dust. That 1977 release is Brian Wilson's most ambitious and successful work of the decade. It ranks with Fleetwood Mac's Tusk, Steely Dan's Katy Lied, and Neil Young's Zuma as the best California rock albums of the decade." Referring to "naysayers" of Love You, the underground fanzine Scram wrote "fuck [them]... [the album showcases] a truly original mix of humor and sadness. The original numbers always dance just a step away from the cliché, dealing with simple lyrical themes that make you wonder why they had never been explored before." The A.V. Clubs Keith Phipps relented: "there's something not-quite-right about men on the cusp of middle age hungering after a 'roller-skating child'—but its failure reveals a touching vulnerability beneath the sunny good-times image of an American institution", going on to say that "more often than not, Love You has a winning, human directness." Aftermath and legacy The recording of Love You remained the last time Brian Wilson took charge of a Beach Boys album. Pitchforks D. Erik Kempke said that it "stands in sharp contrast to the albums that preceded and followed it, because it was a product of genuine inspiration on Brian Wilson's part, with little outside interference." Carlin noted that, following Love You, Wilson would not write songs that reflected his musical, emotional, and intellectual interests to a similar degree until the aborted Andy Paley sessions from the 1990s. Matijas-Mecca characterized Wilson, embittered by the band's lack of support for his new music, as choosing "the path of least, or no, resistance when working with the Beach Boys" for the next several decades. Among the band members, Brian later referred to it as his favorite Beach Boys album on repeated occasions, explaining in a 1998 interview, "That's when it all happened for me. That's where my heart lies. Love You, Jesus, that's the best album we ever made." In a 2000 interview, he said, "My favorites are 'I Wanna Pick You Up' and 'Ding Dang'.... One of the shortest records we have ever made." Asked in 2009 for the records in his catalog that he felt had been underrated, he listed Love You and the tracks "Ding Dang", "Johnny Carson", "The Night Was So Young", and "I'll Bet He's Nice". Mike Love commented in his 2016 memoir that the album was "undeniably original but fragmented and just plain odd". In a 2013 interview, Al Jardine expressed enthusiasm for