Getting One's Friends Into The Beach Boys

[Don_Zabu]

I'd like to get my friends into The Beach Boys, but they don't seem the slightest bit interested. I tried getting them to listen to Pet Sounds, and the only track they really cared for was "Pet Sounds". Any ideas on how this sort of thing is done? Should I just not bother?

[Fun Is In]

My experience has almost always been: you can lead a horse to water but you can't make 'em drink. 

[the captain]

Don't bother. By all means, if they've never heard it or are curious, have it around, play it, etc. But don't preach. If they don't like it, they don't like it. If they were to love something you didn't like, I'm sure you'd be insulted by efforts to convert you.

[rab2591]

A good friend/coworker of mine listens to screamo-metal constantly. I gave a copy of 'Pet Sounds' to him half a year ago to try and broaden his horizons a bit - he hasn't listened to it once....I ask him every few months if he's listened to it yet but the answer is always no....I never preach however.

Going with what Luther says, if my friend decided to preach to me about how wonderful screamo-metal was and how I need to listen to it and how intricate and amazing it is, I think I'd find a new friend lol. I will never like screamo and my friend will probably never really love the Beach Boys, so I just leave it at that.

Getting your friends to even listen to Pet Sounds is a huge feat of its own...so be proud of that lol.

It somewhat sucks having no friends who understand how amazing The Beach Boys are, but that's part of the reason why we have the smileysmile board, right?

[Mike's Beard]

Friends , family, coworkers - have failed consistently. Their loss basically.

[Myk Luhv]

I have not met anyone else in person who likes The Beach Boys as much and for the same reasons as I do -- and I'm 21, so it's at least a bit more tricky, haha. Oh well, they won't get to experience the awesomeness of Smiley Smile!

[hypehat]

I have 1 friend who loves The Beach Boys. We bonded over it, in fact, just as I was becoming a fan. I had 20 Golden Greats, my mums copy of Pet Sounds and BWPS (Freshly released, i think), and he responded in kind by lending me.... BW88 and Imagination 

He loves Brian nearly as much as I do, but isn't as obsessive about it as I am, i think - Surf's Up is his favourite Beach Boys song (he can't decide between Carl or BWPS), but hasn't heard, to my knowledge, any of the original Smile material. He's not the bootleg sort, if you see what I mean. I keep meaning to make him a mix....

I feel fellow SmileySmilers pain on converting anyone to The Beach Boys fold. Our Prayer, Heroes And Villains and Vegetables work surprisingly well, but if anyone's going to like a band, they're going to have to listen themselves - Especially with an album like Pet Sounds.

[Eric Aniversario]

I have managed to make one fan out of my many friends.  He doesn't know all the songs, but he's heard more than the average person, and he can tell their voices apart.  He's also met Mike, Al, Bruce, and Brian, and seen Dave in concert.

[Curtis Leon]

Nope. No one. One of my friends likes death metal, and the other likes, ugh, rap.  As for my family, well. My dad knows jack sh*t outside of the radio hits, and my mom prefers traditional Asian music. To be honest, I've never even found anyone online who likes the Beach Boys, outside here, of course.

[Surfing Moose]

I gave up.

The Beach Boys have a "Fun, fun, fun, Surf, Rhonda" Image you just can't break. Their further interest is below zero.

My girlfriend though I played the BWPS live DVD, now she's in it too.

[kwan_dk]

Sit your friend down and watch Endless Harmony with him. That's what got me into the group and their music. Seriously, it worked for me!

I used to really hate the Beach Boys and their sound. I constantly teased my friend for listening to such sappy, shrill music. (What can I say - I was ignorant). But seeing that documentary and having him explain some of the bits a bit more in detail while watching really changed all that up to the point where I've become a full-blown BB-fanatic.

It's fun to look back on now; since then my friend and I have seen both Mike & Bruce and Brian in concert together (including the legendary Smile premiere at Royal Festival Hall) and we're currently singing in a BB-inspired group. Had someone told me that would happen ten years ago I wouldn't have believed them. 

Kwan_dk
http://www.myspace.com/surfschooldropouts

[Magic Transistor Radio]

I have told some friends that the Beach Boys are one of the most diverse bands in pop music history. I always get a funny look.

[Curtis Leon]

I have told some friends that the Beach Boys are one of the most diverse bands in pop music history. I always get a funny look.

Most people only know the Beach Boys through their hits. California Girls, and I Get Around, Help Me Rhonda. All fair songs in their own right, but Brian was capable of so much more... Ask them if they've ever even heard Wild Honey, or anything after Pet Sounds, really. You'd probably get an even funnier look.

[Austin]

A friend of mine, who was somewhat dismissive of the group initially, has been slowly getting into a lot of their mid and late-60's work recently. He's a sucker for complex chord progressions, so one day I played a couple samples from "God Only Knows" and "Surf's Up" in passing...a funny Brian or Dennis story later, and I had him hooked. 

[adamghost]

Pacific Ocean Blue has worked for me.

[shelter]

I'd like to get my friends into The Beach Boys, but they don't seem the slightest bit interested. I tried getting them to listen to Pet Sounds, and the only track they really cared for was "Pet Sounds". Any ideas on how this sort of thing is done? Should I just not bother?

About six years ago I was one of those hardly interested friends of a Beach Boys fan. He told me to check out Pet Sounds and the Sunflower/Surf's Up 2fer, which I did. I fell in love with Sunflower right away (Pet Sounds and Surf's Up took a bit longer to grow on me) so that pretty much did the trick for me. I suppose Sunflower is the most accessible of the really good BB albums, so my advice would be to try it with that one.

[Amy B.]

I've had a really hard time getting anyone I know really interested in the Beach Boys. I have a friend who didn't particularly like the Beatles, so I made her a CD compilation and she fell in love with them and asked me if she could borrow the Anthology, which she proceeded to watch in one night. So I made her a CD compilation of the Beach Boys. Her reaction was, "Yeah, they're okay." And you just think, "Why isn't this other person hearing what I'm hearing?"

But as with any art, you really can't force it on people. For years, I was a sometime fan of the BBs hits, but I didn't know any of the obscure stuff and didn't "get" the genius of their music. I listened to Pet Sounds many times, just thinking it was pleasant. That's where my sister is now. She thinks Pet Sounds is nice, but nothing more. One day Pet Sounds just clicked with me and made me cry, literally. After that I heard the music on a whole other level. It's like when you go to a museum and see a painting that really hits you, and you just want to stare at it, but the people you're with want to move on, and you say, "Look at that," and they say, "Very nice." You can evangelize this stuff. Still, I get jealous when I read on the boards that a fan took non-fan to a BW concert and once the music started, the non-fan just "got it." That hasn't happened when I've taken people to BW concerts.

[the captain]

One thing I've found is, it works better when I restrain myself from going into uber-geek mode. I think that kind of obsession turns people off. You know, "listen to that part again, see what he did there? It's [probably Shortnin bread...]!!!!! That's important because blah blah story of the band this guy is fat and bearded by now and you need to obsess and study it." See what I mean? I think it's nice to just give little bits here and there, as music that's easy to enjoy. Then give relevant storyline tidbits when it's appropriate. You start throwing out names, timelines, and the accompanying plot, and it may as well be school. People don't usually listen to pop music for that reason.

[Mooger Fooger]

When I first started dating my soon-to-be wife I gave her a present of BWPS - thinking she would listen once and chuck it. You can imagine my surprised when she told me she played "Prayer" over and over for 20 minutes soaking in all the intricacies. She said listening to the record was a revelation. We often play the CD on drives doing the backup vocals and the like.

However, while I am the Brian fan, once she got her hands on POB by Dennis, and asked me to play some of the Dennis stuff, she now prefers his music. I cant complain because I reckon River Song is one of the best all time songs ever written.

Friends of mine who did later admit liking the band, did so once they ventured past the surf hits and delved into the post 1966 era recordings.

[JaredLekites]

I find that eventually, they'll get into them on their own time without any coaching. I used to make everyone in my life listen to them constantly which turned a lot of them off. But once I cooled out, they started to come around.

Even my significant other keeps a copy of Pet Sounds for the car. Makes me proud.

[the captain]

btw, if you think turning friends on to Beach Boys is a bitch, be glad you're not a Zappa and Beefheart obsessive, too. (Unless you are, in which case you can sympathize...)

[lance]

I only gave a half-hearted try at 'turning anyone on' to the Beach Boys. I know it's an uphill battle, because I remember a friend of mine, who I thought otherwise had excellent taste, trying to turn me on to the Beach Boys in 1998--I pretty much gave it an 'ew'. No thanks. I hate that guys voice'.

 I gave a friend of mine(Canadian guy, obsessed with the Stones like I am B. Wilson, etc.) a three disc 'best of' that I made, which was probably overkill. He never told me if he liked it or not, but he did say a year or two later when I mentioned that I liked the Beach Boys:

'Still? Man, we gotta get you to the sea and quick.'

Man, you gotta love comments like that. You want to say: but you don't understand! It's not all ocean spray and Californian Girls! The pain! Listen for the pain! ' But you can't say things like that. So you get a therapist.

People gotta get into things on their own. I had a friend who was a huge Led Zep fan, and though I liked them okay, I couldn't listen to them for a decade because I'd always here his stoned-ass voice telling me 'Dude! Robert Plant was NINETEEN when he recorded this! I'm 23! What am I doing?"

[Ron]

Pet sounds was the wrong way to start.

First, since they think they're so cool, get them to listen to Good Vibrations, and tell them that before Good Vibrations, everything was recorded in whole with a few overdubs, after Good Vibrations, everything from rap to country to classical is recorded in pieces like that song.  Then show 'em where the cuts are.  It'll blow their mind.  Then tell them you don't want to listen to anymore today, and put on the most god awful bullshit record you can find, and go "Yeah; I guess Rob Thomas is good too"

The contrast from cut to cut, then finally to whatever bullshit song you play next will blow their mind and they'll be begging you to play soemthing else great.  So the next time you do it, play "Wild Honey", or "Marcella", or "Friends" but only the one song, then move onto something horrible again. 

Eventually they'll associate the Beach Boys with god and whoever you play next with god awful.

[PongHit]

you can lead a horse to water but you can't make 'em drink. 

Who lead the iron horse?

[rab2591]

Pet sounds was the wrong way to start.

First, since they think they're so cool, get them to listen to Good Vibrations, and tell them that before Good Vibrations, everything was recorded in whole with a few overdubs, after Good Vibrations, everything from rap to country to classical is recorded in pieces like that song.  Then show 'em where the cuts are.  It'll blow their mind.  Then tell them you don't want to listen to anymore today, and put on the most god awful bullmerda record you can find, and go "Yeah; I guess Rob Thomas is good too"

The contrast from cut to cut, then finally to whatever bullmerda song you play next will blow their mind and they'll be begging you to play soemthing else great.  So the next time you do it, play "Wild Honey", or "Marcella", or "Friends" but only the one song, then move onto something horrible again. 

Eventually they'll associate the Beach Boys with god and whoever you play next with god awful.

greatest. advice. ever. wow. behavioral conditioning to get someone to like the Beach Boys