The Smiley Smile Message Board

There are Beach Boys albums that stand out in our minds as our favorites, our least favorites, and ones that are neither but we have strong opinions about.  And then there are...

THE ALBUM(S) OUR MINDS FORGET.


Which Beach Boys album(s) do you "forget" about the most?
(Here's a list of their "true" LPs [not including Christmas, Party, Cruisin', Stripes, or live albums] in case you've forgotten  :lol )

Surfin' Safari
Surfin' U.S.A.
Surfer Girl
Little Deuce Coupe
Shut Down Volume II
All Summer Long
The Beach Boys Today!
Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)
Pet Sounds
Smiley Smile
Wild Honey
Friends
20/20
Sunfower
Surf's Up
Carl and the Passions "So Tough"
Holland
15 Big Ones
Love You
M.I.U.
L.A.
Keepin' the Summer Alive
The Beach Boys
Summer in Paradise
That's Why God Made the Radio

I forget about "20/20" and "L.A." the most--I think the former because it lacks cohesiveness and feels thrown together (despite it being a good album), and the latter because only one song leaves a significant impression on me ("Baby Blue").

Beach Boys Party..I NEVER play it.
 

Shut Down Volume 2--yeah yeah I know why it's called volume 2, but the fact remains there is no volume 1 released solely by The Beach Boys, makes Shut Down Volume II iakin to Traveling Wilburys Volume III when there was no Volume II (I know an argument is made for Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever as like Traveling Wilburys Volume II, but it isn't officially). So yeah I play All Summer Long literally three times as often as SDV2…even though SDV2 has some killer tracks on it.

Shut Down Volume II.

It's like a 1964 version of 20/20 (where there are really good songs on it but there is absolutely no order; it feels chaotic and doesn't make for a good album listening experience).

I rarely listen to this album all the way through and therefore forget that it exists most of the time.

Wow rab, thanks to the wonders of the internet you and I were typing about the same album at the same time…SPOOKY

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call Smiley Smile...

;D

That's Why God Made the Radio. I already forgot about it.

The other ones I've "forgotten" about the last few years are Summer In Paradise, Beach Boys '85, and MIU. 
 

How about Stack-O-Tracks? You didn't mention it in the list of albums or in the list of exclusions...so that one's forgotten right there.  :lol

1. stars and stripes
2. all concert albums
3. stack o tracks
4. Christmas (except during christmas time)
5.party

other contender
1. nascar

Yeah, and where are "In Concert '64", "Live In London" and the reissue, and "In Concert '73"? Those were regular issued albums too. And the Christmas album and reissue. And to a lesser extent, the greatest hits and comp albums. And the Party! album. And what about the Smile Sessions?

What kinda thread is this?

L.A. Without a Shadow Of A Doubt. (Complex, I know  ;))

LOVE YOU

awwwwwwwwwwwwwww isn't that sweet, someone is in love...lol... :lol :p

Only With You
 ;D

Yep , and with the Farmers Daughter  :lol

with Johnny Carson watching.

lol....

Discounting Compilations, just Studio Albums. And that excludes Stars and Stripes, it's a tribute album, not a actual Beach Boys album.
The most forgetful for me is their Christmas album, and their Party album

Quite contraire, Pierre. Stars and Stripes Vol. 1 was the 28th studio album by The Beach Boys. It was Mike Love's idea, and was a collaborative album with the Beach Boys and various country musicians.

If you read my initial post, you'll see that my intention was only to consider the "true" LPs, i.e. albums consisting of (primarily) original material. I left out comp albums, live albums, and even the Smile Sessions (not like anyone would say that the Smile Sessions is their most forgotten lol) because...well because they're obviously the first ones we'd forget.  :)

Either Holland or 15 Big Ones.

M.I.U., LA, and Friends are barely on my radar.  I know they're there if I'm naming the albums but I almost never think about them; especially the first two.  As much as I personally dislike Smiley Smile and Love You (and to a lesser extent, Summer In Paradise), I totally understand their place in the catalog and can see (for the most part) why they exist.  The other three just mean almost nothing to me.

I can't even imagine being a BB fan and not digging Friends. Well, as a wise man once said, thank god we all like different things or else everyone would be after my wife

L.A. seems to get mentioned a lot. I listen to that album all the time, even though it does have its flaws. Good Timin' is a song I never get tired of and Baby Blue is sublime.

Stack-O-Tracks

I rarely listen to Summer Days. Its few good songs are already on compilations. I'd also rather not hear "Amusement Parks USA." 

Shut down vol 2
Surfin usa

Solo albums:
Brian Wilson reimagines Gershwin

I haven't listened to all of BW's solo albums yet, but I can say that I immediately forgot about "In the Key of Disney" after listening to it lol.

That's Why God Made The Radio.

I listened to it endlessly for about a week when it was first released, finally decided it didn't warrant the praise that was being lavished on it on this site (the auto-tune just kills it for me... Well, that and the fact that half the songs are crap) and have barely listened to it once since. Whenever I do I put it on with a great deal of hope - maybe it'll be better than I remember - but alas, no...

The last two. I jettisoned my Summer in Paradise after about a week. Couldn't get into TWGMTR really - too artificial.

The rest I think of and/or play from time to time. E.g. although Keepin isn't a great album there's at least two tunes on it which keep popping into my head. Similarly Surfin Safari has some ear-worms.

While I have every song from 20/20 in some self-made compilation or another, I always forget about it. It's a fantastic album, but it does feel like a compilation, not an LP.

I listen to both ITKOD and BWRG regularly. The one BW solo album I forget about is 'Gettin in over my head'

Surfin Safari.. Surfin USA...1st Xmas lp..Ultimate Xmas lp..Party...

They had an album called Pet Sounds?  Can someone remind me what was on it?

Nothing important, I mean there are no songs about surfing or cruising in your hot rod, just some weird junk instrumentals and lots of boring whiny love songs.

I tend to forget that certain songs are on 20/20 as opposed to forgetting the whole album exists. I look at it as a hodgepodge album filled with random material from the rest of the band, with Brian contributing the least amount of material ever on a BB album at this point. It comes across as kind of a transitional effort into Sunflower and Surfs Up later except not cohesive at all, and coming across like a compilation of stuff rather than a fully flowing album, with some recent singles/old outtakes tacked onto it.

Then I remember there's songs like "Time To Get Alone", the LP version of "Cottonfields", "I Went To Sleep", "Never Learn Not To Love" (which I always think is a throwaway, but then I remember the harmonies on it are fantastic) and the awesome Smile outtakes. All songs I love and are gems that are some of my favorites. Overall, I just tend to forget how great of an album it is. It probably could have been sequenced better, and as much as the Smile outtakes are essential, they don't fit on here well and seem like they're tacked on to gain some extra attention.

I really don't care for "Nearest Faraway Place", but besides that there's not a mediocre song on there... I guess "Bluebirds" is mediocre, but I like it well enough. Shame that it does seem like a hastily put together album as it is a great one. I guess it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. Not all great albums have to flow all that well, as long as the material is strong.

Another thing about 20/20 that I love is the LP version of "Cottonfields". The single version is great and perhaps more radio-friendly, but I love the LP version that Brian produced and prefer it. I recently heard the backing track of the LP off of some Dumb Angel rarities collection and it made me love it even more. Yeah maybe it's not "punchy" enough and maybe slower and kinda sluggish, but the instrumentation is pure Brian and I love the unique arrangement he gave this song.

Surfin' USA. Surfin' Safari is hard to ignore, being their first, and Surfer Girl always gets praise for In My Room and the title cut; Surfin' USA just seems to get lost in between them. I played it for the first time in years recently and was pleasantly surprised. Who would've ever guessed the BB's recorded so many instrumentals? And good ones!

hehe, you buster  ;D

I haven't listened to The Beach Boys 85 or LA Light Album for a number of years now so they don't figure high on my radar, neither do I really get the urge to play them – not that they are bad, they are okay, there are so many better albums with better tracks. I actually prefer some of the Summer In Paradise stuff to what's on those albums.

Ditto.  I've said before as bad as SIP is (and is IS bad), the WORST thing about it is the production.  I would love to have access to the vocal tracks and re-record the whole thing, from the ground up, around them.  Beyond the production, the biggest crime is Mike and Terry trying way to hard to recapture the magic of "Kokomo" but at least they're trying SOMETHING.  Some of the other albums (regardless of what really went into them) come off sounding like they were completely phoned in.

Totally agree.  Party has been long forgotten tho.

The number one that I forget is probably 15 Big Ones, KTSA, SELF TITLED.

But the first 4 or so album completely blend together for me so I guess in that way I forget about them as individual albums.

Looks like it tends to be on either side of the bb career.

I never listen to Surfin' Safari or anything after Love You. It's not so much that I forget their post-1977 output so much as I choose to avoid it because it's almost uniformly terrible. I do genuinely forget about their debut album as well as Party!, the "live" albums and 20/20 (even if that album has some of their most stellar songs on it). Stack-O-Tracks is awfully forgettable too.

I forgot...

What I Really Want for Christmas.
I actually have never listened to it all the way through in its entirely.
That being said, I kinda sorta dig the new songs on the album, as well as the BBs remakes (which I thought were surprisingly good).

I mostly listen to 1963-73 when it comes to Beach Boys. The 3 LP POB set a major exception.

I don't forget any BB albums, per se, BUT I tend to get LDC and SDV2 tracks mixed-up - maybe due to a home made cassette.

I am exploring a variety of legal methods, stopping short of sniffing glue, to help me forget MIU.

Ah yes, the Christmas albums... The one from the 60s is unbearably white-bread even by BB standards and I hardly ever listen to it except for "Little Saint Nick" and "We Three Kings" (which I think is gorgeous!). I like some of their M.I.U. Christmas material... not the "Loop De Loop" thing, however. That one's beyond painful! What I Really Want for Christmas I consider pretty lame overall, the clip-art style cover art really is the giveaway. I love "Winter Symphony" and "Child of Winter", those are my favorite Christmas songs of theirs by far.

I agree with you. Winter Symphony and Child of Winter are both amazing songs and I love to listen whether it's Christmas time or not.

And to the topic:

Surfin U.S.A.
Little Deuce Coupe
Shut Down Volume II
All Summer Long

I pretty much never play these.

Though I love all these albums:

I just wasn't made for these times
Imagination
Still Crusin
Summer in Paradise
Celebration
The BB 50th anniversary Live album
The Hallmark album
Spirit of America
Carl's first album
Bruce's pre BB albums

I agree with the posters who said 20/20 is somewhat forgettable. It's a good album, and I really like most of the songs on it, but yeah it just feels like it was sorta thrown together, unlike the Beach Boys more finely crafted albums.

For a while I tended to forget about Smiley Smile, I guess maybe because I was really into Smile and Smiley Smile seemed like a weak alternative in comparison. I like it a lot now, though.

I would call my forgotten albums the ones I don't play.  Funny how I forked out BIG BUCKS for Stak O Traks on vinyl when it was such a rarity, before CDs and now I never listen to it, not even on the digital twofer.

I will say that sometimes I get out an album I haven't listed to in its entirety as a whole lp unto itself and am usually pleasantly surprised at my reaction.  I did this with LDC couple of months ago.  Found myself smiling through the whole
thing.  Except for BTTYS, every song is a car song.  I had forgotten.  What a trip!  A concept album about the car culture of the times!

I'd like to currently add Little Deuce Coupe and Smiley Smile to that.

I sometimes forget about Smiley Smile as well, which is strange. Wild Honey, on the other hand, is an album I sometimes listen to on a weekly basis.

That's the one!

Carl and The Passions. But it shouldn't be.

Out of the list in the first post, Shut Down Volume 2 might be the one I think the least about.  Probably because I hear its big tracks but there's such a discrepancy between those and its weaker ones that I don't think of it as much of a unit.  Of course, if we can include other non-live albums, Party stands out as one I don't think much about.  It's the last non-live non-compilation for me to have listened to from beginning to end, and quality-aside you think I would have salivated to hear something from vintage 1965 as I would with any unreleased tracks.  Yet, when I'm thinking about their discography my mind usually goes directly from Summer Days to Pet Sounds.

Oh, this is easy. It's that one! The one that has that song on it about the girl!! You know, it has that funny cover? The one that was a grunt instead of a bland slam. YOU KNOW!!! Grinly Grin. Yeah, that's it, that's the ticket.

 :)

I'm sorry fellas, I COULD NOT resist. I tried.

Seriously though, it would have to be Shut Down Volume 2, which is crazy considering that "Fun, Fun, Fun", "Don't Worry Baby" and "The Warmth Of The Sun" are on it! I also loved "I Do" from the 2001 Remaster (One of my FAVORITE Beach Boys Tunes)

Nice thread Raven!