The Smiley Smile Message Board

The Beach Boys were much more popular in Britain than American in the late 60s and early 70s. It seemed every record did significantly better in the UK than the US at that time. There was a definite fervor among UK fans. Other than "Americans must be stupid," why do you think the UK embraced the band more than US fans of the period (at least on a mainstream level)?

The Beach Boys were associated with what had become very square, unhip images of America -- cars, school spirit, etc. That baggage was fatal to them in the U.S. But it didn't carry the same weight in the U.K., where they had become popular later on anyhow, with material that wasn't quite as gimmicky. Without that baggage, the music was allowed to speak for itself.

Seventh-rate album reviews like this didn't help:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/wild-honey-19680224

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/friends-19680824

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/20-20-19690419

I apologize for the links, but I feel that if there's one magazine that hurt the Beach Boys back home, 'twas the smarmy San Fran upstart rag.

Boy, those are some super obnoxious reviews. "After Pet Sounds, the only flaw of which was its indulgence in a sometimes over-lush sound, they cleaned up and came out with Smiley Smile, so controlled, precise and tight that it risked (and at times lost to) sterility."

Fine! Can't win either way!

I think this reminder was posted for Smile4ever a few months ago but may be time again.

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,13911.0.html


Lots of questions, most only suitable for the thread below.

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,8214.0.html


Just saying....

Well, that "smarmy San Fran upstart rag" got rid of a bunch of assholes that had no creds for being record reviewers and hired some real reviewers that know what they're talking about:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/the-10-coolest-summer-albums-of-all-time-20120718/the-beach-boys-wild-honey-1967-20120717

Pretty Funky--How was that posted for me? How are any of my questions or posts questioned as illegitimate?

The fact is, I've been a Beach Boys fan since I was literally a young boy. But for one reason or another, I've never really investigated the online fanbase in the form of message boards. Here at Smiley Smile, there's a shockingly active and incredibly knowledgeable fan base. As far as I'm concerned, this board is a rare opportunity for me to intelligently talk to other fans about the group and its music.  There is a wide spectrum of age demographics on this board, which is awesome. I happen to be part of Gen Y, and don't personally have many deep conversations about The Beach Boys among my peers. So I apologize if I appear to ask too many questions in a short time period, but a lot of ideas have come to my mind and I now have somewhere to channel these thoughts. I think the first post I did here months ago was kind of a joke (Topic: Are Beach Boys kids proud or do "they think their old man's really a square?"), but otherwise I've simply been trying to tap the resources on this board for information. I love to learn and I'm not here to cause any trouble.

My question in this thread is/was completely valid. I don't even see how it could be viewed as otherwise. During the aforementioned time period, the band was very popular in the UK, and not popular at all in their home country of the US. This is despite the fact that they're often perceived to represent the "spirit of America" to many fans (pun not intended until I wrote it). That being said, it's very interesting that the UK would embrace them feverishly while they were ignored in America. Seems like an intriguing discussion about culture, music, and The Beach Boys. To me, that would seem to fit well within the board's purpose for existence.

For the record, I wasn't even a member of these boards whenever that notice was posted. So it wasn't for me.

Not sure that I'd call Wild Honey a summer album but at least it's praise.

My whole thing was that the magazine was none too kind in the late '60s and early '70s when the group really needed it.

They were a fresher act as only I Get Around had hit before Barbara Ann. I think it often happens that the American image appeals to people overseas more, vice versa with English groups here in the States.

How's that? This is actually a good question, and sure beats some of the other threads we've been having lately.

Early this year we had many threads started over a short period of time, most of them 'lists' by one poster. After some looking back, it wasn't you Smile4ever but it did result in this thread.

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,15050.0.html

For that I put my hands up. It was someone else so sorry.

You have asked some good questions sure, but maybe myself and others have been around so long, perhaps too long, that we have seen the topics discussed over and over.

So yeah....that may be my problem...not yours.

No bad vibes I hope.

Those RS reviews weren't as bad as i was honestly expecting.

Indeed. I'm not sure how anybody could really argue with the 20/20 review at all.

Thanks for the reviews! I always looked for such articles from back then.

Smiley Smile - sterile, tight and controlled  :lol

I was aware of that but quite frankly never put it all together like you did.  As I believe Mike Love said "cars, girls and surfing were okay but there was a war going on" which is pretty much the truth.  It was probably one of of the one failings (if you can call it that) about The Beach Boys music in the sixties that they rarely (if ever) addressed the agitated political and social climate that was swirling around everyone's head in those days.  I remember reading in I believe Kingsley Abbot's book about "Pet Sounds" that politics or current events didn't interest Brian Wilson all that much.  It turned him off and what he was more interested in writing about were about personal connections between people.  So the fact that The Beach Boys didn't dabble in writing songs that catered to the viewpoint of the counter culture probably hurt their image in the United States in the late sixties. 

You cant account for "taste" in different nations.

Slim Whitman was huge in the UK but a mild sensation in his native land.

In the matter of the BB I have to give Kudos to the English.  ;D

I have to say those reviews are not second rate at all but fairly spot on.  I am sure sure you can find some wrong headed reviews of the bbs in rs but those reviews aren't them

Rolling Stone is always going be remembered by me as an unsightly blemish on the otherwise distinguished career of Ralph J. Gleason. That rag (along with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) is a complete and utter joke; I wouldn't even use it to wipe my ass.

The Beach Boys aren't the only band that the magazine trashed and then lavished praise on years later. Led Zeppelin's the most classic example of that faint praise. Weezer, as well.

Well, just from the perspective of someone who lived through it all, I don't think it's a matter of better taste. I think American music became somewhat cynical in the aftermath of the "Summer of Love's" failure to revolutionize the world. Youth culture tended to drift toward more angry, heavy rock. Angry and edgy was in, peace and love were out. Sure, you could still find softer fare on the radio, much of it successful. I'm thinking of the Carpenters, Chicago, etc. But, the Beach Boys certainly weren't edgy, and they didn't quite adopt a seventies frame of reference. One of the reasons Endless Summer was such a hit, IMO, is because America was ready for a break from all that anger, and the American Graffiti/Happy Days era gave them a way back to less strident times. I'm guessing battle fatigue never quite hit England, so they could better appreciate what the Boys were offering up.

In saying this, I see a lot of blame laid at the feet of Endless Summer. People say if it hadn't been for that album's success, the Beach Boys wouldn't have drifted into being a nostalgia act, etc. I think, without Endless Summer, they might have just faded away altogether. I was one of those who bought that album. I grew up listening to the Boys on the radio in the early sixties and loved their sound and the fun lyrics. But, since I was young, I didn't have any of their records. Endless Summer gave me all of those great singles in one big package. I still have that vinyl. The poster used to be on my in my room wall, but seems to have disappeared. It's too bad the Boys couldn't find a way to capitalize on that renewed fame and spin it into a new direction.

I think that you are correct in that Endless Summer is not entirely to blame, but it did blast them back into Super Stardom. While The Boys' were building a following between the years 1971-1974, that combination of Endless Summer, American Graffiti and the Nostalgia craze just all hit at the right time. It was too strong a tide to pull away from; they gave the fans what they wanted to hear.

I think Brian had the right idea for classic sounding BBs songs (good timin, Its ok) in 1974 before he really went off the deep end.

Pretty Funky--No problem. I have no bad vibrations. It's understandable that if you've been here a while, maybe some of these topics become repetitive.
 


This is a very interesting point. Endless Summer is kind of polarizing because it sort of "type casted" the Beach Boys into a nostalgia role. People often blame it for that. But it also solidified the band's legacy, and maybe they would have completely faded off without it. It's hard to say, but it certainly merits more (speculative) discussion.

No amount of vinyl or plastic can do such a thing. What happened was due to the demand of the fans. Those fans were more interested in hearing them perform the oldies, rather than hear anything new.

True, and from the point of the original q (UK success vs US relative failure), something even simpler: your late-60s generation was being sent off to the Far East as cannon fodder, whereas we Brits, as Robyn Hitchcock so eloquently said, were sitting in country gardens drinking tea, eating cucumber sandwiches and listening to Syd Barrett and Traffic.

I don't think so either.

But Rolling Stone founder Wenner had issues and so did his "followers":

Jann Wenner had little love for the Beach Boys, and made no secret of the fact he thought Brian Wilson was mediocre and overrated. In his very first RS column, entitled "Rock and Roll Music," Wenner criticized Wilson for daring to believe he was as talented as the Beatles:

"His promotion men started to tell him and his audience that he was a "genius" and on a par with Lennon and McCartney. That's cool, cause we're all just folks, but no one is John Lennon except John Lennon and no one is Paul McCartney except Paul McCartney and the Beach Boys (let alone Chad and Jeremy) are not the Beatles...The Beach Boys are just one prominent example of a group that has gotten hung up in trying to catch the Beatles. It is a pointless pursuit. A lot of people talked about it but the Beatles have so far been the only group to come up with a fully orchestrated and interiorly (sic) cohesive smyphonic (sic) or operatic piece."

Of course, Paul McCartney himself later remarked that Pet Sounds was one of his favorite records, and a major influence on Sgt. Peppers: "It was Pet Sounds that blew me out of the water. I love the album so much. I've just bought my kids each a copy of it for their education in life...to me, it certainly is a total, classic record that is unbeatable in many ways...I've often played Pet Sounds and cried."

Ralph J. Gleason, Jann Wenner's mentor and co-founder of Rolling Stone, was also incredulous of Brian Wilson's purported "genius." In his 1/20/68 "Perspectives" column, for example, he wrote that "[t]he Beach Boys, when they were a reflection of an actuality of American society (i.e. Southern California hot rod, surfing and beer-bust fraternity culture), made music that had validity and interest. When they went past that, they were forced inexorably to go into electronic and this excursion, for them, is of limited scope, good as the vibrations were." He was even more blunt in his 2/24/68 column: "With the Beach Boys the necessity of recharging the batteries led to a lot of pretentious nonsense aided and abetted by the flacks calling Brian Wilson a genius. The Beach Boys are a logical extension of Pat Boone and Ricky Nelson (as well as Paul Anka). They look like and perform like summer resort boozers, Fort Lauderdale weekend collegians. They sound like that, too."

In retrospect the fact that anyone - let alone Gleason, the respected, nearly twenty-year veteran jazz critic for the San Francisco Chronicle - could think "Surfin' Safari" or "409" had more "validity," and a broader scope than "God Only Knows" or "Good Vibrations" (or that Brian Wilson was the "logical extension of Pat Boone"!), is almost unbelievable.

Mikie, great post! From what articles or books were the quoted portions from?

WOW. No kidding. That is absolutely mind-boggling.

It sure is. Rolling Stone ran an article by Wenner unfairly describing The Beach Boys as “just one prominent example of a group that had gotten hung up trying to catch The Beatles.”

Doc, there's other real good stuff here too.  Rolling Stone's 500 Worst Reviews of All Time:

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/schmidtt/rolling_stones_500_worst_reviews_of_all_time__work_in_progress_

Getting back to the original question, surely the obvious answer is that us Limeys have just got much better taste and superior artistic judgement!  ;D

The Zombies, on the other hand, were much more successful in the US than they were in the UK.

But really, 1967 was a watershed year in the US for so many previously-huge bands. The Dave Clark Five and Herman's Hermits, like the Beach Boys, hung on for a few years in the UK top 40 after beginning to tank in the US singles chart.

They just went out of fashion. New times, new bands.

Rolling Stone was the bible for hipsters in the U.S. at the time. Nothing else has done more damage to The Beach Boys' reputation than that rag, who had a generation of devotees blindly believing everything that spewed forth from Wenner and co.
I still see it resonating today, especially with some boomers who came of age in the late 60's. You could play "Pet Sounds" and "The Smile Sessions" a million times over for them and they'll still say it's all about surfing and doo-wop and that its stupid (of course they're wrong about equating surfing music and doo-wop with stupidity too).

They've been so thoroughly brainwashed by Wenner and crew that it's almost supernatural in retrospect. The gospel made it clear to these dopes. The Beatles were gods and The Beach Boys don't even have the right to shine their shoes.   >:(   

Kind of makes you wish that Mike Love had struck out at Jann Wenner instead of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones at the HOF induction ceremony doesn't it?  That would've been awesome in my view.  I haven't purchased a copy of "Rolling Stone" magazine since the nineties. 

I was pretty disgusted to see Rolling Stone recently posted a "best summer songs" list and The Beach Boys only came in at number 4 with California Girls.

Also, that was the only Beach Boys song that made that list. If The Beatles did summers songs they would occupy the entire top 10.

whats up shady? DON'T YOU LIKE DA BEATLES, THE GREATEST BAND OF ALL TIME?!??!!!?!!?!??!

Oh..... The Beatles.

Of course I do, they never made a bad song and they're so cute

 :lol

I read it mainly for the political articles/investigative reporting. I could do without them constantly kissing the asses of the same 10 or so classic/big rock acts and their treating of crappy top 40 pop singers as serious artists. Have the Boys ever even made the cover of RS besides the "Brian in the blue bathrobe" pic from '76?

Yes, the October 26, 1971 issue of Rolling Stone. First of a two part article on them.

Agreed - I think the polarisations in taste, style, outlook are attributable to the Fight against Communism, the realities of the Vietnam War and the in-fighting and cultural and economic responses it caused back home. And if you weren't demonstrably taking sides, or appealing to either mood, you got left behind.

As for the Brits, perhaps they were still recovering from being smashed to hell in WW2, and were looking for respite.

That doesn't quite explain the mellow sounds of yr James Taylors, yr CSN(y), yr Y's, Joni Mitchells and Laurel Canyon dudes and dudettes who sold a tonne during the time. Saying 'it was all rock' excludes the major sound of The Beach Boys' backyard!

Carl lived in Laurel Canyon in the early 70's, from what I understand - it would have been quite something if he dropped into the songwriting culture there more often, seeing as he was starting to explore his artistic side anyway.

This really gets to me as well or putting non-music celebrities on the cover.  I may have mentioned this the last time we as a forum discussed this but one of my musical heroes, Tom Petty once said that when he made his first RS cover in 1980 it was the hugest honor for him because back then as a musician making the cover of RS magazine indicated that you really had made it or done something special.  The reason being because back then only the best artists were selected for the cover of "Rolling Stone".  Unfortunately that is no longer the case.

I saw someone try to make the argument the other day that Taylor Swift belongs in the same category as The Beatles and other artists of their ilk because she's sold a lot of records and by category I don't mean as groupings of artists who have sold a lot of records but artists who deserve legendary status.  It is what it is I suppose.

I'd bet you my collection of Mike Love baseball caps that some guy about your age said that when Tom Petty made the cover in 1980....

Glad to see that I'm not alone in my disgust of Rolling Stone.

I, too, think that Mike should have started in on Wenner, perhaps at the point where he sort of went off on Woody Guthrie. I think it would have made the speech a bit less of a mess. Maybe something like this:

"Now, that Jan Winner or whatever, you know, the guy from Rolling Stone? Boy, I wish The Beach Boys had mentors, money like him when we were starting out. When the Wilsons, my mother's family, I'm first cousin to Brian, Carl and the late Dennis, the surfer of the group, when they first came to California, they were Kansas dustbowl Swedes who didn't have enough money to rent or buy a house, they had to live in tents on the beach in Huntington Beach, California. Sure, we in the Beach Boys have had our interstescene squabbles and such but we earned everything that we have tonight. Me and Brian wrote "Surfin'" twenty-seven years ago and we only got better from there. Our songs, our harmonies will live forever. I was pumping gas for a living before that endless harmony saved me."

Probably would have changed the perception of his speech.

I liked the magazine when I was a kid. Then, my tastes changed, expanded, broadened. If one's music collection begins and ends with greatest hits albums and the radio dial, it's the right magazine for you.

Fair call, although you could argue those dudes were emerging/newish on the scene (James and Joni) and had some folkie cred behind them when they did break, as opposed to the perception of the BB background (hence the polarising jive from above).  

I know the CSNY guys had been kicking around in various "pop" bands in the early '60s scene, but they managed to take a different tack post these bands; noting that Buffalo Springfield got a rep for a pretty good protest song with "For what it's worth".  

Love your thoughts about Carl getting more involved in the broader LA scene - that live rendition of Rock and Roll Woman always blows me away.

Yeah but as much as I love Tom Petty he doesn't belong in that category either (at least in my opinion).  It's an old argument about how you can turn things around and say for instance how the general public in 1964 didn't take The Beatles seriously and they ended up being arguably the greatest band in history.  But that argument has never washed with me because The Beatles to me were the exception, not the rule.  More times that not the artist never lives up to the hype.  The select few who do in my opinion do deserve that legendary status that is ascribed to them.  Now who belongs in that category is subjective obviously but a good jumping off point would be the first couple of induction classes of the RNR HOF in my opinion.  You can cherry pick a few artists from other eras after that but in all honesty if we are to try and be objective only a select few are honestly deserving of such an honor.

EDIT: Nothing.

The early 70's saw a credibility revival for some other artists who in the late 60's were regarded as irrelevant : Carole King, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder. The Beach Boys weren't alone.

And credit is due Rolling Stone -- and Time magazine -- with leading the way for the Beach Boy revival in 1971.

For all the weight given it, the wilderness years era was brief : 1968-1970. By 1971 they were back on the map again.

And speaking of 70's LA and The Beach Boys' backyard, the sound of Sunflower is very idiosyncratic, but possibly the wrong sort of idiosyncratic? It's no folky strummy CSN, it's lavish and twee and sugary. It wouldn't be unfair to equate The Beach Boys with people like Randy Newman or Gram Parsons on the label - they shift enough copies of Sweet Baby James & Ladies Of The Canyon to cover these interesting experiments that don't sell well.

People like Randy never exactly chased the zeitgeist (and Gram always thought it passed him by, I think) but what's sad about The Beach Boys is that it could have been cool for them to settle into the post-Holland era as that sort of artist, rather than chasing past glories*. It takes a certain kind of bloody-mindedness, I think that's the word, for them to stubbornly cling to the idea that Brian Wrote The Hits when they had Dennis, Carl, Blondie & Ricky also able to write quality material. Brian no longer had to be the Goose That Laid The Golden Egg!

*memory declining in my dotage, but was there any motive to 'Brian's Back!' in the group along the lines of 'Brian is getting worse and worse in LA, maybe the road will straighten him out'? Because drugs are so hard to find on tour with a 70's rock band...

Good points.  I think we may however be over analyzing this a bit when we have basically ascertained why The Beach Boys popularity took a downward shift stateside in the late sixties and early seventies.  Again Mike Love said it best, their image was out of step with the times.  Moreso the songs they were writing from a topical and stylistic point of view were out of step with the times.  That doesn't mean they weren't good quality songs but they didn't fit into any of the popular genres of the day as hypehat somewhat referenced above.

Also it's important to remember that in a lot of cases the impression you make in a big time, clutch situation is very important to how you are viewed by your public.  This is certainly true in sports and film and to a degree true in music as well.  The difference is that athletes and films (and their stars) are usually hyped up far more than most records are.  The Beach Boys in 1967 by their own admission delivered a bunt instead of a grand slam with "Smiley Smile".  This was extremely damaging to their reputation as artists who could deliver the goods or even deliver on their promises after "SMiLE" was quite possibly the most hyped record of it's day coming off the back of the megahit "Good Vibrations", the "Brian Wilson is a genius" campaign and all the rest.

Most athletes who fail to deliver in the clutch are often derided by the sports media as chokers.  Carlos Beltran will for instance always be looked upon by some Mets fans and the media as a chokejob and a bad signing by the organization because he looked at a called strike three to end the NLCS in 2006. (sorry Wrightfan, best example I could think of at the moment).  This is despite the fact that Beltran was overall a solid player for The Mets and if we are to be fair is likely undeserving of that reputation.  Kevin Costner in 1995 I believe had a major film release entitled "Waterworld" which I believe at the time was the highest budget film ever produced.  The film was a complete flop at the box office and Costner's career has really never gotten back to where it was before "Waterworld".  The Beach Boys never did deliver "SMiLE" to the masses (well not at least until 2011).  To make matters worse, Brian Wilson made the decision to retreat from the studio to seclusion putting even less of an emphasis on public life than he had prior to the collapse of the "SMiLE" album.  So in the mind of the general public who at the time were obviously not given all the information we have at our disposal today and a lot of misinformation to boot (thank you Jann Wenner) were given the impression that Brian Wilson and his Beach Boys were a failed musical act who decided to pack up their bags and go home.

It didn't matter that the boys aside from Brian were still touring and still releasing records at a regular clip in the aftermath of "SMiLE".  The public wasn't going to give them a second chance regardless of who was writing the songs.  The general public looked upon them as a failed musical act and I'm guessing that there were at least a few others who rejected a lot of the post "SMiLE" material as being not worthy of consideration because well it wasn't the holy grail that they were promised back several years previous in the aftermath of "Good Vibrations", the "Inside Pop" piece and other forums.

The "general public" had no idea that there ever was a Smile project.

What the 1967 general public knew : the Beach Boys are off the radio for 8 months before coming back with 'Heroes and Villains'. Meanwhile there had been Sgt. Peppers, exciting hit singles by the Doors and Jefferson Airplane, and enormous press given to the new psychedelic rock and to the hippie movement in general. The Beach Boys were in the same position as were, say,  the Everly Brothers in the middle of the 64/65 British invasion  : no longer happening.

Arguable point but it was heavily hyped in a lot of fan magazines and people who followed the group at the time would've been aware that "SMiLE" was both eagerly anticipated and much hyped.  It failed to materialize and what was put out in it's place was frowned upon at large at the time.  To me that taken together is quite crucial.