Masterpiece Crate #6: Why The Beach Boys will never get old, and why SMiLE is the greatest album that never was, but now is, thanks to Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys fan community

The Beach Boys' SMiLE, And The Best Music Fanbase Of All Time

This article is a deep dive into this fan community’s endless fascination with The Beach Boys, how the community will always keep the group and their beautiful music alive, and why their fanbase will always remain at the top tier of all other music fandoms.

For more on my Masterpiece Crate series doing album deep dives you can go here.

A Tribute to Brian Wilson & A Smile-Core Albums Collage Project Powered by r/thebeachboys Subreddit

 

My Tribute to Brian

I was in the midst of this album collage project with help from The Beach Boys fan community on Reddit when the sad news of Brian Wilson’s passing rocked the world on June 11, 2025, 9 days before his 83rd birthday. As fans, we all knew this day was approaching since the news of his dementia and being assigned a conservator. I had a very hard time dealing with his death that day.

 

My Top 100 All-Time Albums

My Top 100 Music Albums

After stumbling across an excellent website, Topsters, I realized I would take a crack at putting together a top-100 album list for myself. The resulting list is my top 100 albums of all time, drawn from my own personal music journey. 

Earth’s Full Upon Her Burning Lips (2019) is an awesome showcase of doom metal, and probably the ultimate example of metal you can chill to

Earth - Full Upon Her Burning Lips Review

Earth, a group that helped to define and form the genre of ambient metal, doom, drone, or stoner metal, has had multiple releases since the early 1990s. Taking elements from grunge and other forms of heavy metal music, Earth's founding member Dylan Carlson was notably friends with Kurt Cobain. Earth's origins in Seattle also explain this emerging hub of hard rock music that continues to be a haven of major and independent music to this day. Their latest release was last year's Full Upon Her Burning Lips, and while I am guilty of sleeping on this instrumental album, Earth has remained a personal favorite of mine, as they defined the perfect form of metal that you can relax to. Full Upon Her Burning Lips builds upon their previous releases and makes for an engrossing showcase of strong and steady guitar riffs and atmospheric drums and percussion. 

Sunn O)))'s twin album releases, Life Metal and Pyroclasts (2019), are a fantastic entry point into drone metal - Album reviews

Sun O))) - Life Metal and Pyroclasts Reviews

Two releases that have escaped me over the past year were from drone metal gods, Sunn O))) (pronounced just Sun, and aptly named after the popular Sunn amplifiers which ceased operation in 2002), with their half-improvised, half-composed twin albums, Life Metal, and Pyroclasts. For any newcomers to this genre of mammoth sounds and drastically slowed reverberations, these two (relatively) new releases cement this duo's legacy as drone metal pioneers and an awesome entry point for anyone interested in pulling back the veil of the eternal void.

Life Metal

Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts V: Together & Ghosts VI: Locusts Album Reviews

Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts V: Together and Ghosts VI: Locusts Reviews

Just over 12 years since the debut of the instrumental, ambient, and cinematic soundscape series Ghosts I-IV, seasoned film and television composer duo, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, aka Nine Inch Nails, release their surprise twin albums Ghosts V: Together and Ghosts VI: Locusts, to help aid an ailing world in the midst of a global pandemic crisis.

Interview: Nary Da Producer

Nary Da Producer Interview

Our featured interview this holiday season is seasoned Pittsburgh producer extraordinaire, Nary Da Producer!

AirdriftSignals: How long have you been focused on producing hip-hop beats?

Nary Da Producer: I started seriously producing music around 2007 when I briefly relocated to Green Level, North Carolina, so we can say 12 years... I was making beats for my cousins and some artist around the area... I always knew I would do something with music even before then... But I ended up signing to two different indie labels during my stay in North Carolina that showed me a lot about the business aspect of the music industry and I took what I learned from that and started my journey into this music thing!

Nary Da Producer - The Chill Out Volume I Review

Following our at-length interview with Pittsburgh hip-hop beat maker Nary Da Producer, there's a lot to unpack. Whether it's his most recent productions, such as Cuban Pete's single Nothin's Gonna Stop Me, or his fulfillment of a childhood dream in producing four cuts for a Wu-Tang Clan affiliate, on Solomon Child's 2019 album Wu-Tang BBQ, Nary is hitting the bars of his MPC hard, and now, swerving in just in time for the holidaze is Nary Da Producer's first in a themed series of beat tapes, The Chill Out Volume I!

DJ Shadow - Our Pathetic Age Review

Just over a month from the end of a decade, there's been more change in the Internet age than ever before. As the rise in social media, influencers, and connectivity continues to grow, so too do the anxieties, concerns, and questions that our artificial and intelligent world continues to pose. There's a lot to be concerned over, but there's still room for hope. If there was ever an album to sum up what's happened to us globally in the past ten years, then it is DJ Shadow's latest full-length album, Our Pathetic Age, an affecting and universal double LP that features genre-bending electronica, hip-hop, and heart.

Update: Satellite Beats: Earliest Transmissions OUT NOW!

Update: Satellite Beats - Earliest Transmissions Release

How do I begin? Satellite Beats... Where do I go from here? DJ Dark Flow... As an aspiring songwriter and musician, a 15-16-year-old me was lucky enough to collect and get my hands on various electronic equipment, a keyboard, an acoustic and electric guitar, and a digital recorder. With these circuits and machinery, I was able to begin to fulfill my dream and passion for songwriting by creating acoustic, electronic, and industrial atmospheres full of mystery and dread, and from this era of my musical experimentation, I produced a lot of wide-ranging material under my first musical alias, Satellite Beats. After years of having the songs on my computer, I decided to curate and release this compilation album of my earliest recordings.

Bill Laswell - Smoke + Glass & Realm of Spells Review

Bill Laswell - Smoke + Glass and Realm Of Spells Review

Having significant involvement in the creation and release in over 100 albums since the early 80s, the breadth of musical discography that bassist, producer, and record label owner, Bill Laswell has accumulated is enough to overwhelm the senses and make your head spin. Still, Laswell, an undeniable influence in the genres of world, jazz, and dub, does it again with dual collaborative releases in 2019, Smoke + Glass (with Alex Haas), and Realm of Spells (with Jah Wobble).

Various Artists - The Music Of Red Dead Redemption II: (Original Score) Review

Just as video game developer Rockstar promised, the original score to their engrossing cowboy western game, Red Dead Redemption II released August 9th, and just as their pedigree for cinematic and Oscar-worthy storytelling captured the hearts and minds of fans across the world, so too does their original score for the game itself.

Various Artists - The Music Of Red Dead Redemption II: (Original Soundtrack) Review

Today released an original soundtrack from the makers of the wild west, cowboy masterpiece of last year, Red Dead Redemption II. A fully alive world of the west, Red Dead was instantly hailed as an undisputed classic in modern cinematic and interactive storytelling. It's awe-inspiring immersive characters, setting, and story were brought to vivid life not only by its beautiful, picture-perfect graphics but also by its swooning music, which could quietly enhance a scene or break out in full bravado, placing any player right in the middle of a classic western film. Rockstar shows the world again that their release last year was more than just a video game, but an arresting piece of art that deserves another look this summer, in the form of RDRII's original soundtrack.

Claud5 - Claudscape Review

Only a couple months after releasing his debut concept album, Dogs Carry Knives, Claud5 is back again with a tropicana, hip-hop, and nujabes-infused summer album, Claudscape! Not to put his debut, atmospheric, electronic debut in the rearview mirror, but in a way, to show another side to his persona, Claudscape is best enjoyed while kicked back on a warm, summer day, with a drink in hand, and it's an exciting genesis for an artist who clearly has been saving his songs in the bank and allowing them to grow in quantity and quality.

Claud5 - Dogs Carry Knives Review

After years of incubating beats and simmering synths, Connecticut based lo-fi electronic beat producer and emcee Claud5 releases his debut solo effort, Dogs Carry Knives, and wastes no time in pulling listeners in to his world of mythos and flow.

A brisk, head nodding treat worthy of many spins, Dogs Carry Knives has an encompassing, cohesive skin and theme of dogs, or rather, their ancestors, and exhibits Claud5’ drum-synth abilities in highly evolved form. Despite his producer name, this album has the inescapable atmosphere and feeling of exploration and discovery that you would find aimlessly scouting through the woods in the dead of night.

Aphex Twin - Collapse EP Review

Aphex Twin - Collapse Review

Few electronic musicians can make music sound so utterly alien and beautiful simultaneously. For this reason, and for the sheer complexity and magnitude of the electronic landscapes willed into sonic existence, this balance of contrast exhibited by an artist such as Aphex Twin simply has no equal. Aphex Twin is Richard D. James, a man who’s been embroiled in the creation of computer music since the early 1980’s. His music often falls into one of two categories: pretty melodic ambience, or abrasive aural assault, and sometimes a combination of the two. After James’s more than decade-long hiatus as Aphex Twin, his reemergence with 2014’s Syro, a collection of some of his best work produced during this period, earned him his first Grammy award for best electronic/dance album. Since his revival, Aphex Twin has arguably released some of his most exciting music after decades of growth, to be experienced and discovered by new generations. James followed up Syro with his 2016 EP, Cheetah, which featured tracks using the rare, eponymous synthesizer and contained some of his most accessible, beat-driven work. His music and energy continues to morph on his 2018 EP, Collapse.

Teebs - Ardour Review

Teebs, a popular artist on the Brainfeeder record label started by Flying Lotus, releases his debut album and blows all other producers out of the water! His multi-textured compositions come to life in Ardour, arguably one of the best beat albums of 2010. His soft beats and melodic chimes have a fulfilling presence, and I cannot stress it enough that his work bears a therapeutic, healing power for any avid headphones junkie.

MiM0SA - Silver Lining Review

Just two months after his late-night dubstep EP Your Love, MiM0SA comes out with another stunner, his super melodic, big bass release, Silver Lining. This new album, layered with bright melodies and atmospheric textures, sounds like a bright, sunny morning.

Flying Lotus – Pattern+Grid World Review

Brace yourself for a new breed of FlyLo, with a new EP just months after his third full-length space opera, videogame drama, Cosmogramma. There’s more to be heard here, as Steven Ellison, the man behind the mask, takes you somewhere completely different once again.

Mount Kimbie - Crooks and Lovers Review

To make my blog more exciting, I decided that I am now going to start doing album reviews of music that I have enjoyed enough to feature in my radio show Adrift In The Airwaves.

For my first album review, I decided to take a look at Mount Kimbie's debut full-length, Crooks & Lovers.