:38
2015 Remastered iTunes bonus track
No. Title Writer(s) Lead vocals Length
1. "We Got Love"   Fataar/Chaplin/Love Chaplin 5:56

Personnel

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The Beach Boys
Session musicians and production staff

Charts

Albums
Year Chart Position
1973 Canadian Album Chart 12[11]
1973 UK Top 40 Album Chart 20
1973 US Billboard 200 Albums Chart 36[not in citation given]
UK Singles
Year Single Chart Position
1973 "California Saga (On My Way to Sunny Californ-i-a)" UK Top 40 Single Chart 37
US Singles
Year Single Chart Position
1973 "Sail On, Sailor" US Billboard Singles Chart 79[not in citation given]
1975 "California Saga (On My Way to Sunny Californ-i-a)" US Billboard Singles Chart 84[not in citation given]
1975 "Sail On, Sailor" US Billboard Singles Chart 49[not in citation given]
1975 "Sail On, Sailor" Boston WMEX Singles Chart 1[not in citation given]

Chart information courtesy of Allmusic and other music databases.[12][not in citation given]

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ The Virgin Encyclopedia Of Popular Music, Concise (4th Edition), Virgin Books (UK), 2002, ed. Larkin, Colin.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/474262/camper-van-beethoven-northern-california-girls-exclusive-song-premiere
  9. ↑ [Top 100 Albums That Don't Appear in All the Other Top 100 Albums of All Time, The Guardian, January 29, 1999]
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/rpm/028020-119.01-e.php?&file_num=nlc008388.4828&type=1&interval=20&PHPSESSID=fcs5b5kmf511c6ombo6ki2alv3
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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