Taboo Boys

Goodbye surfing, hello God! The title of Jules Siegel's 1967 magazine feature on Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys sums up how well the group was outliving the early-'60s beach fad – and revolutionizing pop music in the process. During 1966, the twin shots of Pet Sounds in May and "Good Vibrations" in October announced first that the group had entered the vanguard of pop music and then, not content with mere critical praise, seized control of the singles charts with a chart-topper as catchy as it was complex and costly to record. Early on, though, "Good Vibrations" had actually been slated to appear on Pet Sounds, which reveals the long odds on whether Wilson could ever finish an entire album of his pocket symphonies (at least, in the time frame of a label circa 1966)…

Five more CDs of Connie Francis, picking up right where Bear Family's earlier White Sox, Pink Lipstick set left off, in 1960 – although its 300-plus minutes of music only cover the period of 1960 to 1962. By this time, Connie Francis was established as one of the top female vocal talents of her generation, and she was ready to experiment – you hear her successful move into country music, wonderful outtakes, and never-issued songs from her early-'60s sessions…