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Over three years after the release of Sail On Sailor: 1972, The Beach Boys’ long-running archival series is back in full force with a new box set due on February 13. We Gotta Groove: The Brother Studio Years brings together highlights from the band’s 1974-1977 period, with the title referring to the band’s own Santa Monica studio. The set will look a bit different than the past releases in this series, eschewing separate CD and LP formats for a combined 3LP/3CD box with a number of tracks only in the CD format.
We Gotta Groove opens with the 1977 album The Beach Boys Love You, which Al Jardine has been celebrating on the road with The Brian Wilson Band in the wake of Wilson’s 2025 passing at the age of 82. Love You marked a return to form for Wilson as the band’s creative force and primary songwriter, with a suite of moving, personal, and often idiosyncratic songs. While most of Love You took on a lo-fi/DIY aesthetic, the lush likes of “The Night Was So Young” could have stood alongside the melodic best of Pet Sounds or SMiLE. It appears here on CD and LP, and is joined by ten bonus cuts on CD. These include a number of outtakes which are officially previously unreleased but nonetheless familiar to longtime Beach Boys collectors such as “Lazy Lizzie,” “Marilyn Rovell,” the oldies “Ruby Baby” and “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” and “Sherry, She Needs Me,” which Wilson would rewrite as “She Says That She Needs Me” on his 1998 album Imagination. Further treasures include an alternate mix of the album’s “Johnny Carson” and an Al Jardine vocal on “Love Is a Woman.” Three outtakes have been freshly mixed: the box’s title track and lead single “We Gotta Groove” (a Brian song with lead vocal by Mike Love), “Hey There Mama,” and “Clangin’.”
Disc Two sheds some light on the long-mythologized (and long-bootlegged) Adult/Child, another intensely personal album spearheaded by Brian Wilson which ended up shelved. Nine complete songs from Adult/Child are presented including the four on which Wilson collaborated with Four Freshmen and The Beach Boys Christmas Album arranger Dick Reynolds: a cover of the standard “Deep Purple,” the bittersweet “It’s Over Now,” the swinging “Life Is for the Living,” and the ravishing “Still I Dream of It.” (Some of the tracks long associated with Adult/Child are missing from this disc but originated with other album sessions such as “Hey Little Tomboy” from 15 Big Ones; “Games Two Can Play” from Sunflower; and “H.E.L.P. Is on the Way” from Surf’s Up.) The Dick Reynolds backing tracks are appended here as well as new mixes of outtakes including Carl Wilson’s existing vocals for Dennis Wilson’s “Holy Man,” Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford’s “Honeycomb,” and outtakes such as “10,000 Years Ago” and two of “Carl’s Song[s]” including an embryonic “Angel Come Home.” Eight of the bonus tracks are CD-only.
The third and final set here is dedicated to outtakes and alternate mixes relating to 1976’s 15 Big Ones and beyond. Curiously, the complete original 15 Big Ones album isn’t present, though its closing track – a touching cover of Goffin, King, and Spector’s “Just Once in My Life” sung by brothers Brian and Carl – is among the new mixes. Nine demos recorded on a cassette by Brian also debut (including “it’s Over Now,” “Still I Dream of It,” and “Love Is a Woman”) as well as odds and ends. Longtime sideman Billy Hinsche takes the lead on “Honkin’ Down the Highway,” the quirky “Ding Dang” is heard in unedited form alongside session highlights, and Love You’s “Mona” gets a “Deconstructed Mix.” The first twelve tracks on this disc are included on LP while all 28 are on the CD.
Some tracks from this period – both commercially released and unofficially circulated – are missing from We Gotta Groove which is a more compact look at the era than many of The Beach Boys’ past box sets. We Gotta Groove: The Brother Studio Years is produced by James Sáez (who also serves as mixing engineer) and Beach Boys historian Howie Edelson, with input from band archivist Alan Boyd. The 12.75″ x 12.75″ package is topped by a beautiful cover evoking the stained glass that once adorned the studio; Edelson pens liner notes for the new 40-page booklet, drawing from new and archival band interviews as well as Stephen Moffitt, Earle Mankey and John Hanlon, the engineers at Brother Studio. (Sáez, Edelson, Moffitt, Mankey and Hanlon will all gather at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles on February 12 for a special conversation about the era and the material in this set.)
It’s available a day after that event, on February 13, from Capitol/UMe. You’ll find the track listing and pre-order links below. (As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.)
We Gotta Groove: The Brother Studio Years (Capitol/UMe, 2026) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Links TBD / Official Store / uDiscoverMusic)
CD/LP 1: Love You (released as Reprise/Brother MSK 2258, 1977) and bonus tracks (* CD only)
Let Us Go On This Way
Roller Skating Child
Mona
Johnny Carson
Good Time
Honkin’ Down the Highway
Ding Dang
Solar System
The Night Was So Young
I’ll Bet He’s Nice
Let’s Put Our Hearts Together
I Wanna Pick You Up
Airplane
Love is a Woman
Ruby Baby *
Marilyn Rovell *
Sherry She Needs Me *
Lazy Lizzie *
We Gotta Groove (2025 Mix) *
Hey There Mama (2025 Mix) *
Clangin’ (2025 Mix) *
Love is a Woman (Al Jardine Vocal) *
Johnny Carson (Alternate Mix with Intro) *
You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling *
Alternate versions of Tracks 17 and 24 released on Made in California – Capitol/UMe B0018509-02, 2013
CD/LP 2: Adult/Child Sessions and 1974-1977 Select Outtakes (* CD only)
Life is for the Living
Deep Purple
It’s Over Now
Still I Dream of It
Everybody Wants to Live
Lines
It’s Trying to Say
Shortenin’ Bread
New England Waltz
Life is for the Living (Backing Track)
Deep Purple (2025 Backing Track Mix)
It’s Over Now (2025 Backing Track Mix)
Still I Dream of It (2025 Backing Track Mix)
Holy Man (2025 Mix Carl Wilson Vocal) *
Carl’s Song 1 (It Could Be Anything) (2025 Mix) *
Carl’s Song 2 (Angel Come Home) (2025 Mix) *
String Bass Song (Rainbows) (2025 Mix) *
10,000 Years Ago *
Gimme Some Lovin’ (2025 Mix) *
Honeycomb (Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford Vocal) *
In the Back of My Mind (1975 Alternate Take 2025 Mix) *
Tracks 3-4 released on Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of The Beach Boys – Capitol C2 07777 81294 2 4, 1993
CD/LP 3: 15 Big Ones Outtakes and Alternate Mixes
Just Once in My Life (2025 Mix)
Mony, Mony (2025 Mix)
Running Bear (2025 Mix)
Shake, Rattle and Roll
On Broadway (2025 Mix)
Sea Cruise (2025 Mix)
Chapel of Love (2025 Mix)
Short Skirts (2025 Mix)
TM Song (2025 Backing Track Mix)
Rock and Roll Music (2025 Backing Track Mix)
Had to Phone Ya (2025 Deconstructed Mix)
Just Once in My Life (2025 Backing Track Mix)
Let Us Go On This Way (Alternate Mix) *
Mona (2025 Deconstructed Mix) *
Honkin’ Down the Highway (Billy Hinsche Vocal) *
Ding Dang (Session Highlights and Unedited 2025 Mix) *
Solar System (2025 Backing Track Mix) *
The Night Was So Young (2025 Vocals Only Mix) *
Let’s Put Our Hearts Together (2025 Coda Mix) *
That Special Feeling (Brian’s Cassette Demo) *
It’s Over Now (Brian’s Cassette Demo) *
They’re Marching Along (Brian’s Cassette Demo) *
Love is a Woman (Brian’s Cassette Demo) *
Mona (Brian’s Cassette Demo) *
Airplane (Brian’s Cassette Demo) *
Let’s Put Our Hearts Together (Brian’s Cassette Demo) *
I’ll Bet He’s Nice (Brian’s Cassette Demo) *
Still I Dream of It (Brian’s Cassette Demo) *