The Smiley Smile Message Board

Seems like the rock music classification isn't the best way to describe what's found on these albums (along with a scattering of other BB tunes).  Or is it?

No.
Next question.
(I think this should be moved to Thread For Various Insignificant Questions...)

That depends on how you define "rock music."

Yeah it rocks. It really, really rocks.

The Beach Boys were a rock band. Yes, Pet Sounds and Smile were and are rock music.

Fire is pretty rocking song, if you just go by the fact that it has loud guitars and drums in it.

The live versions of a lot of the Pet Sounds material is pretty rocking too, the In Concert version of Wouldn't It Be Nice is a completely different beast than the album version.

There are three types of music. Classical, jazz and pop music. Pet Sounds and Smile weren't neither classical nor jazz, then it was pop.

Trust me, this line of thinking saves you a lot of trouble in discerning 'pop' and 'rock'.

Brian said of SMILE its a "teenage symphony to God"

so it can't be rock -- or he was just high as a kite when he said it.  :brian

To me Pet Sounds is a lot less Rock-n-Roll and more Pop-rock with the wide array
of instruments used to record it. There are also symphonic elements to PS an SMILE
and more than a few important people in the industry start to liken Brian to the great
classical composers with the advent of these albums.

There is just way too much more to them to just label it "rock"

it's all just music MAAAAAAAAAN

several of the songs on Pet Sounds can be described as jazz with classical elements.

i would define both PS and SMiLE as rock music, a broader term than rock'n'roll. but there are lots of "rocking" moments on both albums.

Wouldn't It Be Nice has that rockin' accordion sound. That's Not Me has those toms. I'm Waiting For The Day totally rocks. Here Today, Sloop, Ego, etc. They all rock in their own way.

'Gee' is considered by many as the first rock'n'roll song. Brian included it for a reason. SMiLE was traditional and modern rock all at once. still is.
the Heroes chants are classic doo wop and there are some very rocking moments on Cabin Essence, Wind Chimes, Child, and Mrs. OLeary's Cow to name a few.

Yes. PS and SMiLE Rock music, no. Not every music that rocks is Rock music, though. Rock music is overrated, anyway. ;D

You are joking, right?

Just ignoring the fact that classical music only covers the period between 1750 and 1825, where would you out all the different genres of world music, which are as different from each other as chalk and cheese. Where would plainsong go? What about when what is now considered jazz, or classical, would have been considered pop?

I thought I had narrow views! :lol

There are two types of music -- music I like, and bad music. ;)

After the Surf rock days the Beach Boys became a pop band. They still area pop band. For some reason people want everything to be RAWWWK N' ROLLLLLL but to me the Beach Boys are quintessentially a pop band.
For comparison you can consider the Beatles, a band which made more 'rock' sounding music than the Beach Boys yet are labelled a pop band.

I think of Pet Sounds and SMiLE as art music. Or progressive (in the literal sense and not the genre).

Soul music, and I don't mean black soul, I mean from the heart.

That's a good one! :) If I ever should choose a signature for my posts, this would be it! :-D

Yeah, sorry Dancing Bear, but while that might result in a workable system for you, it's not especially accurate.

I try to avoid over-categorizing music, probably in large part because I'm so prone to organizing things that I'd drive myself quite literally insane if I did, but also because music cross-pollinates too easily and often. But there are many basic styles of music outside of classical (even if you use that term to mean "serious" or "art" music, though like (Stephen Newcome) I end up quibbling with that due to the specificity of that term in formal study of art music), jazz, and pop. And those three styles of music interbreed as much as any other.

For example, how does someone categorize Duke Ellington's Black, Brown & Beige, or Andrew Hill's whole catalog? They are every bit as serious and complex as "classical music," but they use jazz. Many, many other jazz composers fit into that same dilemma. What about "classical" composers who use jazz ideas in their music? Equally common issue for the past hundred years or so. "Classical" composers have also used folk--which you omitted from your list, but presumably could fit into the folk category.

What is Frank Zappa, who used all three on a regular basis, and often within the same albums and songs?

I recommend the original poster and everyone else not worry too much about how to classify this or any album. You can find the influences within it and discuss where they come from, just as you can with music that has come out since and been influenced by Pet Sounds or Smile. But to say this album is that and that album is this and this person is XYZ...it's a bit of a waste of time unless you're not intending to come to an answer and having the debate just for the fun of it. Because your answer will be incomplete or incoherent.

(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/09/article-0-193128AB000005DC-965_306x423.jpg)

Hmm...."medium rock ballad" doesn't seem like a phrase that would be used in 1966. Wonder when that dates from?

Well, the phrase was definitely in use as of 1969:
http://www.elvisinfonet.com/spotlight_suspicious_minds.html
Reviewer Bill Crawford noted, "With his left leg moving like a jack hammer, Elvis runs the gamut of his old favourites. His newest song ‘Suspicious Mind’ is a sensuous medium rock ballad that is sure to sell."

Oh sure. But you know hpw the 'classic rock' types think that rock >>>>>> pop. Claiming that it's all pop music is fun and makes them mad.

Of coiurse there are those Brian Wilson fans who believe that Pet Sounds >>>>> everything except for Gerschwin and beyond. It's fun to piss them off too.

Never mind that, it doesn't sound like a phrase I'd use to describe the album version of You Still Believe In Me. Bruce's comments in the auction thread suggest that some of those lead sheets are actually for later tours, and You Still Believe In Me does sound like a medium rock ballad on the In Concert album...


Also - on the album YSBIM is in B, and live in the 70's they played it in C. I'd be certain that's what that sheet is.

This phrase is designed to describe the tempo, not the genre of music.

Agree.  A lot of sheet music from that day, and undoubtedly other days, has that"cue" on it.

In the wrong key, so probably from a rehearsal for live touring (early 70's?).

Its cosmic American music. Thanks Gram.

But the Bealtes were a rock band.  And a pop band. 

I would offer that the same applies to the Beach Boys.

For that matter, one of my other favorite bands of all time, NIRVANA, were a rock band.  And a pop band.  And a punk band, too.

These terms aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

(As always, YMMV)

.

yup that is the final line really.

Luther is pretty on target, I think.  I look at Rock Music as sort of an "amalgam" of many eras and styles, each with what I think of as "leakage" from one style and era, to the next. "Classical" music influence has "imprinted" itself into many subsequent eras and generations.   A textbook version might list a hard and fast dateline, but that is merely a guide for what is in front of you.  

The Beach Boys music is not different from that as each of them brought something different to the table, and the "progressive" label could have imprinted in the early albums, on one track or another and which might be construed as a prefiguration of Today, Summer Days (maybe the instrumental "Summer Means New Love" - used as a "venue departure" during some shows from C50) Pet Sounds, SMiLE, Holland, etc. Brian had classical, Gershwin and other influences that filtered into the music.  

Even with "markings" of rock and roll, Brian and the Boys had progressive themes and styling from the outset.  I strongly disagree that it was 1970's driven, and Carl clearly sets that forth in the Gaumont Palace interview and he talks about the process as dating backwards, definitively, five years or so.  But, it was a process, whose roots were firmly planted at the outset, IMHO.

Rock and roll has R&B, Country, Blues, Jazz, Classsical, Folk...it is often 4/4 time, verse-chorus, and often contains thematic romantic, social, political themes...and some is often public domain adaptations, such as Aura Lee, which Elivis used as "Love Me Tender."  Sloop John B is in that category.

Much is being discussed about whether Good Vibrations should have been on Pet Sounds...I wonder if it would have overshadowed God Only Knows, Wouldn't it Be Nice, or the sweetly yearning Caroline, No.  I think it gave Smiley a good "anchor" even though it was a "snapshot" of the vision Brian had.  And, might have made these gems in the Pet Sounds corpus, such as You Still Believe in Me or I'm Waiting for the Day or even Pet Sounds (the instrumental) which David Marks led so beautifully on the C50 extravaganza, sparkle less.  I see that GV "omission" on Pet Sounds as the silver lining.

Who cares?

Do you appreciate it?  If not, move on.

Smilin Ed H - I guess it matters to many.  It makes me cringe when I see these "Histories of Rock and Roll" texts ( that I have to pay for) or those generic types in bookstores, such as those coffee-table versions, which either marginalize the Boys contributions, and/or ignore the very large influence on music, in general, and popular culture, with contributions to music history, in particular. 

Now, after 50 plus years, we have whole generations of music major and music minor students,  or even music appreciation ( required course, context ) who may be getting a very one-sided or jaded version of the music and see it through a music critic's eyes (whose opinion is paid for) or some music professor's eyes who may have a bias one way or another. 

And, I guess I might struggle with that, having spent many years in an academic context, and seeing instructional bias, with professors who didn't ever take the work of the Band, seriously.  And place them in a leisure industry context, only, and don't present the concepts in a more neutral context where the students can form their own opinions and tastes, free from their personal biases.  It is a concern that the music is not "taken as a whole."  JMHO  ;)

What is the right key?  My sheet music for it is in "G" but on the piano it seems to be in "B" (my piano is currently tuned a half-step low, don't ask, it's 97 years old and that's the closest the tuner could bring it up at one time without breaking it to pieces, so it actually matches up to the record as "C"). Didn't Brian right a number of songs in "B", which is an easy "hand-fitting" piano key along with "Eb"?

It's in B.

"It makes me cringe when I see these "Histories of Rock and Roll" texts ( that I have to pay for) or those generic types in bookstores, such as those coffee-table versions, which either marginalize the Boys contributions, and/or ignore the very large influence on music, in general, and popular culture, with contributions to music history, in particular."

That, I agree with.