The Smiley Smile Message Board

Starting with Surfer Girl the BBs put out a dozen albums to the end of the 60s, SG being their first solid one, I personally love Little Deuce Couple but its been considered an album that was rushed out being that four of the cuts were reissued, same w Shut Down vol2, but then we have All Summer Long, Today, Summer Days and Pet Sounds- ALL solid...Smiley Smile gets undermined cuz it wasn't was expected but its a good lp, same w Wild Honey. Then we have Friends, without Little bird its a weak lp...I love 20/20 even if its more of a collection than proper album; Sunflower shines due to Dennis's efforts which I think outshined Brian's but just the one time, Surfs Up & Holland are hit&miss but I think are good, not great but good. Not trying to be a "broken" record or use lazy grammar, just putting in perspective.

Well, that's just, like, your OPINION, man.

I don't think "Friends" is a weak album at all...

  WILD HONEY is one Beach Boys album I rarely listen to anymore. Once a favorite, now in some respects (to me) the least of the post PET SOUNDS albums on Capitol. Maybe I should listen again. I've noticed here and there it's often a favorite among rock critics who like but do not love The Beach Boys: Robert Christgau, Greil Marcus, maybe Dave Marsh. But who cares what Dave Marsh likes, LOL.

To be frank, all you ever seem to post is posts just like this....Always about pre-67 being good and everything else contemptible..... What points are you trying to establish? I know its your opinion man but gawd if we haven't heard it enough...  ::)

Ok instead of new threads ill just reply to ones someone else posted cuz apparently the piss poor elitism on here is key.

Summer Days is a stopgap. I know everyone else loves it and thinks it's one of their best, but it came out incredibly soon after Today and was a MASSIVE step down from that. Today into PS sounds and feels like a more natural and smooth evolution than Today into SD. SD saw a return to distracting filler, the rehash of Rhonda and the abandonment of Todays cohesive flow. Even if one likes it, it was almost certainly rushed and is as much of a hodgepodge as 20/20

It's just hard to understand what you're saying and to what end, that's all. Nobody's putting you down for personal reasons

Party seems most like an album that is a gap but yet it doesn't fit...lol

Some decent punctuation and acceptable spelling & grammar would help your cause immeasurably, as would having a POV that varied somewhat (as noted below) from "pre-67 good/post-67 bad". Anyone who uses txt spk on a forum such as this is immediately consigned to my personal "not to be taken in any way seriously" file.

Plus, the last time the BB were a rock & roll band was... ummm... someone help me here ?

Have to agree - the album kinda peters out on side two and it seems like Brian was conducting an experiment along the lines of "what would it sound like if I unplugged the echo chamber ?". That said... oh ! Side one !!!

The Beach Boys were a rock band man they rocked were rockin. America/US stopped being interested in rock music, just look at the charts after 1966. The UK was carrying the torch of rocknroll and they kept buying all the Beach Boys records, that's because they were still keeping the rock alive. Rock was dead in the US. None of the beatles albums after 1965 have any energy; they were a studio band. They didnt have any talent but George Martin kept them afloat with his goodness. The Beach Boys albums were better because the Beatles didn't have talent but George Martin did. Rock was dead in the US.

1973/Beach Boys were still rockin and makin good rockin. But 15 Big Ones was leftovers and demos and rerecordings of older songs and reinterpretations and leftovers. Love You is only a Beach Boys album in name,it's a Brian album in everything but name. It has the Beach Boys name on it. MIU and LA light album were leftovers and solo songs that were left over and they recorded other songs. The Beach Boys werent a real band anymore

Hey thank God The Ramones came along (honestly the fuckin' Ramones?) when they did.

I agree the Beatles aren't nearly as talented as the accepted popular narrative would have you believe and George Martin
should get most of the credit. But their best albums came after '65. And I'm not sure what you mean by America didn't like rock music. If anything, America shifted towards a harder progressive rock/metal rock in '69 and the early seventies. The softer vocal/pop groups like the Beach Boys and Association are the ones that got left behind.

He's taking the piss out of Kook who lived through an alternative reality America, where nobody listened to rock music from the late 60s until The Ramones blundered along.

I'd say the best thing about the Wild Honey album is the lyrics (Mike was on a roll here). Clearly the overall production and the way the vocals were recorded are lacking.

  20/20 consisted of tracks recorded years apart, each cut having a different producer and composer. SUMMER DAYS was recorded in the spring of 65, written mostly by Brian and Mike, and produced by Brian. In no way is SUMMER DAYS "almost as much a hodgepodge as 20/20"

  The only weak cut on side 2 is "Bugged/Old Man".

That's not a very kind thing to say about the man who wrote a book about "Louie Louie".

And yes-----maybe you should listen again to Wild Honey... :smokin

Summer Days is one of the group's most consistent albums. Girl Don't Tell Me, HMR, CG, Let Him Run Wild (!), You're So Good to Me, Summer Means New Love... the amount of stone cold classics is outstanding! There are some typical album cuts too but most of them are very good anyway.

+1. I never comprehend the mindset that this album is anything less than a relaxed, chilled-out masterpiece.

Prior to Pet Sounds/Rubber Soul didn't most pop albums have a lot of filler? Even when I was a kid, 45s were the big sellers. People had stacks of them and fewer albums. In Chicago, we had WLS Silver Dollar Surveys we collected every week from the record stores.

So it seems a little anachronistic to apply later standards to early BB albums.

Today had no filler. The radio interview at the end I guess, but that was more of an epilogue. It's unintrusive and harmless. Then SD saw a return to the filler in a big way. So it's not anachronistic, it's indicitive of a regression after a previous breakthrough

Today and Summer Days aren't full of filler by any means.

Sheesh, I'd love to know what versions of these albums you guys are all listening to. Friends without Little Bird is a weak LP? sh*t.

I specifically said Today had no filler unless you count the interview snippet at the end, which doesnt bother me. But SD definitely has filler. Im Bugged at My Old Man, a rehash of Rhonda and weird subpar experiments like Amusement Parks USA. It has some real gems too, but overall it doesnt coalesce into a really great, cohesive LP the same way Today and Pet Sounds do. It came out very quickly after Today, was a big step down from that, and in no way a natural evolutionary link between that and PS. It's a valley between two peaks. A stop gap if ever there was one. That doesnt mean its terrible or you shouldnt like it, but call it what it is.

A valley between two peaks? Meaning...between Today and Party? I don't know about that. And Help Me Rhonda, a number one hit and a classic production, is FILLER? The productions were only improving; Brian was honing his craft to a level even better than what he achieved on Today. Yeah, I'd buy Party as the stopgap, sure...but Summer Days was just another evolution in the Beach Boys sound and Brian's productions.

I never called Summer Days a hodgepodge...its a great album! And just because side 2 of Today is the mellow side vs the fast songs on side 1 doesnt make it a lesser album. And I never said post67 BBs is crap, just hit&miss..wild honey is a solid lp I dont care what anyone says, same w 20/20; sunflower's strengths is in dennis's songs rather than brian's for the first and only time; surfs up & holland have some great songs and somw mediocre as well, agreed? 15bO is a solid sounding lp it just bummed some people out because it was all outtakes and covers.

<<I never called Summer Days a hodgepodge...its a great album! And just because side 2 of Today is the mellow side vs the fast songs on side 1 doesnt make it a lesser album. And I never said post67 BBs is crap, just hit&miss..wild honey is a solid lp I dont care what anyone says, same w 20/20; sunflower's strengths is in dennis's songs rather than brian's for the first and only time; surfs up & holland have some great songs and somw mediocre as well, agreed? 15bO is a solid sounding lp it just bummed some people out because it was all outtakes and covers. >>

Kook - would ya say MIU, LA and KTSA are all out-takes and covers, too?  And maybe Holland is the last real Beach Boys album?

Sign me curious.

You blew any and all credibility with me when you call the single version of Help Me Rhonda "Filler".
What we don't do or say to prove a point.

It was on the very previous album (yes, yes, a different version I know) and released as a standalone single. To release the same song FOR THE THIRD TIME yes, I'd call that filler.

It's not the same song. It's a completely different production. Brian commonly included the current single on the new album. Calling it "filler" puts it in the same league as Cassius Love vs. Sonny Wilson.

By your logic, Heroes and Villains on the Smile box set is "filler."

Except that that's a historical release and recreation of the album H&V was originally meant to premiere on.

Sorry but as far as I'm concerned, rereleasing a song for a third time in quick succession is cheap filler. I love Brian but I'm not gonna pull punches when he made mistakes of that magnitude.

Help Me Rhonda on Summer Days a "mistake."

And I thought my opinions were f***ed up. But hey, you're entitled. This is going nowhere.

Itd be like if he rerecorded WIBN for SMiLE after having it on Pet Sounds and as a single. Nice, but unnecessary, a waste of space and lazy.

Rhonda is a great song but it was already on an album and a standalone single. No point in releasing it again except to fill space. Sorry if you disagree, but that's how I see it

 Comparing the continuity of SUMMER DAYS & SUMMER NIGHTS with 20/20 is absurd. ALL SUMMER LONG, TODAY, and SUMMER DAYS are all on equal footing, with TODAY being the best of the three. PARTY is a stopgap, then a breakthrough with PET SOUNDS. Beach Boys 101.

Does I Get Around fall under these same criteria? I wonder...

 Re Marsh: Perhaps too kind about a man who once gave SUNFLOWER a ** rating out of *****. HOLLAND too. PET SOUNDS? A whole ***. See the first edition of The Rolling Stone Record Guide, red cover, 1978.

Pet Sounds and Today are classic albums. ASL and SD are very good, but flawed. SD's flaws come under harder scrutiny because by then Brian knew better and had done better. Opinionology 420.

If they're writing for Rolling Stone, their opinions are automatically contemptible.

 Quick response! The 420 isn't slowing you down a bit.  :hat

 Marsh has his head so far up Springsteen's a$$...another thread I guess.  He once wrote a classic anti-Love piece called "Shut Down Vol 3", to be found in his FORTUNATE SON anthology collection. I like his 1001 singles book. At times.

Different arrangement which Brian made an improvement upon the original. An improvement is not filler. A number one hit single is not filler. Are greatest hit compilations all filler? All the songs were released on prior albums, so they must be. So a song like Wouldn't It Be Nice is not filler on Pet Sounds, but is filler on any other album that it might appear on? This whole discourse is ridiculous. Sorry, but that is my opinion. If you disagree, sorry, that is how I see it.

Maybe he should have just rereleased Surfin Safari in a new arrangement every album :hat

But seriously, I'm sorry if we can't see the others point but yes I think rehashing a song that's already been rearranged and rereleased is bad form. Number one hit or no. Each new studio album is an independent creation. It would be like a director remaking a scene from his very last movie into the new one. Or an author reusing a chapter from his last novel into his latest. Doesn't matter if it's the best scene/chapter/song ever, it's still poor craftsmanship. Something Brian was above by that point.

Greatest Hits are not the same thing. When you buy those, you know what you're getting--the hit singles repackaged into one convenient LP. Not the same as reusing tracks from the previous studio LP.

you've heard of a guy named George Lucas?

you've heard of a guy named Frank Zappa?

Thanks for proving my point.

Zappa did that?

well at least Brian didn't invent something like a Jar Jar Binks...and I think we all can be in agreement, in solidarity, with that...lol  :lol

I just say Holland was their last essential lp. I like 15bO but I understand why it gets flack. LA and KTSA get flack for obvious reasons.

Help Me Rhonda is rehashed older material but luckily it was fairly rockin' and helped pave the way for The Ramones a decade later.

I get the sarcasm of undermining the Ramones but they did essentially save rockNroll and drew alot from the BBs mid 60s sound.

I'd agree. It was their last genuine attempt to innovate and make an album they believed in. 15BO is shameless pandering and exploitation. Love You is a hijacked solo album. The rest after that are like old men desperately trying to fit into their old letter jackets and pick up girls half their age.

<<I just say Holland was their last essential lp. I like 15bO but I understand why it gets flack. LA and KTSA get flack for obvious reasons. >>

Thanks for the clarification.

Yep, along with every Beach Boys album that Brian had a hand in writing. With Love You I have never heard of where Brian had a solo album ready to release and then pulled it back so the Beach Boys could re-record their own version.