Beach Boys beat Beatles in 1966 music polls

[Gabo]

Really because it was like the antithesis of what I loved about Pet Sounds. I love it now of course. At the time I just wanted something lush and beautiful.

[Disney Boy (1985)]

It [Wild Honey's production] is yet another of those things that'd never even occurred to me was, or could be, in any way an issue until I joined this board and heard people complaining about it.

[kookadams]

The beach boys were so much more commercially successful in the late 60s in the UK because americans had pretty much given up on rockNroll.... hippie protest music and psychadelia were what was being pushed and marketed in america at that time and even if its debatable the beatles werent really a rock group anymore, it was hippie schtick, good for what it was but nowhere near the quality of their output of meet the beatles thru rubber soul, those were by far their peak yrs.

[alf wiedersehen]

Are you fer reals

[Disney Boy (1985)]

The Beatles peak years were 1964 - 1969. The quality never diminished.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

The beach boys were so much more commercially successful in the late 60s in the UK because americans had pretty much given up on rockNroll.... hippie protest music and psychadelia were what was being pushed and marketed in america at that time

A quick look at, say, the Billboard charts from 1968 tells a different story: Dock of the Bay, This Guy's in Love with You, Mrs. Robinson, Tighten Up, Mony Mony, Cry Like a Baby, Midnight Confessions, Dance to the Music, I Wish It Would Rain, Judy in Disguise, Spooky, Simon Says, A Beautiful Morning, The Look of Love, Yummy Yummy Yummy, 123 Red Light, Jumpin' Jack Flash, Nobody But Me, I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight, Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day, Elenore, Baby Now That I Found You, Do You Know the Way to San Jose, Mighty Quinn, I Say a Little Prayer, Suzie Q. These were all big hits in 1968 and had very little to do with either protest music or psychedelia.

[kookadams]

Yeah there were a handful of great singles but look at the charts in the first half of the 60s, cant beat that those years .

[Chocolate Shake Man]

Yeah there were a handful of great singles but look at the charts in the first half of the 60s, cant beat that those years .

A couple things:

1. I'm not sure if 26 songs constitutes "a handful."
2. We weren't comparing the first half of the 60s with the second half of the 60s. I already said in this thread that I agreed that popular rock and roll music was at its height pre-1967. I was responding to your comment that "americans had pretty much given up on rockNroll.... hippie protest music and psychadelia were what was being pushed and marketed in america at that time." If that were true then you would have nowhere near that amount of songs hitting the chart so high. The fact is that there was a good amount of music that was not too far outside the Beach Boys post-67 aesthetic that was successful chart-wise in the United States.

[rogerlancelot]

I think Sgt Pepper still sounds fresh. MMT is a little overproduced.

I love Wild Honey's lo-fi sound, but it was hard to take at first. When I first bought the Smiley Smile/Wild Honey twofer I was never so disappointed with a CD purchase in my life.

I used Magical Mystery Tour and Wild Honey as examples because I actually had played them back to back about a week ago, not to compare but just because I happen to like both albums. To these ears, Magical Mystery Tour (the US album) still sounds amazingly fresh whereas Wild Honey sounds dated with the mono mix (I have the 1991 2-fer).

The top selling album of 1967 in the US: More Of The Monkees which is nowhere near as good as the next few Monkees albums (my opinion) and hardly psychedelic.