Did the Beatles steal Smile...?

[Bill Ed]

I heard Roy Wood say in an interview that in England you were either a Beach Boys fan or a Beatles fan. He was a Beach Boys fan. In my experience it is a little unusual to find someone who's a big fan of both groups.

And Donald might well steal the tip jar, but I doubt he'd confess. 

[pixletwin]

I like both. I used to think if you loved one it meant you would hate the other.... Took me years to figure out they they were talking about the Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones.

 

[Dead Parrot]

I heard Roy Wood say in an interview that in England you were either a Beach Boys fan or a Beatles fan. He was a Beach Boys fan. 

Which in some ways is kind of ironic, when you consider that Roy was one of the founding members of ELO. A band who's original purpose was to "continue where The Beatles left off with 'I Am The Walrus'".

[Mahalo]

Frankly I think they were a hell of a lot more worried how to top Pet Sounds then Smile. Remember Smile took time before it really achieved cult status, but Pet Sounds was a must have in the UK upon release.

.....Where does Good Vibrations play into The Beatle's artistic competition? Surely this would've compelled them to step up their game...which of course they failed at in the end...

[Don_Zabu]

Now I'm wishing I was in the UK music scene of the 60's.

[absinthe_boy]

I heard Roy Wood say in an interview that in England you were either a Beach Boys fan or a Beatles fan. He was a Beach Boys fan. In my experience it is a little unusual to find someone who's a big fan of both groups.

Not sure, I am English and I knew quite a few people who are fans of both the Beatles and the Beach Boys.

It may be more difficult to be a fan of both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones...

[rab2591]

I heard Roy Wood say in an interview that in England you were either a Beach Boys fan or a Beatles fan. He was a Beach Boys fan. In my experience it is a little unusual to find someone who's a big fan of both groups.

Not sure, I am English and I knew quite a few people who are fans of both the Beatles and the Beach Boys.

It may be more difficult to be a fan of both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones...

In America the modern day hipsters love the Beatles and look down upon The Beach Boys. I mean, let's face it, the Beatles were the hippest band to ever grace the planet, The Beach Boys, on the other hand, just wrote surf and car tunes.

This all too common perception of the Beach Boys is really sad. Makes me want to rent a GoodYear Blimp and travel cross country for 5 years blasting Smiley Smile and Friends from it.

[the captain]

Maybe that depends on where you live. I don't see hipsters as particularly obsessed with Beatles over Beach Boys. More like it's an accepted fact that everyone has that Beatles undercurrent, they so permeated everyone's upbringing. But then there are plenty of hipster circles who absolutely worship Beach Boys. First (in my experience, not talking on a broader scale) there were those discovering Smile; then there was a sort of surf/early stuff pushback, almost an "F you, this is just as good"; and eventually just the kind of overall (well, except for Mike...) acceptance of their importance. I think hipsters tend not to bother with the intensity of Beatles worship and promotion because it's just so unnecessary; by definition, hipsters are tending to try to dig up something a little less omnipresent and push it as some kind of underground/unknown thing. I'd say in the past 15 years at least, in fits and spurts, that has been Beach Boys more than Beatles.

[Magic Transistor Radio]

I think that Pet Sounds has been well excepted as a hip LP by the Beach Boys. But I agree that the overwhelming image is of the surf and car era. A celebration of a more innocent time.

[rab2591]

I knew I should have put parentheses around the word "hipster" - I meant people who think of themselves as hipsters - the collegiate d-bags that are hipsters for the image and nothing else.

I know some 'hipsters' that don't think of themselves as hipsters - they just glide through life enjoying anything that comes their way (I consider these people to be hip). And then there are the "hipsters" that love the Beatles and have a strict set of conformities that make them different from the social norms but are just anti-conformists for the sake of being different. I have only noticed this in my college town...so it may be different elsewhere...but I think it is prevalent in most areas.

Not saying that "true" hipsters can't love the Beatles, but most I've known have been open to both the Beach Boys and the Beatles as well as many other types of music.

[the captain]

Not to totally derail things (maybe this is a sandbox thread...), but I really would only associate the term hipster with people who somewhat consciously decide they are hipsters. To me, the meaning of the term is reserved for those who are totally image-conscious. People who just happen to be really cool, well, they're just cool people.

[OneEar/OneEye]

I've always loved both.   The "who's better" debate never really made a lot of sense to me because they were such different animals, inhabiting very different places under the umbrella of "rock and roll".  
Pepper and Smile would have stood side by side.   The two greatest psychedelic pop albums.  American and British varieties.  
The only similarity to me is that both were attempting to achieve the ultimate studio creation, all the bells and whistles they could manage to throw in they would.  The music, the "concepts", were not the same at all.  One was Beatles, the other Beach Boys.  Each as good as the other as examples of their individual scenes.  
As an American I can't help but see the Beach Boys as the "home town team", so they get an edge on the Beatles for that, but otherwise I'm happy digging both.  
And i llike the Stones a lot too.  

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

In America the modern day hipsters love the Beatles and look down upon The Beach Boys. I mean, let's face it, the Beatles were the hippest band to ever grace the planet, The Beach Boys, on the other hand, just wrote surf and car tunes. Roll Eyes

This all too common perception of the Beach Boys is really sad. Makes me want to rent a GoodYear Blimp and travel cross country for 5 years blasting Smiley Smile and Friends from it.

Same here. I know the Beatles music is good, but they have been praised so much over my preferred band (the BB, obviously) and indeed everything else that I actually hate them. Crazy, I know.

[rab2591]

Not to totally derail things (maybe this is a sandbox thread...), but I really would only associate the term hipster with people who somewhat consciously decide they are hipsters. To me, the meaning of the term is reserved for those who are totally image-conscious. People who just happen to be really cool, well, they're just cool people.

This somewhat reminds me of that scene from Seinfeld where someone calls Kramer a "hipster dufous" - Kramer denies that he is one, yet he clearly is one LOL. I have a friend who hates everything mainstream (the definition of being hip) yet he doesn't do it just to piss of the man. He does it because he sees no real benefit from our over-polluted society....and many would regard him as being hip. Then again, I think it was in LLVS or another SMiLE book where Brian was telling someone the definition of being hip was being against anything hip - quite the irony.

There are a variety of hipsters out there.

Regardless, there are people out there who like the Beatles solely because it is hip and they won't give the Beach Boys a second glance (or even an initial one at that) because of the unhip perception of the band. And I find that to be very unhip.

[Myk Luhv]

"Rather than an album of psychedelic music (compared to which it actually sounds retro), Sgt. Pepper was the Beatles' answer to the sophistication of Pet Sounds, the masterpiece by their rivals, the Beach Boys, released a year and three months before. The Beatles had always been obsessed by the Beach Boys. They had copied their multi-part harmonies, their melodic style and their carefree attitude. Through their entire career, from 1963 to 1968, the Beatles actually followed the Beach Boys within a year or two, including the formation of Apple Records, which came almost exactly one year after the birth of Brother Records. Pet Sounds had caused an uproar because it delivered the simple melodies of surf music through the artistic sophistication of the studio. So, following the example of Pet Sounds, the Beatles recorded, from February to May 1967, Sgt. Pepper, disregarding two important factors: first that Pet Sounds had been arranged, mixed and produced by Brian Wilson and not by an external producer like George Martin, and second that, as always, they were late. They began assembling Sgt. Pepper a year after Pet Sounds had hit the charts, and after dozens of records had already been influenced by it."

The rest of this article by Piero Scarrufi is funny due largely to the seething rage it generates from Beatles fans, 'cause, well, Scarrufi really doesn't like the Beatles!

[rogerlancelot]

I am a "hipster". And I grew up on the Beatles and they will forever be my favorite band. But I discovered the Beach Boys 12 years ago thanks to a song called "God Only Knows" and I really do spend more time listening to BB/BW/DW than the Beatles but I will always feel that the Beatles won the war so to speak. They broke up at the perfect time and left us Abbey Road. And I looooooove playing Beatles Rockband on my WII. So there!

[Chocolate Shake Man]

The Beatles are my favourite band, followed by The Beach Boys.

Followed by The Kinks if that helps.

[Andrew G. Doe]

I grew up with The Beatles in the backgound. Have to say, they never really did it for me in the way they do for a lot of people: in one sense they are far and away the most over-rated band ever. Now hate me. 

[Chocolate Shake Man]

I grew up with The Beatles in the backgound. Have to say, they never really did it for me in the way they do for a lot of people: in one sense they are far and away the most over-rated band ever. Now hate me. 

No hate. But I feel like that's an easier thing to say in retrospect than it would have been when they were taking the world by storm (unless one was the type who believed that it could never get any better than jazz or classical).

[rab2591]

I love The Beatles music. It doesn't get much better than rubber soul for me.

However, I can go months without listening to a Beatles record and still feel content, whereas I don't go many places without taking a copy of Pet Sounds with me. The Beach Boys are more relatable and coherent in their music. The Beatles used a wide variety of brushes to create culturally jolting music. Brian used a wide variety of brushes and palettes to create sonic beauty that is harshly overlooked by many in mainstream culture.

[MBE]

I am a big fan of the Beatles but only to a point. They were a good group that's all. I hate the hype around them. I also like the Stones especally when Brian Jones was in the group. Maybe I like them even better then the Beatles. Still the Beach Boys are still in my eyes the best. There's just more there for me. That doesn't preclude me liking and collecting dozens of other artists.

[the captain]

I love them both. Really deeply and differently. I heard more Beatles earlier, and more often throughout my formative years. Beach Boys deep fascination was later, but in no way is any kind of negation of the Beatles' brilliance or influence on me. I have the same sort of amazement and disbelief at someone saying he doesn't care about Beatles as about Beach Boys. But then I feel the same when someone says that about Dylan, Queen, Zeppelin, Tom Waits, Prince, Big Star, Thelonious Monk, Michael Jackson, Radiohead, Belle & Sebastian, Miles Davis, Mountain Goats...let's be honest. I am self-centered enough that anything I like, I assume everyone ought to like. To think otherwise baffles me.

[hypehat]

Luther & Rab OTM pretty much. I do love The Beatles, but like someone loves their old street or an old girlfriend or something. The Beach Boys are much more fulfilling as a passion, probably because they went sour and there is always the thought of 'what might have been'. The Beatles don't have stories equivalent to SMiLE!, or characters as strong as Mike or Brian.

Plus, every crap band has a Beatles album which they will slavishly imitate. The same can't be said for the BB's 

[grillo]

I used to collect Beatles boots in the hopes of finding something more (same as BB boots, were i to collect those...) and it turns out there is nothing more. The Beatles have always left me cold=no soul. I have absolutely no emotional connection to there hip tunes. They all seem totally dated and hopelessly of their time. BB music on the other hand (with a few exceptions) is timeless and deeply affecting. There are layers of soul, feeling and pathos in almost every BB recording that cannot be found anywhere else. You want catchy pop, go with the Beatles. You want deep soul music, it's the BB all the way.

[the captain]

I almost totally disagree with every part of that. But such is life.