Forget for a moment the mountain of mud slung between the surviving Beach Boys in recent years; forget "Kokomo"; forget Mike Love post-1975 altogether. The Beach Boys were once America's band. They celebrated the American dream using their love of rock 'n' roll and Brian Wilson's touching, skewed outsider's perspective. Brian was the fat kid able only to watch his suntanned brothers hang ten and score chicks; but he put the time to good use, perfecting his ability to harmonize and his knack for encapsulating the mythic California lifestyle in mere two-minute songs.

The Beach Boys - Brian, his brothers Carl and Dennis, Mike Love, Al Jardine, and later Bruce Johnston - formed in 1961. They started slowly, filling their albums with touchingly amateur renditions of contemporary favorites. Their clunky early hits ("Surfin'," "Surfin' Safari") soon yielded to songs of ever increasing complexity. By their 1964 single "I Get Around" b/w "Don't Worry Baby," they were creating full-blown pop masterpieces. From there, they just blew up, creating a string of singles equaled by few: "Help Me Rhonda," California Girls," "Wouldn't It Be Nice," "Good Vibrations," and many more. The albums from this period, Today!, Summer Days (And Summer Nights), and especially Pet Sounds are simply brilliant.

But then it was Brian's turn to blow up - emotionally. His raging insecurities caused him to wage a battle of wits with the Beatles and Phil Spector in a quixotic quest for the perfect pop song. Eventually, Brian simply crumbled into his literal and psychological sandbox while trying to complete his legendarily ambitious "Smile" project. The albums that followed - Smiley Smile (1967, culled from the wreckage of Brian's breakdown), Wild Honey (1967), Friends (1968), and 20/20 (1969) - are still quite good, showcasing as they do the other Beach Boys' talents, but Brian's genius is plainly missing. The band cut a number of good albums in the late 60's and 70's as Brian struggled back from near psychosis, but recent events - including the deaths of Dennis (drowning, 1983) and Carl (cancer, 1998) - would dictate that the Beach Boys' story has largely been written.

Like following the group's career itself, collecting the Beach Boys on CD has been a real roller coaster ride. In the early 90's, a fan could buy virtually all of their albums, many of them as fabulous 2-on-1 CDs on Capitol Records. These discs were some of the best CD reissues ever done, but then Capitol perpetrated one of the greatest crimes in the history of record collecting by summarily deleting them. This made no sense, except perhaps to the bean counters at Capitol - the albums were subsequently issued separately sans bonus tracks. To make matters worse, the Beach Boys' later albums on their own Brother Records label were also deleted about the same time - these included such gems as Sunflower (1970), Surf's Up (1971), Holland (1973), 15 Big Ones (1976), and Love You (1977).

Then, beginning in the summer of 2000, Capitol began an ambitious plan to restore the whole catalog (again). The first phase, oddly, consisted of the later material - a fine series of 2-on-1 discs containing all the Brother albums. Later, the label revisited the original two-fers of the historic 60's albums, tweaking both the mastering and the bonus tracks. So, as of this writing, the Beach Boys' catalog is in better shape than ever. Get 'em while you can...

Over the years, the Beach Boys have been anthologized nearly to death. Innumerable greatest hits packages have come and gone; the best ones have been arbitrarily selected, and the rest were mainly exploitive crap. Perhaps the most famous is Endless Summer (1974), a monster-selling 2-LP set. Its success spawned two sequels: Spirit Of America (1975) and Sunshine Dream (1982). Together with Ten Years Of Harmony (1981), which covered the Brother Records output, the series told the Beach Boys' story very well - comprehensively, if somewhat haphazardly. But, only the first three were ever issued on CD, and all are now out-of-print. Besides, the packaging and mastering of the CD versions was sub par.

Capitol's quasi-chronological Greatest Hits Vol. 1 and Greatest Hits Vol. 2 (1999) went a long way towards rectifying the situation, and Vol. 3: Best Of The Brother Years (2000) rounded out the set nicely. For the committed fan, though, Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys (1993), a 5-CD boxed set with hits, highlights, and rarities (including many from the Smile sessions), is the better choice. If I were buying just one package (as if...) that'd be it.

Casual listeners, however, will appreciate The Sounds Of Summer: The Very Best Of The Beach Boys (2003), a 30-track powerhouse of a CD. Despite some faults - it's not chronological, and it includes the accursed "Kokomo" - The Sounds Of Summer is the single best Beach Boys collection ever released. And though it doesn't bill itself as such, The Warmth Of The Sun (2007) is the perfect sequel - 28 tracks, with no repeats.

Of special interest to completists are DCC's Lost & Found 1961-1962 (1991) or Varese's Surfin' (2000) which compile the Beach Boys pre-Capitol recordings, and Christmas With The Beach Boys (2004), a superb reissue of their holiday sessions (read more). The Pet Sounds 30th Anniversary Box (1997) is fascinating, but, wow, that's a lotta outtakes... Hawthorne, CA: Birthplace Of A Musical Legacy (2001) is more easily digestible - a 2-CD set of rarities spanning their whole career.

Of the Beach Boys' solo material - and there's precious little still in print - Brian Wilson has predictably produced the largest and most fascinating body of work. His first-ever, full-fledged solo record was released in 1990, but he continued to be hampered both by his own psychological difficulties and by the handlers he had long allowed to control his life. Late in the decade, he began to show signs of emerging from under this stifling cloud, releasing a fairly prolific string of records recorded with such sympathetic partners as Andy Paley and the Wondermints. In 2004, Brian even released a fully realized rendition of his now-mythic Smile album.

My hope is that Brian will one day make the album he's always wanted to make. I don't think that's happened yet, due perhaps to his own demons or the people who prey upon his genius. As it is, Brian's solo catalog is recommended for true fans only (of which I am one), with the documentary soundtrack I Just Wasn't Made For These Times (1995) possessing the most general interest.

Both of the other Wilson brothers released solo records, including Dennis' Pacific Ocean Blue (1977) and Carl's self-titled debut (1981) and Youngblood (1984). In 2000, an interesting album by Carl Wilson with Robert Lamm (Chicago) and Gerry Beckley (America) was released. Entitled Like A Brother, it had been in the works for several years when Carl died, and it reflected much of what was good about all three contributor's previous work.