The Beach Boys - The Beach Boys' Christmas Album

In 1964, at the height of their run of surf and car hits, the Beach Boys turned their harmonies to the holidays. The result was one of the first great rock-era Christmas albums, a record that split the difference between Brian Wilson's restless pop invention and the lush orchestral standards of the generation before him.

Side one is the band's own territory: "Little Saint Nick" rides the same hot-rod energy as "Little Deuce Coupe," while "The Man with All the Toys," "Santa's Beard" and "Christmas Day" are bright, harmony-stacked originals that could only have come from Hawthorne, California. Side two flips to the classics, with "Blue Christmas," "White Christmas" and "We Three Kings of Orient Are" set against big orchestral arrangements that show how much the group's vocal blend owed to the jazz-pop vocal groups Brian loved.

Six decades on, "Little Saint Nick" is a permanent fixture of December radio, and the album remains the most purely joyful holiday record in the Beach Boys catalog.

This Capitol LP presents the album in its original mono mix, with the twelve-song running order of the 1964 release and no bonus tracks.