Recorded at roughly the same time as The Beach Boys' Love You, Pacific Ocean Blue shares that record's 'return-to-form' nature, after a few rough years in the group's camp. However, while Love You has a rejuvenatory spirit throughout, Pacific displays both more euphoric highs, and dispiriting lows. Dennis Wilson solo recordings". Local Gentry. Archived from the original on June 12, 2009 . Retrieved 2009-12-05. In the thirty years since, Pacific Ocean Blue’s reputation has risen with the superlatives lavished up on it by fans such as The Verve, Primal Scream and The Charlatans. Unavailability has also played its part in pumping up the myth – so much so that you wonder if, heard in 2008, these songs stand to disappoint. In fact, key moments of Pacific Ocean Blue square dramatically up to your loftiest expectations. In a 1977 interview, Brian reported that his reaction when Dennis played him early mixes of the album was "Dennis, that's funky! That's funky!" [30] Dennis remembered,

I'm not quite as enamored with this one as some of my Strange Currencies colleagues, but Dennis Wilson's lone LP offers further proof that Brian wasn't the only songwriting/arrangement talent in The Beach Boys. To fill the void left behind by Brian’s aborted masterwork, and to fulfill their contractual obligation to Capitol, the band cobbled together Smiley Smile. Despite being considered a great stoner album, longtime fans absolutely hated it. Imagine trying to reconcile the hallucinogenic, and sometimes comical songs on this record, with “Little Deuce Coupe”, and “Surfin’ USA”? The fans couldn’t keep up, and The Beach Boys went from juggernaut to afterthought in under a year. Their next album, Friends, another huge sales disaster, featured the first four songs Dennis would contribute to the band. Critics mostly liked the record, and wrote of him as someone worth watching. Brian’s illness, tragic though it was, opened the door for Dennis, and he seized the opportunity. Stepping through the door he began flexing his own creative muscles. Unfortunately, despite the peaceful, and harmonious songs he was producing, things were about to go off the rails in an unpredictable, and terrifying way. Fornatale, Pete (November 3, 1976). "Interview with Brian Wilson" (MP3). NY Radio Archive. WNEW-FM 102.7.But perhaps it's those easy connections - in addition to the obvious one of his older brother - that have always left me wanting slightly more from Pacific Ocean Blue. Don't get me wrong: it's a fine record; just not quite the "lost masterpiece" that its legendary reputation in some circles suggests.

Pacific Ocean Blue, however, is a wonderful study in Beach Boys surfer soul imbued with the expressiveness of Dennis' piano style. It's also a meditation on a complex world, one devoid of the nostalgic innocence preached by the Mike Love-fronted Beach Boys of late, and its remastered, 2xCD Legacy Recordings release-- the first CD release of the album since 1991-- is astoundingly refreshing. Mills, Fred. "Dennis Wilson's Pacific Ocean Blue Reissued w/Unreleased Bambu". Harp Magazine. Archived from the original on 2008-02-28 . Retrieved 2008-02-28.Written and recorded in fits and starts since the mid-70s, Wilson took his brother Brian's painstaking approach, but came to the studio as a non-musician, with boundless possibilities that had to offer. The bass harmonicas and Dixie jazz of Dreamer; the layered vocals of River, Time with its flugelhorn, all dazzle in their understated way. Wilson's voice is the real revelation. It's barely there, sounds like its on the brink of collapse, and has a charm all of its own.