WHO'S 'BIRDMAN' pecks BEACH BOY

[SunBurn]

Disc and Music - Saturday, September 17, 1966

WHO'S 'BIRDMAN' pecks BEACH BOY
 "WRITTEN FOR an audience sympathetic to Brian Wilson's personal problems" — that's Pete Townshend's considered opinion of the much-praised Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" album.
The Who's "Birdman" went on to expound: 'You've just got to listen to the words—like "I'm searching for places where new things can be found but people just put me down."
"It seems that now Brian Wilson has left the Beach Boys to be a record producer he wants to do these fantastic, way-out LP's and they want to do all the old stuff."
Pete's outburst is pretty surprising as one of the Who's favourite standards is" the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann"—they have even included it in their new LP.
"Yeah, the Beach Boys' sound used to influence us a bit when we first started," agreed Pete. "Keith Moon likes all their surf stuff and we once met two of them—Bruce Johnston and Mike Love.
"We do 'Barbara Ann' on stage because it gets the audience going.
"But the Beach Boys' new material on the LPs is too remote and way-out. It's written for a feminine audience."

This seems to me to be a classic case of psychological projection, because Townshend himself is starting to lean in a more personal and less macho songwriting direction, and rather than embracing that, he is projecting it onto Brian Wilson. Of course, he was only 21 years old at the time and was certainly mindful of the Who’s hyper-masculine Mod fan base. Although Townshend is claiming here that the Beach Boy influence is a thing of the past for him and The Who, the ironic thing about this is that Townshend’s writing would grow increasingly personal and less knee-jerk macho in the years to come. in fact, within a year of this article he wrote and recorded “Sunrise”, a beautiful song which is at least as sensitive and feminine-leaning as anything on Pet Sounds.

Interestingly, Pete’s appraisal of internal tension within the group is prescient: "It seems that now Brian Wilson has left the Beach Boys to be a record producer he wants to do these fantastic, way-out LP's and they want to do all the old stuff." Here again, Townshend would experience similar tension in The Who, as he would try and break new ground on album projects while the rest of The Who (particularly Daltrey) struggled to grapple with each new direction.

[Jason Penick]

Well, Pete came around soon enough, going so far to appropriate the tone of Brian's Baldwin organ on the late 1967 demo "Goin' Fishin". (This according to the liner notes on Scoop IIRC.) Apparently Smiley Smile had quite the effect on the young Mr. Townshend.

The funniest part of the quote is that Brian's writing on Pet Sounds is "feminine". Certainly the core of that album is designed to speak directly to the adolescent or newly post-adolescent male psyche.

[I. Spaceman]

Certainly the core of that album is designed to speak directly to the adolescent or newly post-adolescent male psyche.

Yep, feminine.