The Smiley Smile Message Board

We've discussed many times the lack of BB's on today's classic rock radio stations, there was a time when the precursor to classic rock radio, the album oriented FM rock stations had time for the Beach Boys. I dug up some old posters from a local station, KZOK Seattle, known back then as "OK 102 and a half", with their annual Great Music Weekend. This was when they would ask listeners to send in a list of their all time favorite songs, and the results were compiled in a top 250. The first year, 1975, California Saga is listed at #155, Good Vibrations #174; 1976's list shows GV shows up at #89, but by 1977, the BB's aren't on the list at all.

Hi all,

In my county Beach Boys music is plated on WEBO and Cool 100.  On the TV music channels the BB music is played on the Solid Oldies startion.  In Boomr Conty, NY that channel is 1930.  Classic Rock would be Aerosmith, Van Halen, Ted Nugent, O Osborune, ZZ Top and Cinderella.  Also, Poison and Twisted Sister. 

Going through some old Billboard magazines now. They had a chart back in the 70's called "Billboard FM Action", "these are the albums that have been added to the nation's leading progressive stations". The chart for 5/3/75 shows "Spirit of America" at #19, being played on WLIR, WNEW, and WMMS. The chart for 7/12/75 shows the Brother/Reprise comp "Good Vibrations - Best of the Beach Boys" at #19, being added to the rotation at WLIR, WHCN, WNEW, KLOL, WOSR, WIOT. I only have a few random issues of Billboard that I picked up at a used book store, but find it interesting to see how the biz looked back then.

Baltimore radio stations very rarely play Beach Boys....our Classic Rock station has an all request lunch hour and once I heard someone call in "Sail on Sailor".

It's our "Lite FM" station that picks up occasional Beach Boys tracks. During the week they play 80's-modern and "Kokomo" always finds its way in. But occasionally (it seems less lately) they have a flashback weekend and just play 50's-70's and "Help Me Rhonda" gets played about a dozen times along with "Fun, Fun, Fun".

Don't expect classic rock radio to spin Beach Boys, it just isn't going to happen and never really has, expect WYSP in the 80's and early 90's in Philly when they had various free-form shows, but even they never spun BB's during drive time.

Want Beach Boys on FM in 2014? Find "The Many Moods Of Ben Vaughn" through Philly's WXPN. He's syndicated, he now posts his shows for free on iTunes...and he has a *major* affinity for 1967-1969 Beach Boys.

Last weekend he played Country Air on his tribute to the Spring season, if that tells you the kind of show it is...awesome.

When is the last time you heard Country Air played on FM radio?  :)

The illusion today's programmers want to create is that classic rock radio is playing what got played on the FM AOR stations of the 70's, late 60's, but this is not true. There are all kinds of things on those old playlists that today's classic rock wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole.