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Legendary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee, Grammy® Winner, New York Times Best-Selling Author, co-founder, lead singer and chief lyricist of The Beach Boys, Mike Love, has been nominated for induction into the 2019 Songwriters Hall of Fame, in the prestigious "Performing Songwriter" category. Love has written or co-written the lyrics and hooks to some of the most performed songs in pop music history including "California Girls," I Get Around," "Fun Fun Fun," "Good Vibrations," and "Kokomo," cementing The Beach Boys legacy, alongside The Beatles and Michael Jackson, as the only artists to have produced twelve Top 10 Singles, within 5 years. The Songwriters Hall of Fame is dedicated to recognizing the work and lives of those composers and lyricists who create music heard around the world. A songwriter qualifies for induction 20 years after the first commercial release of a song. Inductees will be feted at the organization's 50th Annual Induction & Awards Gala on June 13, 2019, in New York City.

Love's nomination comes on the heels of an impressive release week for his new holiday album Reason For The Season, out now via BMG.Within one week of release, the album debuted at #4 on Billboard's Holiday Album Chart and #6 on the Independent Albums Chart. To order Reason For The Season, click here: http://smarturl.it/ReasonForTheSeason.

The 12-track album features an array of bright guitar and horn-filled pop and rock tracks including "Finally It's Christmas" featuring HANSON as well as Christmas classics like "Little St Nick," and "Jingle Bell Rock." The album also includes softer traditional carols and ballads such as "Do You Hear What I Hear," "O Come All Ye Faithful," "O Holy Night," and "Away in a Manger" featuring vocals from Love's children, Hayleigh, Christian Brian and Ambha Love.

Reason for the Season comes at a particularly prolific time for Mike Love following the release of 2017's Unleash The Love, an acclaimed album featuring 13 previously unreleased recordings and 14 reinterpretations of Beach Boys' classics. Unleash The Love was released on the heels of his New York Times best-selling memoir Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy.

The Beach Boys are set to embark on a holiday tour that kicks off in Chattanooga on November 16, performing holiday classics from The Beach Boys Christmas album as well as new music from Mike Love's chart-topping Reason for the Season. The Beach Boys are led by Mike Love, longtime member Bruce Johnston who along with musical director Scott Totten, Jeffrey Foskett, Christian Love, Tim Bonhomme, John Cowsill, Keith Hubacher and Randy Leago continue the legacy of the iconic American band. The Beach Boys continue to perform over 150 dates per year worldwide.

Tickets to see The Beach Boys on tour are now on sale. VIP package offerings are available for every show and include a Meet & Greet, the holiday album, autographed books, and exclusive memorabilia. Please visit mikelove.com or thebeachboys.com for purchase.


https://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwmusic/article/The-Beach-Boys-Mike-Love-Nominated-for-Induction-into-The-Songwriters-Hall-Of-Fame-20181112

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A nomination does not necessarily mean he'll be joining Brian in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He has to make the final selection pool first.

https://variety.com/2018/biz/news/missy-elliott-leads-2019-songwriters-hall-of-fame-nominees-1203022107/

"Six songwriters or songwriting groups will be officially inducted at the Hall’s 50th annual ceremony in New York on June 13, 2019. The show is one of the most unique awards ceremonies in the music industry and features many rare pairings of performers (one show ended with Billy Joel and Garth Brooks singing a duet in matching black stetson hats). Eligible members can vote for three non-performing songwriters and three performing songwriters until Dec. 17."

Mike is in the performing songwriters category.

To quote every entertainer who has ever been nominated for anything...

“It is an honor just to be nominated.”

Sure duh.

"Unleash The Love, an acclaimed album"

"New York Times best-selling memoir Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy?"

"chart topping album"


All news to me. I suppose being a fan doesn't prevent one from living under a rock.

Isn't part of the acclaim because Mike's people essentially purged bad reviews from Amazon? Meaning that legit people who have actually heard the album, on say Spotify, are not able to actually voice their opinion, and thus only "verified" physical media-purchasing people (who would naturally skew older and be more of the M&B concert attendees who'd probably be more forgiving) get to state their opinion? Reminds me of voter suppression.  But then that's what Mike wants, right? Dissenters to be silenced. I'm surprised the "curry" voice parody thing a the end of "Ram Raj" didn't make it into "The Problem With Apu" documentary.

I tried to re-listen to Help Me, Rhonda (2017) yesterday to try and wrap my head around the "acclaimed" part, and I only made it about 30 seconds in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY_2apR9FU0

Also... "chief lyricist"? Why is that necessary? I'm all for Mike getting properly credited and properly praised for legit good things he's done, but it just seems like such an overt attempt to overcompensate. And I completely dig many, many of Mike's contributions to the band, but going out of his way to try to claw his way to the top by using this lingo is off-putting.

If he's "chief" at anything, it would be Chief Jackass. And yes, he is embarrassing himself by futilely "clawing" his way somewhere but it will never, in his lifetime or ours, be anywhere near the top as he wants it to be soooooooooooooo bad.  :lol :lol :lol

One would think that the winner of a "songwriter's" award would , at the very least, have written some memorable MUSIC.  This guy wrote the lyrics to  some successful hit songs...most of them between 1964 and 1965 plus a handful after that...where he adeptly tidied up work which had already been largely done on songs like Good Vibrations and Kokomo.  It's not all that impressive a body of work when you consider that he didn't provide nearly as much as people might likely assume.

L.P. by L.P... ... ...

Surfin Safari...3 songs and a little bit on 2 more which Gary Usher did most of the work on with Brian
Surfin USA...3 songs
Surfer Girl...4 songs
Little Deuce Coupe...3 songs and a little bit again on a B. Wilson/G. Usher song
Shut Down 2...3 songs
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All Summer Long...8 songs.  So FINALLY Love steps up to the plate AFTER the foundational work he gets SO much credit for has already been written and recorded.
Xmas Album...3 songs
Today...8 songs plus a bit on a 9th
Summer Days and Summer Nights...8 songs
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Party...1 song...well 2 as it's a medley.  Several of the above 'credits' were awarded in court while Brian was incapacitated.  Some deserved.  Several likely BOGUS.
Pet Sounds...1 song supposedly plus 2 others he kind of weaseled a credit out of.
SMiLE...Just weaselin' here as well.
Smiley Smile...3 songs
Wild Honey...10 songs [supposedly]
Friends...2 songs plus 3 way credit on 2 more.
20/20...1 song.  As Brian was not the main man here ... but rather Carl ... notice how the weaselin' stopped?  I did...and do.

Thus ends the 60s and the Beach Boys so-called Glory Days...and really...I'm being generous by extending it as long as I did.  Mike's KEY area of contribution as a "songwriter" clearly /really only lasted for 2 years...1964/65  After that some really fine, forward thinking albums would follow.  Sunflower, Surf's Up, Carl and the Passions and Holland in particular.  Love's contributions were way, WAY down and certainly they were no more significant than any of the other guys participation.  In fact Denny outdistances him as a songwriter.  Why?  Because Dennis Wilson was, in fact, a songwriter beginning on the Friends album and then especially from 20/20 on.  No wonder Mike was so pissed off with him.  He was jealous.  Up until he stupidly plowed the group toward becoming Sha Na Na with sand shovels and buckets...he wrote lyrics for significantly less than 1/2 of their body of work.  He wrote almost no NOTES for the treble clef and his claims regarding credit on a number of songs is suspect.  Yet he wants to take all of the credit as a "songwriter" this time around?

I think NOT   ::)

Mike contributed to four number one hits (I Get Around, Help Me Rhonda, Good Vibrations, Kokomo), and contributed to many other classics (California Girls, Warmth Of The Sun, Kiss Me Baby) come to mind. Anyone who even had a part in writing these songs (words or music) deserves an award like this.

I might prefer a song like Forever over Surfin, but that doesn't take away from the fact that Mike contributed to some of the most important and best songs of the 60's.

 I tend to agree with this. My issue is the self-aggrandizement, which I assume comes from his people, that is stated in the article.  And the idea that one can effectively remove bad reviews from Amazon in an attempt to make it seem like there aren't tons of people who find his new album not particularly good, to word it extremely kindly.

 I'd be much more inclined to cheer the guy on bit if he wasn't trying to endlessly claim credit in every interview he gives.

In a time when pop lyrics were blandly generic, Mike was one of the few who carried on in the tradition of Chuck Berry and Jerry Leiber in writing narrative lyrics with actualized characters and specifically detailed situations. He co-wrote some of the greatest, most enduring records ever made.

I would say that as a writer overall he was a minor figure -- but for a brief, key period (1963-1965, pre-electric Dylan) he was the equal of, say, Gerry Goffin, and deserving of at least a nomination.

OSD’s speech inducting him at the event? :lol

Did Mike ever write a song all by himself, without any help from anyone else?

Off the top of my head, Big Sur, Everyone’s In Love With You, Daybreak Over The Ocean.

Great post Lee, really. And no one's gotten more mileage on Brian's coattails than myKe luHv.  ::)

I mean he wrote a classic like Sumahama!? Shouldn't that count for something... ;) Rock 'n Roll Country Bride? Wrinkles? The man is a songwriting genius and roundly deserves this nomination!!

 :lol :lol :lol :lol Not to mention the pancake enrobed in sticky syrup "Everyone's In Love With You". Awful.

The songwriters hall of fame includes lyricists. Among the songs Mike wrote were 'Fun Fun Fun', 'Warmth of the Sun', 'I Get Around', 'California Girls', 'Good Vibrations', and many more great songs, as I'm sure every one on this board is well aware.

Hal David is in the hall of fame. How many songs did he write without a collaborator?

Folks hate Mike as a person for being the second biggest a**hole in the Beach Boys and maybe the 753rd biggest a**hole in pop/rock. Fine. Does that hatred then extend to all the songs he wrote or sang on? How then can you be a Beach Boys fan?

Please post your "rules" for being a Beach Boys Fan.  :police:

Who is the first biggest? Al?  ;D

First and foremost, Mike Love should absolutely be in this hall of fame given his ample legitimate songwriting contributions.

I think any hedging or uneasiness fans might feel at the idea of Mike being in this HOF is that his attitude towards the band's legacy and fellow bandmates, and his general attitude, aren't exactly the most magnanimous and humble. Should his attitude and personality negate membership in this hall of fame? I don't think so.

Regarding "biggest a-hole" status, while it's obviously not really a "measurable" thing, I'd guess even *Mike Love himself* would agree he's far higher up on the list than #753. Even his Rolling Stone profile from a couple years back showed enough self-awareness that he's at least *somewhat* aware of his reputation and doesn't seem to find it to be totally unfounded.

I'd guess most learned industry people who know the deal going back to the 60s would put Mike pretty high on the "biggest a-hole" list; and I say that whether one agrees with that or not. His '88 R&R HOF speech alone cemented that reputation, to say nothing of the laundry list of other issues that we've all discussed over and over.

All true. One thing is for sure: regardless of how annoyed or pissed that fans or industry people might be with Mike, he made some genuinely great musical contributions to the band. I don't understand how (understandably) upset fans are able to negate his contributions; even though some of them were annoyingly played up by Mike (and everyone should have *some* degree of empathy for Mike being f***ed in the head over being unfairly denied legit credits for years)... there's still lots of completely legit stuff he deserves to be praised and recognized for.

It's possible to have problems with him as a dude and still say he added some undeniably rad stuff to the band, those are not mutually exclusive ideas.

Unfortunately, the Mike-ster seemingly wants that recognition too much, and has let that desire be publicly known by slipping up way too many times, which has the adverse effect. Most people are less inclined to *want* to go out of their way to give heaps of praise to someone who is too braggadocios.

I definitely agree he has a place in this hall of fame and I think you're right - it's probably more about us as fans just having an issue with Mike and everything that comes with him. That said, I think most of us can agree it is just who he is and I know I've come to accept that he's obnoxious and that he's fun to hate - but he's still Mike Love. He's still a huge part of the band's history/legacy and we love to hate him...and we like to joke about his missteps and whether or not he should get a nomination like that...but at the end of the day I think most of us would agree he deserves it. We just need to take the p*ss out of him a bit.

I read a lot of rock biographies. Most rock performers prominent enough to have books written about them are a-holes, or at least have had extended periods of a-hole behavior before mellowing in their old age, even such revered figures as David Bowie and George Harrison.

Mike has been an a-hole deep into his dotage, granted, but much less of one than, say, Van Morrison or Lou Reed, both well-deserved Hall of Fame songwriters.

When it comes to rock music, we have to separate the art from the artist.

Duh. Does anybody deny the quoted bit? Even I, apathetic about lyrics thru & thru, think Mike should be. It's really banal thing to say.