The Smiley Smile Message Board

Did people in the band other than Brian/Denny ever consider that the Wilson brothers' issues could, in part, be due to their perceptions of the band's creative stagnation in the  late '70s/early '80s? How that could have hurt the Wilsons more than anyone could possibly know? Just wondering if anyone thinks that their bandmates ever thought this, and if it ever influenced their decisions.

I suppose one could make a strong case that Love You epitomized letting a person in need of help take the reigns to see what they could do, and felt that it wasn't something they wanted to repeat. Yet it just seems like such a no-brainer that post-Love You, the Wilson brothers' issues were not helped by being stuck in the oldies vortex. I just wonder if that was ever taken into consideration and/or just brushed off.

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Interesting topic.

Dennis was still creating at this time though.  Since The Beach Boys were busy becoming a parody of themselves, Dennis took his moodier material onto the POB album, and the Bambu project. 

Brian wasn't exactly bringing grade A material to the table at this time. 

Wow, that is reaching a bit, isn't it? Brian already had his issues and so did Dennis (at least starting) by the mid-70's. Dennis began the sucking vortex, after going to Jim Guercio and him taking them down the oldies route.

You know, going the oldies route in concert and producing new music in the studio is two different animals. I would have no problem with 15 Big Ones had the band sang better on it. The background vocals were honestly, run of the mill. Not Beach Boy grade vocals at all. Love you was edgy, but the lyrics to some songs were not quite up to par. MIU had little participation from Carl and Dennis. So you can't blame them for that. LA (Light Album) was as close as they got to sounding of the times. Who did they go to for that album? Carl & Dennis. The last three albums sold poorly. Why? Because the average fan had them pigeonholed in their own past glories. If those albums had sold decently, I think we would have seen better ouput and maybe more output into the early through mid-80's.

If anyone wants to check out what could have happened if by the mid 70s The Beach Boys ditched the oldies and continued with releasing originals albums in the style of Holland/Surf's Up through the 70s and early 80s, check out my alternate tracklists in the alternate discography thread. I really put a lot of time and effort into making 15 Big Ones/M.I.U/L.A./Keepin' The Summer Alive to fit into more serious sounding and unified LPs. Cheers! ;)

Everyone (including me) always wants to blame Mike and Al for the Wilson brothers issues, saying those two were taking the band down the oldies surf and car route. Man I know I always railed against them. But as you get older, you start to realize some thing.

There were 5 people in the band. If 2 want to do one thing and the other three don't, the 3 win. But, the 3 have to be well enough to take command. And they weren't. Not blaming them, they we abused and mentally ill. But those are the facts. So the two who were sober took over.

Brian said in many interviews in the 70's he was amazed that Carl, Dennis and Al didn't want to do the older hits and wanted to do the late 60's and early 70's tunes. He said in one interview the needed to be proud of their "thing"  and perform the oldies. He went against this in the 80's, but that had the air of Landy directing him, as he added he thought all of his old songs were stupid, which he now says is not true.

Guercio pushed them into doing more oldies back in '74. He was the first one to push this.

And the oldies were what the GENERAL PUBLIC wanted. So they could have ignored the hits, and just played album tracks for fans in small theaters, or give the people what they want and play arenas and stadiums. No brainer! But they did continue to try to make new music, and if the new stuff had been commercially successful, there would have been demand for that music to be played live. It was an uphill battle.