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My Track list:
1: It’s OK
2: Had to Phone Ya
3: Sherry She Needs Me
4: Games Two Can Play
5: Everyone's In Love With You
6: Good Timin'
7: That Same Song
8: TM Song
9: H.E.L.P. Is On the Way
10: Susie Cincinnati
11: Loop De Loop (Flip Flop Flyin' In an Aeroplane)
12: My Solution
13: Back Home
14: Barnyard Blues
15: When Girls Get Together
This isn’t a much better album, but it might have gained more respect from the late 70s crowds. Also, I chose songs that were either frequently known to float around BBs late 70s track lists, or were recorded around that time. This still isn’t my perfect album.
I know this isn’t really a groundbreaking post, but it’s boring at the moment, so I felt like making this

Had we had an album like this, we wouldn't have gotten Love You.

+1! If 15 Big Ones had to be its lame-ass, stanky self to pave the way for Love You, then it was meant to be.

Why did it have to be 15 songs anyway? The typical BBs album had 10 to 12. CATP only had 8.

They were treating it as a 15 year anniversary of the group to coincide with the bicentennial.

No way 15BO could ever have been completely original material unless they put songs from the other band members on it. Since it was the Steve Love regime, that worked out for Mike, and a little bit for Al--but left Dennis and Carl on the outside looking in.

Someone with a better immediate handle on the details could certainly tell us what that material could have been. Clearly "River Song" was the Dennis tune that had been toyed with the most as a BB song, but there were some others. That said, hard to see "River Song" residing comfortably here. Tunes like "California Feeling" and "Good Timin'" were around in various versions, but were left in the can.

The "Brian's Back" idea just crashed over everything, even to the point of having Brian sing leads when he had laryngitis, which put a pitchfork into songs that might otherwise have worked with a version of the old tongue-in-cheek approach: "Back Home" and "That Same Song."

They also left several of the better oldies in the can--"You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" and "Sea Cruise," just to name two. (There's some dispute as to whether the former was worked on during the original sessions, however.)

The decision-making process in this time frame can only be described as "highly chaotic." And that's being charitable...

But, yes, if all that chaos, developing friction (Dennis going solo), and Carl's creative paralysis (personal and professional issues were hitting him hard in '76-'77) led to something as unique as LOVE YOU, then the consummate strangeness of 15BO was (probably just barely) worth it...

Maybe Soulful Old Man Sunshine (with a minor vocal tweak) to replace one of the songs?  I've been working on alternate albums for the time being as well.  My (still WIP) version of 15 Big Ones still uses both covers and originals but makes some changes here and there.

Hard to imagine 15 Big Ones as an all-original album, as it would change the whole concept of a new Beach Boys record in 1976. The oldies idea was likely part of what got Brian into the studio in the first place, and the Happy Days nostalgia of the era surely helped in marketing the record - the oldies were part of that appeal. If the group were interested in creating a follow-up to Holland, this would have been a very different record and quite likely significantly less commercially successful. I believe 15 Big Ones was their biggest selling new studio album from not just the '70s but the entire period of 1968-present (someone correct me if I'm wrong). No way they could go back to pick up where they left off on Holland after Endless Summer happened (for better or worse - personally, I think the music of the Brian-led era of '76-'77 is superior to anything after Friends).

Why?

Bc Rock and Roll Music was a Top 10 single. 15 Big Ones as we know has Brian's fingertips all over it; if it was a democratic album ala Holland or CaTP, then maybe Brian wouldn't have felt so confident to explore his creative urges (at the insistence of Landy). I don't think Brian would have felt the need to express himself, had he wasn't so represented/pressured after 15 Big Ones came out and he was shoved out on tour in '76.

I agree. I've thought if they wanted to keep it at 15, they could have dumped two or three covers (any except Rock and Roll Music, which they needed to be a single, and Just Once in Life) and put on Soulful, Loop De Loop and San Miguel.

When Ricky and Blondie left it all went pretty much downhill from there... Love You album is an exception though.

I'd rather have LA than LY.

What they really needed at this point was an outside producer, or at least co-producer. Richard Perry strikes me as a good example of someone from the era who might have whipped the band and their material into shape. I guess that didn't become the MO of record companies until the 1980s (see BB '85), but it surprises me in hindsight that Warners thought anything good would come of having Brian thrown straight in at the deep end.

WB wanted sails, not quality. The news of Brian Wilson at the helm was a huge sails booster

Hence why we got track 3 on the Light Album!

:lol

I think they could have made a good album with something like this by the end of 1975.

Good Timin'
River Song
Shortenin' Bread
Susie Cincinnati
Barnyard Blues
My Love Lives On

It's OK
Pacific Ocean Blue
Everyone's In Love With You
Angel Come Home
Back Home (1970 version)
California Feeling (MIC mix) / Ding Dang