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My list of songs he didn't write (please correct me if I'm wrong)

4th of July
All This Is That
Baby Blue
Be With Me
Don't Go Near The Water
Feel Flows
Forever
Got To Know The Woman
Here She Comes
Kokomo
Leaving This Town
Little Bird
Long Promised Road
Lookin' at Tomorrow
Love Surrounds Me
Never Learn Not To Love  (ya I went there!)
San Miguel
Sip On Through
Sound of Free
Still Cruisin'
Susie Cincinnati
Tears In The Morning
A Time To Live In Dreams
The Trader
Wouldn't It Be Nice To Live Again

It's a pretty damn good list.

He was on much of those, so to answer your question. ..no.

Um. Write...

.

.

But the title then needs to be changed to something like 'was the song writing better without Brian'.

Answer is still no

List of songs he didn't write:

All I Want to Do
Got to Know the Woman
Student Demonstration Time
Make It Good
The Beaks of Eagles
Everyone's in Love with You
Brian's Back
Kona Coast
Winds of Change
Livin' with a Heartache
Sumahama
Endless Harmony
She Believes in Love Again
California Calling
Kokomo
Summer of Love
Still Surfin

Agreed

Apples and Oranges.  The band in 1967-1979, 1980-1996, 2012 are very different animals from the band 1961-66.  So the comparison doesn't really make a hell of a lot of sense.

Really?

No sir, O'Reilly

Seconded.

The Beach Boys could be a good group without Brian. They could only be a great group with him.

List of songs he did write:

Surfin Safari
409
Lonely Sea
Shut Down
Surfer Girl
Little Deuce Coupe
In My Room
Your Summer Dream
Don't Worry Baby
The Warmth of the Sun
I Get Around
All Summer Long
When I Grow Up to Be a Man
Help Me, Rhonda
Dance, Dance, Dance
Please Let Me Wonder
Kiss Me, Baby
In the Back of My Mind
California Girls
Let Him Run Wild
Wouldn't It Be Nice
You Still Believe in Me
That's Not Me
Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)
I'm Waiting for the Day
Let's Go Away for Awhile
God Only Knows
I Know There's an Answer
Here Today
I Just Wasn't Made for These Times
Pet Sounds
Caroline, No
Heroes and Villains
Cabin Essence
Wonderful
Surf's Up
Vega-Tables
Wind Chimes
The Elements
Love to Say Dada
Good Vibrations
Wild Honey
Country Air
Darlin'
Let the Wind Blow
Meant for You
Friends
Busy Doin' Nothin'
Do It Again
Time to Get Alone
This Whole World
All I Wanna Do
Our Sweet Love
Cool, Cool Water
A Day in the Life of a Tree
'Til I Die
You Need a Mess of Help to Stand Alone
Marcella
Sail On, Sailor
Funky Pretty
It's OK
Had to Phone Ya
Honkin' Down the Highway
The Night Was So Young
I'll Bet He's Nice
Let's Put Our Hearts Together
My Diane
Good Timin'
Goin' On
From There to Back Again
Pacific Coast Highway
Summer's Gone


Plus, I think there's some originally unreleased stuff that people like.

Thanksgiving is coming up, I'm assuming a lot of people here will be either hosting or attending a Thanksgiving dinner of some kind, with family, friends, maybe even going to a restaurant or buffet, whatever the case. If everyone is gathered around the table waiting for the meal, and the host puts a plate of cranberry sauce on the table and nothing else, what would the reaction be? The cranberry sauce is part of the whole thing, but it isn't the Thanksgiving dinner. It's just a plate of cranberry sauce sitting on the table.

That list of songs "without Brian"? Cranberry sauce. Perfectly fine, enjoyable in its own way, but it doesn't work as a main course and is never served alone.

(http://buy.oceanspray.com/getmetafile/26936c87-e8e6-4c8a-a53f-61432ab42703/Ocean-Spray-Cranberry-Sauce-Jellied-14-oz?maxSideSize=700)

I'll bet you the entire amount of money in circulation in every country on earth that you're wrong about the highlighted title.

A check will be acceptable.

Oops. Well, 1 out of 17 ain't bad.

For that matter, he really should have gotten a credit on "Summer of Love," too.

As for the good songs Brian wasn't credited on, I doubt whether Dennis or Carl or any of the other guys would have developed as songwriters without the example and influence of Brian. His work in the first five-six years made everything else possible.

Songwriting and producing by the other members of the band complimented Brian's writing and producing. They stepped up. They had to. And I'll say some of it was as good or even better than what Brian was writing at the time.

Not that hits really matter, but how many did Brian write and how many did the rest of the band members write?  

Somebody said apples & oranges. Or cranberry sauce. Or yellow matter custard. Which is probably true.  

And still making things possible as of 2014. Take everything Brian Wilson had a hand in writing for The Beach Boys out of a Beach Boys current live concert setlist and you'll have a reaction from ticket buyers that would make the failed Maharishi tour in 1968 look like Live Aid 1985.

Worst thread in SS history. Is the original poster out of their mind?

Nah, just indulging in a little light trolling.  :)

I plan to include an appetizer of light trolling this year to compliment my Thanksgiving dinner menu.   ;D

Can AGD and me come over for dinner at 4:00? ;D

Happy Billy in 4C?

AGD and I, dear heart... AGD and I.

AGD, BillyC, and I will go to GF's dinner. :hat

Cranberry sauce, light trolling, apples and oranges...what more could you ask for at a festive dinner gathering?  :-D

Throw in a side of a candy bar & world peace and you got my vote.

Cranberry sauce...or 'I buried Paul'?

Yep!  And don't forget the yellow matter custard, dripping from a dead dog's eye.  And the Wild Honey Pie.  And the Kippers for breakfast.

Now you know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.

That's it, dessert is settled. The following courses will be served after the meal:

- Cream tangerine and montelimar
- A ginger sling with a pineapple heart
- A coffee dessert
- Cool cherry cream
- A nice apple tart

Out of respect for those with dental concerns, the "Savoy Truffle" has been removed from the main menu but will be made available on request.

Is finger pie on the menu ?

It would seem so..

I threw away my candy bar and I ate the wrapper.

What about me, ya territorial rat!  I wanna sit at the head of the table and say Thanksgiving grace for all of yous.

Sorry Mikie. :-\

No pie pressure.

:lol

OK, what's the best pie for Thanksgiving dinner?

Mine are (not necessarily in order):

1. Punkin
2. Apple
3. Pecan
4. Hair

Pork Pie Hat

Guys, maybe he just realized he likes a lot of non-Brian songs .... It's perfctly OK.

With The Beach Boys, there's plenty of material to go around.

  There are far more good, even great, non-Brian Beach Boys' songs than the average listener will ever realize...but no the songwriting was not better without Brian.

Absolutely.

  Carl, Dennis, and Bruce all approached songwriting greatness minus Brian at least a time or two. Mike and Al did well also.

Well...what's the story on "California Calling" anyways? Wasn't there some random chord progression of Brian's that Al remembered and then applied that to his lyrics and melody to make "California Calling"? Or something like that?


I have to ask why he would deserve the punishment of being credited for "Summer of Love".

Likely because it recycled part of the melody of 'Mike Come Back to LA' / 'Some of your Love'.

Don't forget it also recycled "child of winter" and "won'tcha come out tonight"!

Surfers recycle riffs now, don't you know.

Story as I recall hearing it back in the day is that Alan played Brian an early version, then during pre-production Brian presented a more realised version as his own. Alan mildly observed that it sounded like something he'd written, and Brian said something like "Goddamit, you're right !". Hence the shared credit.

I think a case can be made that from 68-85, the other guys combined had a better collection of songs without Brian than with. I think Dennis did anyway if you include POB. But what Brian did, especially in the 63-67 era, no one else in the band ever did. They all had moments and songs that came close. Perhaps if Dennis stayed focused on solo albums from 69-77, but we'll never know.

Carl and Dennis' songs and POB, as well as Disney Girls are as good as anything Brian ever did ...... But hey, they're all in the same band, so no harm done.

You must be kidding me. But hey, it's just one man's opinion, so no harm done.

Disney Girls is an all-time classic! Brian would be proud to have written it!

I didn't say better than anything Brian's done, just AS GOOD ..... But it's a mere one song vs countless awesome Brian stuff, so hey....

I s'pose we have differing views on what is "all-time classic".

I got it, but I wouldn't say that DG is even AS GOOD.

Yes, so it goes back to "no harm done".

To answer the thread topic, no.

Nothing that the rest of them did came close to what Brian did in any regard. Doesn't mean the stuff the rest did was bad. Just means that what Brian did was out of this world.

A song beloved by many and preferably covered by other artists fits my definition of an all-time classic.

You guys act like someone giving props to one little song is somehow a threat to Brian.... No one's going to take away any of his awards because some guy really really likes Disney Girls.

I swear this kind of almost angry idol worship probably freaks Brian out.

To me it is obvious The Beach Boys success spells Brian Wilson and (almost) Brian Wilson only. The Beach Boys would not exist without Brian's 1961 - 1966 period. This is the period the general public knows and cherishes. It contains the biggest hits + Pet Sounds/SMiLE. Besides Brian Dennis was by far the most competent songwriter of the Beach Boys. Carl wrote a few decent tracks. I would not say Al wrote any super good songs (correct me if I am wrong). Mike is not able to write/produce/arrange a song by himself - he needs all the help he can get. Big Sur is his best effort though.

Brian wrote the hits, Brian wrote the legendary albums Pet Sounds and SMiLE. He continued writing gems like 'Til I Die, but his output unfortunately waned post 1967 and so did the popularity of the Beach Boys. Brian's songwriting and the success of the Beach Boys go hand in hand.

I think it can not be any clearer.

I think only a person very, very, very far down the rabbit hole could claim that the BBs did better songs without Brian. At best they maintained an engine already running. At worst they wrote Sumahama.

I don't think anyone here has given a reasonable or defensible argument that the songwriting was better without Brian than with him. The closest to it seems to be saying that the others wrote some good (and even some great) material, which is true ... But not the same thing. Just as it doesn't diminish Brian's greatness to acknowledge the others' good work, neither does it dismiss theirs to be realistic.

Personal taste is fine, but if it's possible to be objective about the quality of music, I doubt many people would agree with the subject of the thread. However, if the point was just trolling, I suppose it's not necessary to make arguments.

accidental post.

Not that i have any insight into the writing of the song, but California Calling sounds to me more like an Al song than Brian's.

I'm not disputing either of them had input, or the extent, just what the finished product sounds like. I'd always (prior to today) assumed Brian's credit was on there either in the same way that Brian got credited on Deirdre (5% input), or for the California Girls-style bvs.

I think this thread proves even the Kokomaoists can get trolled :/

That is quite fair. I completely forgot that Cass Elliott & Garfunkel covered it.

Dunno if you're pointing this at me, but I'm certainly not a worshipping type. I don't idolize anyone in the band, more than they deserve anyway. I still disagree with you on Disney Girls, doesn't mean that I worship Brian. Hence, I didn't highlight Carl & Dennis in my last quoting of your post. To give you a clue, "Trader" to me is AS good as any Brian song. For Dennis, it's "Celebrate the News". And on & on.

Also, no anger on my side, it's called "debate". Don't you think it'd be boring if we all agreed on everything like puppets?

I direct you to post #49 below, as you've obviously not read it.  :)

I`m not disputing your info at all (and we all know what Al`s memory is like) but interestingly in an interview with ESQ in around 2000 Al said he couldn`t recall Brian having written any of California Callin` and said that sometimes he would give him writing credits as a gesture due to Brian`s massive contribution back in the 60s.

Andrew, it was your post that i was referencing (and why i added several caveats as to my own prior (i.e. prior to post #49) lack of knowledge in this area), when i wrote mine, but i must have clicked reply instead of quote  :)

My own prior (i.e. prior to post #49) opinion was in line with Nicko1234's post.

The song sounds just like something Al would write in the mid 1980s. Catchy but derivative.

I agree with you that Dennis is closest to Brian. Or that Carl wrote a few good tracks. But in my opinion, Al does have some top notch songs. With Mike (DGNTW and CS suite), LAT, SAW are 3 that I love. LL was a big hit as well in some areas. I don't count CF since he didn't write it.

With the best will in the world, you can't honestly say he wrote "Lookin' At Tomorrow" either.

John Entwistle wrote "My Wife" and "Boris the Spider", but I think perhaps The Who still needed some minor contributions from that Townshend guy...

You guys act like the other Beach Boys brought nothin to the table that matters toward a band being a functioning band that could achieve massive success as a 1960s pop band.

So, if Brian had been an only child and with no cousin named Mike Love, we surely still have The Beach Boys? Like any guys off the street would have made it happen?

I would have to disagree with Dennis when he said "Brian is the beach boys, we're his f***ing messengers.

It is interesting that Brian scored his first #1 without the Beach Boys...

The contributions were not equal, but they were still contributions to the success of the band.

Giggitty

At first I thought this was kind of a jokey thread, but it does seem that a lot of users on this board really prefer the "Carl & The Passions: So Tough" and "Holland" periods where Brian only made cameo appearances. I'm not one of those people. I like those albums but they don't come close to anything before them IMO.

I'd say from 61 to about 65 Brian needed the Beach Boys as much as they needed him.

If you believe that main songwriter/producer is equivalent with playing an instrument or singing a part, okay.

Completely agree

As much as I love the fun in the sun era, I think from pet sounds to holland is ethereal. Not saying I like everything but I'm partial to that stuff.

In many ways that's correct, especially in the touring aspects, but also I'd argue it's inaccurate if one takes into account songs like Don't Talk and Caroline, No.

I'd also say, talking strictly from a studio perspective, that (based on listening to the Don't Talk unused harmonies from the Pet Sounds Sessions) that if Brian, at his 60s vocal peak, recorded the vast majority of the BB vocals himself in that '61-'65 period, doing most harmonies and leads, that the band could still have had a similar level of success. And I say this with all due respect to the other members, whose voices and contributions I love and wouldn't trade for anything.  

Pinder, you need OSD back! ;)

Maybe he was referring to "Surf's City" with Jan & Dean.

I was.

I agree, and that's why I said 61 to 65: pre Pet Sounds....

I'm one of those who (with exception to Today & Pet Sounds) without a doubt think the band did a fantastic body of work between 1969 and 1973. I'm a big fan of the early 70's stuff, including C&TP and Holland. Brian may have done cameo appearances in the vocals to a few of those songs in that period, but he was still involved in the songwriting to an extent. And the rest of The Boys stepped up BIG time on those early 70's albums.

For me, I'll take everything from 1961 through SMiLE. It's unassailable work. Brian's in command and his evolution is fascinating.
My actual favorite period is 1967 through 1970. Brian's still heavily involved. The guys are also contributing great songs. Killer singles, etc.
For me, things start to fall apart around Surf's Up. CATP and Holland have some great songs on them but they (and Surf's Up..although I think it's a far superior album to the two that came after it) feel like patchwork collections of solo projects to me. That's not to diminish Carl and Dennis's contributions because they're stellar, but The Beach Boys sounds like a band without an identity on those two specific albums, which I view as a separate period unto itself.   

I remember hearing about a soundcheck during C50 Where they were rehearsing Disney Girls and about a minute into the song Brian shouted "Enough!" and that was the end of the song.

There's no doubt about that. No argument there.


Well........now that's debatable.

If we're getting into the area of "Could Brian have done it with other guys?" ..well...maybe, but would it have been as good? Then again, that blend of voices is what makes The Beach Boys special. It's that blend that makes those great songs zoom off into the stratosphere. There have been countless imitators and Beach Boy solo projects but they all lack that blend which is impossible to duplicate. It sounds like being home again even if you don't have a home to go to.

Oh, and to address another subject mentioned in this thread: I love "Disney Girls"..Great track. I thought it was hokey and embarrassing when I was younger, but now that I'm older I cling to wistful sentiments like that like a koala bear clip.

Brian's not heavily involved in the Wild Honey, Friends and Sunflower albums as opposed to his meager songwriting credits on CATP and Holland?

Yeah, same here for the most part. Today! to SMiLE was Brian at their prime, while 20/20 to Holland were the rest of the members at their prime.

Okay, time to throw my hat in there...

In my honest opinion, Brian is the greatest living songwriter. Period. I'd rather listen to his 'worst' vocals than just about anybody else at their best.  Production-wise, there was none better in his time (can't compare him to any one else who came in after the advent of stereo). That said...to act like he could have been just as big without the rest of the band is ludicrous. It's not taking anything away from Brian to say that, either. It was the perfect blend of harmonies married with music that was leaps and bounds above anything else out there with lyrics that captured the youth and produced by a genius.  It was the perfect combination at the perfect time. Each of the rest of the band could have been the most talented member in any other band. To attempt to diminish the other members is to attempt to diminish Brian's genius...Brian chose them, wrote parts for them, produced them. They learned from the master, and Dennis grew into a musical genius himself (and in a different manner from Brian. Each was a first rate singer as well.

They were all awesome, and Brian was just a bit awesome-r.

Also, Brian's own contributions from 1967-1972 just so happen to be my favorite of his, or anybody else, for that matter.

I'd say his involvement started diminishing, especially as a producer, around 1968. This is when his mental state started going South.

I agree but he was still contributing a lot of good material up through 1970. He's starting to leave the picture with the Surf's Up album and by 1972 we were lucky to get maybe 2 songs on an album (although admittedly Mt. Vernon & Fairway was supposed to be a major contribution that was eventually relegated to a bonus 45).

This thread is a complete waste of time.

Why?  'Cause you can't contribute anything worthwhile to it?

I think it's embarrassing that this is even being discussed.

I'm glad that Brian & I agree on sth. Thanks for this tidbit, my fave Today song.

I'm with you. It's all subjective anyway.

Perfectly put, Billy.

All I can add is, I think, anything smacking of diminishing the other Beach Boy's contributions is more of a counter to the whole "Was The Songwriting Better Without Brian?" thing, rather than actual intentions to diminish.

Even myself, as the biggest, most ultimate Mike Love fan in the world, can see how ludicrous the question was in the first place.

I think if the OP's question was posed as "Does anyone prefer songs written without Brian's involvement?", it might not seem as odd a question. It's not a competition, but I guess the question could almost be construed that way if one wants it to.

I adore the wilderness years period, and many songs from that era have little or no Brian involvement, which in and of itself doesn't bother me (other than feeling sad since the lack of involvement could probably be said to have stemmed from his severe depression/illness). It's interesting to compare and contrast the best material that the band released (sans Brian's songwriting involvement), since some of it holds up quite well to Brian's work, and depending on ones' taste, some people might prefer that material.

I love just about all of it, including Kokomo and Make it Big.  ;D

Even if one was to believe that Brian Wilson could only have done this music with The Beach Boys, or that he needed them in one way or the other it still doesn't suggest they were equally important. They weren't equally important, not unless you hold every element of making music or being in a band as completely relative. I would also suggest that the line up of the band was changed several times, including very early on with Al Jardine and David Marks. It would not have been possible to switch in Brian Wilson with someone else, in any fashion, and still have anything close to that music. That is not a knock against Al Jardine or David Marks, it is simply that playing guitar in a band is less integral than writing and producing the songs. Preferences and affection for one member or the other are fine but let's not be silly. What the band did subsequent to Brian leaving a dominant position was only possible because of what came before.

A more ridiculous thread is hard to imagine. I don't even think the Beatles could match Brian....... let alone the other Beach Boys. By the way.... I can't stand Disney Girls.

Brian's slow retreat did leave room for the other guys to contribute songs and arrangements. In fact, it left them no choice but to step up and fill the void -- with, at first, promising results.

It's one thing, though, to write a few good songs, it's another to sustain the quality year after year, album after album. Other than Brian, only Dennis had the talent to do that.

I agree with Mikie – the rest of the band indeed did step up in a big way once Brian began retreating. They put together some of the finest albums of the band’s discography. Furthermore, if a band could only claim “Forever,” “Feel Flows,” and “All This is That” they would consider themselves lucky. I think to an extent what is troubling some posters here is the fact that the songwriting post-1968 is more of a group effort, while Brian took on the lion’s share of the writing before that. Indeed, I don’t think the original poster is saying that individually there were better songwriters in the band than Brian – I think that would be an impossible argument to make.

To the question of whether or not the band needed Brian as much as he needed them up until 1965. Obviously, it’s hard to answer this question objectively. If it comes down to whether I would like the band as much if it were Brian and four other guys, I’d say, probably not, though it’s an impossible question to answer. But I can’t imagine another set of guys producing that sound that I enjoy so much.

That being said, while Brian indeed needed the other four (or five) guys to make the records sound the way that we all know them and love them, it is difficult to say for sure whether he needed them to be successful in the music industry the way that they needed him during that period. Brian indeed could write hits outside The Beach Boys and, like I said earlier, his first #1 song with his name attached was recorded by another act. Sure, Brian eventually needed the brand The Beach Boys to help him sell records but that’s quite different from saying he needed the other guys. And furthermore, apart from a few examples, the brand has almost always done better with Brian than without.

Indeed, Brian never did it alone. Dennis gave him the idea of writing about surf, Mike co-wrote many of the songs. Yet he also went outside the band for help and I’m not prepared to say that Brian needed Gary Usher and Roger Christian as much as they needed him to write successful songs. Certainly the songs that they co-wrote wouldn’t have been the same without them, but I don’t believe that Brian couldn’t have been successful without them.

Agreed.  Just pulled Surf's Up (LP) off a shelf, and just checked who did what.  Ten songs.  Brian has three, where he was sole author/co-composer credited, and the other guys stepped in, with stuff of their own.  It is absolutely appropriate that their work was included.  They are a band, not a solo act. Nothing from Dennis at this time, but with Carl, Al, Mike and Bruce all getting composer credit.  

And, I doubt if they (the entire band) were precluded from song writing, but that the earlier role was filled by Brian.  This LP is not Brian-dominant, and yet it is a masterpiece, I think.  It is not hedonistic, as were earlier LP's and time and era appropriate.  And, as John Manning remarked in some thread that there is so much from which to choose.  They all had/have talent to compose.  Dennis had a short but brilliant run at composing.  Who knows if Dennis had not been "kept down" in the role of percussion (which I think is as important or more so than some other instruments) whether he might have tried his hand sooner at composition.  

To answer the post's query? Not necessarily better, but different, without assigning "value judgement."  ;)

The short answer is that for a limited period of time, the songwriting (either without Brian or with him taking a lesser role) was very good indeed - but, Dennis excepted -  it didn't last, or if it did, there's precious little evidence on the officially released stuff - but you have to bear in mind that, Love You aside, an awful lot of Brian's post 76 contributions don't exactly set the world alight, not for me anyway, until his first solo album, TLOS and TWGMTR.

Genius or not, after writing, producing and releasing a VAST amount of songs in a 6 years marathon, new ideas will take more of an effort to be worked out. It doesn't matter if your surname is Wilson, Bacharach, Nilsson or McCartney.

Brian slowed down in the 70s like everyone else in his generation - not to mention his personal problems. When Dennis was 30 he had written, produced and released material that would fill one album and a half. He was still full of ideas.

Well..........I agree with Rockandroll and "Filledeplage".

I think Brian slowed down in the '70s because he wasn't scoring any hits. He either didn't feel there was enough demand from the public for him to try and put together an entire album, or he was obsessing for months at time over a single song in the hopes he could turn it into a hit. Look at the writing credits for "Sail On Sailor". He was probably playing it at every party he went to.

He finally got a hit with "Rock & Roll Music" (go figure) and we got an entire album of inspired Brian originals as a result.

This is tough because a majority of the nature of a discussion like this is primarily subjective, as was pointed out, and for the most part I've stayed out of it. At the same time, the topic itself going back to page one was crystal clear and very much focused on a specific question, was the songwriting better without Brian. It's been several pages of posts which nuanced the original point into personal preferences for specific eras, albums, and the like. But to answer the original question and the focus of that original question, I think it has to get back to some of the documented history of the band and the band members, as well as adding some of the less concrete "what if" type of scenarios.

In that case, I'd suggest looking at what the legacy of the Beach Boys is and will be in future generations. The music released by The Beach Boys in the 1960's is simply one of the most defining bodies of work of its era, whether through hard sales numbers or the longevity and appeal of that music over 50+ years. It is very similar to The Beatles catalog from the 60's, as good and as popular as some of the individual members' solo efforts have been, will the next generations of listeners be talking about Mind Games or Venus And Mars with anything close to the way the Beatles catalog of songs from the 60's will be regarded?

It may be difficult to realize as a hard fact, but as beloved as an album like Ram might be among fans, it will never come close to the legacy of the Beatles catalog. And I'd say as much as BB's fans have an affinity for certain 70's or later releases, they will never be thought of in the same category as those 60's Capitol recordings, if we're talking about the legacy of the band.

And here's the catch that may not go down so well: If you remove Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys music in the 1960's, it would not have happened. The other band members, as competent musicians and vocalists as they were, simply were *not* songwriters, arrangers, or producers throughout most of the 1960's, and while they would develop those skills to different degrees of success or competence in later years, in the 1960's they were not skilled enough to do what Brian was doing in the writing and production process. When the musical legacy that is still being celebrated was in its most crucial stages of development, when every new release really mattered in a competitive business where you had to release several new products several times each year in order to remain successful in that peer group and demographic, the only band member who had those skills in place at that time was Brian.

It doesn't even need to go into debating what he or the band would or could have done with or without each other as a group in order to weigh how important Brian and his skills as a writer and producer were to the band in general. And to suggest was the writing better without him, I think by the face value of such a question it seems a bit absurd as a notion, and the simple fact of looking at who else in the band was capable of writing and producing full albums and delivering several singles each year to that kind of competitive market as existed in the 60's would answer the original question immediately.

One litmus test anyone can run: Take any of the greatest hits packages through the years, take any Beach Boys setlist up to the songs they're playing live in 2014, and remove each and every song where Brian Wilson has a writing credit. Every one of them.

Tell me, how many tickets would be sold to a Beach Boys live concert if you removed everything with Brian Wilson's name? How many greatest hits albums would have been sold if not a single song with Brian's creative involvement were included? How would the audience who buys tickets to see the Beach Boys as of 2014 react if they went to a show and heard nothing but songs Brian did not write or co-write?

It's not even about expressing positive opinions for albums like Carl And The Passions or Holland, or songs Brian wasn't involved in writing in the 70's, or Dennis' or Carl's solo efforts, but it again goes back to just how massive of a catalog the Capitol releases from the 60's really is, how influential it was and is, and how beloved that music still is 50+ years later, and it's a hard fact that the overwhelming majority (if not 99.9999% of it minus covers up to '67-'68) of that catalog had Brian's songwriting contributions, not to mention his production and arranging.

Again the topic can be nuanced and shaped into many different forms and directions, but the nature of the question was crystal clear, and the answer is an emphatic "no", and a most basic review of the band's history could even prove that opinion wrong based on the fact that when the band became the legends they are through those 60's recordings, and when they reached the most people through their music, no one else was bringing to the table what Brian was contributing to the music. And his songs are still the ones responsible for the Beach Boys being a marketable entity in 2014.

Well said.

It is interesting that the Beach Boys scored their last #1 without Brian...is that full circle or just a 180?

BTW...David Marks' royalty statements dispute that notion, he's paid as being a musician on that track.

I really question whether these are some of the finest songs or albums in the band's catalogue. I understand they are good tracks from pretty good albums but hey the 70s was filled with people who could turn out good songs and albums. They were solid albums, they mean something to longtime Beach Boys fans but I doubt if they genuinely reach the level of the classics of the 60s. That people cared so much about solid to good (with a few great moments) material is almost entirely caused by the quality established by a Brian Wilson led outfit. How many people care or cared about Mike Love/Al Jardine/Carl Wilson/Dennis Wilson's songwriting outside of that context? Outside of the context of living up to a standard set by some other guy? Even for Dennis Wilson, relatively few human beings on the earth. For Carl, Mike and Al? Basically no-one.

But it is possible to answer the question objectively. So much of the stuff on this thread acts as if songwriting is a mystical, inexplicable process and everyone has a little bit of magic in them! But it isn't, and they don't. It's a process and a job and the person who did the LARGE share of the real world job was Brian Wilson. He wrote, produced and performed and more importantly informed the musical/artistic direction of the band.  


It is impossible to answer in the sense that no-one else did those things that you and I love but that doesn't mean that these particular people with some talent were necessary. If you are removing it from a mystical sense, could other people have played those parts and sang those parts? Yes. Could Mike Love or Carl Wilson have written them the songs and albums that produced a similar commercial or artistic success in the 1960s? No. They couldn't have. And they didn't.




I think people generally, and because of the perhaps unreasonable negativity towards Mike Love over the years WILDLY OVERESTIMATE the skill and difficulty of writing the lyrics on those songs, or contributing a musical idea to a couple of songs. Mike Love was not and is not in any objective, reality based musical sense close to Brian Wilson. That does not make him worthless. It ALSO doesn't make him John Lennon to Brian's Paul McCartney. Mike Love is not a monster but that doesn't mean he is a bloody creative genius either. It doesn't even mean he is a mediocre talent. It just means people said some unfair things about him and didn't properly value what he did contribute.

Second it is quite insulting both to Brian and Dennis Wilson that someone suggesting the idea of writing about surf means much of anything. Van Gogh was inspired by sunflowers too but it doesn't mean that they should have a co-writing credit or say in his biography "Yes, of course he painted this and completed this work on his own back but really we shouldn't forget the credit for photosynthesis! He really couldn't have done it without it!"

The band contributed important things. They also provided a context which is linked forever with the music but if we are speaking of music as a thing that people can create, and not just something that spontaneously and inexplicably occurs, Brian Wilson can comfortably be placed objectively as the single most important influence on the band and the music they made. Collectively, individually, it doesn't matter. Without him there was no band, there was no comeback music in the 70s for people to give a sh*t about. It is no shame to admit this. And it doesn't mean you can't be nice to Al Jardine the next time you meet him.

Yes, they were without Brian but they were helped immeasurably by other talent like John Phillips. However, I was responding to a point about a specific era (1961-1965). I have no doubt that by 1988, Brian in many ways really did need the rest of the band as much as they needed him.

I didn't say about 95% of the claims that you are attributing to me in your responses. Sorry if I made myself unclear but I can't respond to points that I have almost nothing to do with.

Not all of that was specifically directed in opposition to you. Your appeal to relativity prompted a named response.

They were also helped immeasurably by the song's placement on the soundtrack to a Tom Cruise film called Cocktail, even before the song was considered part of a Beach Boys album or anything of the sort, and for songwriting and production don't forget Scott McKenzie and Terry Melcher which makes a total of four songwriters involved in writing that song.

What are you talking about?

Agreed.

You affirmed the difficulty of determining the objective truth of the question, which inspired me to respond directly to you. The objective truth of the question is not difficult to determine. No other quibble.

Then I didn't make myself clear because I wasn't doing that. I was affirming the difficulty about speculating objectively. In other words, I can't tell you objectively how I would react to some alternate timeline that never happened. I presume you don't feel you can either. Again, look back to the section that you were quoting -- I wasn't talking about songwriting at all. I had moved on to an altogether different question that had arisen during the course of the thread, which was whether or not Brian needed the other Beach Boys as much they needed him. This had nothing to do with songwriting. It had to do, I presume, with whether the individual talents, abilities (such as the abilities to go out and perform live), and, also, probably emotional support of Dennis, Carl, Mike, Al, and David were as crucial for Brian as his songwriting, production skills were for them.

I was responding to this question posed by Pinder: "if Brian had been an only child and with no cousin named Mike Love, we surely still have The Beach Boys?" And my point is simply to say that we can never know for sure, just as we can't reach any objective conclusion about any speculation. Again, I can't believe that you would disagree with that so I mustn't have made myself clear.  

No, I agree, as I said. You can't imagine the quality of something that definitely didn't happen.



Okay here is where the disagreement comes from. First I think emotional support in this context is altogether too vague. Emotional support in what way? Affirming that he was doing good stuff? Voting positively for a song being on an album? This is what I would almost be comfortable in saying is far closer to context -in terms of social, period, location, personal or genetic lottery ways - than it is anything to do with ascertaining the deliberate and actual artistic influence someone had on a work. That he had people who cared enough to tour or perform well in public is just not enough to put on someone as being a specific quality of theirs. Perhaps he needed someone to do that but it doesn't necessarily follow that he needed Mike, Dennis, Carl, Al and/or David Marks to do it.   

Right we can ultimately never know in that it is physically impossible (at least in our current human experience) to play back a scenario with different people/personalities. But that is true of EVERY situation imaginable. "I couldn't have married my wife if I'd been an octopus!" and so on. What we can determine quite adequately is the real life creative/human input in the thing we can perceive. The things we perceive of The Beach Boys, from their albums to their reputation, to the positive impact that the mere whiff of a silly "Brian Is Back" marketing shot did can be objectively evaluated. In that evaluation, the overwhelming artistic effort and innovation comes from Brian Wilson. He wrote the large majority of the songs. He produced the songs. He performed on the songs.

If one can imagine a scenario that does not exist - on which the entire Smile Myth is based BTW - then the idea of Brian Wilson doing great things in the 1960s is pretty stable. Perhaps it's close to the Beach Boys, perhaps it's not. It is impossible to imagine Al Jardine suddenly becoming a major musical force in that decade. As with the rest of the band. The talent, work ethic, direction and result is apparent in every sense with Brian Wilson. It is hard to muster any certainty about the rest of the group.   

And the topic of Bruce's marital status isn't a waste of time..?

That sums it up best. If someone's major deal in Beach Boys fandom is the 70's stuff you're going to be that proverbial tree falling in the woods. Don't get me wrong, I love that stuff too. I wish more people knew about it or cared even though IMO it's not nearly as good as what Brian accomplished in the 60's....but...I get it. I understand your frustration. As a major McCartney fan I'd love for the world to care about "Ram" like they do the Beatles catalog but they don't and they never will. I can scream about it all I want but it's never going to make a difference. The Beach Boys' 60's work is like some towering behemoth that blocks out the sun...or better yet, it's the sun itself, and we all know what The Sunrays have to say about that.  :)

Yep.

This thread has had good debate and good discussion. Absolutely not a waste of time.

This "debate" is the equivalent of verbal masturbation. If you really believe the question put forth has any validity why would you even visit this message board?

Because this is a BEACH BOYS message board.

The implicit tension in most things Beach Boys is between pro this and pro that. That chatter is sniping and griping, often based on little more than who someone has asked to sign their LP of Today! or whatever. This thread at least presents the possibility of substantive results, as it relates to real verifiable things and not (just) soapy infatuation.

I'm a big believer in Dennis Wilson's 1975 quote " He is the band. We're his fucking messengers."

Hell yes! 8)

So they should have been called Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys..? Like Huey Lewis and The News, Gary Puckett and The Union Gap, Diana Ross and The Supremes.

The Beach Boys works just fine. The group was a vehicle for his ideas after all  ;)

Hey, at my first Beach Boys concert in Atlantic City in 1969 they were advertised as Carl Wilson and The Beach Boys. ;)

Also, this is one of those beating a dead horse threads. There is no right answer. You have no Beach Boys without Brian Wilson, plain & simple. Yet, without those voices, without the work put in by the band to tour and promote themselves, you probably don't have quite the success that was achieved. In the 70s, the band members stepped forward when Brian stepped back. If they were to survive as a group, this had to be done. Through Holland it was a pretty good mix that made for a series of good albums, at least to us fans who followed them during that time.

Let's put together a beach boys fan convention. It would prolly be better than this.

I think we can fairly easily speculate some what-ifs regarding a band who's nearly every single detail has been hammered out in various books, etc over the decades .....

Knowing what we know about Brian as a teenager/young man, I don't think it's ludicrous to wonder that perhaps if he did not have a Chuck Berry obsessed, guitar playing little brother and neighborhood guitar playing friend, or a football teammate bugging him to start a folk band, or a doo-wop obsessed, singing cousin also bugging him to start a band, and an all-time cool guy middle brother to inspire and inform the image of a possible band (and to also be the perfect drummer for said band) that Brian might not have even started a band at all ...... Might he have become a successful songwriter somehow otherwise? Perhaps: even likely ...... But there would have never in a million years been The Beach Boys if none of the above had been a combined factor.

Nailed it. Thanks.

Pinder for the win!

If he hadn't lived in California, he wouldn't have written about California. His talent and work set him apart from his environment. He was not simply a result of his circumstances. Being as good as he was at his job or the success he achieved cannot be seen as the other half of the coin of a brother who liked surfing. Having an idea to do something good is not the same as doing something good.

But isn't this like taking apart a beautifully complex car and tearing into the engine, pointing at it's innards and saying "it's all about the engine and whoever designed/did the blueprints for the engine"

Most of us don't go to the store, buy random sheet music and fall in love with songs that way ........ Generally, we hear songs on the radio, see a band live, get fed hype, buy records, etc ...... And all that is the product of various sums of parts.

Getting back to the original question, then the answer is "no"?

I'd say that is about right.

It's been right since the first reply to the original post. And I reckon it has been and will always be right.  :)

"was the songwriting better without Brian?"

I agree ..... The answer is absolutely: NO.

Good, now I can get back to planning that Thanksgiving meal. Got everything in place except a local market that sells the ingredients for light trolling.  :)

On a related note: The majority of the songs on "In The Key Of Disney" are from animated films made after Walt Disney died. Is Brian Wilson postulating that the Disney product made after Uncle Walt passed away is actually better than the classic Disney music of yore?

I expect 6 pages of responses to this.  ;D

I'm warming to this concept, so here's a few thoughts of my very own:

Is the drinking better without the alcohol ?

Is the eating better without the food ?

Is the breathing better without the oxygen ?

Hahaha, I've seen some threads in my time, but this thread. THIS THREAD.


The answer to the thread title's question is no. That is not a subjective answer.

Such a simple answer "No", but it took 8 pages to come to a conclusion that we already knew. ;)

(http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IVWJ_I-Fdxw/sddefault.jpg)

Farley: So, ummm, Paul...uh...would those Beatles songs have been, like, better or something if John and you had, you know, never met?
Paul: No.
Farley: Awesome!

Enough already. This is so ridiculous that I am amazed it ever turned into a serious discussion.
You guys must love to hear yourselves type.

Yeah...I think this discussion has ran its course, but man that's an awesome Farley skit.