mixed the album for stereo. It was the band's first album to be mixed and released exclusively in true stereo, as the band's releases since The Beach Boys Today! (1965) had only been available in mono or Duophonic. Music and lyrics The LP has a relatively short length; only two of its 12 tracks last longer than three minutes, and five run short of two minutes. In author Jon Stebbins' description, the album "reflects the peaceful and quietly centered aura" that the band had gained from their introduction to Transcendental Meditation. Bruce Johnston described the album as a conscious attempt to make something "really subtle ... that wasn't concerned with radio". Retrospectively, the album may be viewed as the final installment in a consecutive three-part series of lo-fi Beach Boys albums. Columnist Joel Goldenburg believes the lightly produced album was the closest the group ever came to sunshine pop, a genre they had influenced but never fully embraced. For the album's 1990 CD liner notes, Brian recalled that he "had a good thing rollin' in my head. The bad things that had happened to me had taken their toll and I was free to find out just how much I had grown through the emotional pain that had come my way. ... I think that the Beach Boys’ sound was evolving right along." The few tracks where he served as primary author contained his usual composing trademarks, such as unexpected harmonic changes, descending stepwise progressions, and unusually structured musical phrases. As on much of his compositions of the period, there was a heavy influence drawn from Burt Bacharach. Subject matter ranges from Transcendental Meditation to bearing children and "doin' nothin'". Rolling Stones Jim Miller characterized Friends as a "return to Smileys dryness, minus the weirdness". Musicologist Daniel Harrison said Miller's observation was only true of "Meant for You", and that the remaining songs "have few of the formal or harmonic quirks of the earlier album, though there is no lack of clever and interesting effects, such as the bass harmonica line in 'Passing By' or the repetitive monophonic organ line in the break of 'Be Here in the Morning.'" The group's influences, according to rock critic Gene Sculatti, seemed to derive "primarily from Pet Sounds, Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, and little else. The characteristic innocence and somewhat childlike visions imparted to their music are applied directly to the theme of