The Smiley Smile Message Board

I was wondering.

Whenever I talk about the Beach Boys, or anyone else talks about them, for me as a fan I dont think about Surfin USA or I Get Around. I think PS/Smile, early 70's liveshows, Love You, and a very beardy Carl, Dennis, Mike, Brian and Al.

But in 1967 with no new music for the summer of love and shelving of Smile, would it not have been a good idea to change name along with their changing music?

Just to make it clear: I LOVE THE FACT THAT THEY DIDNT, THAT THEY KEPT TRUE TO THEIR ROOTS AND DIDNT SELL OUT (well, mike kinda did right?))

What are people's opinions on this? If they changed their name in 67-68, they could reinvent themselves from scratch without Brian. I mean by 1968 they were selling so bad that they might as well just ditched the band name without too much commercial impact.

Mike once said they considered changing their name to "Beach" at one point. Not sure how serious this was. I'm glad they didn't. Their faith in themselves and their identity paid off. And it it also important to note that it was only in the US their popularity faded.

The name was most definitely a blessing and a curse, a blessing for two or three years, and a curse for the rest of eternity.  I think about that line in Good Morning Vietnam where Krohnaur says "for God sakes get the Beach Boys" to come play in Saigon and someone quips "their agent says they're still on the Beach and won't be off till September."  Makes me cringe at the pigeonhole that name put them in, to paraphrase Dennis, forever.

Didn't The Beatles change just as much between 1962 and 1967 as The Beach Boys did? The Beatles' name never worked against them, so why would it have been different for The Beach Boys?

Because the Beatles didn't pigeon-hole themselves by filling their first few albums with songs about small, winged insects?

OK, that's a good point. :)

While that's funny, the reality is that the Beatles could have just been perceived as American music acolytes who loved Buddy Holly (and the Crickets - one of the inspirations for the Beatles name), Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Carl Perkins. But they grew to the point where their identity actually changed the meaning of their name (how many forget that the insect name is actually spelled b-e-e-t-l-e). In a sense, the Beach Boys accomplished the same thing, but they were hesitant to distance themselves from the iconology that name initially implied: striped shirts, surf and beach imagery (why oh why did the "Heroes & Villains" promo film use surfing imagery?). Those images are still being used (surf boards on the Grammy stage, Hawaiian shirts), but more damaging is the retro songwriting that comes in during the late 70s and doesn't leave (hopefully this doesn't dominate the new album) which attempts to reduce the range of subject matter to what Jimmy Buffet does.

It's not hard to see that the band lost some of their audience as they matured with PET SOUNDS and, perhaps even more, when they failed to follow-up on the new direction suggested by "Good Vibrations". But if the "comeback" was already underway before ENDLESS SUMMER was released there really shouldn't have been a problem with being the Beach Boys and having that name represent whatever identity they wanted to be in the 70s.

God I'm going to get slated here, but dare I say, The Beach Boys is a bit of a s**t name, or at least the 'Boys' bit is? I for one, wish they'd changed their name to Beach in the 70s.

Actually, I agree with you...about it being a pretty lame name. This is what I was talking about in that a band name doesn't have to be good to represent good or great music. I would argue that Pink Floyd is another terrible name that conjures up wonderful soundscapes, quirky psychedelic pop, artful introspection and social satire. The The is a name that loses its cleverness before you finish saying the second syllable, but I associate it with dynamic, catchy songs with searing lyrics. Would the name the Kinks do anything if it wasn't for the wild abandon of "You Really Got Me" or the plethora of carefully-crafted English still-lifes?

They are The Beach Boys.  Period. And when I think of them, which is most of the time over the past 50 years, ask my wife of 40 who I met in high school in 1966 while playing the Party album, I in fact AM first of all thinking of hot rods, surfing, the beach and girls thereupon, love songs, Pet Sounds, etc.  Then maybe California Saga image and the great early 70's touring years. But ALWAYS "The Beach Boys".  Fretting about the name is silly.  Either the music was good or it wasn't.  It was. And is. Changing the name to reach the "sophisticates" would have been a lame con. 

Did BB ever score a hit with a song that didn't have a sound close to the classic sound?

Even a song like Heroes and villians isn't too far away from the classic BB sound

Very few bands can radically change their sound and image and still go over with the mainstream. Beatles is one of them, U2 another. The way I see it Sail on sailor was doomed because the mainstream didn't want to hear a cool rock song from BB. According to Gaines the label did everything they could to push Sail on sailor up the charts and still failed....and it's a great song.

Please Mister, can I have a go in your time machine......?

It was only a curse for the period of years where the youth of America decided that their priority in life was to lend their voice to protests/social causes and stopping the war in Vietnam.  The rest of the time the name and the image of "The Beach Boys" suited the band extremely well for what it represented.  In the early sixties they represented the dreams interests and aspirations of nearly every male American teenager and from what I understand The Beach Boys had quite a female following as well.  After the youth of America lost things to rally for/against they became a nostalgia trip for those yearning to recapture the innocence of their lost youth and have sold records hand over fist on that premise ever since.

So in a word: No I'm glad they had the sense not to change their name or entirely askew their image for the sake of moving along with the times.  Now don't confuse this with the mistakes they made in not embracing "SMiLE" or not embracing even some simple cosmetic changes that could have made them less square but they should have never abandoned their name or their association with late fifities/early sixties Americana. 

The Beach Boys is a far better name than The Pendletones, which would have dated the band almost immediately. Look at the Beastie Boys. They've been considered cool from the get-go. It's all about attitude.

The thing that killed their popularity in the late 60s was the fact that the touring band really was square. Brian was their only hope at becoming hip, but they were out there in the striped shirts with Mike's dorky dance moves front and center.

Mike and the others didn't have a lot of interest in being considered "hip" when it mattered. They didn't really get behind Pet Sounds and SMiLE, even when the former was embraced by the hippest heads in rock music.

Greatest Hits packages and "Then I Kissed Her" were released in '66 and '67 which were huge steps backward at the worst possible time if they hoped to be considered hip.

Mike was content to turn the band into a nostalgia machine as early as '68 with "Do It Again" and no amount of facial hair or flowing robes or meditation could ever make Mike hip.

Likewise, when they hired Reiley and tried to update their image it came off a little forced and desperate... not to mention a couple years late.

It's nice to think that the Beach Boys could have played Monterey and been taken seriously from that point forward, but the Hawaii shows that summer prove that they just weren't up for it yet. The live show was out of step with the rapidly-changing times.

By the time they got their live chops where they needed to be to be considered "hip" or "cool" the 60s were over and it was an uphill battle. I don't think they were truly considered cool again until Endless Summer was released and the oldies became popular again.

*audience cheers*
Mike Love: Hello there, we're BEACH.
Audience: ...

Name's fine.
Nothing to be ashamed of.
And don't forget the enormous artistic value of a lot of their early beach-image-oriented material. I.e. they formula that was f***ed with in the mid 60s produced some of the finest pop music (and there was not such formula, btw).

Once you get over the fact that a lot of people don't like what you like, and that there's no reason for you to try to convert them, it's actually kind of cool that these guys are going to be associated forever with a certain lifestyle, a place, a feeling or an image. They not always marketed it effectively, that's true, but I think the extra-musical associations confer them additional legendary status.

Video evidence shows nothing hip about Brian's stage presence in the 60s.

I like to think Brian and the boys could have done something amazing and "hip" at Monterey or Woodtock but it's irrelevant.

Brian was hip when it really mattered, but the live band blew it. The Beach Boys was always two bands, and the touring group had to fight for hipness later on. They were still pretty dang square in '67.

the Rolling Stone article did a lot of harm to their hipness factor too let's not forget

The failure to release SMiLE hurt them as well

But ultimately it was the Brian-less live act that kept them in Squaresville. They became cool again as Carl and Dennis came into their own and Ricky & Blondie joined.

But Mike and Bruce, and Al to a much lesser degree have always hurt the band's hipness factor. They're just dorky dudes.

Mike is kind of the Anti-Hip really... and proud of it!

They're ALL dorky dudes, with the exception of Dennis!

I don't remember where I read/saw this, but some interviewee once argued that, unlike the Beatles or the Stones, you couldn't really imagine any of the Beach Boys doing it...except for Dennis.

I think they should have changed their name to the Butthole Surfers in 1968!

But seriously, I think that after SMiLE was abondoned, they became a counter culture to the counter culture. To me, when I think of Smiley Smile and Friends, it is complete art with no attempt at being commercial at all. The artsy times under 40 are more willing to appreciate this era of the Beach Boys then many who grew up at that time.

Nah, it wasn't the name thing but more the band were no longer perceived as innovators or trend leaders in music land.

As we know, Good Vibes, released under the BB moniker, was kinda mega and had they had kept it up musically and as on-stage performers, the name wouldn't have been a going concern.

I think their non-delivery and other mid '60's flailing allowed detractors to  lampoon away, the name became an easy target.

I think a more pertinent question, is would they have become as huge as they did if they'd remained the Pendletones? I think that name would have hindered them far more than the Beach Boys.

They were never killed off in terms of popularity.  It dipped for a few years, but it came soaring back.  The Beach Boys connect with people in a way very few bands ever have, which is why there is so much attention and excitement being shown towards a group of guys about to turn 70, that haven't released a new records in ages.

With the exception of Dennis, the Beach Boys WEREN'T cool guys... but hey, that's why i love (and that's why i find the Stones, who just try so, SO hard to be relentlessly bad-ass, a little tiring...)
The funny thing is, in terms of behaviour, the BB's were actually properly MORE genuinely rock and roll than many other acts/groups who tried so hard to create a rebellious image: who did more drugs than/was as 'crazy' as Brian? (Remember how much he scared the hell outta no less than Iggy Pop...) Who had sex more than Dennis, or drank and partied more than him? You want a dark side? This is group who had a Charles Manson song on one of their albums?
But imagine is everything and they were called the Beach Boys and, believe it or not, I still know people who to this day simply laugh the band off, and the group name plays a big part in it: 'Ha ha, the BEACH BOYS? Yeah, no thanks grandad'. Of course these people are complete and utter idiots, but that's by the by...

(Funny however that the Beastie Boys have never suffered the same problem despite having very much stopped being boys several decades ago....)

At least the Beach Boys TRIED to perform their new music on stage - something which can't be said for the Fabs.

VERY good point. And they often did it very successfully - see numerous killer live 70s shows.

Whaddya mean "TRIED"? They fuckin' nailed those songs.

I don't want to think about anyone in the Rolling Stones or the Beatles doing it sans maybe Paul McCartney. Ever. I'm talking about in their physical prime as well as today. Mick Jagger, no matter the facial expression, always looks like he's taking a sh*t. John Lennon basically always looked like he smelled terrible or at least reeked of weed. Can't/don't want to picture any of these people having sex, and the same goes for the Beach Boys sans, yes, Dennis, but I think having heard Dennis have sex may be a large contributing factor in that.

*in b4 jokes about the dead members doing it today, you sick f*ck*

I will grant you, however, that of all people in all those bands, Al especially conjures up images of... well, a giggly, pokey kind of sex. No offense to Al, i luv u bb.