The Beach Boys

The Beach Boys are a pop music group formed in Hawthorne, California in 1961, whose popularity has lasted into the twenty-first century. The original group comprised singer-musician-composer Brian Wilson, his brothers Carl and Dennis, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Alan Jardine. Many changes in both musical style and personnel occurred in their sometimes stormy career, which has been marked by the mental and drug-induced illnesses of Brian Wilson, the deaths of Dennis Wilson in 1983 and Carl Wilson in 1998, and continuing legal battles among surviving members of the group. The Beach Boys continue to tour, albeit with but a fraction of the original members, as of 2005. They have recorded dozens of top-forty hits, many best-selling albums, and four US #1 singles, and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.

Album availability

• With the exception of Pet Sounds, The Beach Boys' Christmas Album, and the three albums since 1989, all the Beach Boys albums are available in a two-LP-on-one-CD format. The rereleases of the 1960s albums also include bonus tracks.
• Pet Sounds is available on both CD and DVD-Audio. A four-disc box set including numerous outtakes and alternate versions is also available.
• The Beach Boys' Christmas Album is available both on its own and as part of the Ultimate Christmas album, which includes tracks from an aborted 1977 Christmas album.
• Still Cruisin, Summer in Paradise, and Stars and Stripes Vol. 1 are currently out of print, but can be found used on CD.
• The 1993 box set ' presents a comprehensive review of the group's career plus a number of rare tracks, including some from the legendary Smile sessions.

Three albums have been released since the group's split.

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• Endless Harmony Soundtrack is a compilation of otherwise unreleased tracks together with remixes of better-known tracks; a good introduction to the band, containing no duplications of earlier releases.
• Hawthorne, CA is a less successful, two-CD set along the same lines.
• ' is a studio-enhanced concert recording.