Maps of Music

Orange Crate Art (1995)

Where the lyrics of Orange Crate Art take you, and where it was really made.

Billed as a full collaboration between Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, the album was devoted to Parks' compositions, with Wilson contributing only vocals, and it failed to chart.

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Album story

Overview

• Orange Crate Art: first collaborative studio album by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks
• Released in 1995 on Warner Bros. Records
• Mostly songs written and arranged by Parks, with Wilson as lead and backing vocalist
• Title refers to the sun-drenched, idealized paintings on wooden fruit crates
• Theme: a nostalgic view of the history of California

Background

• Wilson and Parks had collaborated on the ill-fated Beach Boys' Smile project
• In the thirty years after that, each developed a solo career
• Sometime in 1992, Parks invited the then-reclusive Wilson to record an album together
• Wilson was then in the middle of a court-ordered removal and restraining order involving his psychiatrist
• Parks said his reason was to take care of unfinished business and to escape the sense of history placed on the aborted Smile effort
• Billed as a full collaboration, the album centers on Parks' dense wordplay and orchestrations
• Wilson contributed only the vocals and vocal arrangements
• Parks reported that Wilson had declined to contribute any music to the project
• Wilson agreed to record the album for Parks anyway, aiming for something he could live with ten years later

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Career

• Brian Douglas Wilson (1942–2025) was an American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer who co-founded the Beach Boys.
• In 1961 he began his professional career as a member of the Beach Boys, serving as songwriter, producer, co-lead vocalist, bassist, keyboardist and de facto leader.
• After signing with Capitol Records in 1962, he became the first pop musician credited for writing, arranging, producing and performing his own material.
• He wrote or co-wrote over three dozen U.S. Top 40 hits, including the number-ones "I Get Around", "Help Me, Rhonda" and "Good Vibrations".
• In 1966 he produced Pet Sounds and his first solo credited release "Caroline, No", and began the unfinished album Smile.
• Struggles with mental illness led to withdrawal from regular touring from late 1964 and a long period of reclusion.
• A psychologist-led program with Eugene Landy in the 1980s preceded the solo album Brian Wilson (1988).
• He completed Smile in 2004 as Brian Wilson Presents Smile, earning his greatest acclaim as a solo artist.
• His influence spans the California sound, art pop, psychedelia, chamber pop, progressive pop, punk and indie music.
• Honors include two Grammy Awards, Kennedy Center Honors, and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1988) and Songwriters Hall of Fame (2000).
• The 2014 biopic Love & Mercy dramatized his life.
• He died on June 11, 2025 at age 82.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Given the history of its artists, the album came with high expectations
• Upon release it received mixed critical reviews
• AllMusic (Stephen Thomas Erlewine): Parks' approach is intellectual, not instinctual, so his compositions are over-labored and overwrought
• Erlewine: Parks made the melodies complex instead of catchy, so they are rarely memorable
• Erlewine: the lyrics are dense with poetic imagery and metaphors, too cerebral for a pop album
• Erlewine: the album is not a pop album but a self-conscious work of art

Records

• Sales were lackluster, and the album failed even to chart
• Parks said it took three years and $350,000 to make, and that the record came out and sank without a trace
• Parks has repeatedly stated his disappointment with the album's reception

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Reportedly, Wilson interrupted the first vocal session for the album by asking Parks what he was doing there.
• Parks answered that Wilson was there because Parks could not stand the sound of his own voice.
• Parks found Wilson alone in a room staring at a television that was off.
• Parks said his first impression of California was an orange, a special thing at Christmas because it came by train.
• Wilson had declined to contribute music, yet he was determined to make something he could live with.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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