A record which is as confusing, as baffling, and as hard to explain as the man who made it. ‘I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times’ was made in the mid 90s as the soundtrack to a documentary about Wilson’s life. As such, there are a number of things about it which are commendable.
Firstly, it would have been easy not to bother. A lazily assembled compilation of existing Beach Boys tracks would have been easier to put together, so it’s good that this wasn’t done. Secondly, it would also have been easy for Wilson to churn out an obvious set of re-recorded ‘classics’. This would have made for a more appealing commercial prospect, but not a better record. Instead, this record skirts around the edges of Wilson’s song-writing catalogue, touching on tracks that are easy to miss – ‘Meant For You’, ‘This Whole World’, ‘Let The Wind Blow’ and ‘Til I Die’ are particularly good choices. Less worthy of inclusion are ‘Love And Mercy’ and ‘Melt Away’, two solo-era tracks credited to Wilson and his doctor/therapist/manager, Eugene Landy, the man who broke Wilson’s drug dependence and began restoring him to a normal life, in return for the minor concession of having complete control over every aspect of his life, and the right to profit from any work he went on to complete – behaviour which resulted in complicated legal action and an eventual revocation of his license to practice. ‘Love And Mercy’ is a pleasant enough track – ‘Melt Away’ is weaker. Perhaps the most interesting track on the album is ‘Still I Dream Of It’, a home demo from the mid-seventies which, I think, had been unreleased until this point.
Alongside the creditable aspects of this work are some fairly major drawbacks. Of course, more work has gone into this album than a simple round-up of the relevant Beach Boys tracks would have been. Unfortunately, that hasn’t resulted in a better album. Wilson’s backing band and singers on this project are a collection of anonymous session players who lack both the family-honed warmth of the Beach Boys or the faithful recreation of Wilson’s later backing band. Worse still, Wilson’s voice is not in good shape here. No-one would expect it to be as good as it was in the sixties, but here it’s in a very fragile condition – a world away from what it would recover to by the time he started touring ‘Pet Sounds’ and recreating ‘Smile’.
So, all in all, this is something of a non-essential record – one for the dedicated fans only. But consider this – this was the first time Wilson had really had the confidence to look back over his life’s work and do something with it. A few years on, and he’d be playing ‘Pet Sounds’ to audiences across the world. A few years later, he finished ‘Smile’. Maybe this was a first step? If so, worth it.
