The new album by The Beach Boys

Doo. De-dooby-dooby-dum. De-dooby-dooby-dum. Despite how awful their live performances looked this year (and the fact that Mike Love abruptly fired most of his bandmates a couple months ago), The Beach Boys’ 50th Anniversary reunion album That’s Why God Made the Radio is actually quite lovely. This song was the album’s first single and I love it for how spare it is – really a great departure from both the band’s classic orchestral Brian Wilson-produced 60s sound, and its commercial overproduced for-the-movies-slick 80s sound. The voices, aged by still sweet, are front and center with only the most essential and delicate of instrumental back-up – and everyone gets a turn at the mic. Let’s hear it for the oldest boy band in the world! Also: that phrase “goin’ steady”? Someone will have to explain that to One Direction.