Sufin’ Safari and Surfin’ U.S.A. arrive, more ordered

This blog post is a little late coming as I have been off on holiday this week and it was my little boys first birthday this past Wednesday, needless to say my time was taken up with lots of toddler based activities.

Surfin’ Safari/Surfin’ U.S.A. CD are the first 2 Beach Boys albums and they make up the first double album CD which arrived late last week. I’ve taken a few photos to showcase how the albums are presented, starting with the CD insert which has the Sufin’ Safari album front cover on the front and the Surfin’ U.S.A. album front cover on the back of the insert.

Album Sleeves

The inside front cover is what I am guessing is the reverse of the original Surfin’ Safari album sleeve, and this is something I will have to confirm at some point. The first page is a passage written by Brian Wilson, about the album, from 1990.

Sleeve reverse & Brian Wilson speaks!

The inside back cover and last page of the insert are the same as previously described but for Surfin’ U.S.A.

I have only listened to each album once so far, but what I have heard I have enjoyed, a lot. From these initial listens I’d say Surfin’ U.S.A. is my favourite of the two and I especially like the instrumentals. I recognise Miserlou from pulp Fiction, though on further investigation I found out that it’s Dick Dale’s original recording of Misirlou (wonder why The Beach Boys changed the second ‘i’ for an ‘e’) that is used in the 1994 Quentin Tarentino film.

So, my first impressions of Surfin’ Safari/Surfin’ U.S.A. CD are very good, but I want to listen to them a few more times before I move onto the next albums, which incidentally I have ordered some of already, namely Surfer Girl/Shut Down, Vol. 2, Little Deuce Coupe/All Summer Long, Today!/Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) and Smiley Smile/Wild Honey – I had some vouchers to use!

One thing that confuses me a little is that the original release of Shut Down, Vol 2 was 1964 and but it is twinned with Surfer Girl which was released in 1963, and Little Deuce Coupe was also released in 1963 – so these releases seem to not be in chronological order. Surfer Girl should be twinned with Little Deuce Coupe and Shut Down, Vol 2 should be twinned with All Summer Long. I might to have do some investigation to see why this is so!

I also have 2 Brian Wilson CDs which I will listen to only after I have completed The Beach Boys Discography Project. I got given Pet Sounds Live and I found That Lucky Old Sun for just £2.99 so got that too.