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Smiley Smile Stuff => General On Topic Discussions => Topic started by: SMiLE Brian on August 09, 2011, 02:31:29 PM



Title: Old Essay I wrote about The Beach Boys for my college class
Post by: SMiLE Brian on August 09, 2011, 02:31:29 PM
The Beach Boys


I wrote this early in my fandom, so forgive if I made mistakes or simplied their history for this paper




Voice: I am a marketing executive sent to help the beach boys have a better web presence to help with their popularity in the 21st century.
Audience: The band members of Mike Love, Brian Wilson, Alan Jardine, Bruce Johnston, and David Marks who are the main surviving members of the band today.
Message: The band needs better a website to promote deep material the band has recorded over the years because the current website doesn’t really show the deep material that has made the band so great.
Tone: You guy need to make money because of all the bad record deals over the years that have prevented the members from making their money like they really want to.
Attitude: I can help these guys a lot if they just stop arguing for 10 minutes about future concerts or record deals.
Reception: I want my band to be recognized as great as the Beatles like they should be by the public instead of being ignored and not making any money.
 

           The Beach Boys have been around performing music since 1961, yet are not respected by the public like the Beatles are. The main reason for this is that the dad of band leader Brian Wilson sold the music rights of the band away, forcing the band to perform all their greatest hits material to make money because Brian Wilson had mental health issue preventing the writing of new material that the public would like. This had the result that the public thinking they are cheesy and not very good at all despite their albums having deeper material that is classic American music. The members also don’t get along with Brian and Al not getting along with Mike due to hatred built up from years of band infighting. To get this project to work I will need the members to get along and realize they need to market their material to a new audience to make the money they want to.  My job is find a way to promote this band online so they can make more money and regain the public affection they once had.
 
              The problem with the Beach Boys is that they don’t promote their album material well at all. The official website has little or no information about the band’s history and material made over the years. The fan sites are so much better because they have the whole history and reviews of material by the band and even have entire sections about bootlegs that float around on the tape trading market. Wikipedia is also a great source of information with a history of the band along with pages on songs and every album the Beach Boys ever did in their heyday. The only CDs or MP3s promoted are the greatest hits collections, which have the same material that everybody knows. I had to buy all of their less known, but better material on CDs from secondhand record stores or random sellers on amazon.com’s market place. I also noticed on YouTube that everybody has put up videos of unreleased material for viewing by the fans. This makes the band lose money because the fans can listen to this material for free instead of paying for it in unreleased material box sets that could help mark 50 years of the band being in existence. The worst example of this free music is the bootlegs of the upcoming Smile Sessions Box set being all over YouTube, making the fans know what is coming in the set and maybe not wanting to pay for the album after listening to it for a while for free.
 
             The Solution to this problem is to take the videos off YouTube and release the songs on CDs or MP3 at affordable prices for the fans. The new central band website should show these songs to public for free if the band doesn’t want to sell the unreleased material. Also the band should totally reunite and make new material for the fans to listen to instead of the fans getting tired of the old material and trying to find new songs in bootlegs or other recordings not meant for the fans to listen to ever. The band should reissue all its albums online or in stores so fans see the albums and buy them to listen to the deep tracks that make the band so great. A central band website also needs to use the fan website material with permission from each fan website. This action will help new fans to the group learn which material to buy from reading the articles on the new central website and also learn what material is bad and would make fan angry at the band for selling them crappy material.
 
 
            The social media aspect for the group is alright and could get better over time. This is due to Brian Wilson having his own facebook account with information about his personal life and the account notifying the fans when a new album or award comes the band’s way. Al Jardine and Mike Love also have a great web presence on facebook. Each member also has a twitter account that keeps the fans in touch just like the facebook pages do as I said before. These forms of media keep the band popular with the fans online and also give free marketing for the band to get new fans. Using social media is one thing the band has gotten right these days. The presence of facebook and twitter could get better if all the members combine their pages into one big Beach Boys fan page that could promote future events to the fans everywhere.
 

         The results of my advice will be a popular band that has its reputation and fortune restored as a new generation of fans can listen to their music and buy their albums. The high media presence will help the band reunite for a 50th anniversary tour to top off this new era of media exposure. The fans will get excited and spend money on the band, creating more money for the band so the old members of the band can retire in peace from touring at last. This can only happen however if the band listens to my advice and uses the internet to market the band effectively to fans around the world. Social media is changing the world and if the Beach Boys use social media to their advantage, their fame and popularity will only go upward with the public.
 

· how you arrived at the topic;
My interest in the band made me want to learn more about their web presence as I wanted to find more information on the band.
· How you developed your ideas about it; I thought about the history of the band and figured out how it led to the fractured web presence of today.
· what your purpose is for writing (other than or in addition to fulfilling a class assignment); I wanted to educate the general public about a band that is one of the best ever, but is ignored for many reasons by the general public
· where you think you did your best writing and thinking (and why); the web presence analysis because I had truly looked up the features of the pages in much detail during the project
· what aspects of the essay project gave you the most difficulty, The solutions to their problems because there are no easy solutions to help a rock group get back on top after years of failure and rejection.

 
 
Bibliography:Works Cited
 
"The Beach Boys." AllMusic. Ed. Allmusic. Web. 08 Apr. 2011. <http://www.allmusic.com/>.
 
"The Beach Boys." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Ed. Wikipedia Editors. Wikipedia, 2011. Web. 08 Apr. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/>.
 
Up, Clicking Sign. "Various Profiles." Welcome to Facebook - Log In, Sign Up or Learn More. Mark Zuckerburg, 2011. Web. 08 Apr. 2011. <http://www.facebook.com/>.
 
"Various Videos." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Ed. Video Uploaders. Youtube, 2011. Web. 08 Apr. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/>.
 
Wheadon, Bret D. "History." The Beach Boys: The Complete Guide. 2011. Web. 08 Apr. 2011. <http://www.beachboys.com/>.


Title: Re: Old Essay I wrote about The Beach Boys for my college class
Post by: ghost on August 09, 2011, 02:37:02 PM
Listen up child, wisdom don't come from writing essays and citing references. It comes from sitting in the sun until it turns to shade and feeling the eternal mystery and sharpening your innate intelligence in healthy brain functioning. F-


Title: Re: Old Essay I wrote about The Beach Boys for my college class
Post by: hypehat on August 09, 2011, 03:46:50 PM
That be a harsh analysis, oh ethereal one. We can't all take as many drugs be so cosmically conscious as yourself....


Title: Re: Old Essay I wrote about The Beach Boys for my college class
Post by: SMiLE Brian on August 09, 2011, 03:53:42 PM
That be a harsh analysis, oh ethereal one. We can't all take as many drugs be so cosmically conscious as yourself....

I got an "A" grade on the paper, which made this paper worthwhile. I guess I'm doing well being somewhat not cosmically conscious


Title: Re: Old Essay I wrote about The Beach Boys for my college class
Post by: Shady on August 09, 2011, 04:11:43 PM
Very Nice..

Have written a few Beach Boys essays in college myself


Title: Re: Old Essay I wrote about The Beach Boys for my college class
Post by: SMiLE Brian on August 09, 2011, 04:25:03 PM
Very Nice..

Have written a few Beach Boys essays in college myself
Its such an easy topic to write about  ;D


Title: Re: Old Essay I wrote about The Beach Boys for my college class
Post by: ghost on August 09, 2011, 05:44:09 PM
That be a harsh analysis, oh ethereal one. We can't all take as many drugs be so cosmically conscious as yourself....

I got an "A" grade on the paper, which made this paper worthwhile. I guess I'm doing well being somewhat not cosmically conscious

You're comically conscious.  :)