Solo

20/20 is the fifteenth studio album by American rock band the Beach Boys, released February 10, 1969 on Capitol Records. The LP was named for being their 20th overall album release. Much of it consists of outtakes from earlier albums. It reached number 3 on UK record charts and number 68 in the US. Brian Wilson was absent during most of the album's recording after admitting himself into a psychiatric hospital, requiring brothers Carl and Dennis to retrieve several outtakes he had recorded years earlier. While Brian does not appear on the front cover, the inner gatefold of the original vinyl release features him alone, behind an eye examination chart.

Remember listening to this in a booth in a record shop, when I should have been at school 68/69?

The singles "Do It Again" and "Bluebirds over the Mountain" preceded the album's release by several months. The former was the band's first attempt at revisiting the surf sound they had abandoned since All Summer Long, topping UK and Australian charts, and the latter contained the B-side "Never Learn Not to Love", based on a song by Charles Manson. The other singles were "I Can Hear Music" and a rerecorded version of "Cotton Fields". In 2018, session highlights, outtakes, and alternate takes were released for the compilation I Can Hear Music: The 20/20 Sessions.

I'm listening to 2001 remaster

On June 24, 1968, the Beach Boys released the album Friends, which peaked at number 126 and remained on the Billboard Top LPs chart for 10 weeks. It became the group's worst-selling album to date,1 with record sales in the US estimated at 18,000 units.2 To recuperate from the album's poor sales, the band quickly released the standalone single "Do It Again". The song was a self-conscious throwback to the group's early surf songs, and the first time they had embraced the subject matter since 1964. It reached the US top twenty and became their second number one hit in the UK.3 Biographer Chrisian Matijas-Mecca wrote that "while this may have been some of Brian's strongest work of the period, it did nothing to reverse the band's decline in popularity."4

That's cheating

Are they in cave now?

Brian Wilson said that by early 1968, the group had begun losing thousands of dollars "on stupid things ... cars, houses ... bad investments ... a heck of a lot of corporation money on Brother Records, our own company, and in boosting other artists who just didn't make it, and didn't have a single hit."5 One of these artists was Ron Wilson (no relation to Brian), who co-wrote "We're Together Again" with him for the Beach Boys, but the group's recording was left unreleased. In turn, Brian produced an ultimately unsuccessful solo single for Ron, a cover of "As Tears Go By", which was released by Columbia Records in September.6 Another artist that the group worked with was ex-convict Charles Manson, who was then seeking a career as a singer-songwriter. Dennis Wilson befriended Manson and was interested in signing him to Brother Records.7 Brian and Carl Wilson (not Dennis as is sometimes suggested) proceeded to co-produce several tracks for Manson at the Beach Boys' private studio located in Brian's home.8 These recordings remain unheard by the public.8

Are you at "Come with me be with me"?

The Nearest Faraway Place has a gorgeous chord progression... one of my favourite BBs progressions

Still on the fence tbh

This song sounds like something I'd expect from the rolling stones

I was. I’m on all I want to do now.

helter skelter is another comparison I see a lot of

I'm talking about
All I wanna do

Over the summer of 1968, Brian attempted to record an arrangement of the 1927 show tune "Ol' Man River". According to music writer Brian Chidester, the session tapes "reveal Wilson conducting the Beach Boys to such extreme perfectionism that both he and the band seem at the end of their rope with one another".9 Friend and Three Dog Night singer Danny Hutton recalled that Brian expressed suicidal wishes at the time, and that it was "when Brian's real decline started".10 Afterward, Brian was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, possibly of his own volition.11 Brian's issues were not disclosed to the public, and sessions continued in his absence.11 Once discharged, Brian rarely finished any tracks for the band, leaving much of his subsequent Beach Boys output for Carl Wilson to complete.9 Regarding Brian's participation on the group's recordings from then, band engineer Stephen Desper said that Brian remained "indirectly involved with production" through Carl.12 Dennis said that Brian began to have "no involvement at all", which forced the group to "find things that he worked on and try and piece it together

Yes

The instrumentals and vocals on this album are beautiful so far.