Unpopular Beach Boys opinions

I dont think the Vosse Posse were bad guys and pretending they are is both 1) an over-correction from the "Mike killed SMiLE" era and 2) anti-"stoner" / anti-psychedelic / anti-intellectual prejudice that a lot of people seem to have. In my experience, individuals who are literate, deep thinkers and call attention to flaws or even "quirks" in our society are often mocked. It's like others who just go through the motions and never question anything (what the kids call "NPCs") look at them like "ugh, who does he think he is, acting like he knows better than me, the jerk!" Anyway, there's this weird stereotype that the Vosse Posse members were all these pretentious annoying stoners sitting around getting high all day bullshitting about philosophy. Even if it were true, I say sign me up, but it's not. They were mostly professionals who had a job to do, either directly for Brian (and by all accounts they did their jobs well) or reporting on him to outside publications, which they did well (Siegel's and Williams' articles are great! Who knows what Robbins was up to though...). They all mostly had great careers in their field before and after Brian, they weren't using him or trying to change him at all. I think people take Daro's role in the saga (drug dealer into mysticism) and extrapolate it onto everyone in the Posse which is ridiculous and unfair.

I dont think the cover art for Looking Back With Love is bad, it's a nice shot of a guy who looks happy and proud in front of a painting so good I always thought he was standing on the back of a boat or something. It's just because it's Mike people say it's an ugly or off-putting photo.

I dont think the cover art of Summer in Paradise is good at all. It's busy, tacky, and looks like a biology teacher's classroom poster more than a rock album. The one with the US flag is even worse.

I don't particularly care for the Carl-led years of the band sans Holland and even that is a distant fifth in my top BB albums. I dont listen to it nearly as often as PS, (the SMiLE fanmixes), SS, LY and Today. (I don't listen to other BB albums in full after the first time around, just the good tracks in a playlist--sorry.)

Similarly, Surfer Girl is better than Surf's Up, Wild Honey, Friends, 20/20, Summer Days or Sunflower. In fact it's probably their seventh best completed album, after the top 5 I've mentioned and All Summer Long. Doesn't get enough love and I regret writing it off for so long.

I think Melinda mismanaged Brian to some degree that we probably wont ever know the full extent of and did some considerable damage to his old family and prior connections as well as costing him artistic opportunities as a result. Brian's solo career, Im very sad to say, is like 2 or maybe 3 gems buried under a pile of mediocrity. And one of them, Paley sessions, wasn't even an official release.

Mike was a terrible frontman and I really wish Dennis had been up for it, or Al, or even Bruce, or if Glenn Campbell stayed on. Anytime you look at footage of the group, he's always the visually least appealing person on the stage. Im not trying to be mean and there are times like the SMiLE Era and the 70s after he tidied up his beard (or lost it altogether) when he even looked straight up handsome, but the early days with no beard and the short hair just dont suit him, neither does the very late 60s and early 70s with that scraggly out of control old man beard and toga or sunburst shirts I see him wearing. He looks like a creepy old man and/or a huge dork. The other guys look alright but he just makes me not want to look at him. This isnt venting about his other shortcomings this is just brutally honest showbiz feedback--you gotta look good on camera if you want people to watch you. I think if he just owned the bald look, shave off the scraps and wear a tidy well-kept beard he woulda looked great.

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