The Smiley Smile Message Board

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQOFq_wox6o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYLO1R-uCPk

i had thought that the pothead/surfer slang didn't become evident until the 1970s around the time where skateboarding/punk became evident but apparently it existed even in the very early 60s.

that's just a silly way of singing, those people after stepping out of the recording booth didn't say, "that was some sick gnar, brah".

also, "HEY BEACH BOYS FANS LISTEN TO THIS SONG I FOUND IT'S CALLED ALLEY OOP", I take it you've never listened to Beach Boys Party?

no. It's all covers. I would compare it to Beatles For Sale - an attempt to cash in for the holiday market. But at least half the songs on BFS were written by them.

A major difference is that BB Party is actually good.

Jesus Christ. What's wrong with covers?

All covers ?  I'll bet you the entire US national debt that it's not.

You owe me $16,365,370,575,377.43.  ;D

This board never fails to surprise and dismay me, guy's posting on a Beach Boys message board but has never listened to Party! Because 'it's all covers'. Even though it isn't.

This conversation and that debt figure depress me immensely :'(
_______

@dwtherealbb: Do yourself a huge favor and listen to Party. Their voices are amazing and they make a lot of those covers sound better than their originals.

Will you accept a check, Andrew??  >:D

They're both good IMHO, but for different reasons. In Brian's artistic development, Party is obviously a side step, but to me an enjoyable one.

you're actually sort of right. The Argyles version is painfully slow. The guitar and faster pace make the Party version easier to listen to.

Mike, Brian, Carl, Al, Dennis, Bruce, Dean and Hal Blaine make all the songs better than the originals, simply by being Mike, Brian, Carl, Al, Dennis, Bruce, Dean and Hal Blaine. I've definitely listened to the Party version of Tell Me Why far more than the Beatles version.

Yeah, I mean, they all really improve The Times They Are A Changin'.  ::)


I mean, I like Party! well enough but lets not go crazy

HELL No. And if you go along with the technical argument, then Luciano Pavarotti is better than any of he Beach Boys, so why listen to them?

I would put it this way: Al has a better voice; Bob is a better singer.

How did the surf accent originate? It seems to be the same as the Valley Girl accent. And has devolved into the speech patterns in the SNL "Californians" skit. Lahk, no wayayay, dewwwwwd. 

Duuuuuuude!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf5rIuJPTt0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7frEdv7grlw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJjCnWm5cvE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR4y0KhdcNY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BsWijdM0W0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmNmb2EReG4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqMODweN8lQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAPKB6-DYOY

Returning to this - It's not even about singing voices. The Beach Boys snicker, shout and joke their way through one of the greatest songs ever written. It's such a baffling choice for the Party! treatment. And it makes them seem like they're taking the piss of the whole folk thing, which I guess is evidence of their latent un-hipness seeing as in 1965 Bob Dylan was mad cool.

Also, Bob Dylan is a totally incredible singer. He owns all his own compositions (especially electric-onwards) in such a way that it makes it impossible to cover them. He's incredibly unique, and I think 'good songwriter, crap singer' is just lazy hackwork turned into consensus.

yup, I Get Around.

Bob Dylan is, from a technical standpoint, a terrible singer, but I'm guessing you are approaching it from the angle of how he sings?

In what sense? I mean, he sings in tune on all his classics, he holds those high-ish notes well on stuff like It Aint Me Babe...

"Good" singing is only measurable against a defined set of criteria--not to say it has to be formal (e.g. written down or somehow academically taught), but it has to be understood in context.

A great blues singer is a terrible classical singer. A great classical singer is a terrible blues singer. There are many, many variations on that idea you can use to incorporate different kinds of music, but in the end it comes down to whether the singer is effective within the context of the style. This isn't to say everybody wins, we hand out trophies to everyone who participates. But rather that the difference between being a good singer and being a good singer (in different forms) might be as different as being a good accountant and being a good psychologist.

Sam_BFC and Luther otm, but yeah - how he sings and 'technical' ability aren't much different to my eyes. Dylan has admirable phrasing, technique and can convey great emotions regardless of whether he can hit a high F or any hoop you put in front of him, and I'd submit the first fifteen years of his discography as evidence. A demonstrably 'technically' bad singer (like me) can't sing Blood On The Tracks, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, The Man In Me, Stuck Inside Of Mobile, Knocking On Heavens Door, I Shall Be Released or Mama, You've Been On My Mind (etc etc) the way he does it. Neither can 'good singers'. Try sitting through a compilation of Dylan covers.

I don't hold much truck with 'bad' singing arguments, there are less tangible things to it then the range or control they have. Harry Nilsson and Mariah Carey both had five octave ranges but one is rightly regarded as one of the best voices in American popular music and the other's Mariah Carey, who's all fireworks and conveys no depth or sincerity to me. Like, Lou Reed is a bad 'technical' singer but no-one else can sing Heroin or Rock & Roll, y'know? It's the way he tells 'em.

Also, Luther, I'd submit Odetta as a great classical singer who can sing the blues, but that's nitpicking.

I don't think we disagree (in those first few paragraphs), but maybe the differentiator between "technical ability" and the conveyance of emotion (or appearance of same) is that the former may lean toward being able to do what is written, instructed, etc., while the latter may tend toward presenting one's own character or interpretation. That said, there is a technical ability in communicating emotion, too, it's just not the same one as reading notes from a page or showing range, etc.

On the last point, I didn't mean that a single person can't do two different things well, just that the things themselves are different.

I think of it this way: there is a huge toolkit available for any art form, and in this case for singing. You don't need every tool for every job, and you don't even necessarily need every tool, ever. You can get the job done any number of ways through any combination of tools. The audience, though, is expecting something, and for them to recognize your work as good, you might need to show certain things (tools, or the results of using those tools) that they expect.

Also:

there's a difference between being a bad singer and having a bad voice!