The Smiley Smile Message Board

 
Mike undeniably has several different types of singing voices; among them: the nasal one (which sounds somewhat forced at times) most associated with the early hits ( his most familiar type of sound), but at times, he also sings with a smooth, chilled out phrasing that I find quite pleasing to the ear. It’s this second smoother type of voice of Mike’s that I feel is very unappreciated - Mike himself doesn’t seem to use it as much as he should (IMO), and I think he’d get a lot less flack if he’d made this voice the more predominant voice
 
It would be cool to discuss not just entire songs, but also specific lines in songs that he really sounds great on.

- Kokomo (despite the haters, I’ve always dug this song, but in particular I think his vocals are great on it). Especially love the way his voice sounds on “by and by we’ll defy”. I think this song is one of his very best vocals.

-Kiss Me Baby (the “late last night, we said it was over”)

-Meant for You (the whole song is one of his finest vocal moments)

-Cool Head, Warm Heart (similar to his Kokomo sound, just smooth and chill, and I dig it).

For me, he's one of the highlights in many of the "Smile" material.  My favorite is "Heroes and Villians" during the acapella/barbershop part in the middle.  His bass vocal is fantastic and nailed it at all the C50 shows.

But in terms of his normal voice register, I think "Meant For You" is great from top to bottom.

"Airplane". A very sensitive and touching vocal.

I think Mike had an amazing voice at times and I would happily give him praise for his great role in the band. Here's a few of my favorite Mike vocal moments:

Heroes And Villians - The unfinished low "da da da da da" backing vocal on Smile Sessions from 'Wonderful ver. 3'.. One of the most beautiful vocals he's done.. also on Children Were Raised with the "rum ba bum" type vocal

California Girls, any version but I love his mellow vocal on the Leid In Hawaii post-show recordings

Of course All I Wanna Do on Sunflower

That's Not Me and Here Today are incredible

Meant For You.. Tender, soft, warm and beautiful. Something you don't expect when you hear the name Mike Love.

Mike's vocal on Hawaii is awesome too. I hear he had a cold that day? I thought it was Dennis singing when I first heard this song

Airplane, Johnny Carson.. actually all of Love You he is top notch

Definitely Today too..

He had tons of great vocal moments actually, mostly from the 60s until the mid or late 70s.

Cool thread! My vote goes to:

• Airplane - all his verses
• Let him run wild - his bass part 'waited for you girl'
• Cabinessence - Specially knowing how much he disliked the lyrics, he does an amazing job in the tag
• STD - I don't like the song, but if ever Mike sang with conviction and balls of some sort, that's the song...and I do like the speaker effect
• Water chant - all his bass parts, specially the 'na, na, na, na...'

I think Mike's best late 70's early 80's vocal may be Sad Sad Summer, plus its the best song he ever wrote by himself in my opinion.

Tops for me is All I Wanna Do from Sunflower..or is that All  I Want to Do from 20/20? I get the 2 titles confused. Also love his voice on the California Saga. He's got a very soothing, warm tone on those tracks.

I agree with many of those, but I think his best vocal was on 'Big Sur' (released version). It's a pretty hard song to sing.

Top of my head...

"Kiss Me, Baby"
Salt Lake City"
"All I Wanna Do"
"All I Want To Do"
"Fun, Fun, Fun"
"Meant For You"
"Cabin Essence" (tag)
"Viggie"
"Amusement Parks USA"
"Teach Me Tonight"
"Paradise Found"

Can't say I know this track - is there a lot of clapping on it ?

From the top of my head:

Big Sur (released version)

All I Wanna Do

Meant For You

Here Today

Kiss Me Baby

Salt Lake City

Good To My Baby

Don't Go Near The Water

-All I Wanna Do
-Meant For You
-Aren't You Glad
-California Girls
-Big Sur (both versions)

Distinctive sound, versatility, loads of expression, and the sort of balls/self-confidence you'd expect from a lead singer. Not to mention how effective and quick he was at recording and double-tracking; and, last but not least, his signature, always spot-on bass vocals.

Many great moments, but when it comes to the rockers, nobody touches him. They are tailored for his voice, and proof of that is that most people suck when trying to sing them.

All I Want To Do
Big Sur (Unreleased Version)


For the most part, I can't stand Mike's voice.
I'm surprised he even made it on this list when both Brian and especially Carl are far better singers:
http://artists.top5.com/rock-star-status-the-top-5-greatest-male-lead-singers/?page=4

Is there a lot of clapping on it...!!  That sir is priceless...!  :wave

With the exception of a couple of missteps on 15 Big Ones, Mike never had a bad album. He was ALWAYS excellent. No matter how weak the material, production, or performance was on various Beach Boys' albums, you could always depend on great vocals - lead and backing - from Mike Love. I'll give a shout out to one of his later vocals...."Summer In Paradise" is one of my favorites.

I'd say he sounded rather shite on TWGMTR...though that was the fault of autotune....Joe I swear to god if you autotune Brian's upcoming album....

Yeah I agree that Mike has a bunch of great vocals, both lead and backup. So many, it's hard to choose. You can't go wrong with anything off of Pet Sounds. Terry also mentioned 'Aren't You Glad'. That's one of my favorites from him too! So smooth and confident.

Can't Stop Talkin' 'Bout American Girls

I really love Mike's voice on Aren't You Glad, and also, Had To Phone Ya.

  Didn't Mike's unreleased ATLANTIS RISING include a groovy cover of the Hendrix opus "1983 (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)" ?  That was good stuff.

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Off the top of my head:

All I Wanna Do
Big Sur
Here Today
Monster Mash
Please Let Me Wonder
Kiss Me Baby
California Girls

I'd single out the same two, though Mike's performances on Meant For You, Big Sur (Holland), All I Wanna Do and Monster Mash stand out, too.

And I wish Mike had sung the lines "Surf's up aboard a tidal wave, come about hard and join the young and often spring you gave"...

See if you can find "Isn't it Time" live on YouTube.  Mike is unbelievable. His voice has astounding range.  Not on the CD, but the amateur video.  

I hope they leave the voices as they are, agree 100%!

Best song I ever heard Brian sing was "I'm Waiting for the Day" at a soundcheck for the Wilson - Beck tour.   It was a heart stopper.  He sounded 30 years old to me.   ;)

All I Wanna Do
Meant for You
Big Sur

It's funny that most people seem to prefer Mike's vocals when he doesn't sound like he usually does.

 :lol

My bad, meant Student Demonstration Time  :p

I think, in general, all of Mike's recorded vocals are pretty good. His rock n roll nasal tone works well in contrast with Brian's falsetto on the early songs, and he can turn in some awesome bass lines. "Kiss Me Baby" is by far my favorite vocal of his. I love the song, and he sings it very sensitively.  In recent years, when I've heard Mike sing  live,  he occasionally veers into a much less pleasing version of his nasal tone.  Not sure why that is, but it's not my favorite vocal from him.


That's awesome! So many people have said that Brian can still turn in a pretty good vocal when he's relaxed. I would love to hear Brian, relaxed and happy, try Caroline No, Warmth of the Sun, or Lonely Sea.

In very recent years, a close friend of Brian's bet him a steak dinner he couldn't still hit the high note in "Surf's Up". He lost.  ;D

Almost anything up to 1975, And after that, maybe Pitter Patter, A Casual Look, Johnny Carson. Not much more.

Particularly fine vocals?
Surfin' USA
I Get Around
Here Today
Do It Again
All I Wanna Do

Well, movie stars usually get Oscars for unusual roles, especially in the old days. That's a similar effect. I think though that on "Big Sur" and "All I Wanna Do" Mike does sound like he usually does, just more heartfelt. On "Meant for You" he nearly sounds like Brian, and his performance on "Monster Mash" is quite outstanding too. Mike should have applied the style he applies on "All I Want To Do" more often, he's quite good at that. Or was.

On the Keep an Eye on Summer - The Beach Boys Sessions 1964... give a listen to the track "Keep an Eye on Summer - Instrumental Mix with Backing Vocals". This is just sublime, and fascinating. A tad dissonant at times, very interesting to hear these backing vocals by themselves and try to ponder how they eventually interconnected with Brian's lead vocals.

I love Mike's bass vocals that pop/jump out of the mix at 2:16. Fine bass vocals throughout the song, but that Mike vocal bit that just pops out is rad.

And he has a great voice for playing off the other guys leads or co-leads. Al especially..they have similar voices yet they work well off each other. A Casual Look, Winds of Change, Make it Big.

I've decided that in Make it Big, the end vocal interplay between Brian + Mike, with Mike getting close to a falsetto, is one of my all-time favorite moments in the entire catalog. I get the "feels" on that part almost as much as some of their very best material from the '60s.  I'm odd like that.

That vocal arrangement is genius; I wonder if it was Brian's idea? I think I recall reading that he only came in for a brief cameo on that song. I wonder if those Brian/Mike vocals were arranged on the spot by Brian, or if it was some pre-existing arrangement (done by someone else) that Brian just came in to sing.

So funny that you're such a big fan of that song. I love it too. And it's a main reason (along with "Kokomo", "Island Girl" and "In My Car") of mine why Still Cruisin' is part of my collection.

Little deuce coupe, catch a wave, monster mash (shindig version is great), add some music to your day

theres more i cant think off the top of my head, kokomo was great but i didnt care for the song though strangely

Right on, sweetdudejim  :) The only part that makes me cringe is the "Johnny B. Goode" lyric. I really could do without that! And Mike hams it up too much with trying to sound like his young, nasal self on that entire section. But at the end, on the tag, Mike sounds gold. I too love those other Still Crusin' tracks. I wish they did an entire album in that era that had that synthy 80s Make it Big sound. Love it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfilXmU4ReM

My favorite of his is Let the Wind Blow.

Meant For You.

One of my favorites is He Come Down.  I like his vocal delivery.

Like Mike's vocals on nearly all of the songs already mentioned. I'm also quite fond of his vocals on Sumahama, Devoted To You (BBs Party, my least favorite BB album), All This Is That, Bluebirds Over The Mountain, (his part in the bridge of) It's About Time, Lahaina Aloha, Here Today and Pitter Patter.

Caroline  No.

Just kidding. Although I really hold many negative opinions about him, his personality, his lyrics and most of his "songs",  I pretty much appreciate every Mike's vocal PRE-74l, specially his mellower voice from the ballads. His vocal tone really improved from Today!, as can be heard in Aren't You Glad, All I Wanna/Want to Do, Pet Sounds material, among others.

Unfortunately, something happened in 76 that really screwed everything up. His voice became terrible.

Aren´t yu glad

I like "Still Cruisin'", very good songs therein. Even bad - the song you 2 discuss - has jolly good reason to like it. That Brian & Mike tag is big favorite, said it before. Say what you will but I think Brian's vocal there is great!

Back to topic - "Here today", "I'm waiting for the day", "Monster mash", "Little deuce coupe", "Little Saint Nick".

But then, I like almost all of Mike's vocal contributions. I'd only wish for many more samples of the wonderful soft timbre he uses on "Meant For You".

I agree completely. I wonder if he didn't feel comfortable singing that way more often? It's way too few and far between that he utilizes his voice in that way. Instead, starting in the mid 1970s, he largely regressed back into trying to consciously sound like his younger self, with not great results. I wonder if he just didn't get enough support or encouragement to sing like that more.  

I still want to know the story of why Mike was replaced as the lead singer of Please Let Me Wonder. It was certainly the right choice, but I wonder how that went down.

Folks have done a fine job in identifying many of Mike's great performances through the years. And have--quite appropriately--lauded his unique skills at providing most of the great bass lines in the harmonic stack.

But nobody seems to appreciate Mike's brilliant moments of "self-parody" that surfaced in the 15BO/Love You era. Where he takes that nasal sound into genuinely self-conscious directions that threaten to go over the top but fall just short of jumping the shark.

I'm talking "It's OK," "Roller Skating Child," and--the funniest and the most brilliant of the bunch--"Johnny Carson."

If I am in a particular frame of mind and hear Mike sing that "He speaks in such a manly tone" line from "JC" I will fo' sho' be ROTFLMAO for many, many minutes.

Mike really NEEDS to sing "JC" in concert.

Agreed about all of those, except I think Mike sounds *killer* on Roller Skating Child.

Mike didn't sing I'm Waiting For The Day.

There was a rejected version with him on lead on the PS box.

Let's count our blessings that he didn't. His one take on the box set was really just awful :o. I usually skip over "Here Today" because of the obvious strain on his tonsils trying to sing. The song should have been handled by Carl or Al.

Deleted for the attitude.

I didn't know a version existed with Mike singing. My apologies.

It also didn't say not to. There was no need to be that harsh.

Dlt for the attitude.

lay off Jay.... ::)

Your post says "This poster is ignored". Maybe you said cool list of Mike goodies. :police:

Sth. I rmbr. - "Anything for you" (the girl vocal tho is epic fail), "Betsy" (as good as Brian's), "California girls" (should've mentioned it before), "Isn't it time" (as well as single with him singing the middle 8 instead of Jeff Foskett).

I appreciated Mike's 'smart-ass' sound on the early hits like Surfin' USA, Shut Down, Little Deuce Coupe, Be True to Your School and Fun cubed.  With Brian off-setting Mike's leads in THOSE specific songs the ying and the yang 'thing' worked well.   At least that's the way it struck me in REAL TIME/as it happened.  As the group progressed though I found that the 'nose factor' detracted from 'it' a little too often...although Here Today worked to a degree.  I thought that Mike fit back into a more melodic groove from part of Friends up until Holland.  After that the special moments came with a decreasing amount of regularity and with a lot of space in between them.

That Carl, Al and Denny stepped forward from 1965 on to easily shoulder their share of the load helped to cut down on how much 'front and centre' Mike was required to provide.  THAT was a true blessing.  Yes Mike made a whole heap of contributions along the way...especially early on.  And in the end?  He was just as important as the rest of the guys...but really, when you take the time to measure everyone's entire body of work, certainly NO MORE so.

Seriously...enough with the attitude.

Wow. Just...wow.