Pacific Ocean Blue

Background and recording

After several attempts, starting in 1970, to realize his own project, some of which made it to the finished album, Wilson recorded the bulk of Pacific Ocean Blue in the months spanning the fall of 1976 to the following spring, at the Beach Boys' own Brother Studios. At the time of recording, Dennis' hard living had begun affecting his looks and more importantly his singing voice, which now delivered grainy and rough, yet still deeply soulful, vocals.

Recalling the time Wilson spent working on the album, co-producer Gregg Jakobson said, "This was when he fully accepted himself as an artist. Brian had shown him chords on the piano, but as he'd become more proficient the music that came forth was not derivative of that. Having his own studio helped tremendously. With a little encouragement, and the right tools, Dennis took off."

Brian reported that his reaction when Dennis played him early mixes of the album was "Dennis, that's funky! That's funky!"

Reception

Released in August 1977, Pacific Ocean Blue received glowing reviews for its depth and emotion. It has allegedly been praised by his older brother Brian Wilson, but in a 2008 interview with Pitchfork Media, Brian denied knowing that Dennis had recorded an album at all. The album also performed poorly in the U.S. charts peaking at a disappointing #96 during a short 12 week chart run, and eventually went on to sell fewer than 5,000 copies. The poor performance of the record, combined with Wilson's increasingly unreliable professional behavior, led his record label to pull support for a modest West Coast tour that had been scheduled to promote the album.

Accolades

It has appeared on several "Best-of" lists including Robert Dimery's "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die," and Mojo's "Lost Albums You Must Own" and "70 of the Greatest Albums of the 70s" lists. In 2005, it was ranked #18 in GQ's "The 100 Coolest Albums in the World Right Now!" list.

Release history

Issued by Caribou/CBS Records on CD in 1991, Pacific Ocean Blue went out of print within a year due to ongoing disagreements over copyright ownership; the album was virtually unavailable for more than fifteen years. Copies of the extremely rare 1991 CD sold for over $200.

Legacy Recordings released a special 30th anniversary, 2-disc edition of Pacific Ocean Blue on June 17, 2008. It includes material from the Bambu sessions. A limited edition 180-gram vinyl multi-LP box set was also released on the Sundazed label.

Notable on the reissue is the inclusion of the song "Holy Man", recorded for Pacific Ocean Blue in 1977, in two versions. Wilson had completed work on the instrumental backing track but never finished a satisfactory vocal, erasing an original attempt. For the reissue, Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters was recruited to record a vocal version in Wilson's style given their similarities. The song's original lyricist, Gregg Jakobson, was tapped to help recall the song's original melody and to write lyrics for the song.

Despite missing the UK Album Chart on its original 1977 release, the expanded reissue of Pacific Ocean Blue entered the UK album chart at #16, also reaching #5 on the Norway album chart. In addition, the package managed to attain a high of #8 on Billboard's Top Pop Catalog Albums chart.

Personnel