Jerk Music Critic: The Beach Boys Love You

The chief problem with this album is the immature lyrics from a band (and a writer) then in their mid-30s; see also Adult/Child. The songs bop along ("Mona," "Honkin' Down the Highway," "Airplane") as if Brian Wilson hadn't a care since 1960, the synthesizers kind of work with the whole childlike feel (especially the purring growls in "I'll Bet He's Nice"), and some of the more whimsical pieces ("Johnny Carson," "Solar System") even evince a rudimentary sort of wit. But the intermittent fixation on young lust ruins the whole thing: when they talk about what they're gonna do "when her momma ain't around" ("Roller Skating Child"), even their attempts at something more mature ("The Night Was So Young") just feel gross, and even worse when the singing's bad ("Let's Put Our Hearts Together," "Love Is A Woman"). Even considering love as an abstract concept, with that context you wonder if the whole thing in "I Wanna Pick You Up" — apparently sung to a young kid — isn't actually one big pedophilic double entendre. This album is inappropriately entertaining in the way a lecherous old man shouldn't be, and musically it's definitely better than anything else they put out around this time, but that wouldn't be a very high bar. (Content: mild adult themes.)

🌟🌟

Express Yourself

The Jerk Music Critic is a collection of amateur music reviews I wrote largely non-professionally between the 1990s and today. Some of these reviews are contemporary and some are retrospective, and a few are rather dated, but all are intended to be free-standing and permanent records of my completely worthless musical opinion. They are presented in no particular order and "new" reviews that occur may actually be simply prior ones I've only now transcribed. Older reviews have been edited to hopefully remove inaccuracies later revealed, as well as add brief content advisories (see "Smash the PMRC") and, where reissues exist with different tracks, brief commentaries on these later additions (the actual star review was not altered).

If you're looking for a specific artist, or just interested to see what I really liked (or really didn't), "When I Break Down" indexes reviews by artist and by number of stars awarded (see "Star Chart" for an explanation).

As we move deeper into the Internet music age where the album format might seem hopelessly antiquated, there is still some artistic value in the LP to those artists who still take advantage of it, and some of these recordings can only be properly appreciated in that context. I hope you enjoy these reviews and recommendations, and don't take them too seriously. — Cameron Kaiser

Star Chart

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
An instant classic. Substantially advances/d the state of the art, either technologically, stylistically, or (preferentially) both, and is outstanding music besides. Buy it.

🌟🌟🌟🌟
A excellent album. Nearly every song is a gem; nearly every piece is a winner. Falls short of 5 stars for want of that certain special something, but the difference is in impact, not in musical quality. Buy it.

🌟🌟🌟
Solid. Mostly good songs with a few clinkers. Salvageable with a good playlist. Buy it cheap.

🌟🌟
Mixed. Some good songs stand out, but not enough to make it listenable as a whole. Buy the good songs on iTunes.

🌟
Bad. One or two tracks of even decent quality. Buy the good songs cheap on iTunes.

💩
How did this get released?

Smash the PMRC

I don't advocate for censorship or unnuanced black and white stickers, but I do advocate for parents being able to raise kids in the way they see fit, which might include introducing albums of controversial yet artistic merit at a point in their child's life when they can better appreciate it. The content summaries are intended to be a very general guide, reflective of only my own personal sensibilities and mine alone, and do not substitute in any way for a parent actually sitting down and listening to the album themselves. If you excessively rely on my content advisories, then I'm the one raising your kid, and you really don't want that.