Andrew Hickey > Quotes

“Musically, it’s like all the most upbeat, cheerful parts of Smile without even a hint of the darker side – a cascade of different variations on the same basic ideas, with Swanee whistles, popping sound effects and car horns. Astonishingly, this is the shortest song on the album by a good half a minute, but it has more musical ideas than many other tracks on the record have in nearly twice its length. It’s good-natured, fun, and quite, quite beautiful.”
― Andrew Hickey, The Beach Boys on CD Volume 3 - 1985-2015

“Johnny Otis died in 2012, aged ninety, having achieved more than most of us could hope to if we lived five times that long, and having helped many more people to make the most of their talents. He died three days before the discovery of whom he was most proud, Etta James, and she overshadowed him in the obituaries, as he would have wanted.”
― Andrew Hickey, A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs Volume 2: From the Million Dollar Quartet to the Fab Four

“Actually, Wilson's art can't fit into these neat categories. My own take is that the best way to think of Wilson is as an outsider musician, but one who actually happens to have a huge amount of talent. Much like, say, Wesley Willis, Wilson is focussed on having huge commercial success, but has little to no idea what actually counts as commercial. He's very easily swayed by people around him, so if he's told he should be doing three-minute pop songs, he does three-minute pop songs, and if he's told he should do epic suites about the American Dream, he does those. But at all times there are two things that remain true about him: he has an unerring ability as an arranger, and a directness that makes his music more communicative than any other music I've ever heard.”
― Andrew Hickey, The Beach Boys On CD: Vol 1 - 1961-1969