The Smiley Smile Message Board

I've been getting pounded at work today and the Boys have kept me company.  I've listened to 20/20, Sunflower and Surf's Up and currently I'm into So Tough.  I'll get through Holland before I'm done.  Man, what a solid run of recordings.  I know they've been mostly ignored by the general public and even many music fans...but these recordings represent a vital band...hitting on all cylinders.  Yes...I could get nit picky and pull out a few clunkers...but by and large these are such great recordings.  I know this has been said probably countless times before on this board...but it's worth saying again!!!

I agree this is a great run of albums. It's probably my favorite multi-album stretch from any musician(s) ever.  When I get in a Beach Boys listening mode (which often lasts for months on end), I have three phases: 1968-1973 Beach Boys, 1965-1967 Beach Boys, Everything Else.

I'd stretch that to begin with Smiley Smile and go from there to Holland. My favourite period in their history. In my opinion, their fall from fame happened at the same time their music really got interesting!

I'm not sure if it applies in other countries but in England the term pounded has several meanings. Makes me wonder what you do for a living.

The term "pounded" has a few meanings in the States as well.

omg guys call the homonym gestapo

Dear Mike's Beard,

I have always taken delight at this signature.  The only way in which it could be improved would be to precede it with: "Can I say this?"

Best regards,
Theydon Bois

PS I love all of these albums too.  HTH.

True!  In this case, however...it means getting hit over and over again with jobs I don't have time to finish!  I work in advertising.  That said...the day is ALMOST over...and I've got "Love You" blasting over the speakers right now...so things are shaping up for the better!!!

If you listen to Love You while working, those advertisments are gonna come up mighty funky.

FYI, I love The Beach Boys 1968-1973 period and listen to it in equal measure with the 1964-1967 recordings. Look at these songs I tells ya!

(Post-SMiLE To 1973)

Wild Honey
Aren't You Glad   
Darlin'
Let The Wind Blow
Friends   
Little Bird   
Do It Again
Time To Get Alone
I Can Hear Music
Break Away
Add Some Music To Your Day
Cotton Fields (The Cotton Song)
This Whole World   
All I Wanna Do
Forever   
Cool, Cool Water
Long Promised Road   
Disney Girls (1957)
Feel Flows   
'Til I Die      
Marcella   
All This Is That   
Sail On, Sailor   
California Saga/California   

You could make a great 24 track CD there!

I concur.  Next to Today through Smile, my next favorite period is 20/20 through In Concert.  It is indeed, a fantastic run of albums!  And when you think about it, that run continued with Endless Summer and Spirit Of America.  When you add in the fact that Pet Sounds was re-released with CATP in the states and many of those albums included key tracks from Smile, a person of my tastes would have only needed "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes And Villains" to cover "everything" AND got the added bonus of the main surf and car songs too!   All that makes it even worse that they followed that run with 15 Big Ones.  

How ironic that Brian's return was put a (temporary) halt to all the creativity that preceded it?

This period, 20 through Concert, proves alot. When 20/20 came out, they were at the low point of their careers thus far. Obviously they went to work very hard to make that period so wonderful. Only the best can pull themselves out of such a hole to rise to the top again. Those live concerts, 1971 through 1973, were truly awesome. 

The 73!live double album was the recorded culmination of the band's maturity as a rock act. I hope we gets a big bite of live recordings from that era in the box. Imagine Mess of Help live, eh? Wouldn't THAT be nice?

It does help when you can look at the songs as a group, as a body of work, and, yes, it makes a great comp. Very fulfilling.

It's amazing at how ironic the Beach Boys' career has been. Again, viewing those songs would make you think that the band was prospering, when in fact, as those songs were being produced, the concert attendance was dwindling, the albums were mostly tanking, actually the albums were being rejected by their record company, then the group was dropped by their record company, the group was near bankruptcy, they felt the need to add new members, couldn't even sniff a Top Ten record, and Brian was backsliding into oblivion.

Then more of the oldies started to be requested in concert and the rest is history. How ironic...

I'm totally with you on this.  In Concert is without doubt my most well-played Beach Boys album and I'd go quite silly over a whole hunk of contemporaneous concert recordings.

OK, at the risk of getting massively flamed ...

I've now listened to Sunflower 3 times, Holland twice, Surf's Up once, and the Wild Honey through 20/20 sequence at least 3 times.

20/20 is an OK album, the best of the bunch IMO. Wild Honey and Friends are "meh." But I just don't get the appeal of Sunflower, Surf's Up and Holland. Most of the songs on those albums are so ... ordinary ... almost like some Broadway musical's imitation of period music. There's a few OK songs on them, but for most of them, if I could show somebody what generic early-70's soft/medium rock sounded like, I would point that person to those 3 albums. Don't get me wrong - none of the songs are notably bad, but aside from the leftover Smile songs, there were very few outstanding songs either.

For example, the most striking thing I thought about Surf's Up was, was how much better the title song was than the rest of the album. It stuck out like a sore thumb - 5 times better than any of the other songs on the album, I thought. And of course that's because it was a leftover from the Smile sessions. Same thing (more or less) with Cool Cool Water on Sunflower. At My Window was at least entertaining because it was so different, almost like a kid's song. A couple other songs were OK, but not great. Most of the rest was "meh." Bruce Johnston seemed to be writing the best songs during this time, but few of them were anything I thought I'd be missing out on if I had never heard them before I bit the dust. Sail On Sailor is a notable exception, but that seems to be because it was so much different from their other songs in that era.

I plan on giving these albums more of a chance, but so far most of the songs on them seem so generic I can't imagine them ever starting to jump out at me.

To each his own, I suppose.

FWIW, I don't just accuse the BB's of going downhill suddenly, there are quite a few bands from the 60's who seemed to have hit a brick wall once the year 1970 hit.

*awaits flames*

No flames. You just need to listen to those albums more. There is nothing wrong with not liking certain albums just because many others like them, but I feel if you let those records (the ones you mentioned only having listened to a handful of times) permeate your soul, you will find much to love. It also helps if you're really looking to expand your horizons beyond the Beach Boys music you already know. I you're enamored with the group who made Pet Sounds and SMiLE, the ones that follow are really cool to listen to because they went in so many directions, sometimes as far away as they'd ever been, but it's always unmistakeably The Beach Boys.

OK, here's an example of what I mean.

What's the difference between, say this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Tokxcbu_Uo) and, say, this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpOjQvADLG4)?

Not much, when you get down to it (in fact, the latter song is much better, IMO). The songs they were doing could easily have been songs by Bread, or any other of a number of other bands of that era.

And how many songs in the early 70's sounded like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xz5QDsYSto) ?

A lot! I could spend probably hours fishing up songs on youtube which were generic-sounding, semi-bluesy rock songs. There's nothing wrong with them, but when you've heard three dozen songs which sound more or less like that, it gets to be ... yawn.

On the other hand ...

What song, somewhere else - anywhere else!! - sounds like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ2OKoLpNBM) ?

NOTHING!!!! At least not that I know of!

The great thing about the pre-1968-ish BB was that pretty much nobody else sounded like them, aside from a handful of other bands who were imitating them (such as Jan and Dean).

On the other hand, starting around 1968-ish, they gave up their unique sound and became just another ordinary soft/medium rock band. Some of the stuff was OK, but because they gave up that unique sound in favor of a more generic sound, it became a case of ... yawn.

IMO they would have been much better off if they had done something like ... become a progressive rock band while keeping their unique sound. Imagine Yes or ELP, but with a lot of orchestrated arrangements instead of electric guitars, bass and drums, and with super-complex harmonies in odd chords instead of solo voices. Or something like that. Combine CSN (x2!) with Yes, Pink Floyd and ELP, and you get the idea. There would have been no one else who sounded like that and they probably would have done a lot better commercially.

Have you heard much Phil Spector?

Yes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzhbGaCwBzs).

Funny you should mention that. In general I like mid-60's music over late-60's music, and I think the "Phil Spector effect" is one reason for that. The Beatles are a great example - Abbey Road is a great album, but both Rubber Soul and Revolver were 5 times better. I like the "full" sound you get in a lot of mid-60's music (much of which was undoubtedly Spector influenced, conciously or not), whereas by the late 60's that sound had disappeared. Jefferson Airplane is another example. Surrealistic Pillow is 10 times better than Volunteers, even though Volunteers is a decent album.

Have to agree with the OP, 20/20 through Holland is a pretty amazing stretch of music.  Too bad '15 Big Ones' had to come along and put a stop to it.

Well, then, how can you say that "nobody else sounded like" The Beach Boys before 1968? I am assuming you are talking specifically about the sound of the music since they still basically retained their signature vocal sound after 1968.

^
I said, nobody else sounded like the Beach Boys before 1968. After 1968 they gave up most of their unique sound.

They might have done Phil Spector-esque production techniques during that time, but that doesn't mean they sounded like the other bands who were doing the same. A variety of bands were doing that sort of thing.

The Mama's and the Papas, for example, might have tried to get some of that Phil Spector sound along with the Beach Boys, but that doesn't mean the Beach Boys sounded like the Mamas and the Papas.

I don't think there's any song that sounds like This Whole World. What is bluesy about that song beyond the first few seconds. Irregardless, it stands apart from all that early 70s rock stuff. It packs so much punch into less than two minutes, and changes key more times than I can count (hyperbole, but still)! I suggest you do a little background reading of this stuff, and that may help you gain a better appreciation for this period of their music. There is more than what's on the surface.

I think you mentioned Friends as one of the albums you don't get. Go out on a summer's day when you have half an hour of free time and take a walk in suburbia. You'll get it.

Bread is cool, but....there is absolutely no comparison between "Who draws the crowd and plays so loud, Baby it's the guitar man" and "If every word I said could make you laugh, I'd talk forever". None.

Huh???

Disagree. The key changes might be a bit different, but otherwise it could pass for something by, say, Three Dog Night.

Words, to me, are secondary.

You make some fair points, SMiLE-addict. I think you're going get more support or agreement from the average music fan (<99% of the listeners) than the Beach Boys' diehards on this board (>1% of the listeners). If you look at the more successful singles during that period - "Darlin", "Do It Again", "I Can Hear Music", and "Sail On Sailor" - what do they have in common? They were the most Beach Boyish songs on the albums. A lot of the other stuff could be considered, as you put it, generic soft/medium rock. And, that's probably why The Beach Boys didn't have the big, hit albums of 5-6 years earlier. The general public didn't care for the "I Went To Sleep"s of the world.

You gotta admit, though, there were a few excellent tracks sprinkled in there, the type of quality song that could only come from inside The Beach boys. Unfortunately, there weren't enough of them. I mean, if you/me/we are honest, the competition during that period was fierce. You wanna compare The Beach Boys albums in that time frame with The Doors first (or second or third or fourth) album, or Abbey Road/solo Beatles, or as you mentioned the Jefferson Airplane, and Hendrix and The Rolling Stones and the Velvet Underground/early Lou Reed and Tapestry and (Paul) Simon & Garfunkel and later Motown stuff and on and on. Did the Beach Boys' albums - not just a couple of songs, but complete albums - in the late 60's/early 70's rank up there with their contemporaries? It's a fair debate.

I think you had edited your post in the meantime.

Anyway, if you believe the BB's kept their unique sound after 1968 or thereabouts, I'll just have to disagree.

Yeah, don't get me wrong, there were still some good songs during that period. But IMO the best song on, say, Sunflower, was about as good as an average song on Pet Sounds or Summer Days or Smile.

No, the only reason I edited my post was because everything looked like a quote. The wording stayed exactly the same.

I'm not suggesting that "the BB's kept their unique sound after 1968". I'm suggesting that what you call their unique sound was never unique (as you would have it) in the first place.

Sorry. Must have mis-read it, then.

I disagree. Who else, besides a few surf-n-sun bands who were imitating them, sounded like them?

Why do you think I brought up Phil Spector the first time?

BTW, "I Went To Sleep" is one of my favorite songs of that entire period. It's one of the reasons why I think 20/20 was the best album of that era (and thus is sort-of an exception to my gripe in this thread). It's pretty much a filler song, but it's quite a sublime and interesting piece for a filler song!

I figured you brought up Phil Spector because other bands were doing Phil Spector-esque stuff as well, but I already responded to that.

IMHO, they did keep their unique sound. If anything, some of their songs -released AND unreleased- were even more unique. NOBODY came out with anything that sounded like Til I Die, Cool Cool Water, My Solution, Steamboat, A Day in the life of a Tree, Feel Flows, the entire California Saga, Funky Pretty, ect. There were elements that other groups had, but none married those elements with the Beach Boys' harmonies, because NOBODY could harmonize like the Beach Boys.

For me, Smiley Smile through MIU was my favorite group of albums by anyone, anywhere. Yes, I'm stretching it to go that far. I happen to love those albums, each and every one, including MIU. This was how I got into the band. I listened to each and every one of these albums all the way through long before I heard anything pre-Pet Sounds all the way through, as when i was getting into the band I did not want to hear anything that ever played on the oldies station.

They didn't just use his techniques. Many of the songs directly emulate the style of Spector's songs. You can here the All Summer Long/Don't Worry Baby style deriving from The Ronettes and Crystals songs from that time. Pet Sounds comes from the Righteous Brothers. Heroes and Villains is directly copying River Deep, Mountain High.

C'mon, man. I'm trying to support your case! ;D

No, really, I think you raised a real good topic, one that could bring some good discussion if cool heads prevail. I know that there are a lot of people on this board who prefer 1967-1973 to 1962-1966. But like I posted above, there's gotta be a reason why Friends didn't sell, 20/20 went to around #70, Sunflower bombed, as did Carl & The Passions. I guess marketing did play a part, as did the groups image, but....Hey, it's worth discussing. And, the board's slow anyway. I was praising "Santa's Goin' To Kokomo" earlier tonight for chrissakes.

For myself: The Beach Boys could almost begin and end with Holland and I'd probably love them just about the same

It's my favorite album ever by anyone....

Well, I'm just going to have to disagree. Just because both the BB's and the Ronettes used Phil Spector techniques, does not mean the two bands sounded the same.

And the Beach Boys do NOT sound like Tina Turner!  :lol

Again, this has nothing to do with techniques. The songs sound the same, not just because Brian used some of Spector's techniques (he did) but because he designed the songs to sound like Spector's (which he's admitted).


Nor do they sound like Three Dog Night nor Bread. But Heroes and Villains sounds just like River Deep Mountain High.

My original point which brought this up was:
I agree this isn't about production techniques, so I'm not sure why it was brought up. But just because some songs here and there were copied from other bands, doesn't mean the Beach Boys sounded like those other bands, in general. I mean, "Girl Don't Tell Me" was copied from "Ticket to Ride," but that doesn't mean the BB's sounded like the Beatles. All bands copy stuff from each other, but that doesn't mean all bands sound the same.

I'm not sure why it was brought up either. Since you were the one to bring it up, you are the only one that can shed light on that.

So your point is that The Beach Boys and Bread were interchangeable in 1971? I mean, a much more persuasive argument can be given that The Beach Boys far more consistently sounded like Phil Spector's songs than The Beach Boys sounded like Bread's songs or that The Beach Boys sounded like Three Dog Night's songs. I mean, I'd go so far as to say that All Summer Long through to Smile could be seen as all Phil Spector tribute albums, if we were to use your particular evaluative techniques.

I didn't bring up the Phil Spector/production techniques thing, somebody else did.

I simply disagree. The Beach Boys and Bread were more interchangeable in 1971 than the Beach Boys and [insert non-BB Phil Spector song] were in 1965. Especially since Phil Spector wasn't a band! Since we both agree this isn't about production techniques, I'm not sure of the point of bringing someone into this debate who was only a producer.

Actually, now that I look back on pg. 1, it was *you* who first brought up Phil Spector!

This was the first mention of them on this thread:




In that case, I have to assume that you really haven't heard much Phil Spector music. Furthermore, why should it matter whether or not Phil Spector "was a band"? Your point was that "nobody else sounded like the Beach Boys before 1968." Are you now so hell bent on being right that you are going to qualify your claim every time I bring up proof that counters it? Do you expect me to believe now that you think The Beach Boys lose more credibility when sounding like a band than sounding like several bands under the guidance of one particular producer? This is insane.

OK, I think you're trolling now. Good bye.

In some ways, yes.

This is just my opinion. I think that audiences "use" certain groups; they use them for a particular sound or type of music. In the early/mid 1960's, people wanted to hear the surf & turf music that The Beach Boys offered, and The Beach Boys did it better than anybody. Then they (audiences) move on. Maybe the audience wants guitar rock, and they migrate toward Hendrix, or space rock and go to Pink Floyd, or folk rock with The Byrds/Dylan, etc. You get my point.

Well, once times changed and the Beach Boys moved on to other styles, call it soft rock/pop or whatever, they weren't in demand anymore. People didn't need or want the Beach Boys for that particular type of music. There were other groups out there doing it (arguably) as well if not better. All of a sudden, the Beach Boys - and Brian Wilson - weren't leaders of the pack. They were now in the pack, with the likes of Bread.

I believe that's why Endless Summer was such a success. In 1974, surf music certainly wasn't a popular genre of music. But, for some reason, people again wanted to use The Beach Boys for that particular sound (energetic surf & turf), not for "Time To Get Alone", as beautiful as that song is. I think the Beach Boys quickly realized that, too, which is why they asked Brian to come back.

That's fair enough, but that's not how I meant it.

As I wrote, that's my take. I am interested in yours. What you did mean with the Bread comparison, or non-comparison?

Actually, I think your point has a great deal of validity though I'm not sure exactly on who the audience is in your discussion. I think some people would have considered The Beach Boys to be "leaders of the pack" during the 60s and some wouldn't. My dad, for example, who really loved The Beach Boys probably wouldn't have seen them as leaders in the same way that he would have considered The Beatles and The Stones and Bob Dylan to be - I just don't think he would have lumped them in with so-called "serious" music, even though it was through him that I heard Wild Honey when I was 8 years old or so. On the other hand, there was a audience in 1970-72 who would be able to clearly identify a Bread song and probably wouldn't have even heard a Beach Boys song.

I only asked the question because Smile-addict seemed to suggest that the Beach Boys during the post-1968 weren't as strong because they sounded like other music whereas earlier they had a unique sound. I ultimately find the argument weak but I'm not even sure if he is serious at this point.

No, the first mention of Phil Spector in this thread was you, in reply #18. That quote of mine above wasn't until #22.

Yes, I'm very serious. One of the hallmarks of a great band is the ability to sound as unique as possible. If you sound like any of a dozen other bands ... what's the point? Personally, I'm not going to be as interested in a song that sounds similar to 10 other songs, as I am in a song which, at best, might have a passing reference to maybe 1 or 2 other songs. Likewise,  I'm not going to be as interested in a band that sounds similar to 10 other bands, as I am in a band which, at best, might have some vague similarities to 1 or 2 other bands.

OK, I can't respond to you anymore because I can't keep on demonstrating your reading errors to you. It's aggravating. I will do this one last time and then we can put this to sleep.

I know I was the first person to mention Phil Spector in this thread. Knowing that allowed me to make a statement like this in reply #32:


The debate was not who brought up Phil Spector first. It was about who brought up his techniques first. Let me remind you:



And why would "it" refer to Phil Spector?

Honestly, the thread has not been difficult to follow but because I have had to explain the thread for you, including your own posts, it has become boring. So again, good bye.

That's a great way of putting it.

And personally, I find that to be usually a foolish way to evalute art. Yes, artistic endeavours can take on the feel of being unique but that's typically only after you have lived with it for a good, long while, which you have not done with the Beach Boys later material. A lot of music can sound generic on first, second, third, fourth listen but then you begin to see what gives it character.

The fact is though that the Beach Boys, like many great artists, had no fear about sounding too much like others even at their commercial height, and often went out of their way to do so.

Since Phil Spector was a producer who was responsible for a certain sound which was arrived at using certain production techniques, "it" was that sound, which is interchangeable with the production techniques used to make that sound, which is interchangeable with the man who invented the production techniques.

Phil Spector = Wall Of Sound = "It"

I disagree. If all an artist can do is imitate someone else, I don't find that to be as artistic as someone who is more original. Granted, it can often be difficult to be original, especially after so much of the art in question has already been produced, but they could at least try.

I think we veered off topic from the original thread intent, but what the heck....

I find this subject fascinating and I've mulled it over numerous times. The Beach Boys' fall from grace wasn't like your typical group who had a hit album or two or three and then faded away. The Beach Boys had created some of the greatest popular music EVER, were arguably one of the top two, three bands in the world, had Brian Wilson in the fold, and, in the short span of two years, couldn't sell an album and were dropped by their record company. Why?

Indirectly, I thought SMiLE-addict was hitting on the key reason. Maybe - maybe - they had fallen into creating middle of the road, soft rock/pop, that was no better or worse than many other bands around at the time. Yeah, we BB/BW nuts can tell the difference; we studied it, we majored in it. But, could the average listener? I'm not so sure. Was it the marketing, or the clothing, or the lack of BW songs, or what it wasn't - great rock & roll. Did the Beach Boys become Bread or Spanky & Our Gang or Lobo?

No - it was something that we don't really want to confront. The Beach Boys were widely seen as novelty band and the public couldn't accept anything that widely veered away from that model. There was one exception - Good Vibrations but even that had the "good times" appeal of a lot of their earlier songs. When The Beach Boys got closer to that model after 1966, they were more successful. Ultimately Mike Love was right.

BTW, I'd like to tie together two seemingly disparate thoughts:
And.
The problem here is that, even with all the key changes, to your typical listener it still sounds like a fairly typical moderate-rock song; the key changes might even detract from the sound because it's too complex a pattern to a genre which typically isn't very complex. To make an extreme illustration, imagine The Carpenters doing a complex song with all kinds of key changes, chromatic scales, lots of diminished minor 7th chords, etc. Musically, it might be an interesting and creative song. But to your typical Carpenters fan it would be so much weird sounding, abstract mumbo-jumbo.

If you're going to do complex musical patterns, you need to put it in a genre whose listeners are largely expecting complex musical patterns. Most soft-rock listeners aren't interested in that - they're going to listen to Bread or Carly Simon instead. On the other hand, people who listen to jazz, or rock-jazz fusion, or progressive rock, or new age, are more likely to appreciate such musical patterns. This is why I suggested above they might have been better off going into a different genre than the one they did (if they were going to switch genres at all). A band which had done Pet Sounds and was on the cusp of doing something "out there" like Smile takes a step backward when they revert to soft rock (even if it's sophisticated soft rock). The proper direction to go, given their musical talents, would have been more along the lines of Yes With Intense Harmonies. The people who listened to Yes, Pink Floyd, Queen, ELP, Jethro Tull, etc. would have paid attention to them (and by the 70's that had become a big audience), and thus, they probably would have done better commercially. Or even if they had done something like a rock band with heavy jazz influences like Chicago, adding in their complex harmonies, that probably would have worked better too.

imo Forever has cheesy, pretentious emotional lyrics. The chord pattern had potential though but the instrumentation also failed. I don't at all enjoy the guitar strumming which screams 'annoying student playing saccharine guitar songs to boost ego and get girls'

There's some real interesting Kool-Aid being consumed by certain members.

.

.

I think the reason those albums bombed is because the casual music listening public is shallow and concerned more with image and artificial hipness than with actual music.

Yeah, I said it.

.

The run from 20/20 to Holland is what changed me from a causal Beach Boys fan to a Beach Boys nut.

Extend it further back to include Smiley Smile onwards and I think you have one of the most bizarre series of albums by an incredibly popular and successful (though not so much at the time of these albums getting released!) major-label group I've ever heard. They're great albums to me because they don't exactly sound like classic Beach Boys -- think of something like "All I Wanna Do", "Mess of Help", or even "Wild Honey", etc. -- while at the same time not giving up the harmonies and other such "trademarks" that people, if they were listening, would make it obviously still a recording by The Beach Boys. Yet this is also what I find most difficult about recommending albums from Smiley Smile onward: They tended not to sound similar to one another so simply giving someone Friends and Holland does little to capture adequately what The Beach Boys sounded like, in general, post-classic era. And even that fact makes it fascinating to listen, since the sheer stylistic diversity coupled with an unwillingness (or inability?) to fully succumb to mere emulation of their contemporaries (whether the Stones, Stax, or whomever) is remarkable.

Let's not forget that even with their declining US success and unconventional album releases the group still managed to do well in the UK where all of there albums from 1965 to 1971 managed to hit the top 15 album charts with the exception of Sunflower. Darlin' hit the top 20, Do It Again was a no. 1, and I Can Hear Music, Break Away and Cottonfields charted respectfully at no. 10, no. 6 and no. 5. They must have been doing something right since the UK public was more able to take notice of their artistic side, and hey if an album like Smiley Smile can reach the top 10! :o

Absolutely. The Beach Boys hit the popular culture at a different time in the UK with different songs and hence were not imagined as a novelty band and so they were not trapped in a box, as it were.

(http://itsfanart.com/gallery/var/resizes/misc/gwalla/album11/agz.jpg?m=1309298159)

I love their live albums and that's when the songs 'rocked' more than the studio versions. I enjoy much of their early rock but I'm mighty glad that they never recorded Surf City as I would've viewed that one with more embarrassment than any other of their early songs. Surf City is a very dated song. It might stirr feelings of nostalgia but  doesnt get close to capture what 'Dont Worry Baby' does for instance. Also Dennis made some great love songs on his solo material, 'Cuddle Up' and 'Be With Me'. I just feel 'Forever' has slightly clishéd lyrics which are just a bit too saccharine for my taste (some POB songs are a bit better). The comment on the guitar is more that I didn't like that part of the instrumentation on the song.

This just about sums it up. Upvotes to you if I had any!

This is a good point...as I'd say it also describes me.  I was initially drawn into the "hit" period and I will admit that I didn't take the time to "get" the middle period at first.  I worked under the assumption that after Brian "lost it" with Smile...that the band essentially became far less interesting.  I know think the opposite.  The recordings make from Smiley Smile through Holland are quite interesting...specifically because they were trying to stretch their sound.  They were chasing an audience that had largely forgotten about them...but there were not yet willing to simply try and recapture the public by pretending it was still 1965.  The sound on these recording is still 100% Beach Boys.  The vocals are still sublime.  The elements that made them great during the early period are still there...maybe a little less unfocused at times...but they are still there.  Brian may have retreated from the helm...but that simply gave us a chance to hear what the rest of the band was capable of.  I disagree that any other band from that era could have made the same music.  It was a times bizarre...goofy...odd...what-have-you...but it never stopped being the Beach Boys.

I must defend Dennis and Forever.  Here is a description of the track from the June 2012 issue of MOJO: "Written with future Pacific Ocean Blue collaborator Gregg Jakobson, Forever is the perfect example of how a Dennis Wilson song works.  The lyrics read like a clumsy teenage love poem - "Let the love I have for you/Live in your heart" - but then he sings, his voice cracking as though red-raw from sobbing, locked out from the production's warm, dreamy reverb.  By the last verse those simple words feel strangely profound: a final, weary plea from a broken man who is simply trying his best."

Amen.

Great tracks from this period that could never have been done by a group like Bread:
Forever, Do It Again, Wild Honey, Long Promised Road, Cuddle Up, Cool Cool Water, Tears In the Morning, Break Away, Darlin', Disney Girls, Sail On Sailor, Feel Flows, 'Til I Die and on and on.  The bottom line is that they truly did retain the basic elements of what made them the Beach Boys...but they stretched out the sound.  The used it as a starting point and pushed forward in new directions.  Their audience had diminished...but I don't think it had anything to do with the quality of the music.  If the music had anything to do with it...it's simply that it didn't match what was popular.  Because they were out in the wilderness...they had the freedom to be adventurous. 

I just used Bread as one example off the top of my head (and probably not the best one, admittedly). There were a dozen other soft rock groups and artists who were doing stuff at least as creative as any of the songs in that list above. This is a great example (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTuKDK9U0qg).

I think maybe one problem they had was, with such a huge proliferation of very talented soft rock bands and artists (like Elton John) coming on the scene in the late 60's and early 70's, it was very hard for them to stand out anymore.

I listened to Sunflower 2 more times today and Surf's Up also twice today. All it did was reinforce my view. For the most part it's "pleasant" stuff (for lack of a better word) but there's not much that really jumps out as being outstanding.

The last 2 songs on Surf's Up I figured out more 'technically' why the mid-60's song "Surf's Up" is so much better than its 1971 semi-equivalent "Til I Die" (and the other songs on the album, for that matter). However, it's very hard to describe just writing it out here. It's got to do with what I call "musical drama" and engaging the listener. BW did a great job of that in the mid-60's, but somewhere along the line he seemed to have lost the knack, even if his songs were technically interesting otherwise. The other members of the BB seemed to be very weak in this regard (the master of this skill is McCartney IMO). I'll leave it at that for now.

This board is heading straight to Hell.

Soft rock was but a small percentage of their work in this period

Forever doesn't need defending, FFS.

If you're the kind of person who gets wound up because they're not listening to either 'soft rock' or endless c*ck-rock guitar solos, you're probably on the wrong board.

Don't get me wrong. Neither I particularly like guitar solos. They can be appropriate, but generally songs are way better off without imo. The comment on Forever was as MOJO put it: teeny lyrics and a bit too superficial. The guitar adds to that. But Dennis' voice saves the song from being too sappy, which makes it enjoyable enough. I would say Forever does not quite stand up to his later material however!

It's become his signature song...but I agree on how it stands against his later material.

I completely agree.

But that wasn't the perception of the general listening public at that time. To many, the Beach Boys had gone soft. Smiley Smile, Friends, Sunflower, Surf's Up...that ain't the rock and roll most people associated with the Beach Boys of old. Endless Summer was.

There is a slight misunderstanding in this thread, but that's OK because the thread's dying anyway. I don't think anybody on the board is criticizing the 1967-1975 period. We love it. We get it. Some prefer it. The point that I think should be taken is that a whole lotta people didn't appreciate it, or buy it, or even know that it existed. To them, in that particular period of time, the Beach Boys had morphed into a soft rock, "pop", irrelevant band. Nobody's rating them or saying they were any better or any worse than other groups of that genre, just that the Beach boys had joined them. We were just debating WHY.

Well, in fact, what started this discussion was Smile-addict reviewing Wild Honey and Friends as "meh" and Sunflower, Surf's Up and Holland as worse than that. This was only the beginning of his critiques. So he certainly does not "love" it. That's fine, of course. Nobody has to like anything but I found his reasoning to be baffling.

The music industry is bewildering. I have honestly no idea why H&V failed like that when Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane succeeded. Then afterwards came the rediculous Hello Goodbye and the great (but noncommerical) I Am The Walrus. I cannot explain that.

Going to #12 in the charts is hardly a failure - many bands would kill for that - but it is lower than what the Beach Boys were used to getting, particularly from major singles. Why it charted where it did vs. Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields had little to do with "The music industry." You honestly can't see what makes Penny Lane, with its soaring sing-a-long chorus, a more commercially viable song than Heroes and Villains? I think Brian's endless tinkering with the song was a result of his understanding that his next single wasn't the hit he needed to make Smile a success - and he depended on Heroes the more the album release date got farther away from the release of the Good Vibrations smash. Furthermore, like I've said often on this board, the music buying public was, at this point, either not interested in this type of music from The Beach Boys or not interested in The Beach Boys period. Short of a song with massive commercial appeal, like Good Vibrations (a song that probably comes along once in a lifetime if you're lucky), there was almost nothing the boys could have done at this point to reach the top of the charts again, other than reverting back in some way to their pre-Pet Sounds style.

Select any dozen Top 10 hits from 1967, and then drop Heroes And Villains in the middle. If one can't tell why the single was a relative commercial failure after doing that, I don't know what to say. The single mix is one big muddy flatline. It has the arrangement dynamics of Good Vibrations, but with absolutely none of the sonic punch.

Though remark, but I agree with you entirely

I can only be relieved that they didn't combine CSN with Yes.

What is your view again? I've read and re-read this thread, but I think you've been quite shy in revealing your true thoughts.   :lol

That genial ribbing aside. When I first heard Sunflower, I thought exactly the same thing- this sounds a bit 'typical seventies' or something. f*** knows what I was thinking. I was 16, and like absolutely everyone else of that age, no exceptions, was an opinionated tool without a flipping clue! ;)

While Surf's Up has a few moments that come off odd, I came to really love the album overall. Sunflower grabbed me from the moment I first heard it in 1990 or so in an original pressing. Man is it good. By the way get the original or later seventies pressings on vinyl or you really haven't heard them.

Good points, Mike. Stephen Desper's mixing/mastering work reached an amazing peak in that time frame, and even to eighteen-year-old ears in 1970 it was clear that the songs on Sunflower and Surf's Up were in a different "zone" than anyone else at that particular moment. Now as to whether all of those songs are at the same level of BW's best work, the answer is clearly "no." But Sunflower represents the pinnacle of a "democratic" band, pulling together to find a common ground of expression, prior to the influence (good and/or bad) of Jack Reiley, who would change the dynamics of the group's recordings and the type of material they would attempt to assimilate into their "sound."

Jim Miller in Rolling Stone noted that special sound quality on Sunflower, and while only about a third of the songs are in the top echelon of BB compositions (IMO: "All I Wanna Do," "This Whole World, " "CCW," "Slip On Through"), the rest of the material is elevated by the production values and the album showcases the evolution of Dennis as a viable "replacement" for BW, with a group of tunes that are, as a whole, just under the top echelon in the BB oeuvre. I remember some other RS critic suggesting that "Slip On Through" was a "clumsy, pseudo-Rascals kind of thing", which seems to be moving in the direction of the type of thinking that's been prominent earlier in this thread. It took about five listens to it for me to realize that the critic (whom I'd read before getting the album originally: he was reviewing the single) was full of sh*te. [EDIT: However, the guy was right to praise "This Whole World," which is a better song that "Slip On Through" in that it's probably one of BW's ten best...]

I love how production, mixing and such are always mentioned before the songs when folks praise Sunflower. Very telling.

I like the majority of songs on Sunflower and have no beef with people likeing it (though I'd personally never rank it ahead of the earlier stuff)... but I feel this way about the 'Surfs Up' album. The great sound achieved by Steve Desper and the presence of a SMiLE track disguises the fact that many of the songs are merely "average". Slap "Light Album" production values to it and see what you've got.

Agreed.

I honestly cannot get into surf's up though holland as albums. I like certain songs but the BBs just seemed not quite quite right as Jack Rielly's "hippies" in my opinion.

I personally really like Carl & The Passions and Holland but I don't listen to Surf's Up as much.

Three "average" songs on Sunflower: "Tears," "Dierdre" and "At My Window."

Two "above average" songs: "Add Some Music," "Our Sweet Love."

Three "very good" songs: "Forever," "Got to Know the Woman," "It's About Time."

Four "first-rate" songs: "This Whole World," "All I Wanna Do," "CCW," "Slip On Through."

Of course, YMMV. But that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I said the songs as a whole don't measure up to the best of the earlier material. But that doesn't mean that all the songs are "average."

And production always mattered with the material, at least up through Holland. After that, things did get spotty...but it wasn't just the production that lost its way, the songwriting in the group suffered--when talking about BB LA, keep in mind that Dennis tossed in a couple of songs from his planned solo material to add some needed quality to what is at best an "average" group of tunes. Those who think the songs on BB LA stand up to the top two-thirds of the tracks on Sunflower should probably rethink their position. Smile-addict's point is a lot more on the money regarding the post-Love You material than he is about the 20-20/Holland period.

Tbh the lyrics of 'Our Sweet Love' do not work in my ears.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rH4NH6MW98

when one listens to that fantastic backing track one wonders what could've been made of it so that it would shine properly next to CCW, TWW, SOT and AIWD.
I feel they didnt quite get the lyrics on this. They are hypersaccharine with cheesecake. I don't mind Beach Boys cheese because it really is my favourite cheese, but this one I can't listen to anywhere near as frequently as I listen to the rest (By the rest I exclude Bruce material ^^)

I think Brian's pretty much complete lack of interest in drums and or the beat in general (or at least the traditional trap-kit, R&R version of) didn't help the Beach Boys commercial prospects circa 1967 onward. I agree H&V is the much better song but Strawberry Fields has some killer Ringo action and really kicks in the last section. The Beatles never forgot that the kids like something to bop their heads to, and that makes all the difference, like it or not.

Well it is the sound of the album that makes it works so nicely as a whole, but there is so much more. First is the singing. They all were vocally at some sort of peak and I include Brian in that very much so. Not every song is a highlight of the catalog, but nothing to me works better as an album and the best songs (the four Dennis, This Whole World, Add Some Music, All I Wanna Do, Cool, Cool, Water) I would rank as being among the best ever. I like it better than Pet Sounds myself. Pet Sounds is more groundbreaking, but Sunflower is more rounded stylistically and I like hearing all The Beach Boys very active. I would rank Surf's Up, So Tough Holland lower than the best earlier albums (imho Surfin USA, Shut Down 2, All Summer Long, Today, Summer Days, Pet Sounds, Wild Honey, Friends, and 20/20 and Sunflower) but they are still darn good. I look at a group as a whole and from 1963-73 you can't touch The Beach Boys.

If what you're driving at is that the production and engineering make a bunch of mediocre songs sound better than they are, then no, it's not telling at all. The songs are uniformly great, the sound is great, the cover is great, it's a fucking masterpiece.

I swear on my life, 15 years into being a Beach Boys obsessive, it had never even occurred to me to question whether say, 'Got to know the woman' was a good song or not. (it is, by the way)

Nope, right there. It is an album with a brilliant coat of production sheen, that manages to distract the listener from the fact that it is another mixed bag of tracks spanning a great period of time, not recorded for the same specific project, a third grab into the same bag of master tapes in order to satisfy Warners, who had rejected the band's own intentions, twice over. If ya'll dig the album's final form, send Lenny Waronker a fan letter, then.
I mean, it is fine you all like that album so much and all, and I am happy for you. But I feel that album is grossly overrated by a certain group of Beach Boys fans (as Abbey Road, another phony production effort disguising lack of group interaction and some very mediocre songs) is by most Beatles fans). And those type of fans are generally the same ones who dislike Love You. I think certain people are more into the type of Beatles-influenced sound and production style they think The Beach Boys should have, than a true artistic picture of the band, and Brian Wilson in particular. This also causes substandard, pandering recent solo efforts by Brian to be overrated. The REAL, messy, strange Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, that music gets slated, or given guarded praise, on a daily basis on this supposed fan board. One will get less stick praising Carl And The frickin' Passions than if one openly celebrates any of the classic early music.
The same thing goes on at Elvis message boards. His 70's music gets wildly overpraised, and the proponents of it constantly bray about how much more "mature" Elvis was, how "adult" the Vegas arrangements were than the "juvenile" 50's material such as Jailhouse Rock and Hound Dog. What goes on here isn't any different.

Sorry, gross over-generalizations all around. The songs are not uniformly great, but there are seven excellent tracks and two solidly enjoyable, melodious and extremely well-arranged songs on Sunflower (ASM and OSL),  with three songs that are competent but average (and which are helped a good bit by the production work).

And I for one am not overly enamored with CATP, my (perhaps) outsized love of "Mess of Help" notwithstanding. I respect the work on CATP as a whole, but I only have real, unbridled love for about half the record. The objections that you raise at the end seem more relevant to those who try to elevate LA and KTSA to a level that's roughly equivalent to CATP and Holland because of one or two good tracks, when it's clear that the BBs were mostly lost and dysfunctional, morbidly circling the wagons and bringing in Bruce (the least of the songwriting talent and a fitful producer at best) to cover for BW's post-Landy swoon.

I also don't think the binary opposition between Sunflower-ites and Love You-ites is really all that accurate. One way to test it out would be for one of our pollsters to start a new one where the two records go head-to-head. Or, better, have them rank the records (0-5 stars). Also, the very intriguing head-to-head track rankings that Time To Get Alone (the poster, not the song!) was doing earlier would be REALLY interesting in this context.

I would also love to see him try to synthesize his list of songs from the two-fers and show what an overall listing would look like. It would be a good starting point for discussion, even if that discussion didn't resolve anything (how could it???).  That's a massive undertaking, however.

And how about a thread for one of the really burning questions left to tackle in BB-land: "Marcella" vs. "I Just Got My Pay"??

You're not the type of fan I was talking about at all, so don't feel generalised about! I agree with you on the margin of excellence on the record, I just do not think it is in the same galaxy as Pet Sounds, it is equal to many fine albums by the band, some of which were made as early as 1963, one as late as this year.
The poll you suggested would be a very interesting one.
I love Marcella and I Just Got My Pay. I wish the latter song and Games Two Could Play were not rejected by Warners.

I love Sunflower and make no apologies in saying that I think it's a crown jewel within the band's catalog. Bought my first copy, used, in the late 70s.

How much do I love it? There was a roughly 12-year period in my life where I think could've quoted every individual musical figure, phrase and cadence of that album from memory and on-the-spot. I had the mix burned into my brain. I eventually had multiple vinyl and tape pressings from multiple countries and would continue to actively seek out as many as I could find at record shows, Goldmine, etc. It probably got to the point where I had the kind of relationship with the record that some Beach Boys fans have with the Smile saga. I wanted to know everything about it. Read everything I could find on the subject (which at the time wasn't a particularly easy task). Correct my own misconceptions over it. Surf's Up (the book) was a good start, but I wanted to know more. Way back when, someone who shall remain nameless and in-the-know was kind enough to send me session/unreleased song info from that '69-'70 era -- also at a time when a person couldn't just do a couple of quick clicks on a website to find these sorts of things. That, in itself, was amazing and precious info to me.

In 1987, I drove from Tampa to Cleveland in a 22-hour straight shot with only a few choice musical selections in the car and a tape of Sunflower (the 1980 CBS/Caribou UK cassette reissue that I picked up a few years earlier in a Gold Circle department store in the budget tape section of all strange places). When my car amp literally went up in smoke just outside of Charlotte NC, and with only 50 bucks left in my pocket, I chose to pull off and go buy a Sony Walkman -- instead of stopping to spend the night in a motel -- just so I could continue to listen to *that* album. It literally propped me up, on endless repeat, for the last 8 hours and home to the finish line. So, bottom line, I obviously really, really liked the album a lot. Still do. Other than "Tears," which never really resonated with me (though I do slightly prefer the unreleased version), I don't personally consider any of the songs on that album to be weak or subpar. But that's just me.


Why does it work for me? Too many reasons to name and many that have already been mentioned here. But, for starters, it's perhaps the most majestic album in the band's catalog. Desper's layered production has a lot to do with that, but the production only enhances everything around it. Due to the innovative way it's mixed, it's the ultimate late 60s/early 70s stereo headphone album for me. Not so much in audiophile terms, but rather, as a damned fun record to listen to; the way things pop in an out of the mix from all directions. As Mike noted, it may also be the high water mark in terms of the band's vocal *quality*. I'm big into vocal textures and timbres, and there's just some great, great singing and arranging on that album. Sort of the culmination of everyone at their youthful peaks. Very aurally satisfying to me. Ten years later...it was a whole different vibe.

I also think it is a fair argument to make that the album, as it stands, wasn't designed as a singular, cohesive statement from the get-go, but that said, I wouldn't change hardly a thing in terms of the tracks that did end up on it. For me, editing and cobbling's all fine and good if editing and cobbling works. In that regard, it only set the tone for the model that would follow for years to come. On the contrary, it's also hard not to to argue that this was perhaps the most prolific era for the band in the studio. And, even though they weren't necessarily designed that way, I always think of 20/20, Sunflower and SU as a three-album arc in terms of quality, sound and style. I guess it's no surprise that those are three of my favorite albums by the band.


Finally, the full and true realization of Dennis as a creative force. Nothing more need be said on that subject.


I give it a 93 on the Dave meter.

I'd say Sunflower is a near perfect album. The only thing I would change is replacing the somewhat throwaway "Got to Know The Woman" with the far better Dennis composition "San Miguel".

For me, lousy production always seems to stick out much more than great production and engineering. I always register bad production and poor mixing on a record but when it's done well (as in the case with Sunflower) it's much more subliminal to these ears. A well recorded sound is there to serve the song not be the song. When I listen to Sunflower I'm not thinking "What great recording work by Steve Desper" I'm thinking "What great songwriting and singing by the band". I don't consider Sunflower to be a case of style over substance at all.

Those are some very good defenses there. I guess I am just more of a fan of Brian Wilson's songs, arrangements and productions. Aside from Pacific Ocean Blue, I don't think the work of the other bandmembers, as fine as some of it is, comes near even Brian's secondary work in his peak era.

I'm more of the opinion that each of the principle bandmembers all managed to match Brian's greatness on at least one occasion (obviously more in the case of Dennis), but none of them managed to be so consistently great as Brian over a sustained period of time.

Well, put me in the camp that adores both Sunflower and Love You.

I have to admit I wouldn't consider the production sheen of Sunflower a negative thing at all.  A great production goes a long way in my books, and as long as it's tasteful it doesn't matter to me whether it's minimalist or polished.  The Beach Boys' catalogue contains an entire spectrum of productions ranging from sublime to not-so-great.  I'd put Sunflower largely in the former.  I can't see All I Wanna Do as anything other than masterful.

You talked me into a Sunflower vs. Love You ranking...

All I Wanna Do
Forever
This Whole World
Good Time
Slip On Through
I'll Bet He's Nice
The Night Was So Young
Let Us Go On This Way
Roller Skating Child
Deirdre
It's About Time
I Wanna Pick You Up
Let's Put Our Hearts Together
Airplane
Cool, Cool Water
Johnny Carson
Solar System
Add Some Music to Your Day
Got to Know the Woman
Our Sweet Love
Mona
Honkin' Down the Highway
At My Window
Ding Dang
Love is a Woman
Tears in the Morning

As far as an overall listing, I'm not sure if I could possibly do it!  When I'm doing my comparisons some of the decisions are obvious while others I decide on a whim and may regret on the next listen.  What I have been trying to do is to make an ultimate Beach Boys playlist where songs are either in and out.  That way I don't have to decide between two great things and rather organize what I feel reaches a certain echelon.  Even that is quite a task that I haven't quite committed to, but it would kind of demonstrate where my Beach Boys tastes lie.  I imagine a sizable amount of both Sunflower and Love You would make it.

That would make an interesting topic, debate, poll, whatever.

IMO, Dennis is the only Beach Boy to match Brian's greatness. I always thought, right up to 1983, that everything Brian did was great. Everything! But, as I look at Dennis' catalogue, almost everything he wrote was great, too. There are very few that aren't. Of course, Dennis doesn't have near the sampling as Brian. Brian has dozens.

I don't think Mike matched Brian on any occasion. Or Al. Maybe Carl with "Heaven" or "Where I Belong" but that's about it. Oddly enough, maybe Bruce traveled in that rarified air with "Disney Girls" and "I Write The Songs". Maybe.

This Whole World
Solar System
Airplane
All I Wanna Do
I Wanna Pick You Up
Add Some Music to Your Day
The Night Was So Young
Ill Bet He's Nice
At My Window
Let Us Go On This Way
Our Sweet Love
Roller Skating Child
Johnny Carson
Let's Put Our Hearts Together
Mona
Forever
Cool, Cool Water
Slip On Through
Honkin' Down the Highway
Got to Know the Woman
Love is a Woman
Deirdre
Good Time
Tears in the Morning
Ding Dang
It's About Time

Love You tracks bolded.

Deirdre
This Whole World
Forever
The Night Was So Young
All I Wanna Do
Honkin' Down the Highway
Roller Skating Child
Our Sweet Love
Add Some Music to Your Day
Let Us Go On This Way
Mona
Airplane
Good Time
Solar System
Ill Bet He's Nice
At My Window
Slip On Through
Ding Dang
Cool, Cool Water
I Wanna Pick You Up
Got to Know the Woman
Love is a Woman
Johnny Carson
Tears in the Morning
It's About Time
Let's Put Our Hearts Together

You could say the same thing for Pet Sounds. I've read more reviews mentioning the great production work than being an album full of strong songs throughout. A lot of what I read before becoming a fan mentioned the greatness of WIBN and GOK, but not much else. Quite a few people think it's full of a lot of filler. I'm not one of them but I wouldn't say all the songs are equally great.

I don't think Dennis was equipped to do this on a personal level, but I've sometimes thought what could have made things turn out different would have been if he assumed 100% control of the band in Brian's absence and changed their sound and direction to a more R&B/Blue Eyed soul direction like how Michael McDonald changed the Doobie Brothers sound.

All I Wanna Do
I'll Bet He's Nice
This Whole World
The Night Was So Young
Let Us Go On This Way
Cool, Cool Water
Slip On Through
Roller Skating Child
Good Time
Johnny Carson
Forever
Deirdre
I Wanna Pick You Up
Airplane
It's About Time
At My Window
Solar System
Got to Know the Woman
Honkin' Down the Highway
Add Some Music to Your Day
Mona
Our Sweet Love
Ding Dang
Let's Put Our Hearts Together
Tears in the Morning
Love is a Woman

Roughly. As a cohesive effort, I prefer Love You.

Add Some Music to Your Day
Our Sweet Love
This Whole World
Cool, Cool Water
At My Window
Good Time
Tears in the Morning
Love is a Woman
Forever
Deirdre
Let Us Go On This Way
Honkin' Down the Highway
I Wanna Pick You Up
All I Wanna Do
Johnny Carson
Roller Skating Child
Solar System
Ding Dang
Airplane
Mona
Got to Know the Woman
The Night Was So Young
Ill Bet He's Nice
Let's Put Our Hearts Together
Slip On Through
It's About Time

Carl. I'd say Long Promised Road, Feel Flows and esp The Trader all hit the same heights as Brian at his absolute peak.
Bruce. Hit the bullseye with Disney Girls.
Al. A tougher sell but I think his version of Cotton Fields is one of the best things the band ever did.
Dennis. Easy. A good half of POB, plus Celebrate The News, Forever, Morning Christmas, Cuddle Up and Sound of Free match the best of Brian.
Mike. Ok so he never managed to write a perfect song all by himself (Big Sur comes very close) but factor in he wrote the bulk of Let The Wind Blow, and classic lyrics such as Do It Again,Fun Fun Fun, Good Vibrations and Darlin' and you can make a strong case for Mike the minor genius.

I think Mike could have done more with his writing (as shown with big sur/ let the wind blow) if he didn't get obsessed with reliving past glories. I think thats why I get pissed at him sometimes, he showed promise moving beyond the early stuff, then became a self-parody of himself.

Al had promise as well, but got obessed with Brian's "sail plane song" and wasted so much time remaking it into loop de loop.

I think "All I Wanna Do", even if it is as much an excellent "production" as it is song, is a solid peak -- and more so than "Big Sur" (either version) which I nevertheless enjoy.

Really? We're talking "Brian at his absolute peak"? I see Brian's absolute peak as being Wouldn't It Be Nice, God Only Knows, Good Vibrations, and Surf's Up. Personally, I don't see Long Promised Road, Feel Flows, and The Trader matching that, as good as they are. Same goes for Disney Girls, as good as that is. I would say that the only thing that comes close, but still doesn't match, is Forever, River Song, Rainbows. The thing is that it is impossible to think of any artists that have achieved a collection as strong as the one I mentioned.

No one can match Brian at his absolute peak, so I can't see it as a worthwhile pursuit to try and name anyone that has.

One thing that bears mentioning is that Brian had the best musicians at his disposal and THE BEACH BOYS on vocals, and a wealth of talented lyricists, whereas Dennis was basically slouching off stealing time in the studio and writing with just Greg Jakobson or on his own and using either just himself or Beach Boys tour musicians for his tracking and managed a freakin" masterpiece of a solo album. Same with Carl. Long Promised Road and Feel Flows are basically just Carl on everything, right? Pretty impressive....

This thread is fascinating.... and it rather effectively illustrates something I've long observed about them Beach Boys.

There's an incredible diversity and versatility to this group's catalog that is simply unmatched in popular recorded music, and there are times when this has been both a blessing and a curse.... for the fact is, over the course of the 60s and 70s The Beach Boys did so many kinds of music so well, that they seem to have inspired multiple, divergent - and at times, mutually incompatible - fan bases. 

SURFIN' USA to ALL SUMMER LONG to PET SOUNDS to SMILE to FRIENDS to SUNFLOWER to HOLLAND to THE BEACH BOYS LOVE YOU.... all brilliant in their own way, all very different stylistically, all hitting listeners' hearts and minds and guts in very different ways for very different reasons, but hitting them nonetheless.

It's pretty freakin' amazing.  And, at times, kind of a pain.  Definitely makes compiling a box set a challenge (!)

I can agree with that. S.Desper saved that album. I would still consider This Whole World, CCW, Add Some Music and Slip On Through as fantastic songs aside from production. But I see how it saves  'All I Wanna Do' which is made into a great song just from Despers production.

I dunno about that: Here's All I Wanna Do with just two acoustic guitars, no Beach Boys, no great production and it still sound like a damn fine song to me.

http://youtu.be/1TMOwMtdgF8

The other thing that probably fueled my fire with Sunflower at the time of my Beach Boys "flowering" was the simple fact of how damned elusive the record was to find -- new or used -- even by the mid-to-late 70s.

I mean, one could already find bins and bins of brand new cutouts and overruns of 15 BO, LY and MIU in the $1.99 section of my local Peaches Records and Tapes store by 1978 (and even something like a cutout 8-track tape of Surf's Up in 99 cent section!). But Sunflower? Forget about it. Thus, it was the hardest to find, and one of the last of the original albums I tracked down in my journey. So, the search was obviously driving me. Talk about riches at the end of the tunnel! Thank you Record Revolution at Parmatown! The first used record store on the west side of Cleveland, and where I practically lived as a teen!

I also still love that gatefold cover more than any other in the band's catalog as well. I used to stare at that technical (recording) rundown before I even knew what half that stuff meant. And the beautiful, sunny photos? Did the band ever look this youthful and innocent again? "Good Humor" indeed!



PS - Speaking of our Peaches Records and Tapes...Dennis did an "in-store" there around the time of POB.

I still have a sealed vinyl Sunflower that I found in a record store here in KC back in 1976. Paid $4. The record store was owned by Ed Asner's brother. I believe the store was named Caper's Corner.

I love stories like this. I found a sealed copy, as well, at a record show in the early 1980s. And then, foolishly and ceremoniously, proceeded to unseal it. It's sitting right in front of me now. Probably still my best copy. An Artisan cut.

BTW...anyone else noticed the barrage of original issue, US Sunflowers to hit eBay since the new remaster came out? Probably the most I've ever seen there at one time! Good time to grab one on vinyl.

You are exactly right, Dave. Many younger Beach Boys' fans don't realize how difficult it was to get a hold of the early BB catalogue in the mid/late 1970's. I had to order Sunflower at the local record store as an import from England, and paid big bucks (in those days) for it. And, boy, did I treat that vinyl with kid gloves! :police:

Indeed. That's why I was blown away when I found that 1980 UK CBS/Caribou cassette copy of Sunflower quietly sitting in the budget tape section of a local Gold Circle department store in the mid-80s. Though, that was one of the cool things about that era, in that import *tapes* seemed to find their way into the rack jobbers' distribution chains from time to time (i.e. department stores, etc.). I also remember finding the import, Parlophone 8-track version of "Hollies Greatest" around that same time in the basement of a Higbee's Department Store -- the version having the UK track lineup with the alt. "Yes I Will," and not the budget, green-labeled US Capitol reissue that came out around that time. It made record shopping fun and always an adventure!


I also found the 1980 UK vinyl counterpart of Sunflower around that time (which I just recently sold on the Hoffman board). Cool in that, like the tape and unlike the earlier, black-labeled UK Stateside version and 2-LP Stateside version with SU, it used the *US* track lineup -- minus "Cottonfields." It used the nifty Caribou "deer" label to boot. Pretty wild in that it took us folks in the US until 1990 to get a real, bona fide reissue of the album .


But...I digress.

Thanks to Time to Get Alone (and those who chimed in) for those comparison lists...am traveling this weekend, so will examine them all in more detail when the "motion blur" comes to a rest. Very interesting lists. Wish we had about ten more of 'em to combine (hint, hint to readers!) as it might "smooth out" some of the intriguing (actually, outright astonishing!!) divergences in what's been posted to date.

And thanks to Alan for those trenchant observations about the BB's--100% on the money with the notion that the group has managed to spawn "mutually incompatible" fan bases, a phenomenon that first came into play with Beach Boys Today and has stayed in force for nearly half a century now. That's still the case as we head into 2013: TWGMTR is just the latest work to reflect this phenomenon.

'Tis true. I'm a lifelong "Parmanian" -- born and raised here. Save for a short stint in Streetsboro, and my first house in Old Brooklyn. :)

So good we have you on this board to tell us what the real Brian Wilson is and those of us who like the wrong albums finally know the truth. Believe it or not, until now I thought Sunflower was great and Love You nearly unlistenable, and everybody not sharing that opinion was utterly wrong.


"I Just Got My Pay"!!! "Marcella" sounds punchless musically and pointless lyrically to me. "I Just Got My Pay" is way more fun.

You're welcome.