The Smiley Smile Message Board

Spinning off the Neil Young thread, the indifference towards the group shown by American culture in 1967-73 seems to have various explanations:

1) Cheesy image that the music could not counteract

2) The band's name

3) Brian's sporadic involvement

4) Historical trends outside the band's control

I don't quite buy No. 4 because I don't see why they couldn't have reinvented themselves as a CSN&Y or Mamas & the Papas kind of outfit. They could never have made a White Album or Beggars Banquet because they did not have that edge in the group (no Lennon or Keith figure), but there were harmony-rock options in 1967-70 that Brian could certainly have written albums for.

My own feeling is that, although Wild Honey to Holland is musically a good run of albums, the stylistic variations were just too confusing, and the record company politics meant they never had a clear run at marketing a new image with a solid album/tour package. Brian's image as the man tortured by Smile's failure to appear also haunted the period and meant the albums that did appear were always compared unfavorably to the lost masterpiece or Pet Sounds. Imagine how the White Album would have gone down if Sgt Pepper had been unfinished and instead we got Smiley Sgt Pepper.  

Attending the Montery Pop Festival probably could have been worth a shot.

They could have had a decent setlist, which is what I don't get about them supposedly not going because of lack of material. They could have put together something along the lines of

Sloop John B
Wouldn't it Be Nice
God only Knows
Caroline, No
Heroes and Villains
Vegetables
Surfs Up
Cool Cool Water
Good Vibrations

and maybe also some early versions of songs from Wild Honey or Smiley Smile (was Gettin' Hungry being worked on at this point?) It would have been much more relevant than Surfin' or a car medley.

They did reinvent themselves and radically so - does Friends or Sunflower or Surf's Up really sound like the band from the All Summer Long - Summer Days era? Do those albums even sound like Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys? They went for a completely different sound in that time. The fact is there was nothing they could do to keep themselves relevant - though I suppose they could have maintained some degree of popularity in the US by continuing to write songs like Do It Again. I'm perfectly happy with the trajectory the band took from the very beginning. Couldn't personally care either way if they were relevant or not and I fail to see why anyone else should. It's not like they disintegrated into nothing after 1967 and were never heard from again - we have a whole collection of fantastic albums both by the band and solo.

ok i'm probably pissing a lot of when i keep talking about the beatles, but one of the things I've wondered is why the beatles kept producing hits while the beach boys mostly didn't. Even after 1966, the beatles had quite a few hits:
Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane
All You Need Is Love/Baby You're A Rich Man
Hello Goodbye/I Am the Walrus
Lady Madonna/The Inner Light
Hey Jude/Revolution
Get Back/Don't Let Me Down
Let It Be/You Know My Name
The Ballad of John and Yoko/Old Brown Shoe
Come Together/Something

Don't mean to sound like a broken record but The Beatles were not considered to be a novelty act and so were not put into a box by the general public that they couldn't get out of. The Beatles had for quite some time been accepted not only by teenyboppers but also the more sophisticated rock music crowd and so their transition into a more serious band was never a problem for them.

Plus, don't want to sound like a jerk but The Beatles had always been better at writing commercial music than the Beach Boys and this continued in a much more dramatic fashion after 1966.

'relevant' in this context is difficult to define but i don't think it would have mattered. Look at Dylan, he became less relevant after 66 but sold more records in the following years, go figure. The best thing they could have done to maintain sales would have been to finish and release smile.

I have no idea but I think they still could have gone strong if Sunflower would have been written/released as a followup to Pet Sounds.

1) Finished Smile.

or

2) Bounced back right after Smiley and returned to more commercial, fully produced material.  Brian said years later that he fell out of touch with what the kids wanted by he was still writing great songs during the Boys' "stripped down" period.  Radio programmers just didn't know what do do with them.  The next REALLY commercial song he delivered was "Darlin'" but it followed "Getting Hungry", "Wild Honey", and the "non traditional" "Heroes And Villains" to the desks of program directors who'd probably just about given up on them by that point.  And "You're Welcome", (the creepy) "Wind Chimes", and the two year old "Devoted To You" (which might as well have been two DECADES old back then) didn't give DJ's the choice of something commercial on the flip side either.  (And yes, I know "Darlin'" WAS a hit but it should have been a #1 or at LEAST and undisputed top ten and I'm sure THEY thought so too!)

Along with either of the above things done, they should have brought back David and returned to guitar based rock and roll, now that the world was really embracing it.  And with Al on bass and Bruce on keyboards, they could have dropped the sidemen and therefor looked like a tight BAND onstage, rather than the pop "act" their concerts started resembling.  Remember:  This was in the days when the Stones, the Who, the Kinks, Cream, etc. were up their with no help.  That was rock and roll. 

When the Boys DID decide to "rock" again on 20/20 the results were embarrassing attempts IMO; sorta like the Pat Boone Metal album of the 90's.  ;D The weren't doing it well and sounding contemporary again (since the early stuff) until Dennis's stuff on Sunflower and by then it was too late. 

They just celebrated their 50th year, isn't that a pretty good record of relevance?

But (and I'll put my bullet-proof vest on ready) the BB's arrived at their 50th year as a touring band based mainly on playing songs from their golden hit-making period and not necessarily being "relevant".

The Beach Boys operated in a nishe which basically disappeared overnight. From being to chart toppers to bottom scrapers took only 2 years.

I believe there was no way the Beach Boys would remain a regular top 10 band. But things they coulda done
- play Monterey Pop with a progressive up-to-date setlist. Perhaps played some songs in collaboration with another main group at the time. Make sure they didnt wear those candy shirts and keep Mike from talkin too much to the crowd.
- Release Smile in the way The Who's Lifehouse became Who's Next. They could assemble it in many different ways and patch it together best they could. The result would still be respectable by any standards. Had it been out by summer they would still be a part of the psychedelic movement, which was absolutely key at that time for anyone to remain relevant.
-Not release Friends. Least commercial album they ever did up until then. Something more similar to Sunflower would be preferable.


These are just off the top of my head. As said, they would not remain chart toppers anyhow. Unless Brian coulda done something he never did.

Random memories: I don't think there's anything they could have done.  They were seen as squares as the youth movement became Stalinist in 1968 and narrowed what was acceptable entertainment.  I dutifully bought all their 45's from 1965 until 1969 when I missed "Break Away" because A)  I never found it in the local record store and B)  heard it maybe twice on the radio, and it disappeared from my consciousness for a time.  My "hip" friends dropped them quickly, although they all liked "I'd Love Just Once To See You" for the sneaky ending you could play for girls. I'm glad they stayed true to themselves in the unpopular years. They're not trapped in time like a lot of music was. The drug taking turned more to downers in those years and the music became more "heavy" and serious (I associated the success of Black Sabbath and Zeppelin to quaalude and angel dust lovers).  The Beatles were always on a higher level, maybe moreso in countries other than the UK, so they were bullet proof. "Happy" music in 1969 was the realm of Tommy Roe and the Archies- for younger kids.  By 1971 I could impress all but my most jaded friends and acquaintances with Sunflower and Surf's Up and it was starting to show at their concerts, which never failed to knock people out.  I am the original source of the November 7, 1971 Georgetown University concert tape, and the very end (which has not been let out) is the crowd singing, stomping, and clapping  the falsetto ending of "Fun, Fun, Fun" after the Boys had left the stage for the last time- that's how good that show was.

Stripped down version of new best song 'Yet Again'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kop5ylg0kc

The band is similar to the Beach Boys in so many ways. Even their drummer is the best looking one of them, albeit I doubt he is quite as charismatic as Dennis was (who could ever be?)  ;D

I'm going to go along with the idea that there probably wasn't anything they could have done.  They were probably very lucky to be releasing anything.  The main thing I remember about the late 60s-early 70s was how rapidly pop music was changing.  It went from psychedelic to bubblegum to funk and then back to a sort of nostalgia trip right around '75.  That nostalgia thing, of course paved the way for the Beach Boys early material to blast over the airwaves as sort of a novelty (at least in my neighborhood, that's how it was viewed).  And that brings up another thing: in those days, if it wasn't on the radio, it didn't exist.  The BBs lack of airplay in the late 60s-early 70s had to be devastating to their popularity.

Most of the people around me at the time were not interested in digging deeper into any group's catalog.  They just wanted to buy records of what they were hearing on the radio....now.....this week.....today!  If you weren't up on the newest sound you were a nerd!  (Disco changed that because so many people hated it!)

edit: posted in wrong thread

All dead at 27.

.

Exactly.
 
But, that cluster of years marked the beginning of the tunneling underground of the music into the fm format.  And the live shows on college campuses and theaters revitalized it, in a more artful context.  The historic and social contexts are meaningful as well. JMHO

And, I think did all they could to ride out all the changes in that era.

Yes, very true.  And that is why, for the most part everything turned out alright....music-wise, anyway.  Sadly, it took it's toll, personally, on the Boys.

They were completely relevant -- its everybody else who missed the boat.

They were seen as squares because they released stripped down albums with weird tunings and nonsensical songs RIGHT when the Pop music scene expanded on BRIAN'S work.  "1966 is when Pop music became art."  Brian was responsible for that!  And how does "he" follow up the greatest Pop album of all time?  "Getting Hungry"!

OK fine.  Like I said, give the band a one album pass.  After all, they're one of the absolute biggest bands in the world at the time.  Then they put out an almost unplugged album with the above mentioned weird tunings with a TOTALLY produced, commercial single right smack in the middle of it and send "Wild Honey" to the radio stations instead!  As noted, "Darlin'" DOES become a hit (but not to the degree it deserved) and instead of taking the GIANT CLUE fans just sent them, the follow it up with ANOTHER "down home" album and single (neither of which sound like "Darlin'") and they BOTH BOMB, charting lower than any album OR a-side before them!  "Darlin'" SHOWS that the fans knew what they wanted but the Boys failed to deliver time and time again until the record buying fans gave up on them. 

People can dog 20/20 for not sounding cohesive but that was when the band finally started getting their sh!t together and making commercial AND artistically fulfilling music again.  There's a whole other thread on "20/20 through Holland" on the front page right now.  Unfortunately, by then it was too late and the hillbilly stomp of "Bluebirds Over The Mountain" was the final straw.  So again, "What could they have done?"  It's not rocket science.  Look at the numbers! 

Heroes and Villains (old school Brian, tho stops and starts don't make it great for radio)     #12 US      #8 UK
Gettin' Hungry (weird, silly, eperimental, NOT comercial, not even credited to the band!)    Doesn't chart in US OR UK
Wild Honey (stripped WAY down, weird tuning, whiteboy R&B)                                        #31              #29
Darlin' (fully produced TOTALLY commercial single)                                                       #19              #11 (a marked improvement)
Friends (stripped down again, wimpy tho marvelous harmonies, out of step lyrics)              #47              #25 (ouch)
Do It Again (SUPER commercial, old school formula, etc.)                                               #20              #1 (!)
Bluebirds Over The Mountain (THIS is how they follow DIA???)                                        #61              #33 (so much for a comeback)
I Can Hear Music (THIS should have been the follow up!)                                               #24              #10 (very respectable return)

I'd bet my life ICHM would have charted higher if it was released before BOTM.  The fact that it did as well as it did is proof of just how great it was.  But by this point most of the fans moved on and those who hadn't were about to.  UK fans, being more faithful and forgiving, hung around for two more singles but that was it.

Break Away (Such a shame)                                                                                #63              #6
Add Some Music to Your Day (too little to late)                                                      #64              Did not chart.
Cottonfields (released not by the group but by their FORMER label!)                           #103(!)          #1

Oh well.  At this point at least they're still big overseas.  Capitol proved it.  How do the Boys follow it?

Slip On Through (Not even the best Dennis song on the album!)
Tears In The Morning (Really?!?!)
Cool, Cool Water (Like "Give Peace A Chance" it's a nice chorus but BARELY a song, much less a commercial one!)

Unsurprisingly, none of the above managed to chart.  And unsurprising for the Beach Boys, ALL THREE of those last singles had some of the best, most commercial songs from the album ("This Whole World", "It's About Time" and "Forever") as their B-SIDES! 

Apart from "Darlin'" and "Break Away" (and ASMTYD, which apparently just wasn't single material) it's like they actively TRIED to chase away their casual fans by releasing uncommercial stuff on purpose!

I think a release of All I Want To Do from 20/20 would have charted well in the UK, perhaps the US.

In those territories, it was the uncharting b-side to "I Can Hear Music" but it probably got some airplay.  Personally I'm not a big fan of it.  Like "Bluebirds Over The Mountain", I think it's another embarrassingly failed attempt at "rocking" but I think it sounded WAY more contemporary. *





*Oops!  I originally read the above quote without seeing the words "would have".

Oh.  And another thing.   :police:



Oy.   ::)

Another myth.  I guess you think Dave replaced Al, who then replaced Dave too.   ;D

Just because McCartney took better care when talking to the press, doesn't mean he wasn't almost ALWAYS ahead of Lennon in terms to having an edge; especially when it came to songwriting.  From "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Can't Buy Me Love" all the way through "Helter Skelter" and "The End", McCartney wrote the heaviest, most hard rocking, original songs on almost every album.  John scores with "It Won't Be Long" on With The Beatles and (barely) with "No Reply" on the VERY un-edgy Beatles For Sale.  George wins Yellow Submarine with "It's All Too Much", thanks mainly to Paul's Hendrix-like guitar playing.  Revolver is tricky because while John's "Tomorrow Never Knows" is probably the heaviest and definitely the edgiest track, it would have been a COMPLETELY different song without Paul's tape loops and guitar solo. 

Paul gets thrown under the bus because people feel like they have to "choose" and
1) He didn't die "young" (and John didn't live long enough to start phoning it in).
2) He had no shame in putting out a fair amount of "schmaltz" ("Honey Pie", "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", etc.)
3) John slammed him in "How Do You Sleep?"
and
4) He ALSO wrote the band's best ballads ("Yesterday", "Blackbird", etc.) AND most commercial stuff ("Hey Jude", "Let It Be", etc) so John "must" have been "the heavy one."

Don't get me wrong.  I LOVE John Lennon and I love his music even more.  He's EASILY my third favorite songwriter (behind just Paul and Brian) and one's musical preference is just that, but the fact that John rarely thought before he spoke spoke and had a tendency to let the public see his pissy side doesn't take away from Paul's edge or talent. 

Musically, Paul's songs were usually "done" when he brought them up but little consideration is given to how much Paul put into a "John song".  A perfect example is "Rain".  It's probably my second favorite John composition (coincidentally* behind "I'm Only Sleeping").  And John should and does get credit for its first use of backward masking (Huzzah!) but just try to imagine that song without Paul's high harmony vocal or that absolutely KILLER bassline.  Those were both Paul's but when asked "who wrote that?" his answer would be "John" because that's who wrote the chords and lyrics.  People site the middle eight as Paul's contribution to "A Day In The Life" but Paul's piano part and the orchestra (which was also his idea) are pretty much the WHOLE song (along with "I'd love to turn you on").  When John DID contribute to a "Paul song" (like "I've Got A Feeling") edge usually wasn't what he brought. 

Finally, beyond the Beatles, John's edge ended after the Plastic Ono Band album, which was more Emo (in fact the only GOOD Emo album) than Heavy.  The only songs he released after it with any real edge to them it were "How Do You Sleep?", "Gimme Some Truth", "Meat City", and "I'm Losing You".  While Paul gave us "Jet", "Helen Wheels", "Junior's Farm", "Rock Show", "Soily", "So Glad To See You Here" and a whole slew of others in the same amount of time. 

Apologies for going on about it, especially to harrisonjon and in THIS particular forum, but like "Brian stayed in bed from the collapse of Smile until the Brian's Back campaign" and "Blondie was the bass player", it just kills me to see the myth perpetuated. 
...And I think I missed my evening medication. :)

Again, musical preference is one thing but ones love of something doesn't make it edgy.
(And for the record, I think John was a slightly better lyricist.)




* coincidentally because both those songs include back masking.

I don't think apart from finishing Smile there was anything they could do after 66. In fact, as some others have said, maybe they went into too many different directions and didn't have one real consistent direction or sound so they were hard for more casual fans and radio programmers to take. When a record as excellent as Sunflower doesn't become a hit, there's really not much that can be said.

The non-delivery of Smile was definitely the biggest blow to their career, image, and relevancy at the time.  Like I said, apart from releasing it then, the best thing would have been just getting up, dusting themselves off, and getting back to what they did best; or more specifically, what the public felt they did best.  I also agree that a set at Montery Pop would have HELPED too.

Although I was too young to remember them in their heyday (don't get to say that much nowdays BTW ;)), I would, music quality aside, put it in the perspective of them being the equivalent of some of the boy-bands of the 90s still trying to stay relevant today.

Can't be easy.

i wrote this on another thread, but I think the post 1966 beach boys would have been most successful as a kind of soft rock group. They probably didn't have the players to be a hardrock group like Led Zep or Black Sabbath but they did have the talent to be sort of a Rundgren/Bread/JT type of group. Something along these lines:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXq81-cGJr4

.

It's really nice that you guys have all these helpful ideas, but to be honest, they all sound terrible. I'm just glad things went how they went. The albums didn't sell, but they are filled with great music and they kept their integrity. It's more honorable to flop doing your own thing well than trying to stay relevant by changing your thing after shifting trends.

Off-topic, or certainly only tangentially so, but... what exactly might a 'Smiley-Smile-ised' version of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band have been like? If SMiLE became Smiley Smile... and all the beautifully arranged, multi-layered Wrecking Crew tracks, all of what Derek Taylor called the 'beautifully designed, finely-wrought, inspirationally welded' pieces of music, became what sounded like a stoned group of barbershop students recording in a living room with a droning electric organ and some bongos... then what's the equivalent for the Beatles? I guess the nearest transition in Beatle history is in going from the opulent and decorous, orchestra & Moog Modular-studded arrangements of 'Abbey Road' to... the next proper musical albums that John and Paul recorded respectively: 'Plastic Ono Band' and 'McCartney'. A guy and a piano screaming out his psychic pain on the advice of his controversial therapist, and a bloke and guitar warbling into a portable tape recorder in a Scottish farmhouse while his wife provides tea and sandwiches and the occasional wonky backing vocal, and remembers to lift Paul's head from his pillow when he's spent so long in bed in a depressed state that he's in danger of smothering himself to death, crazy beard and all.

...hmmm, maybe the Beatles/Beach Boys' stories aren't so *very* different after all...!

So, complete the thought: Imagine a different album. Brian finishes SMiLE to world acclamation, the Beatles are completely wrong-footed, and, after failing to complete their Summer 1967 album and making various incomplete psychedelic experimental recordings instead (which appear on bootlegs with strange titles like 'Baby You're A Rich Man', 'You Know My Name, Look Up The Number' and 'It's All Too Much'), and then quitting Abbey Road for a disastrous rethink and a further long delay cloistered in various home studios, including a makeshift one at George's house in Esher, Kinfauns, they come up with a different album in early 1968: Private Salty's Intimate Telephone Dating Service.

What's on it? And what does it sound like?

Note: much of the time, I hate this kind of counter-factual, 'what if Brian had finished SMiLE in 1967?' stuff, because you can argue about it until you're blue in the face and never get anywhere sensible: fact is, it didn't happen, and if my uncle's thorax was differently constructed, she'd be my aunt. But for once, I thought it might be fun to turn the idea on the Beatles instead...

It's really hard to say. After Peppers and Magical Mystery tour, the Beatles did go to a more striped-down sound on the White Album, but for the most part (excluding Revolution 9), it's still a pretty clean sounding and not too bizarre album, while Smiley Smile is pretty out there. But the White Album and the Get Back sessions are the closest things to Smiley/Wild Honey that the Beatles ever did.

I don't think it's the Beatles comparisons alone, though-and I know that's very, very old hat. A lot of really great mid-60's acts lost popularity from 66-67 on. The Beach Boys were the biggest band that fell off after then, but other groups declined commercially as well.

I really don't think that apart from finishing SMiLE that there was anything else they could have done. And that clearly wasn't possible.

Yeah. Think of Herman's Hermits. They were almost as popular as The Beatles, but nobody remebers them anymore. The Beach Boys could have gone their way, but they hung on in there and are still remembered. In a way we/they were lucky to manage through that seismic shift in popular culture alive.

I'm glad they didn't go with the idea of changing their name to "Beach" in the early seventies.  It was not only too late by then, but they might have missed out on the nostalgia wave a few years later.

The Beatles were a self-contained unit whereas the Beach Boys of 1965-66 needed the Wrecking Crew. The Beatles could survive a bad album (such as Let It Be) because they could still make an album like Abbey Road using just their own talents, but The Beach Boys needed a fully functioning Brian + the Wreckin Crew to make an album that was both good and commercial in 1967-69. Sunflower nearly does it but still has non-commercial stuff on it, and the Bruce songs (which I neither like nor dislike) give it a rather corny feel that couldn't have gone down well in the Woodstock era.

I also feel that the home studio idea was a disaster that hasn't been emphasized enough as a factor in the downfall. Putting home-produced tracks on the market in 1967, when music was entering a new age of production, studio wizardry, intellectual musing and "hipness", was just asking to get dumped.

Actually, I think you'll see that's been one of my main arguments in this thread from the start.  We may disagree on some finer points but I think you and I are very like minded indeed.  :h5

...and yet here I come, about to totally DISagree! Still, that's message boards for ya, right?

>snip<


...not sure I agree with that last bit, jon. You could just say Brian was ahead of the curve again. Sure, the big albums of 1967 were all about studio trickery (and lots of the singles too - hell, 'Itchycoo Park', released in Summer 1967, actually *invented* a whole new effect, flanging). And yes, music of that year seems relatively festooned with overdubs and effects compared to the more live work of albums up to, say, 1965 — but by just a few months later, there was a reaction to it. John Wesley Harding, parts of the White Album and all that. Plus using studio musicians was becoming seriously passé - just look what happened to the Monkees...

In that light, recording the guys in a home studio singing with minimal instrumentation starts to look like an inspirational idea, not a disaster. I think the Beach Boys' precipitate fall from grace was more to do with their image. To so many, they were still the hip guys of 1964, in their striped shirts and Letterman sweaters - that whole clean-cut look you see on the cover of the Today! album, with the coloured sweaters. But the problem was, it was 1967, 1968, 1969, not 1964 any more. Rock stars looked a whole lot different by then. The best possible illustration of this I know is provided by two images showing the members of what later became The Band, one shot from 1964, the other from 1968. Here ya go:

Levon & The Hawks, 1964
http://theband.hiof.no/band_pictures/levon_and_the_hawks_1964.gif

The Band, 1968
http://theband.hiof.no/band_pictures/landy_vision_01-2003/p63.jpg

Same guys, believe it or not...!

So yeah; there had been a sea change, like you don't really see in popular music much these days, but it did happen again in the UK with punk in 1976-7. A rock star of 1973-4, say one of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, or Yes, looked like a hairy dinosaur alongside Johnny Rotten or Joe Strummer by 1978. However unfair that might *actually* have been to ELP or Yes in hindsight. And so it was with the Beach Boys in 1967-71. They had become seriously uncool, in the USA at least, and that's the kiss of death for pop stars.

Of course, Smiley Smile was *also*... quite strange, which didn't help their diminishing success (much as I personally love, love, *love* that record). But Wild Honey and 20/20 are absolutely not uncommercial-sounding albums. Friends is a bit more 'down-home', sure, but by the time it was released, that kind of sound was more popular. Less had become more. So I think it's not the sound of the albums that did for the Beach Boys in the States in the late 60s. The problems lay outside the music.

Just my two pennies' worth, mind...

I was actually thinking about them in relation to this very thread today.  And while it's true that they got a ton of sh!t for their use of studio musicians, not only were they already behind the eightball with the hip crowd (for getting their record deal by being "cast" rather than paying their dues in the clubs), the important thing that everyone forgets about that fiasco is that it was self-inflicted.  Fed up, Nesmith called a press conference and blew the whistle on the whole recording process, while Brian and the guys (and everyone one else in the LA music scene) whistled innocently, hoping no one would bring them into the "scandal".  (I always felt it ironic that many of the same trades who praised Pet Sounds spit on the Monkees for doing the exact same thing, WITH EVEN THE SAME MUSICIANS!) 

But I digress.  The other thing to do is indeed look what ELSE happened to the Monkees.

Most of us agree that Brian "dropped the ball" from a commercial stand point by not finishing Smile.  Well something people forget is that in the time between the release Pet Sounds and the scrapping of Smile, the Monkees' debut album was released, featuring "music for Beatles fans' younger siblings"; containing extremely polished, commercial pop songs.  They then followed that album with the biggest seller of 1967 and followed THAT with the artistically vindicating folk/rock masterpiece that had the unfortunate circumstance of being released just before Sgt. Pepper's, thereby being COMPLETELY overshadowed (tho only by ONE chart position on the Billboard Album Chart) for the entire summer of love.  Undeterred, the band soldiered on and finished the year by releasing Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd., which many people consider to be their finest "album" in regards to the "full listening experience" that really began driving the Pop market around then.

So not only did the Boys blow it (for the latter half of the 60's) with the bungling hat trick of scrapping Smile, bowing out of Motery Pop, and failing to deliver consistent commercial product, but the Monkees (of all people) were right there at the right time and place, with the exact right musical frame of mind, to fill the void the Boys had created.  The niche was (perfectly) filled, resulting in the Prefabs going on to be the biggest selling artist (by far!) during the most important year in the evolution of rock-n-roll!

The release of Smile is really an either/or situation. I fail to see how Smile would have, at the time, affirmed their place as important artists amongst the hip, serious rock music crowd when Pet Sounds had failed to achieve that. What it could have been was a commercial success but that would mean it would have to rely heavily on the success of Good Vibrations and so Smile would have had to come out fairly quickly - and even that wouldn't have secured anything for Smile. After all, Pet Sounds had Sloop John B. which was a major hit, going to #3 and that didn't necessarily push Pet Sounds into the the top echelons of the charts. Pet Sounds ultimately failed to please in the way that the previous albums didn't at the time because it wasn't the kind of album that the teenyboppers were expecting or wanting nor did the serious rock music fan particularly care to any great extent about what The Beach Boys were doing. This is why I don't think a performance at Monterey would have really helped their chances either, though that has for a long time been the accepted response.

I think there is merit in both points of view.

The Beach Boys could have recorded exactly the same material and released the exact same albums, but could have made better choices of A-sides. Look at The Beatles: they released some very "out there" material from '66-'70, but the A-sides were almost always more commercial, more fully produced, and less obviously experimental (or at least less strange) than other choices they might have made during this period: "Penny Lane", "All You Need is Love", "Hello Goodbye", "Lady Madonna", "Hey Jude", "Get Back", "The Ballad of John and Yoko", "Something", "Let it Be". I read somewhere that Lennon wanted "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)" as an A-side in 1970, but "cooler heads prevailed". Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like cooler heads always prevailed when it came to picking Beach Boys A-sides.

Hear, hear.

another thing i've wondered is if rambunctious onstage antics early in their career would have helped them later on. Would they have attracted a larger following if Dennis had made his "quaaludes and cocaine" comment fifteen years earlier.

.

.

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I know you disregard the teen press (and for good reasons), but Pet Sounds was possibly the stepping stone - you had a lot of industry folks, The Beatles, etc, suddenly admiring that as a great 'record' (granted, a lot of people have said that in retrospect), then the Beach Boys got some 'hip' cachet, then Good Vibrations cemented it for them - and more importantly, for the record buying public. That and the articles Derek Taylor was penning was giving The Beach Boys some press momentum...
If Smile had come out even in the most basic, twelve track/no cross fade form, I think people would have gone nuts for it in the sort of event album sense that Sgt. Pepper had simply as The New Beatles Album - it was the hyped new Beach Boys album. Whilst I think the 'people clamouring for Smile all over the place' is a tad overstated by people, people were starting to care about The Beach Boys as an 'artistic' band thanks to that one-two punch of PS and GV and Taylor's writing - it was in the air, at least. Smile would have confirmed it, but we know how this story goes...

Yeah, okay.

There seems to have been a big pop v rock split in 1968, with bands having to choose to go one way or the other. I think with Brian it would have to be pop, albeit with an edge. The acid-soaked feel of Smile would have fit 1967 OK but there would still have needed to be a change of direction afterwards: an edgier Monkees or Mamas & The Papas might have been the only route. I don't see them as a politically conscious band: they just weren't aware enough of those issues. They were essentially detached in something of a California bubble and had to work within those confines. They weren't universal in the way that The Beatles were and they couldn't rock out like The Who or The Stones.

The reasons The Beach Boys weren't relevant after 1966 are the exact reasons they are relevant now.

Well said.

Sorry, I somehow typed "and" when I meant "are".

The reason the Beach Boys didn't stay relevant after '66 is in my opinion because they were just never hip.  They're all dorks, they're likeable but they were never going to be relevant in the ultra-cool era of the late 60's and early 70's.  Nothing really lasted through that early time into that period, though, outside of what, the Stones and Elvis?  We're talking about a group that was birthed in 1962!  Nothing from '62 stayed relevant in that age, like all those bands and artists no matter how great just fell off the radar.  The Beatles changed so drastically that they became a literal caricature of themselves with Sgt. Peppers and then again with the White Album.  The Beach Boys weren't going to do that, they were brothers from Hawthorne simple as that.  Even the cheesy 80's Beach Boys was essentially.... STILL the 1962 Beach Boys!  Cheesy and dorky just like they started.  God love em. 

Don't forget...Pet Sounds wasn't immediately restocked when a store sold out. Weren't stores getting the comp instead?

I'm more shocked by the fact that the group fell off of American Top 40, rather than that they failed to catch on with the emerging underground rock scene. Look at the charts from say 1967-1972 and you could see who was tearing it up, so to speak. Roughly in order: The Mamas & Papas, The Association, The Rascals, The Monkees, The Buckinghams, Gary Puckett, Classics IV, The Cowsills, The Carpenters, Bread, The Partridge Family, Osmonds etc. Are you telling me The Beach Boys were too square to fit in amongst that crowd?

Their late 60s singles continued to chart locally in L.A. and over in England, so it's not like they were commercially non-viable. I think there has to be some other reason that radio programmers wouldn't pick up on their songs; the image thing doesn't really hold water when it comes to the pop market, as the pop charts at the time were filled with squares.

Monkees and Mamas&Papas went downhill right about then as well.

The Beach Boys couldn't project youth to that pop market once they passed their mid-20s, so it was logical that someone like Donny Osmond or David Cassidy would take over essentially the same niche especially with the TV-friendly images they had. They also had female members to attract the youngest girls (Marie Osmond, the Partridge women, Karen Carpenter).

Fairly good point. 

The other answer is, though... Brian started doing drugs and drugs are bad.  You could make a point that his drug use SERIOUSLY hurt the band.  He makes that point himself all the time. 

'66, little drugs = great music

'67, drugs - sh*t doesn't get completeted, lawsuits, fights, money dries up, etc. 

He also says he wrote California Girls after his first acid trip.

They could've let Manson be the leader of the group.  ;)

here's a question:

where did the band get its "Square" reputation from? Wasn't Dennis seen as sort of countercultural?

Take a look at them. Compare.

(http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/literock969.com/files/2011/12/BeachBoysChristmas1.jpg)

(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wdDVA97bI_E/THADQ5n9qeI/AAAAAAAAAmk/mdZIUKlJkoU/s1600/the_rolling_stones_decembers_children_2006_retail_cd-front.jpg)

The BBs are truly immortal for being popular during many different eras of rock and roll.

This guy looks cooler to me:

(http://www.blogcdn.com/www.spinner.com/media/2008/01/wilson-200-013008.jpg)

Than this guy:

(http://pjmedia.com/tatler/files/2012/03/Mick-Jagger.jpg)

Who the hell is that?

A duck pretending to be Mick Jagger.

Nice one, EH66.

I think this is a fan-tasy published back when it was thought Pet Sounds didn't sell well and Best Of is what drove it from the charts, neither of which turned out to be true. Maybe there is some kind of evidence that it was widespread but I doubt it.

It's almost impossible to put into words the changes America went through from the early 1960's into the late 1970's, largely because of the Vietnam war, civil rights battles and the growing use of drugs.  The striped shirt Beach Boys could not stay hip, but their music could have stayed popular.  Wild Honey is one of my favorite albums, but there is only one song, Darlin, that was going to be playable on the radio.  For whatever reason, probably because Brian Wilson was declining in skills and abilities, they didn't produce enough radio friendly and catchy music.  I think they could have addressed the void left by Brian's drug use by finding a songwriter and a producer to pick up the slack, like they did with Jack Reilly and the Surf's Up album.  My impression is also that members of the band liked to tour and make easy money, but when it came to writing new music and working like perfectionists in the studio, they weren't interested in the hard work that would take, and didn't make the effort.     

As for that last line, Mike's kinda still doing that, isn't he?  About 5 months ago, he ditched Brian and his perfectionist ways in the studio for another tour of the western U.S.'s indian casinos.  Leopards have spots... dogs have old tricks... etc. yada yada yada

Non-LP singles and EPs are not something American bands generally seemed to do, then or now, which I think is sort of a mistake. It would allow you not merely to get out more "product" but to give a taste to fans of a potential musical direction you could sustain for an album project -- or simply that sole single or EP -- should you desire... or just compile the single/EP tracks onto an album. I don't know that it would've helped The Beach Boys in particular but it might have provided an interesting way to not worry so much about Capitol: release stuff on other labels. Could a group like The Beach Boys even do that or was their contract exclusively with Capitol?

And if instead of those little albums of 20/25 min long, they had released  a double LP full of Feels and all those little songs from Smiley/Wild honey/ Friends
they would have exposed better the richness of their music.
(Abbey road second side is a good example also Frank Zappa Uncle Meat).
They needed a strong management after Pet Sounds brilliance.

Denny was stuck behind the drums while Mick was out front. The BB have no clue of marketing or image and never have. I mean, they put their best looking guy, the only one with real sex appeal behind the drums and they put the balding guy who sings through his nose as the lead singer.  That and they manage to screw up every good thing they get going...it's amazing that they made it at all, but the songs were just that great (for a while).

Maybe they should have used the same tailor as The Moody Blues.

(http://www.last.fm/music/The+Moody+Blues/+images/70698116)

1) They needed a drummer. No-one else wanted to.

2) Mike Love was a great fit for 'lead' on the early singles, and Brian took his fair share of leads too.... as did Dennis, eventually.

3) Someone also had the masterstroke idea of getting that drummer out from behind the stool every show and singing 'You Are So Beautiful' to the crowd, in such a manner that he impregnated the first 10 rows. I think they knew what they had.

That is really funny and really revealing. A blatant reminder that STYLES and fashions through the decades amounted to nothing more than COSTUMES in many cases. The Beach Boys may have, and certainly did have, an image problem through much of their careers, however what others have done and continue to do in the music biz is as laughable and dorky as one could imagine. Bands running around with capes, make up, and worse were and are somehow cool. 

I like a lot of the Stones music....but I remember Mick in the football pants and he looked like a total moron as he has through much of his career.

You maroons still think that picture is actually Mick Jagger?

What's your point? Is it a Mick impersonator? If so it's a good one and who cares.... Mick ran around in football pants looking like an idiot on tour.

No, it isn't a good impersonator, he doesn't look like him (it is closer to Mark Wahlberg, actually), his build is totally different and anyone who would criticize an artist based on an obvious impersonation has suspect judgement and obvious prejudice against that artist. Who cares? I do, I like great artists.
Mike ran around looking like a jackass as well, and so has Al, Bruce and the rest of them as well, during the two worst fashion eras of all time, the 1970s and 1980s. So, the REAL point is this: let's either criticize them both, or not at all.

Or, maybe we should judge The Beach Boys based on this:

(http://blastzoneonline.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/21469910.jpg)

Close enough, right?

My prejudice would be that certain "artists" routinely get a pass for looking and behaving like morons while others are singled out. The subject at hand was the one that routinely pops up around here about the Beach Boys "dorky" look having influenced their success or not. Mick's look form the football pants tour was the point and the guy in the photo is pretending to be him. And in my initial post I said the BB's DID have image problems. As far as the goofs on your last upload, you could judge the BB's 60's attire based on that, but even at a glance the faces are way off.

Bottom line for my commenting on the issue at at is....Mike Love was ripped for wearing a hat and loud shirt and at the same time Mick was running around onstage in football pants and somehow that was cool. Sorry, it wasn't.

I'm not gonna undermine the beatles but the beatles werent even a REAL band after revolver. After revolver the beatles became a lameass acid-psychedelic trip.  And how could anyone say the beach boys lost relevance but the beatles didn't? The beatles didn even last after the 60s! The beach boys were and are timeless.

this thread makes no sense... 

EXACTLY!

SO they lost popularity in the US in 68, rockNroll as a whole died in the US at that time. They were HUGE in the UK!! thats what mattered. Its not like they werent cool anymore, just not to brainwashed americans til endless summer.

IS THIS A JOKE?????????????????????????????????????????? The Beach Boys were "dorks" and the Beatles weren't? How the hell are stupid moptop haircuts and business suits less dorky than badass stripe shirts? The beatles got more into the psychedelia and whether some people wanna admit it or not thats the horseshit that was ruining rockNroll stylistically. RockNroll was the real deal in the 50s and thru 67. Then it faded from the mainstream in the US and didn't come back til the mid 70s like another previous commenter had mentioned. Rock had 2 legitimate eras of purity- 56' - 66 and punk rock when  the Ramones rejuvenated it.

EXACTLY!!

yes sir, beatles suck.

What the sh*t is this.

stay away from kookad, hype.

Kookadams - gotta love your loyalty! I think one might need to look beyond the clothing, to the statement in #4 above that just captures it all, albeit some disagreement.  

It was largely the "Winchester Cathedral" phenomenon.  Out of nowhere, bands getting established, breaking up, trends changing so quickly, such as art, with Warhol, Peter Max, Carnaby St. Fashion, and in the States, a divided nation at war.  And, from what I'm learning, that for the most part the Boys were doing most of their own work. And it seemed that other bands had at least some of that work done for them.

SMiLE was probably meant to be a triple album, with the American Saga concepts, and that seems overwhelming, but Brian thought "big."  Now, we can look back at the absolute volume of work and it is mind boggling.  I must admit, that the Beatles had great stuff, but weren't doing the kind of touring that the Boys did, nor did they have a family band member under the sword of the draft, complete with arrest and a trial.  

And, more than one band broke up or had to regroup as a result of the "knock on the door" from Uncle Sam.  Although the Beatles were vocal about war,  Uncle Sam could not knock on the Beatles' door, because they were not American citizens. I like to think that for a few years, they were understood better outside of the States, than at home.  

They were perceived to be "relevant" and understood, but less so in the States.  It was a truly bizarre time.  

Kudos to the last comment. And I get what yer saying about the context of the times etc. Most people would be offended by this but I stick to my statement that the Beatles should've broken up in fall of '66. They put out Revolver, their last great album before succumbing to the overindulgence of psychedelia; ceased as a performing entity to become a studio group. I'm not gonna dismiss Sgt Pepper and the last 3 albums that followed because  they were great for what they were but when regarding the state of what American pop culture was in the late 60s and into the early 70s it seemed as tho rockNroll was in a coma or only existent in the UK cuz the English were the perceptive music consumers of that time. I mean Pet Sounds barely cracked the top 10 in the US and almost topped the charts in the UK, as well as the following albums  which all performed much better commercially overseas. I guess it was just how the times were but it irks the hell outta me when people question their relevance just because their popularity shifted continents. Its not that the Beach Boys werent hip anymore its that Americans didn't give a sh*t about quality music anymore. At least til the Ramones came and even then they werent top sellers. The early-mid 60s was not only the most progressive era in music history but also the only time when good music actually SOLD!

There are only a handful of songs on this list that I enjoy. Penny Lane, Lady Madonna, Get Back, Let It Be, Ballad of John and Yoko, Something. The rest of them, I'll stick to the Beach Boys.

Dude, if you're seriously repping for The Beach Boys over The Beatles on the basis that The Beatles stopped playing live and thus did not HONOUR THE FIRE OF ROCKNROLL, I think it's time you finally listened to any Beach Boys album made after 1964. And I mean ANY Beach Boys album.

What are you talking about?? I listen to Beach Boys albums post-64 all the time.

The Beach Boys are possibly the most studio orientated band of all time. Their leader retired from the road, before The Beatles did, to make better records. They made records they could not possibly recreate live, for the most part, and they didn't try that hard until about the arrival of Blondie & Ricky and a whole bunch of auxillary musicians, because their main focus was on the record. You ever listened to '67 bootlegs of their gigs (the 'A Vocal Element' one, for instance)? They could not give a f***. Dennis is barely playing his drums, Mike is joking MID-SONG, the sound is one of the least rock and roll things I've ever heard. To insist that they were somehow more rock and roll because they played live and The Beatles didn't is obscene.

The 1964 Beach Boys were boss though live. ;D

I think another reason their popularity went down is their live show got really crappy in 1965-1967 once Brian left the road.

Did you go to any shows in 1965-1967 to tell us in what manner they were "crappy?"

The soundboard bootlegs of the era (live in Michigan, vocal element 1967 fall tour, Lei'd in Hawaii) show a group struggling to perform the complex hits and goofing off too much to top it off. I think they got lazy until the shock of losing their fame hit them.

That was not the question.  Did you ever see them live between 1965 and 1967? 

I won't be bullied, the soundboards tell a story a concert tells.

No one is bullying you. A soundboard does not a concert tale tell.  A live performance is an entirely different dynamic. Flaws and all.  Stage banter about current events, anecdotes, and audience participation.  I'm looking for a frame of reference and that is not unreasonable. That is all.  

Well, you are implying I am a 21st century knucklehead who wasn't around to see the BBs in the 1960s, so I can't form an opinion on their live show at the time. A sound board is a complete record of a show with banter, audience, and mistakes. I fell like the BBs should have taken the shows more seriously with effort or backup players to do the songs justice. Hell, they should have taken a break from touring like the Beatles and helped finish SMiLE. The 1966 Beatles shows had a hard time doing the songs as well.

It is hard to determine without being there, but from recordings it sounds like when Brian left the touring band, a certain professionalism was lost until they started bringing in outside musicians.that's why I have said in the past that Smile couldn't have been performed live by the band, at least not well. I think once 1968 rolled around they improved out of necessity.

 With that in mind. I actually like that somewhat clumsy sound on the Michigan and Hawaii tapes!

Short of having a time machine, no. However, I have listened to a fair few shows and they are sloppy at best. I'm also not going off forty year old memories.

What you're trying to say is 'I had a good time', and that's totally cool, but the evidence I, a young whippersnapper, have - the tapes - show that they were hardly a fantastic live act. If I paid to see that, I'd be miffed that's for damn sure. I've seen better rehearsed bands down the pub.

They seemed to buck their ideas up for 1969 (Or whenever Live In London was recorded), and The Big Sur Festival in 1970. But if you listen to the tapes, that is good music played badly.

The 'Lets Take A Trip Down To Hawthorne' boot has such a great vibe to it (especially California Girls). But that's really the only concert I can judge that era by.

Love the Hawaii shows!

Kinda wish there was more from '65. We have that partial show from Chicago. Would love to hear some of those rarities they performed such as "Please Let Me Wonder", "Girl Don't Tell Me", "Do You Wanna Dance", etc.

This Vocal element show is part of my point. They completely STOP the song twice near the end of California Girls (25:00 to 27:00) and can't remember how to end the song. They joke about and just don't care a whole lot. This show just gives off a vibe of them not giving a crap about performing standards.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMbI-SVtM3I&feature=youtu.be

Soundboards are notoriously bad at recreating the experience of being at a show.... I have soundboard tapes of shows I was at that were earth shatteringly good THERE but sound like complete merda on the recording.... What you're listening to on a soundboard recording (Desper among others can correct me if I'm wrong) is the guy doing the live mix as it happens: pushing up mics and backing them off as things are happening (hot mics threatening to cause feedback, certain instruments not cutting through, then suddenly cutting through to much etc etc) .... I'd say, by and large, audience tapes are better for picking up the vibes! Soundboards are better as an anthropological record, but neither replicate the experience of being there. Live albums don't either because they're usually overdubbed to hell.....

Well hypehat - I'm fortunate to operate with both having seen that "run" with Strawberry Alarm Clock and Buffalo Springfield and catching whatever gems are floating around YouTube.  And, it took a front seat (over Geometry) in my life, then.  It was not an "opinion" stated, it was framed as a "fact."  Also, the set lists were written on their palms.  There was no 16 point printed set list taped to the floor.  

There were 4 brand new songs they performed and that twenty-ish creamy voice of Carl Wilson who was doing a lot of leads.  Carl's voice was far and away superior to his siblings, and I would wager that Brian would agree.  How anyone would be critical of a show where Carl was doing all those new leads, is beyond my comprehension.

For example, I saw nothing prior to 1967.  What I saw as video footage was from Ed Sullivan or Bob Hope/Jack Benny, Andy Williams, Mike Douglas, and the Concert Album of either 1963 or 1964.  I would and do absolutely seek out friends who saw them in that era for their opinion, and defer to them.  The fans during that time, had no access to anything such as YouTube, or these soundboard tapes which have made their way online.  And I would never venture an opinion for that time.  

The difference is someone who was at a concert has an "informed opinion" and not making a broad statement that their performances between 1965 and 1967 were "bad" and it is doubtful that the music reviewers for the newspapers were giving them bad reviews, after huge hits such as Good Vibrations, Rhonda, and the Top Tens with Sloop John B and Wouldn't it Be Nice, etc.  

And I listened to that YouTube and cracked up with the California Girls endings and their ability to think on the spot when Carl's guitar string broke and the great organ on Wild Honey. That was all live, and I found it a fine performance.  Things go wrong, people get jet lagged, and it is a group of human beings attempting to play their work and make people happy.  

Fans generally accepted, at that time, especially after Good Vibrations and the tremendous production that proved to be, that Brian needed to be writing, and not on the road and his absence was a necessary compromise.  

Edit

Nvm

I'm not saying they were crappy musicians or anything, but they just played badly in 1967! Although listening to the show Briansbathrobe posted upthread, Mike sounds like he's having the time of his life.... unfortunately. His stage banter makes me want to die. The audience are mostly silent. But that's not the point. It's a very weird show. Everyone's playing very... quietly. Reserved. Unsure. Songs just abruptly stop, like Darlin', where someone just gives up.

My point is if you listen to gigs by, lets say, The Velvet Underground from 1967 - two years after they properly formed, and got signed. They absolutely slay, they play loud, they play tight. I don't hear any dumb crap from their frontman. The songs don't end like someone's gone to the bathroom. You get what I'm saying? A properly rehearsed band does not play like The Beach Boys in 1967.

Wasn't Dennis basically ordered to hardly play the drums for the Hawaii shows?

That could have worked great with A LOT of rehearsal!

You can't just ask a guy who's used to bashing the living hell out of his drums to suddenly sound like the guy at the back of the Grand Ole Opry for the last 40 years playing with a pair of brushes..... If you listen live stuff from 65: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T5pQScvkck and 66 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlC1beTlD70  Dennis is incredibly solid.

Yeah, Dennis is one of the sickest drummers I've listened to - but it's his brute force that makes that so, for me.

Oh god, still listening to this show. I wouldn't care if Justin Bieber moved in with me and asked me annoying questions about my sex life in shrieking falsetto, modern music is light years ahead of 1967 for the simple fact Mike Love has cooled his stage banter

This guy on youtube posted some songs from the 1965 Chicago show. BBs kicking ass with Brian on bass.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T5pQScvkck

Just don't listen to Syracuse 1971 or you might go insane permanently.

It impressed me that Mike was covering while Carl got his guitar string fixed.  There weren't roadies all over the place running out with a different guitar to use, and tuning them, and as for the two shows I saw in 1967, they were both in theatres rather than multi use arenas.  

There may have been noise restrictions, as well as curfews.  I saw a cop come on the stage at some show during an encore telling them they were "done."  I know little about sound and the technical aspects.  Had you been in the audience, you might realize that people would see the broken string being attended to, and Mike was just trying to "keep things going."

yeah, on those clips and the 65 one I posted from, Dennis is easily the most solid musician on that stage...

In (a reluctant) defense of Mike's stage banter.... My ears can actually pick up the nearly wetting themselves with nervousness and terror inner shrieks from the other Beach Boys (aside from Dennis) .... They spent a lot of uncomfortable time in-between songs getting their sh*t straight for the next number and, as  guy who's played many live shows, the feeling of dead silence between songs is absolutely horrendous.... I can't blame Mike for feeling the need to say something/anything.... The other guys try and make jokes but they're usually worse than Mike's but they say them so quickly and nervously, you can hardly even understand them.

I like the music they play at Sycaruse well enough. It also has my favourite Mike Love line onstage, when they're going to play Okie From Muskogee.

Al? Or Carl? doesn't sound like they were supposed to be on mic, at any rate - 'I hate this next song.'
Mike - *takes a perfect beat* 'You're going to love this next song'

 :lol

Don't know if anyone has thought of, or mentioned, this before, but it occurred to me today that if they had released Surf's Up as a single instead of Heroes and Villains it probably would have been better received and improved their fortunes.

Does this thread really make sense? The Beach Boys have been relevant for the past 50 years, just because their commercial viability shifted from the US to the UK after 1967 doesn't have anything to do with relevance.

'ev'rything makes sense in this big big world..'

Considering that the Beach Boys are the most successful American rock band, the most popular and biggest selling Id say their relevance is pretty strong. Maybe certain eras were stronger than others in terms of the state of pop culture but theyve always held up, whether it be creatively or nostalgically.

‍

I wish instead of trying to be "relevant" they just followed Brian's muse and made great experimental music, like they almost did on Smile and "Can't Wait To Long." All the other members wanted was commercial success and to be a part of the contemporary "in-crowd" (hippies). Brian was the only one with true creative vision in the band.

They did and it was called Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, and Friends.

Quite

Yeah, I think Brian kept them in line on tour. Although, he sometimes appeared nervous I think Brian was listening to everything
and leading all the way -- you can see some visual evidence of this in some old films like the "lost concert". Think I will go watch
that tonight!