Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin

Help me, Rhonda, help, help me, Rhonda, get this CD...out of my head. Brian Wilson takes one of the greatest love songs ever written and turns it into the Beach Boys singing “Little Saint Nick.” “They Can't Take That Away From Me,” George Gershwin's hall-of-fame American standard about lost love is simply trashed by Wilson's upbeat “reimagining.”

Who needs to hear Brian Wilson singing a Bossa Nova version of “'S Wonderful,” with his thin and tired voice, when Diana Krall already has set the bar for this arrangement far above his reach? Who needs to hear Brian Wilson singing bad karaoke versions of Porgy and Bess classics “Summertime” and “I Loves You Porgy,” sounding here like “In My Room”? Who needs a doo-wop version of “I've Got a Crush on You”?

There are two unique, unfinished Gershwin songs, “The Like in I Love You” and “Nothing but Love,” which Wilson was given permission to turn into new “Beach Boys–type” songs, and they aren't bad, but there is nothing to compare them to.

Brian Wilson and George Gershwin are both musical wonders, but as we learned in the Gulf of Mexico, oil and water don't mix.

• Album: Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin (2010)
• Artist: Brian Wilson
• Label: Disney Pearl Series
• Songs: (1) Rhapsody in Blue Intro (2) The Like in I Love You (3) Summertime (4) I Loves You Porgy (5) I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin’ (6) It Ain’t Necessarily So (7) 'S Wonderful (8) They Can't Take That Away From Me (9) Love Is Here to Stay (10) I've Got a Crush on You (11) I've Got Rythm (12) Someone to Watch Over Me (13) Nothing but Love (14) Rhapsody in Blue (Reprise)