The Smiley Smile Message Board

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xyUTaUc87c

surrounded by schlock - the great Carl Wilson.

Sounds about as banal as the Landy songs on Sweet Insanity.

Melcher wrote better songs in his Beach Boys tenure.

Well, here goes my credibility but I actually thought it wasn't that bad.  We're talking about what, 1987 or so?  That kind of was how things went back then. 



Thank god the kid didn't find Brian's stash!











BTW, Carl Wilson proves once more that he was incredible. 

the movie and song came out in 1990.

you better check out just who wrote the song.........

I hope he's not reading but I thought Carl sounded much better on this than Brian sounded on anything on Sweet Insanity. 

The most downright absurd aspect of their many lackluster eighties singles is that one of them actually made it to the top of the charts... Sadly, what's most incredible about Carl Wilson here is that he obviously didn't give a toss about the group's artistic direction anymore. All this dross, like Problem Child or Happy Endings even make Keepin' The Summer Alive really shine.

Keep in mind that for 1990 and the late 80s, this wasn't all that unusually bad. Also, maybe the  Boys just didn't have the fight left in them? I mean, we all need to make a living. and with all the ups and downs these guys had gone through.... maybe they just sucummed to bad management. or maybe they even thought it was good! Or at least that it would be a hit.

Of course, David Leaf, Melinda and Landy can't be held responsible for bad creative decisions that a group of grown men make, but perhaps the whole rock-school- of-cool contingent coulda treated Carl, Al, Mike, Bruce, (as well as Dennis) with a bit more respect when they were actually, for the most part, really trying (and mostly succeeding) to create heady, artistic, vibrant music, instead of measuring anythings worth against whatever level of Brian involvement there was. And then they even bashed Brian for not dishing out Pet Sounds 2-3-4 and 5 every year.

I think that the most remarkable thing about the Beach Boys' 80s and 90s material is that it sounds much more dated now than anything they recorded in 1965-1973.

I guess that's just the difference between setting and following trends.

It seems that from the Light Album onwards, they were basically trying to sound like whatever the current fad in music was and failing at it miserably (minus Dennis' and Carl's songs on L.A., and Where I Belong, artistically speaking, and Kokomo, Getcha Back, and Good Timin' from a commercial standpoint).

Hey, I was fooled by the youtube liner notes.  :)

 :lol :lol :lol

By the time Melcher hooked up with the BB in this period, he'd lost it, as I suspect Usher had when you listen to the production of the usher tapes.

This is a piece of sh*t, really - but it was one among many.  What the hell were they thinking?

Mike does get a lot of stick, much of it deservedly, but this sort of thing does make me wonder if he is really the One To Blame.

The 80s were hard on 60s pop stars... if you could remember the 60s Beach Boys, you'd still respect them. If you were too young to know them, this  band playing this music could represent The Enemy as much as ... Celine Dion.  And making the journey to discovering the great 60s and 70s tracks a much harder trek.

So maybe Beach Boys fans under 40 years old are post-ironic ?

how is this any of their faults? David Leaf, a writer with little or no influence, and mainly with just Brian. Landy, perhaps he prevented Brian from performing in the video/song like Kokomo, so really, thanks Dr. Landy on that one. and Melinda isn't even in the picture until further down the road (influencial wise)

Once again, the Boys feel the lash of YouTube across their aging shoulders.  There should probably be a separate board set up for that- scourge our heroes with their latter-day indiscretions. The well is apparently bottomless.

Actually, it didn't bother me at all.  I lived through those days and found it advisable to stay inebriated most of the time. I like this song better than, say, "Rainbow Eyes". (I had sobered up by then).

And incidentally, I think most stuff sounds more dated from 10-20 years later than it does at 30-40.  Elvis' early hits sounded dated to me in the seventies, they sound utterly timeless now.

Hate to agree but Brian never did sing worse.

"how is this any of their faults? David Leaf, a writer with little or no influence, and mainly with just Brian. Landy, perhaps he prevented Brian from performing in the video/song like Kokomo, so really, thanks Dr. Landy on that one. and Melinda isn't even in the picture until further down the road (influencial wise)"

Sorry, it was meant to be ironic.   ::)

Obviously this was a joke

Livin Doll/Barbie's a lot worse than anything on SI. And Landy probably was behind that!  That was awful too.   Maybe they were looking for a new audience?  Bring on Make It Big!

100% agree...well said

good song I like the stuff the beach boys made during the 80's and 90's

sorry, i guess i didnt catch that...i was in the mind-set of someone new was writing it, i'll look at the author next time

It's not a great moment but it was admitedly for kids. The other songs have no excuse.

I wonder how it worked.  Their manager put it to them; their agent phoned around the studios saying they'd contribute a song to any old crap; someone (or some people) in the group decided it would be a great idea to get in touch with the youth and keep the band in the public eye; did they vote on it? Kokomo and Still Cruising I can just about bear, but this stuff's embarrassing.

Yeah, I always marvelled at that too.  Anytime you see a really bad move like this or some of that music they did back then... there had to be SEVERAL people who thought it was a good idea!  It's not like just 1 person made a mistake. 

Again though, I think this song's a bad example, I don't think it's really all that bad considering the time period it was recorded in.  Plus Carl nearly makes the song nice with his beautiful vocals. 

Seems like they were making bad moves left and right from the late-80s onward.

Well, it could have been Summer In Paradise  ::) ::)

They're (Problem Child and Make It Big) not as bad as Wipe Out and Happy Endings....

You know, Kokomo I can see.  Vacuous crappy movie though Cocktail is, Tom Cruise was in it and a lot of people saw it - chance to make some money with a vacuous crappy song on the soundtrack; same for Still Cruisin' in Lethal Weapon with Mel Gibson, but Problem Child? Police Academy (and not even the first of this fucking awful series)? Troop Beverly Fucking Hills?! Telephone (for which BJ destroyed a perfectly good if syrupy song and turned it into crap)? Disorderlies?  Didn't someone say no?

Agreed. Happy Endings is just so awful, Bruce Johnston at his worst and sappiest.

That said, there's actually one of those eighties singles I like from time to time and that's Rock'n'Roll To The Rescue, which works quite well as an irrelevant fun song (thanks to both Brian and Al's nice enough vocal performances).

I always liked "Happy endings" but probably only because it features Little Richard AND the Beach Boys (but unfortunately both not at their best).

"Rock'n'Roll to the rescue" I always loved. Brian's leadvocal is outstanding. The best later lead by Brian imho. Carl, Al and Mike also sound very good.

I think this thread has proven that one man's shitty song is another man's guilty pleasure. 

If you look at it collectively 1984-1997 was the Beach Boys nadir. They were largely a total embarrassment, and almost everything they did was wrong creatively. I am not talking solo projects here because that's a whole other issue. I think certain shows in the summer of 1988, the 1993 box set tour, the Was/Paley sessions, and perhaps two or three other songs (Somewhere Near Japan, maybe RARTTR) were worthy of the Beach Boys. Sure they had good moments nearly every show, and sometimes an effort was made, but I am judging on the whole. Dennis aside, there was no reason they shouldn't have been able to do the same quality of show musically they did in 1975 in 1985. Mike gets a lot of slack from me, but where he took the group during these years is nothing to be proud of. Carl too must take some of the blame for being more and more complacent. He left the group in 1981 because he didn't feel they were trying hard enough. Where was that fight for the Beach Boys to be a credible band after Dennis died? I think Dennis wasn't able to do much by 1983, but somehow his loss kind of pushed Brian and Carl away from the band. Carl was still present but he didn't seem to care in the same way. Don't misunderstand Carl was still a great talent and could still move a crowd, I just think he should have left again when things got so cheesy.

I'm with you on all the rest, but don't knock Disorderlies. That movie kicked ass. And so does Wipeout. Yes, I said it. I meant it.

Man, that song really sucks, it doesn't sound anything like a Beach Boys song, and is embarassing for the group.  But man, Mike sure can make that sax sing, can't he?

I think that really did affect Carl. The loss of Dennis. I mean the Beach Boys had always been the three Wilson brothers, Mike and (most of the time) Al. I mean look at it from Carl's point of view, Dennis is dead, Brian is in a pretty bad state and isn't really creative at all. I mean if I was Carl (after everything he had been through and had to deal with) I would probably give up too.

"Don't misunderstand Carl was still a great talent and could still move a crowd, I just think he should have left again when things got so cheesy."

Maybe he just felt he couldn't let them down.  On the other hand, he was working, on and off, with Beckley and Lamm and while I dmit the songs are no masterpieces, they're way better than MOST of what the others were doing, BW88 excepted.

mikeyj and Smilin Ed H

I am glad you understand what I am getting at. One thing that sticks out is Carl being asked by a young band on the Endless Summer tv show if he still likes it. He replied "How can you not when you are making so many people happy" It must have been hard for him to swallow his ambitions, but what he got from the audience outweighed it. Still it is sad that the Beach Boys went the way they did. If they only tried then what Brian, Mike, and Bruce sometimes try now....

And I think that is what music is all about. I mean at the end of the day if somebody REALLY loves Barbara Ann or even Summer Of Love or whatever and wants to play that record over and over (kinda like Brian with Be My Baby) then so be it. If it's truly making them happy then that's all that matters (to that person)


So true MBE.

And if only they could have given us just one more good or at least half way decent album to finish on a strong note. I mean it just sucks that the last all original studio album from the Beach Boys will go down in history (most likely) as being Summer In Paradise.

If Carl had left the band in the 80s or 90s, he would very probably have to go back to performing Beach Boys music to make a living. It was easier - and more logical - to do it in the Beach Boys to much bigger crowds and earning a lot more money, opposed to doing the club circuit on his own.

I don't know how good Carl was with money, if he lived extravagantly etc. If he had been able to save through the years, perhaps he could have gone full time solo with no problems. If not perhaps being in the group was something he felt he had to do. Again to me it would depend on how much he had saved and how lavish he lived.

I'm telling ya, Carl might have loved all that music.  Maybe being in the group and doing songs like that was something he didn't feel he had to do, maybe it was something he WANTED to do. 

Who managed them at this time? Schilling?

I believe in '89 (or what are we talking about?) Schilling was managing Jerry Lee Lewis. Can't remember when he left the BBs though. I think that in '84 he was still there