Why aren't the Beach Boys ever played on classic rock radio?

[MyGlove]

I've noticed this. I've heard every other pop band from that time on a station of some kind. Why not the Beach Boys?

[GuyOnTheBeach]

Because (to my knowledge) they haven't been played on the TV show Supernatural which is where most of these stations seem to get their play list ideas from.

[joshferrell]

because are considered "Oldies" by most stations (at least their hits)...

[Chocolate Shake Man]

Not enough guitar riffs and boring jams.

[SMiLE Brian]

They came before FM radio.

[KittyKat]

Oldies radio that includes the Sixties or Fifties hasn't existed for years, meaning the kind of stations that play things like the Four Tops or Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.  The people that listened to that type of radio ten years ago got too old for advertisers to be interested in reaching.  Oldies radio now goes back to the 1970's at the latest.  They will sometimes slip in something older like the Beatles but the Beach Boys aren't the Beatles.  They also didn't have any major hits in the 1970's or later except for Kokomo.  I'm sure Kokomo gets played on the type of stations that play Kenny G. but not the types of stations that play classic rock.  It isn't rock.

[EgoHanger1966]

because are considered "Oldies" by most stations (at least their hits)...

And all the oldies stations' formats have gone to sh*t in the past ten years, so pretty much the only BB song you hear on said format is Kokomo.

I remember growing up and we had two oldies stations (this was the late 90s), and they both were awesome. 50s/60s and the tiniest bit of 70s. Now it's 60s/70s/80s, focusing mostly on the latter two. Bleh.

[Musketeer]

The songs that would fit into that format (Sail On Sailor, Feel Flows for example) were not hits.

[JohnMill]

I don't know if it's just the case of tuning in at the right moments but I've turned the dial several times over the past five years and found "Wouldn't It Be Nice", "God Only Knows", "Help Me Rhonda", "Barbara Ann", and "I Get Around".  I guess it just happens to be when you tune in what you'll find. 

[Lowbacca]

They are not why god made classic rock radio.

Let's face it, very little of what the BBs did in the 60's/70's falls into (what is perceived as) classic rock territory.

[JanBerryFarm]

i was in the hardware store last week and heard "I Can Hear Music" on some kind of station that played 'oldies'.

Kinda made a man outta me.

[guitarfool2002]

I was fortunate to be around two really great classic rock stations in the 80's and one great oldies station. The classic rock station was 94 WYSP in Philly. I still have cassettes of when they played full Beach Boys albums, in sequence with no breaks, like Pet Sounds, Live In London, and various others scattered around. The 'Boys were not in heavy rotation by any means, but on evenings when they'd loosen the format a bit and have some really progressive DJ's from the days when there were such things as free-form FM radio, it was incredible. For Beach Boys, you'd turn to the oldies stations, even in the 80's when the band was releasing new music and something like Kokomo was on top 40, MTV, and some oldies stations at the same time.

Why the lack of their music in general on classic rock formats? Programmers decided sometime in the early 70's that they didn't fit the rock format. "Endless Summer" only made them more of an oldies band, even though the tracks were less than ten years old at the time. Radio is a weird thing. It's unfortunate a lot of listeners didn't hear BB's tracks on rock stations, and that it didn't carry over.

There was an article which I have somewhere from the early 70's, maybe the Surf's Up era if I recall, where the writer did an expose on the radio business and how records were chosen to be played on air. One programmer is depicted getting whatever Beach Boys single was new at that time on his desk, as he was going through a stack of new releases to pick out what to put on his station's playlist. When he saw "Beach Boys", he passed on it immediately, if I recall, without even playing it. And it was because of the band's image. Or perceived image. I guess that carried through several decades among those who made such decisions.

[joe_blow]

I hear them often on oldies, but especoially in summer I hear California Girls, Good Vibrations, and God Only Knows. That's about all I have heard on ROCK 101.

[onkster]

It's a moot deal, because these are the same horrible ClearChannel programmers that think the only songs Elton John ever did are Bennie And the Jets and Crocodile Rock.

It's barely real radio at all, sadly.

Since God made the radio, He needs to come down from heaven and kick some *ss after seeing what they've done with His handiwork.

[jwoverho]

Sirius/XM channel Deep Tracks regularly plays SUNFLOWER through HOLLAND era tracks.

[bossaroo]

we had a satellite oldies station at my old work that would play things like Breakaway, I Can Hear Music and Do It Again along with the older stuff. I also heard the original versions of Gee, Hushabye and Why Do Fools. pretty cool.

[guitarfool2002]

we had a satellite oldies station at my old work that would play things like Breakaway, I Can Hear Music and Do It Again along with the older stuff. I also heard the original versions of Gee, Hushabye and Why Do Fools. pretty cool.

These can offer up some pretty neat surprises...through the years and different places of employment, this kind of subscription radio especially on oldies formats has offered up good stuff like this, much better than what commercial radio too often has become. I just told someone this week about the time they started piping in a classical satellite station, and the reaction was so negative and actually angry among the workers on the floor, they changed it back to the rotation oldies-pop-etc. format within a few days. Classical is just fine, but not in a factory environment.

But there is still that element of a live DJ and the static and all of that which you get driving in a car with the radio blastin'. It's an experience I hope never gets replaced by digital, programmed subscription radio.

[Jason]

Here in Philadelphia, our local oldies station 98.1 WOGL plays the usual suspects...Surfin' USA, Fun, Fun, Fun, Don't Worry Baby, I Get Around, Help Me Rhonda, California Girls, Barbara Ann, Wouldn't It Be Nice, and Good Vibrations. Some of the adult contemporary stations play Kokomo, but that's a given.

[EgoHanger1966]

Here in Philadelphia, our local oldies station 98.1 WOGL plays the usual suspects...Surfin' USA, Fun, Fun, Fun, Don't Worry Baby, I Get Around, Help Me Rhonda, California Girls, Barbara Ann, Wouldn't It Be Nice, and Good Vibrations. Some of the adult contemporary stations play Kokomo, but that's a given.

Wasn't aware WOGL was playing all those - I hear Kokomo, and once in a blue moon, WIBN. Not that I listen to that station much anymore. WOGL (along with the other oldies station in the Philly area - forget the call letters) was a great station around ten + years ago.....growing up as a kid it was a godsend that I got to hear all that music on the radio and grow up digging and collecting the 50s and 60s sounds. Program director Tommy McCarthy still emcees some doo wop shows at the Keswick, I chatted with him a couple times about the change in WOGL's direction. Of course, I knew the answer already, that they couldn't make enough money staying with the same demographic. He didn't seem to sad about it, though. I told him what he was playing wasn't "oldies" in the original sense of the word. Oldies is a specific style of music, just because something is __ doesn't mean it's an oldie. He didn't seem to agree with that, but whatever.

Sometimes I can pull in WVLT from Vineland, NJ - it's a long shot. But they play almost exclusively 50s and 60s, lots of Beach Boys in the summer! Now THAT's a station that deserves the oldies tag.

[Aum Bop Diddit]

I think most classic rock stations have this playlist:

Stairway to Heaven
Free Bird
Layla
Dream On
We Will Rock You
Money
Won't Get Fooled Again

Deep Cut -- Start Me Up

I may be missing one or two.

[Justin]

A lot of the dudes that love classic rock would probably punch their radios out if it went from "Won't Get Fooled Again" to "Wouldn't it Be Nice."

[Roger Ryan]

I'm old enough to remember when FM rock stations were progressive and regularly played entire albums by artists (or four or five cuts from a given album in a row). Even as late as the 1978 or 1979, rock stations would mix in Elvis Costello, Graham Parker or Talking Heads with The Who and Led Zeppelin. By the early 80s, the format just froze and it became the same twenty songs by Zeppelin, The Who, Pink Floyd, Aerosmith, etc. By 1990, these rock stations were rechristened "classic rock" so they could continue to play the same twenty songs from the 70s they played in 1982...a format that remains unchanged to this day.

Anyway, the Beach Boys weren't widely accepted on classic rock radio when the format was really loose in the 70s because they weren't considered "rock" enough and Rolling Stone had deemed them irrelevant in '67. On "Oldies" stations, however, they were always popular...but you would only hear the hits up through "Good Vibrations".

[guitarfool2002]

For the Philly-area folks...were you listening from about 1987-1992? There was some GREAT radio going on in Philly. It actually spoiled me a bit because I have compared so much radio since and 99% falls way short of that standard. Let me jog a few memories, see if any of these ring a bell:

94 WYSP (the best...) - Ed Sciaky's "Sunday Night Alternative". When he got away from his Renaissance and Springsteen fetishes ( ), he'd play some great stuff. He played Smile tracks one Sunday night. I taped it - blew my mind.

The overnight guy was named Rick Allen, and his show was "The Ricky Mess", a really loose, no-playlist freeform kind of show. I remember being up at some ungodly hour, my alarm went off, and the first song I heard was Ricky playing "Listen To The Band" by the Monkees. Find me another station with that one on their playlist!

The "Sunday Night Sixpack" - 6 albums spun in their entirety. They did Pet Sounds like this more than once, other BB's too. Great album selections. Same with Tuesday nights, at midnight I think they spun a full album as well, no breaks. Another night would be a concert broadcast, usually something like the King Biscuit Flower Hour type of packaged show, and another night was the call-in show "Rockline".

Sunday morning - Andre Gardner spinning his Beatles rarities, he was on WYSP late 80's-early 90's (when all of the Unsurpassed Masters stuff started to come out). He still spins Beatles on 102.9, Sundays from 7 to 9 AM. Great guy, great show, one of my all time favorite radio personalities. I won a John Lennon art print from a trivia contest he had on air.

With 98 WOGL - remember Hy Lit had a flashback type of show where he'd pick a certain week and spin the trecords from that week, along with news items and trivia? He'd play some obscure, non-playlist songs that were a welcome addition to the playlist.

Speaking of playlists, 98 WOGL was always kind of tight with their playlist, yet you would still be able to hear Chuck Berry, 50's Elvis, doo-wop (apart from Street Corner Sunday Night), etc. I knew it was all but doomed when I heard songs from that fucking "Footloose" soundtrack and "Jack And Diane" after switching to 98 one day in the car. That was a few years ago - very sad. Fucking Footloose on an oldies station...

Of course, Rockin' Ron with the Elvis show...still going strong.

Mention Kokomo and every time WOGL advertised their "Vacation A Day Giveaway" contest this year, they'd use the sax solo that Mike pretended to play in the Kokomo video as the background theme. And they looped it, so the words were read over that "brrrrrwheeeee...." first note of the sax solo, then the loop would play for a few seconds, and again "breewheeee...". Ad nauseam.

WYSP was the best, and rarely lapsed into that 'classic rock' syndrome that plagues the format today. It all literally collapsed when some genius programmer in Philly decided listeners would rather hear a "Rock And Jock" format where pundits would get loud and argue about the Eagles and Phillies, and in between all that they'd play schlock metal and hard rock music to get them even more wound up. That was a *much better* choice than being the best music station in Philly...

[EgoHanger1966]

For the Philly-area folks...were you listening from about 1987-1992? There was some GREAT radio going on in Philly. It actually spoiled me a bit because I have compared so much radio since and 99% falls way short of that standard. Let me jog a few memories, see if any of these ring a bell:

94 WYSP (the best...) - Ed Sciaky's "Sunday Night Alternative". When he got away from his Renaissance and Springsteen fetishes ( ), he'd play some great stuff. He played Smile tracks one Sunday night. I taped it - blew my mind.

The overnight guy was named Rick Allen, and his show was "The Ricky Mess", a really loose, no-playlist freeform kind of show. I remember being up at some ungodly hour, my alarm went off, and the first song I heard was Ricky playing "Listen To The Band" by the Monkees. Find me another station with that one on their playlist!

The "Sunday Night Sixpack" - 6 albums spun in their entirety. They did Pet Sounds like this more than once, other BB's too. Great album selections. Same with Tuesday nights, at midnight I think they spun a full album as well, no breaks. Another night would be a concert broadcast, usually something like the King Biscuit Flower Hour type of packaged show, and another night was the call-in show "Rockline".

Sunday morning - Andre Gardner spinning his Beatles rarities, he was on WYSP late 80's-early 90's (when all of the Unsurpassed Masters stuff started to come out). He still spins Beatles on 102.9, Sundays from 7 to 9 AM. Great guy, great show, one of my all time favorite radio personalities. I won a John Lennon art print from a trivia contest he had on air.

With 98 WOGL - remember Hy Lit had a flashback type of show where he'd pick a certain week and spin the trecords from that week, along with news items and trivia? He'd play some obscure, non-playlist songs that were a welcome addition to the playlist.

Speaking of playlists, 98 WOGL was always kind of tight with their playlist, yet you would still be able to hear Chuck Berry, 50's Elvis, doo-wop (apart from Street Corner Sunday Night), etc. I knew it was all but doomed when I heard songs from that f***ing "Footloose" soundtrack and "Jack And Diane" after switching to 98 one day in the car. That was a few years ago - very sad. f***ing Footloose on an oldies station...

Of course, Rockin' Ron with the Elvis show...still going strong.

Mention Kokomo and every time WOGL advertised their "Vacation A Day Giveaway" contest this year, they'd use the sax solo that Mike pretended to play in the Kokomo video as the background theme. And they looped it, so the words were read over that "brrrrrwheeeee...." first note of the sax solo, then the loop would play for a few seconds, and again "breewheeee...". Ad nauseam.

WYSP was the best, and rarely lapsed into that 'classic rock' syndrome that plagues the format today. It all literally collapsed when some genius programmer in Philly decided listeners would rather hear a "Rock And Jock" format where pundits would get loud and argue about the Eagles and Phillies, and in between all that they'd play schlock metal and hard rock music to get them even more wound up. That was a *much better* choice than being the best music station in Philly...

I wasn't born until 1991 so I missed all of that, unfortunately. Sounds like a good time! Funny that you mention Renaissance though - Annie Haslam lives near the Philly and I had lunch with her once. She knew I was a Beatles fan and told me stories about how her brother Michael was a NEMS artist and toured with them. The next holiday season she gave me a signed Paul McCartney acetate of My Love that she got personally in the 70s.

[guitarfool2002]

For the Philly-area folks...were you listening from about 1987-1992? There was some GREAT radio going on in Philly. It actually spoiled me a bit because I have compared so much radio since and 99% falls way short of that standard. Let me jog a few memories, see if any of these ring a bell:

94 WYSP (the best...) - Ed Sciaky's "Sunday Night Alternative". When he got away from his Renaissance and Springsteen fetishes ( ), he'd play some great stuff. He played Smile tracks one Sunday night. I taped it - blew my mind.

The overnight guy was named Rick Allen, and his show was "The Ricky Mess", a really loose, no-playlist freeform kind of show. I remember being up at some ungodly hour, my alarm went off, and the first song I heard was Ricky playing "Listen To The Band" by the Monkees. Find me another station with that one on their playlist!

The "Sunday Night Sixpack" - 6 albums spun in their entirety. They did Pet Sounds like this more than once, other BB's too. Great album selections. Same with Tuesday nights, at midnight I think they spun a full album as well, no breaks. Another night would be a concert broadcast, usually something like the King Biscuit Flower Hour type of packaged show, and another night was the call-in show "Rockline".

Sunday morning - Andre Gardner spinning his Beatles rarities, he was on WYSP late 80's-early 90's (when all of the Unsurpassed Masters stuff started to come out). He still spins Beatles on 102.9, Sundays from 7 to 9 AM. Great guy, great show, one of my all time favorite radio personalities. I won a John Lennon art print from a trivia contest he had on air.

With 98 WOGL - remember Hy Lit had a flashback type of show where he'd pick a certain week and spin the trecords from that week, along with news items and trivia? He'd play some obscure, non-playlist songs that were a welcome addition to the playlist.

Speaking of playlists, 98 WOGL was always kind of tight with their playlist, yet you would still be able to hear Chuck Berry, 50's Elvis, doo-wop (apart from Street Corner Sunday Night), etc. I knew it was all but doomed when I heard songs from that f***ing "Footloose" soundtrack and "Jack And Diane" after switching to 98 one day in the car. That was a few years ago - very sad. f***ing Footloose on an oldies station...

Of course, Rockin' Ron with the Elvis show...still going strong.

Mention Kokomo and every time WOGL advertised their "Vacation A Day Giveaway" contest this year, they'd use the sax solo that Mike pretended to play in the Kokomo video as the background theme. And they looped it, so the words were read over that "brrrrrwheeeee...." first note of the sax solo, then the loop would play for a few seconds, and again "breewheeee...". Ad nauseam.

WYSP was the best, and rarely lapsed into that 'classic rock' syndrome that plagues the format today. It all literally collapsed when some genius programmer in Philly decided listeners would rather hear a "Rock And Jock" format where pundits would get loud and argue about the Eagles and Phillies, and in between all that they'd play schlock metal and hard rock music to get them even more wound up. That was a *much better* choice than being the best music station in Philly...

I wasn't born until 1991 so I missed all of that, unfortunately. Sounds like a good time! Funny that you mention Renaissance though - Annie Haslam lives near the Philly and I had lunch with her once. She knew I was a Beatles fan and told me stories about how her brother Michael was a NEMS artist and toured with them. The next holiday season she gave me a signed Paul McCartney acetate of My Love that she got personally in the 70s.

Now *that* is awesome, what a story! It's too bad you missed Ed Sciaky's show - he would play Annie's music all the time, and was a big fan of her work. She was, if I remember, an on-air guest with Ed as well, or maybe I'm just not remembering. But to say Ed was a fan of Annie Haslam and Bruce Springsteen would be an understatement...that was a great show.

WYSP still had traces of the 70's free-form FM thing going on, a lot due to guys like Ed Sciaky who was a part of the original FM scene. It is sorely missed, and I really mean sorely missed. We'd get quite a musical education from a station like that. Can you imagine someone, 20 years ago, playing Smile tracks on a major market station like WYSP? That was how cool it was before the format change.