The Smiley Smile Message Board

I know there are several BB fans that can't get past the Pet Sounds/Smile-era music and want nothing but this but let's face it ... the boys hit their prime artistically a long time ago. Now all that is left is the other stuff (not counting the surprisingly great TWGMTR). Still, there is a lot of bad music out there made by these guys as a band and solo but I have to say Problem Child may easily be their best song released in 1990, ahead of Somewhere Near Japan.

It is a very, very catchy song with fun lyrics and a GREAT lead by the great Carl Wilson. It also had a fun, if not cheesy video. To me, it is way better than Kokomo and that song somehow made it to the top of the charts. I just want to know what the diehards think of the song ... good and bad.

For those who haven't seen the video ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EeSuuCwaQ4

That's a pretty bad way to start the conversation.

But i have been listening to Problem Child recently and talked about it with -another BB fan- friend about how catchy it is!
well yeah it's the 90's and all, it's supposed to be a commercial hit and you definitely can hear that through the song, but still the melody is very good imo.

Obviously not a fan of the sax solo but overall i think it's a cool guilty pleasure, and Carl is great -as always- on that track.

It's definitely not Summer Of Love.

No, it's just criminal.

  You beat me to it!

Listening to this again has brought too much crime to my neighborhood. Where is the dark knight when you need him?

I'm still busy kickin' Spring Vacation's ass.

Problem Child is a great song. probably only because Carl is singing it, but it's still a great song.

The melody and lead vocal are strong. Too bad the about the lyrics and gated drums.

I think Somewhere Near Japan is in class of its own compared to Problem Child lol.

It's not THAT bad. Still bad though. It's just because it's the Beach Boys. If this had been from a one hit wonder or something, it would be considered a guilty pleasure. (if sh*tty 80's music is your thing of course)

I hate the 80's and enjoy some quite Beach Boys albums, and when i hear this, i don't really care if it's from the same guys who sang God Only Knows or if it's from the shitty 80's music, i just enjoy the melody and the singer's voice, really.

I really like the edited version without the children's laugh. Some live versions were great as well though Mike seemed really embarrassed doing the intro part which made me giggle. At one point I gave a friend of mine some Beach Boys files to rehearse, he was our drummer, and the only two songs that he  liked were "Fun, Fun, Fun" and "Problem Child".

Didn't Bruce once said he regretted doing that song and "Make It Big"? Well, I'd take both over "Kokomo" any day.

Is there any video of it? never seen or even heard that song played live.

I am currently downloading an MP3 of a live performance of it from 1990. I will upload it to YouTube when complete. I can't wait to hear it!

BTW, what do people think of their cover of Crocodile Rock?
The song, not video, which is horrid.

The Problem Child video is so staggeringly dreadful it's a real guilty pleasure. It's hard to say what's the worst/best moment - Al's hair perhaps, or Mike pulling a 'hilarious' surprised face as he blows bubbles out of his sax. I think Bruce getting electrocuted is probably the highlight - pity he was only acting...

Never heard the original so it sounds great ... just not that memorable.

It's Pretty disgusting.  Clown music.

Bruce has said that he thought Problem Child was the worst thing the band ever did. Note that Problem Child is a Johnston/Melcher composition.

Bruce will downplay a lot of what he does. Including his Grammy-winning song.

Bruce is a music performer. Excellent skills with piano and lovely voice in his heyday (and to some extent still)
Almost all the music he wrote however is pretty horrid. Going Pubic is attrocious with its neon 70's glitz, I Write the Songs is nothing really. Problem Child is no exception.

I didn't know they ever played it live, actually it might sound much better! hearing the melody with live sound, thanks for sharing it!

No time for YouTube ... on way to hospital but had time to upload to Sendspace.

LINK REMOVED BY MODERATOR: PLEASE READ THE RULES.

I got a whole album of live 80's and early 90's performances. Cant wait to see what else is on it.

Thanks a lot! hope everything is fine for you.

Thanks a lot! This made me realize:
1. Miss Carl
2. The neo-doo wop chorus with Al is not too shabby
3. The dimished chord in the second half of the verse is a nice unexpected touch that adds color to an otherwise typical doo-wop progression. Thanks Bruce, I guess.

I saw them perform this live. My enduring memory of seeing "Problem Child" performed live is that I knew every word to the song and happily sang along at full volume (my belated apologies to the folks at the PNC Bank Art Center in NJ). The song had not been released as a single yet but I had taped the video off of "Friday Night Videos" on NBC and watched it repeatedly. I was upfront competing with Carl Wilson which I guess earns me a place in hell now that I'm older and wiser. This was noticed by Mike Love who said afterwards "Well, I see we have some super fans here today" or something like that.

Afterwards I had an embarrassing exchange with Al Jardine that I won't go into here but I did get an autograph.

Ooowowoowowow hey there now, you can't just say that and go away! why wouldn't you say it? come on, share with us!

Ugh...after the show when the stage set-up was being broken down, Al came out to help. Looking back, that's kind of odd considering the Beach Boys obviously had a road crew. Maybe Al was the low man on the totem pole? Who knows? There was a crowd of fans around the front of the stage and Al was signing autographs and chatting. I rushed down with my tour program and joined the crowd. As Mr. Jardine got closer to me I guess all these thoughts were flashing through my head like "Hey, he sang on Pet Sounds" or "I've been listening to this guy sing on the greatest records of all time since I was a little kid" and even though I was 19 at the time, I felt this flood of emotion and started shrieking Al's name.....I mean SHRIEKING...like an 8 year old girl. "AL! "AL! AL!". I have no idea what came over me.

When Al walked over to sign my tour book I was still screaming and jumping up and down like a little bitch. Eventually Al said "Okay...okay" and then finally "OKAY!" as in "Dude, calm the hell down!". He signed my tour book and I made a comment about them having "California" in that day's setlist. I guess it was a recent addition and as I recall they hadn't played it in a long time. Al asked me "Hey, you noticed that? Did it sound okay? We just rehearsed it the other day?". For some weird reason I just smiled and maybe out of nervousness or Beach Boys-mania I blurted out "Keep it up!"....

He looked at me like I was either and idiot or hard of hearing an asked me again. "Was it okay? What did you think of it?"

..and again I smiled like a dope and said "Keep it up!"

I think I meant to say "Keep it in" like "keep it in the setlist". To be honest, I was so nervous I couldn't think of anything else to say. Either way I didn't answer his question and instead I think he interpreted "keep it up" like I was suggesting they needed to rehearse it more or it wasn't good enough.  Al gave me a weird look like maybe I was on something and then just walked away.  I have no excuse for my behavior that day other than I was 19 and wasn't nearly as cool as I thought I was.

Funnily enough, I'm not much for autographs but I still have Al's and around the same time I wrote a fan letter to Brian and received an autographed photo and a form letter 10 YEARS LATER! 

Oh man, this sounds soo funny.. thanks for the laughs! really, don't be ashamed or feel embarrassed about it, it happens to all of us, it's always a special moment when soemthing like that happens and all you know, i sometimes had some weird moments too! haha
it's the love man, the love!

Just don't think about it as something embarrassing that you should keep locked for ever man, hey at least you had the chance to met him after all! just laugh about it, who cares you know. ;)

Thanks for the story, it's really great to have someone who had the chance to you know, see the band live when they were with Carl and all.. (i guess there's many people out there who have seen the band in their earlier days and that has some great stories! i'm just new around here), take care!

Am I the only one who ever once thought that Al's line in the chorus, the "na-na-na-na-na etc. etc. ...oh yeah" part was sampled from a recording of Brian from around '76? It is a dead ringer for that rough, raspy sound, to me. I thought the Beach Boys were being "techno" in that regard...

He is, or he was?How would a soundboard of just Bruce  from a concert sound?

I love the video, and yeah, nothing against Bruce, but he really takes a beating and it's kind of fun to watch. 

The song...well, as someone else said, the drums are pretty extreme.  It's hard to really appreciate it  around all that white noise on the 2 and 4.

I thought Melcher just wrote it on his own.

Wow, you're kind of a sadist, eh?  I bet you enjoyed ol' Betsy getting knocked around too.

Bruce and Betsy are probably quietly crying together in a dark corner somewhere ...  Hope you feel good about yourself.

I can't help but be reminded of Landy when I see Gilbert Gottfried behind the mixing desk.

As for the song...it's really not the worst in the world, or even in the BB catalog. Carl's vocal is great, the production is very much of it's time, and Al's ponytail is something to treasure.

Amazing. It took a thread to make a classic out of Problem Child!

Clean forgot that that video is about as funny as leprosy.

(http://i.imgur.com/b9Kz6.jpg)

Al looks good, yeah but Carl looks awesome with the shades. The cover is pretty neat too.

(http://1.2.3.13/bmi/991.com/newGallery/Beach-Boys-Problem-Child-69694.jpg)

Does anybody know if the song charted anywhere? With more promotion it could have been a minor hit. Another thing that comes to my mind: I read on the german message board somewhere that "Crocodile Rock" was a top 3 hit, of all places, in Uruguay. Can anyone confirm that? I never mind "Crocodile Rock" but the falsetto (Matt?) sounds horrible, making too much fun of the Beach Boys and the video is awful as well.

No, just trying to sound modern, as they always tried to be.

Of course I like it. Terry Melcher wrote or co-wrote a lot of those cheesy '80s songs. They're all fun and catchy. They were obviously toss-offs.

I just have a problem with the Stamos factor in "Problem Child."

I actually think it's a fun little Pop song and prefer it to anything off SIP.

It's weird, as bad as the song is I don't dislike it and sometimes even find the song going around in my head! Has anyone seen the film itself? I find that far more horrible than the song.

Now that's what I call 'damning with faint praise'.

I haven't thought about that flick in ages but weirdly enough, I was just recently chattering with one of the writers of it who I've been friendly with. If you look it up, they went on to some amazing stuff (including one movie about a certain angora fetishist that changed my life) after that goofy start! I should ask him if he knows anything about the track, but writers are always the last to know anything on a film, really. I'm sure it was a kick for a rookie writer, tho!

Thought Adrian Baker did the Falsetto on Crocodile Rock, but I could be mistaken.

Don't blame M. Jardine for that. That was Adrian Baker

I'm addicted to PC! That one always lifts my spirits! I mean every bit of it is a top sound! No, wait, minus children's intro!

Nope it isn't!

Enough on Problem Child.

Let us now turn our attention to Daddy's Little Girl and make it a classic.

You guys can thank me later ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvMmx5QBaqY

I watched it, then I watched "Make it Big." Downward spiral.

I'll say "Problem Child" is pretty criminal.  That's about it. 

I dunno, I still think "Make it Big" and "Problem Child" are still miles ahead of anything from SIP. It's the Carl Wilson factor. Man even today I had to "Who wants to grow up/who wants responsibility... ooh ooh ooh" stuck in my head. Those oohs are soulful!  I mean Carl just had a way of making even a marginal song like Problem Child sound catchy. He should have had more leads on SIP. I do sincerely enjoy "Make It Big" though.  Its great for its style (big 80s). Not really a "Beach Boys" song though.

You could call this the "Terry Melcher" period. The late Mr. Melcher co-wrote most of their singles around this time, including "Kokomo." Nothing against him. Bruce & Terry are a hidden gem.

When I originally posted this I included an MP3 of a live performance of Problem Child from Philadelphia 1990. I found ANOTHER live performance of the song from New Jersey of the same year. As soon as I get the album I will post it here, just not as an MP3.

This is the best Problem Child Appreciation Thread on the Internet!

Lately I've been scouring the Beach Boys' discography and creating my very own master playlist in iTunes of their songs that didn't appear on a BB's studio album. I have checked both iTunes and Amazon for a digital copy of Problem Child (either the single or album version) but have had no luck. Does anyone know when the song last appeared on a compilation or album? I'd love to obtain the best-sounding MP3 of Problem Child if anyone can help. Thanks.

Ask Mikie

I appreciate it, Bgas. My problem is now solved! Many, many thanks to Mikie as well.

Problem Child .. ?  Oh my where is my pooper scooper..? And the guys in a couple of years didn't want to record the Wilson / Paley stuff but they record this song.. this is a real head scratcher..   :shrug

it would have been better with a "Nanny nanny boo boo, stick your head in doo doo" line..

I'm a die hard, and I love "Problem Child."  It's one of my favorite leads from Carl and I love Mike's bass work. 

I listened to it once with my eyes closed and rather enjoyed it.

I then made the mistake of watching while listening. It made me long for the days when a prefrontal lobotomy would have been the treatment of choice for the kid. 

I like problem child, though I know it's definitely not a career highlight. But crocodile rock is a total embarrassment, and ranks with some of the worst stuff they've ever done as a group.

Problem Child has grown on me enormously (and not just since my own problem kids arrived!) - it's catchy and fun, right up there with Rock and Roll to the Rescue.

Problem Child was always a guilty pleasure of mine - I've even got both the cassette single and CD promo!

On the comparisons to Rock n Roll to the Rescue... The RNRTTR video is the best this the boys did. hands down.

Surprised that the child actor Michael Oliver, didn't grow up to be a guest drummer in the band...

.

 :lol We've really got some music snobs on this board  ::).  I mean, the Boys were obviously recording a song for the soundtrack of a cute little movie.  Don't think it's necessary that every song they ever performed had to rival Pet Sounds.  And whatever music they performed, if Carl Wilson had the lead, it was worth hearing, IMO.

Agree on both counts... Make it Big rules too for those same reasons... and Crocodile Rock basically sucks.

I certainly wouldn't say it's 'criminally underrated'. But it's not as atrocious as some make out (although the 'na-na-na-na-na-na-oh yeah' bit is unspeakably embarrassing and the 'soon you'll be a king of hearts' line is even worse).

It's pretty catchy and I love the music video

I can listen all the way through because it's the Beach Boys. If this was a Kenny Logins track from 1990 I'd have cut it off at the 20 seconds mark. At most.

I like it in that "it's so horrendously '80s" way. And Carl and Mike both sound pretty great. It really is a shame that Brian and the guys didn't make an album together from around '87 to '90. Cuz even though it would've sounded incredibly '80s, everybody was sounding pretty great.

And by the way, even Bruce is embarrassed by the "Problem Child" song. I remember reading an interview with him, and i'm pretty sure the question was "is there a song you wish you had never written?" and his answer was something like "yes, and that song is the title song to an unnamed movie."

It would've been great if the BBs would've been asked to do a theme song for the Problem Child sequel, also.  (Technically, there were two sequels - the second sequel was a crappy TV movie with a different "Junior"). And (the horror), imagine if the song was contractually obligated to be called "Problem Child 2", and that had to also be the main lyric? I bet they'd have rhymed "2" with "too" and unintentional hilarity would've doubtlessly ensued :)

But seriously, I feel confident in saying that this exact lyrical scenario would've happened, and that they'd totally have written and performed a song called "Problem Child 2" if they'd have been offered enough money (Bruce woulda put his embarrassment aside for cash).

Speaking of Problem Child embarrassment, does anyone else think that Carl wore dark glasses in the video as a sign of him being somewhat embarrassed by the song and video? I'm serious.

Ya might be on to something; Crocodile Rock and Rock and Roll to the Rescue vids also feature dark shades Carl.

Still Cruisin', Summer In Paradise and Summer Of Love vids too!

Just curious...does anyone know if the group contributed any instrumentation to Problem Child, or was it just a case of overdubbing vocals only?

The song is fine, but like most of their MTV-era videos, the video is embarrassing. How many times did they have Bruce playing bass and Mike on sax? And I wonder if the younger fans were disappointed when they went to see the band in concert, and Bruce just stood behind an unamplified keyboard all night, and someone else on stage did Mike's sax solos?  :lol

We're just lucky that in the late 80s/early 90s let's-skewer-artists-who-mime-like-Milli-Vanilli era, that Mike wasn't publicly taken to task for the Kokomo and Problem Child sax "faux-los"! I'm only half joking.

Embarrassing sh*t is what this song is. Though when you've recorded as many timeless songs as The Beach Boys have, you're allowed to release a clunker every once in a while.

I really thought it would be a hit when I first heard it at Tower Records in the summer of 1990. Still surprises me that they couldn't ride out the success of Kokomo for a couple of years, with a few more chart entries. I  thought radio would be all over Still Cruisin', but it didn't make any impact beyond the AC format.

I think if Rock and Roll to the Rescue had been the followup it could have done much better than it did in 86.

Well i had both arms in the air listening to this one but that was a response to Carl's opening line "Who wants to throw up?".  I then took responsibility.
I would like that 3.49 back plus the 5 it took to mop the floor and the £3.47 i spent on disinfectant please.

Where do you get disinfectant for £3.47 please? :lol

Tesco ----Dettol Disinfectant Antiseptic 750Ml

glad i could clear that up !

It may not be criminally underrated, but it's still highly underrated. Certainly doesn't deserve the criticism it gets, and it a hell of a lot better than Kokomo. Though the "Naa na na na na" is extremely annoying, it is still one hell of a catchy song. Excellent rocking vocals by Carl! A perfect guilty pleasure, if there is one.

The music video is an embarrassment to the Beach Boys, though.