The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album

The Beach Boys had already released a holiday favorite, “Little Saint Nick,” as a single in 1963; for the 1964 holidays, that got added to a slew of new recordings to create their own popular effort in Christmas standby albums. Brian Wilson was openly captivated by Phil Spector’s own Christmas landmark, though an awkward split between Dick Reynolds’s often overblown orchestrations on standards and more enjoyable playing on Wilson’s own songs like “The Man With All the Toys” was very odd. That said, their “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” is a winning treat.