So Tough / Holland

Married together as a 2-CD package for the first time, these two long-haired, counter-cultural Beach Boys albums (from 1972 and 1973 respectively) make strange bedfellows. Holland, our essentials choice, is the Beach Boys "Great Outdoors" record, beating the retreat from the sand and surf of yore to the redwood forests and mountains of "Calfornia Saga", with evocative stories of fur-trappers, traders, Native-American rights and dreamlike, hazy summer afternoons on riverbanks shaded by paddle steamers. It was also their last great studio album.