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The Beach Boys were 100% self created legends. When they came onto the scene rockNroll was in its infancy and they defined the progressive era of pop culture. Brian along with George Martin, Jan Berry and Phil Spector epitomized not only the peak of everything we know today but he survived the kinda turmoil that destroyed most and now in retrospect the world has not just the nostalgia but an output that was and is way above anything that remains to be seen. Yeah the Beatles get the most credit but whether or not its acknowledged George Martin was to them what Jim Henson was to the Muppets and I dont care if thats a bold statement or asinine to some because ya cant rewrite history. The sales, the popularity, the permanent place in pop culture thatll forever be in history books...think about it- every "legend" had a couple definitive albums and singles, a couple years in the limelight but the BBs had over a dozen amazing albums that every serious collector knows and loves, two dozen songs that everyone knows...in todays modern world the word legend refers to the greats of mid-20th century, there are no legends of today in the making and its just a reflection of what the world's become. I didnt have the privilege of existing in that golden era but as a young musician I feel obligated to pay homage whenever and wherever I can.

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Not sure that the similarities are such that one can legitimately compare 'then' to 'now'.

The top 30 was the top 50 back then.  Singles dominated sales until album sales took over around 1976...around the same time that FM overtook AM radio in the ratings.  Still most folks were listening to the same handful of local radio stations and watching the same shows on TV.  The whole generation by and large shared the 'experience' together.

Nowadays everyone is ghettoized.  And we're watching and listening to hundreds of different options many of which are taylor-made for the one-track mind.  I think that I can boldly sit here and type that LESS was M O R E.  Way more.

Looking back doesn't provide the perspective.  Living it did.  I'm living THIS...here and now.  Music went tumbling down the friggin' hill right at the time that music videos began to dictate what music we WATCHED.  And what we watched is what the radio played.  Radio?  Playing music for the eyes?  Well that was NEVER going to work.

Now the whole industry is in the shitter.  Why?  Because music was, is and always will be for the ears...for the heart and for the soul.  [unless you wanna dance...and 'lard nose' we ALL wanna dance 24 hours a friggin' day/7 days a friggin' week]

Put fools in charge.  Works everytime.  Saves money.  The shareholders pocket their dividends and the executives cash their bonus cheques while *WE* all complain about how it's all gone to hell in a handbasket.


No...the 60s were nothing like 'today'.  Thank GAWD. :hat

One thing that has ALWAYS troubled me (tho its happening less and less today) is that George Martin did ALOT for the Beatles and they would not as iconic without him, yet people were reluctant to give him credit. Back in the day (I am old enough to remember) people would say "I don't even know what Martin does, just sit there and watch the truly talented at work then collect a check." There really was that attitude, even among people that should have known better (I am looking right at you Jann Wenner!).

Martin once commented that he and Paul were talking around 1965 while listening to the Beach Boys:

PM:"who writes the music?"
GM:"Brian."
PM:"Who arranged and produces them?"
GM:"Brian"
PM:"Its not bloody fair that he has all that talent."
GM:"No it isnt (of course this was all said while laughing)."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Brian Wilson is the Lorne Michaels of the 1960s.

That's funny because I've always made a direct comparison between Mike Love and Chevy Chase.

Also, while George Martin may have been under-estimated at one point, he is also over-estimated by people who seek to de-value the talent of The Beatles. Especially in comparison with their own personal favourite artists...

that's alot of "A"s and "H"s there, Mikie!

You forgot the most important part: that they inspired The Ramones.

Something tells me that in 1968 people were not talking about The Beach Boys as being legends in the making...

And I`m not sure it can be said that, "every "legend" had a couple definitive albums and singles" because there are plenty of bands and singers who had much more continued success than The Beach Boys. The Beach Boys run of top ten hits lasted from 1963 to 1966 which is a relatively short period of time. They just crammed a heck of a lot into it.

I think you transposed some digits there -- albums began outselling singles in 1967, not 1976.

Oasis is better than The Beatles in every way and I'm not trolling in the slightest.

"I think you transposed some digits there -- albums began outselling singles in 1967, not 1976."

In North America...I think it was actually '78...not '76.  67?  Not a chance.

More than those things, it's a false statement.


True. Such as the fact that The Beatles were already the most popular band in Liverpool before they had ever heard of George Martin and they were widely considered by their peers to be the best band as early as 1962. And while George Martin found it all but impossible to break the pop charts before The Beatles and never had anywhere near the kind of chart success with other pop bands throughout the 60s that he had with The Beatles, the four solo Beatles without George Martin sold millions of records, from All Things Must Pass to Ringo to "Imagine," to Band on the Run, "Whatever Gets You Through the Night," "Mull of Kintyre" and so on.

Of course, I don't want to underestimate George Martin's work - he was a very important element in the band. But to characterize him as a puppet master simply reveals an unawareness of the history.

Could ya hear me that far, Rab?  "ALOT" is not a word!  That would drive an English teacher bonkers!

It's easy to feel this way sometimes, man, but long before Brian Wilson was born, Ludwig Beethoven lived.  When Beethoven died, people stood out in the street around his house and mourned that the greatest composer that ever lived died, surely there would never be another.


.... and they were right!  There never was another.  However, 140 years later your friend and mine Brian Wilson was born.  Now you're sitting here lamenting that the Beach Boys won't be around much longer but haven't said 1 fucking word about Beethoven. 

My point is, there will always be legends, and it doesn't diminish the other legends that came before them.  Time is a funny thing, I don't understand it anymore than you do. 

Nail meet hammer.

MAN! You just gotta LOVE someone like that ALOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, you two ought to get together!

sleep alot
eat alot
brush alot like crazy
run alot
do alot
never be alot

I choose to believe that there can be many geniuses and brilliant artists. In the past and the present.

I agree with THAT.  They don't all get played on the radio or TV though.  Quality is all too often misrepresented by quantity.

There might not have been "legend talk" but it was a "given" that the music would sustainable over time, because of the wide range of covered topics, the novel instrumentation, (theremin) and notwithstanding the political times, it might not have been on the "front burner" but on "simmer" on the back burner, while the old storm blowing "winds of change" had the music in a vortex in sort of a holding pattern, sort of "marking time" until things got better with the Vietnam War end, and other strife.   

There was a corpus of eight years of recording, just waiting to be reborn.  It came in 1975-6 with the US bicentennial, our home-grown band. 

Lot of bands had three year windows, but none or few had the solid music that would eventually appeal to all ages.   ;)

And those who knew it would eventually come around, have had the most delicious last laugh!  :thewilsons

Kook -

I don’t wanna get into a thing here, because ultimately your point is that he Beach Boys are amazing, and it never fails to give you something special that you need (whether it’s the songs, the production, the backstory, whatever) I’m with you. I would love everybody to “get” that. Where I have a problem is the “my team is best” syndrome. Because ultimately, it’s no different than “my wife is more beautiful to me than YOURS is to me.” It’s the worst way to celebrate or share something. And the proof -- not subjective -- is that the Beatles are the biggest and most beloved (for good reason.) They are the standard bearers and were from the moment that Brian first heard them. No one loves the BB’s more than me, but as Brian and Al will tell you -- and Dennis and Carl if they were here today -- there’s the Beatles and then everything else.

Certain facts need to be stressed: The brilliant, beautiful, EVERY TIME groundbreaking Beatles (insanely the BANE of so many BB-fans existence it seems) were never the “Muppets” to George Martin's Jim Henson. Ever. That’s as incorrect as saying “water is dry.” Martin was a gifted arranger and facilitator. (Love, love, love the horns on “Martha My Dear”) -- saying that they were his pawns in any manner makes you prove A) you don’t read credits on LP’s or know the history of the Beatles and B) have missed the point of a true wonder of the world. Like a Mets fan who refuses to acknowledge the Yankees won the World Series because they "hate" the Yankees. It’s exactly that and one of the most immature parts of fandom.

Phil Spector, who was great, was NOT timeless. He was timely. And was effective enough in his time to create records that still work today. But it was (honestly) a four-year-run, with a LOT of help on every level -- the writing, the arranging, the performing, the singing, even -- yes -- the "production." Fats Domino was great in his time too, but then there came a time when it didn’t matter.

CUE: Jan Berry.

I think it’s hysterical that Jan Berry gets lumped in with ANY of these people. That’s how marginal his output was. It’s fetish music and as far away as you can get when discussing even the worst of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. I’m all for people talking about Jan Berry (always was fascinated by the post-accident material e.g. “Natural High”) but to SERIOUSLY place him anywhere near John Lennon and Paul McCartney (or Brian Wilson, for that matter) is silly, amateur, and absolutely incorrect. I’m not saying he can’t be a favorite of yours or even THE favorite. Talk about him all you want -- but his peers were Gary Lewis and Freddie Cannon, nothing more, nothing less.

This thread needs more mentions of The Ramones.

Guts, Glory, Ram one.  S'good?

That's probably in the top 10 of 'Worst Quotes Ever' on this board.

Well, Oasis are amazing and get a pretty bad deal, particularly in North America.

J&D are not as musically nourishing as the beatles .
Phil Spector wasn't great , but his records were.  MM.Hmmm.
wait a minnnnute--lets not bring poor ol fats domino into this.
 Live Forever and the singles from Whats the Story Morning Glory.

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I find Oasis to be one of the blandest bands of all time possibly right behind Pearl Jam.   Lacking any sort of substance and sonically dull.   I do not think they ages well and unlike the Beach Boys or Beatles, are in no way timeless.  At least blur pushed some boundaries and had some sort of commentary and purpose driven aspect, a far better suited comparison to the Beatles than Oasis....

I think that saying that George Martin made the Beatles, or visa versa is rather harsh. I think Martin helped their sound, especially at the beginning. To me Abbey Road is miles better than the white album or Let it Be. As good as those two are. But Martin brought something extra I think.

Although it took Paul and John several years of preforming and recording before they finally hit their stride. For Brian, Surfin hit the top 100 and within a year they were on Capitol and soon after had a smash hit in Surfin USA. Even though Paul and John started making music before Brian, it seems that Brian was 2 years ahead of them. It took some polishing and George Martin to get them over the hump.

In terms of present geniuses, yes they exist. It is not top 40 music, or radio friendly for the most part. One of my favorite artists, second only to Brian is Jason Lytle. He was the leader of Grandaddy who in 2009 went solo. He wrote, produced, and usually plays all the instruments!

I'd say that Oasis pushed more boundaries than Blur. They were the first class conscious band to come around in quite some time -- and to articulate a working class attitude and character specifically at a time when such behaviour had been marginalized and denigrated was a remarkable achievement and it was a decision which has given the band an enduring place in British culture. Their music was definitely purpose-driven: it was utterly a reaction against conservative rule in England which had worked to silence and demonize an entire culture. Oasis reacted to that by basically saying, "We've got dreams too and we're going to live them out even if it's only in our minds," and, also, "Just try to shut us up." The idea that they "are in no way timeless" is proven false by the evidence. Twelve years after Definitely Maybe was released, the album was voted by NME readers as the best album of all time ahead of Sgt. Pepper and Revolver. Two years after that, it was voted as the number one British album in a poll taken by Q and HMV. Furthermore, Noel Gallagher's first solo album in 2011 was the second biggest selling rock album of the year, so the sound still resonates with people.

I like Blur as well but as a critic said in a documentary I recently watched, Blur's music lacked what Oasis's music had in spades, which was heart.

Thanks for providing more insight into why some people might like Oasis, who on the face of it made derivative records ranging in quality from boring to downright ugly, (plus "Live Forever" which I did like). I don't remember much of a political angle to them but maybe my strong aversion to their music made me overlook it. Certainly from a "class warfare" point of view they had the edge over Blur. Pulp had the best of both worlds- great music and subversion.

Sure - I'd say though that that's very much the manufactured "face of it" -- in reality, Oasis's records are no more derivative than anything Bob Dylan's ever done. It's just that Dylan didn't have the misfortune of being an overtly and transparently working class person from England in the 90s. But, hey, that hasn't stopped all the accusations of plagiarism that Dylan has faced but it has rendered those accusations less significant than they have for Oasis.


They were political on a subtle level - ina similar vein with, say, I Want to Hold Your Hand and Elvis, in terms of how they shook up the status quo and gave parents something to worry about. Yet Oasis was throwing down the gauntlet not just for a generation but for a whole category of society.


Pulp was amazing. But I might make that same point about Oasis - great music and subversion. And furthermore, Pulp seemed to only be able to do what they could do after Oasis broke through the barrier. Pulp had been around for years without making much of an impact.

Yeah, I regretted immediately using the word "derivative" in my criticism of Oasis, because that's not why I didn't like them. Pulp were just as derivative but I actually liked them.

As for Oasis paving the way for Pulp, maybe there's some truth in that in terms of gross sales but they had already become my favourite band with the "his 'n' hers" singles, (which charted and everything) before I had even heard of Oasis. And the real commercial crossover breakthrough for this sort of thing in Britain was Blur's "Girls and Boys"- everything seemed to happen in the wake of that. At least that's how it felt at the time, to a teenager in the UK.

Come a bit off-topic, haven't we!

EDIT: regarding northern working class voices in British pop, the Happy Mondays and Stone Roses from a few years previously deserve mention, though they didn't make quite as much mainstream impact.

Isn`t this a rather skewed viewpoint? I mean, Surfin USA is obviously a classic hit but let`s not forget that The Beatles had 3 number ones in 1963 and the members had written several big hits for other acts (most produced by George Martin of course).

Brian`s genius was certainly beginning to shine by this point but I really don`t see how it can be said that Lennon and McCartney were 2 years behind???

I think this gives Oasis rather too much credit. The first class conscious band to come around in quite some time? I don`t think that`s true at all as there had been numerous outspoken working class bands around from The Smiths onwards. Liam Gallagher`s whole persona was nicked from Ian Brown after all some might say…

The timing obviously did work for them and tied in with New Labour and the false dawn that offered but the basic reasons that they were successful is that they had catchy, singalong songs and a charismatic singer.

I didn't respond to the last comment about this from unreleased backgrounds because I agree with him that we may have been veering off topic, though maybe this kind of thread demands it. So I don't want UB to think I'm ignoring him but I thought that I would give a response to this.

To be honest, there's very little that you wrote that I disagree with. When I said that they were the first "class conscious band to come around in quite some time," I suppose I really meant for a few years. But, to be perfectly honest, I would still say that while The Smiths and The Stone Roses did present that kind of Mancunian character and contributed to a lineage in which Oasis eventually placed themselves, they were nevertheless even more "conscious" of themselves as representative of a working class than those two bands. This doesn't make them better, incidentally, it's simply an observation of their aesthetic. In other words, whereas The Smiths would sing about Keats and Yeats, Oasis flagrantly sang about dole culture. If their first album is about anything, it's that we have a fantasy of a better life that we'll probably never achieve and ultimately the best things that are culturally available to us are cigarettes, alcohol, and sex. I just don't see this kind of very class conscious message being articulated in the Smiths and Stone Roses as good as (and as Mancunian as) their music is. And further to the point, as I said, this whole class of people had largely been marginalized and silenced by conservative rule. The Stone Roses response to that was largely more silence - they may be the quietest people in the history of British rock - arrogant, yes, but quiet. Oasis were the exact opposite - they were always talking, refusing to shut up, and making a point that they were going to be heard. If Liam was Ian Brown, he was Ian Brown times a thousand. And Ian Brown moved more on stage.

I also agree that this is not what made them successful. I was only bringing that up to say how they pushed boundaries too - maybe not in the same way as, say, Blur, but they pushed them nevertheless in a very politically sensitive time (as you note). What made them successful was indeed catchy music that carried with it an ethos of positivity.

`From the ice age to the Dole age...`

`A double bed and a stalwart lover for sure...these are the riches of the poor`

Lyrically there really was nothing new in what Oasis were singing.

And I think it is an exaggeration to talk about people being silenced by Conservative rule. A massive exaggeration. There were loads of vocally critical bands around at that time gaining mainstream success (Carter USM had a number one album in 1992 for example).

And I think too little is made of the fact that they came along at the right time during Britpop. Suede had already reached number one and Oasis and many other bands were in the right place at the right time.

I didn't say there was. At the same time Some Girls Are Bigger than Others is not about dole culture just because it has one reference to it. To compare that to, say, Cigarettes and Alcohol is bizarre. And these songs were about 10 years old by the time that Definitely Maybe came out. I never argued that Noel Gallagher was the first person in the history of mankind to incorporate the word "dole" in a pop song, which appears to be your reading of my argument.


Yes, I'm talking generally and in a political sense not an artistic sense. Like in the sense that there are left wing dissident voices in the United States but they have no political legitimacy.


Well, Suede never had a #1 single but they did have a #1 album in 1993. I never suggested that Oasis created Britpop but out of all the bands that "came along at the right time" (and there were many) they were by far the most successful. Timing wasn't everything. But, of course, no matter what band you are looking at - The Beatles, Beach Boys, Dylan, Oasis - timing will always play a factor in their success. I'm not sure what this truism has to do with anything though.

Ok. I won`t keep sidetracking the thread anymore. My basic point I guess was that Oasis were just following the other music up to that that time. The arrogance of Morrissey with the bad behaviour of the Madchester scene made their attitude. The Beatles, Stones, Status Quo etc. made their music. Too much can be read into everything else...