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Brian's love of 1950s music is today well known to BBs fans. But my question is this, what did the fans in the 1960s think of Brian's doo-wop covers like "why do fools fall in love" and "hushabye" along with the four freshmen stuff? The 1950s seemed like pre-history by the end of the 1960s.

I can't answer for '60s fans but having come on-stream in the min'70s I love the stuff. Was into the Del Vikings around the same time I discovered the Beach Boys, have always loved that style of vocal harmony. It's one of many styles that reside at their very core.

No secret that I love 15BOs, and would love to hear the surviving BBs cover some more doo-wop under BW's direction. Suspect I'm gonna be disappointed.  :-\

I love 15 big ones as well because it shows their roots and Brian could still do 1950s covers that had originality in them. I hope they release 51 big ones this year. ;D

Yes, by the end but not when Brian and the boys recorded them

The terms "oldies", to describe 50's music, was in usage by the early 60's.

When you're a young teen-ager, as i was when those songs were first done by the Beach Boys, 10 years ago seems pre-historic.

That's why it's so funny to me that the term is still generally used to mean '50s and some '60s music, when it could very well apply to music from the early '00s or late '90s. Yet people still talk about "modern music" and they're talking about things that are 20 or 30 years old...

I agree.

Most of the fans in 1964 were new to listening to top 40 radio and to buying records, and wouldn't be aware of the Four Freshman or the Mystics. 'Hushabye' seemed to be just another Beach Boy cut (unless they looked at the song-writing credits).

'Why Do Fools Fall in Love?' was a different matter. Most pop radio stations did play occasionally "classic" oldies, and would have been familiar to listeners barely born in 1956 (when it was originally released). It was experienced as a cover song, same as the Beatles doing their versions of other classic oldies like 'Roll Over Beethoven', 'Blue Sued Shoes' , 'Long Tall Sally' or 'Kansas City'.

True story... I was working on a project a few years ago and I'd taken a quick break. Alice in Chains was on and I was asked why I had the oldies station on. Jesus and I both wept.

A few days ago I had a conversation with a friend who had just bought a car. He was excited(it was his first car), but worried because of how old it was. He went on for a while about having just bought a really old car, and how conserned he was that with his luck it would break down as soon as he tried to take it out somewhere. Being a car buff, I got excited and asked him what year it was from. He replied "1995".  ;D

Don't buy into the Myth of the 60s, Elvis' comeback special was popular in 68. The White Album, T.Rex. The 50s was never far away.

Y'know, I get a little fed up of Mojo and Uncut when they run features on what I regard as modern crap, like David Bowie, Dr Feelgood and U2…

Oh God

Sure, but still the sound hadn't changed that much. A song like "Why do fools fall in love?" didn't seem very out of place in '63.

"Oldies" was also used in '68 to already describe stuff like "Surfer girl".
Today the word mostly refers to the 50s/60s of innocent pop music, pre the big change when Rock started being taken seriously - and in many cases much too seriously -  that came in the middle of the 60s. It's almost like '65 and before: oldies, '66 and later: classic Rock (or something to that effect).

Off topic again - somebody needs to complain to a mod...oh wait- but I just realized something odd about myself. When it comes to 60s and 70s music my tastes are somewhat pretentious... I generally don't like poppier music. I'm kind of an elitist snob in that regard. Yet from 1980 on the pendulum swings to the complete opposite direction. WTF lol

But it also seems like certain genres/styles or even specific groups get lumped into either "oldies" or "classic rock". For example, Jimi, the Stones, Post-Pepper Beatles, the San Fransisco band, CCR, the Doors, etc. are thrown into "classic rock", where the BBs, the Rascals, Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Mamas and Papas, Association, Simon and Garfunkel, the Monkees, bubblegum groups, even R&B/Soul artists are put into the supposedly less-credible "oldies" slot. I have a pretty broad personal criteria for "classic rock". To me "classic rock" means any rock and roll related music that is at least 20 years old. Anything from 10000 Maniacs, to Flock of Seagulls, to the Dave Clark Five, to Fats Domino...   Damn commercial radio and its narrow-ass formatting.

wait,people still listen to the radio? for god sakes, why? Last time I checked the 'oldies station in portland plays stuff from the 80's but nothing from the fifties, and I'm pretty sure they have just one 12 track time/life cd of music from the 60's. Total crap.

You just can't tell why something happened sometimes, but for instance, maybe the record company wanted them to record some oldies?  Maybe the secretary's husband wrote "Hushabye" and wanted some more money, and Dennis asked her ona  date, and she said she'd go to dinner with him if the Beach Boys covered Hushabye. 


I'm certain that's what happened. 

What news from the front?