The Beach Boys: Carl And The Passions – So Tough (Reprise)

It's become increasingly evident that the Beach Boys are dead serious about shedding their hedonistic California surf-cars-and-fun stand for a more "contemporary" image. Surf's Up signaled the trend (although Pet Sounds, in a more limited sense, probably was the instigating album); recent in-concert pronouncements, where the band evinced much more eagerness to play their new material than the teen classics clamored for by the audience, bolstered it, and their new album, Carl and the Passions - So Tough (second straight LP with a misleading title – you'd expect a real return-to-the-roots rave-up, but it ain't) solidly confirms it – the modern-day "serious" Beach Boys image holds sway.