The Smiley Smile Message Board

In the "An American Family" miniseries, I found it interesting that it ended with them touring and playing their oldies as a "high note" to end on. Was the mentality sort of "This is as good as its gonna get so lets ride this for what its worth"? I think people blame Mike too much for destroying the group's creativity, but Carl and Dennis, despite being seen as more musically progressive, were equally as guilty.

I think the primary reason for it was the overwhelming success of ES, that comp sold more than all their later albums put together. For finanical reasons it was better to rely on that for album sales and max profits by touring 24/7 for huge audiences. Remember they were struggling to earn a living by the late 60's and had only started redeeming themselves in the public image fairly recently with their early 70's albums and liveset. The touring obviously collided with any hopes of doing a real album project so the one attempt at the Caribou ranch was given up on. Only when ES and SoA had made their runs did the financial idea of putting out an album of newer material reemerge. This happened just as Brian fell out of his bed...

What is SoA?

Spirit of America

I think you need to take the latter part of your sentence further. What did it seem like they gave up? Did they give up artistic album sides devoted to causes like ecology and the changing times? Yeah, a little bit, although elements of those themes could still be found in certain parts of their catalog. Did they give up trying to appeal to a certain market of record buyers? I would say yes to this one.

Did they give up making amazing music and keeping their fans satisfied? Hell no.

^^^ yerp. Overall, when you look at their material from 76 to the present, there's still a whole world full of the more creative side we saw in the late 60s and early 70s, it was (usually!) just commingled with stuff that was a bit more nostalgic and reminiscent of their earlier material.

Yes-they made some good music-but you have to be honest all the same-only a small fraction of the music made between 1976-1992 is in anyway comparable to the music they made i962-72.  But than again-hardly any of their contemporaries reached such heights again either.  McCartney put out some decent albums but nothing to rival the Beatle years, the Who were basically a spent force by Who Are You in 78, Rolling Stones had a late creative spurt with Some Girls and Tattoo You and than basically fell apart, the Kinks had long since stopped being consistent and had put out a series of fairly mediocre records...You are only twenty-two once and as more responsibilities pile up (family, kids) its hard to stay focused on the music

I think Still Cruisin' was when they really threw in the towel.  There are some decent songs on there but to make an album out of mostly previously released material, including songs that were over 20 years old, that pretty much said there wasn't much left in the Beach Boys creatively at that point.

It wasn't so much "Let's record an album, but we don't have ideas, so let's include some hits" as "We have to put out an album with 'Kokomo' on it right now! Hey, let's just use a bunch of other songs used in films!" It was a compilation, basically.

I would say that's when they gave up trying to be current. A shame too.

Creativity and inspiration are such imprecise factors, which come and go like the tides.  And the challenge is, how to stay balanced and have a sense of well-being so that the creative stuff flows.  We all have years of plenty and lean years in life. 

It might be less a function of "giving up" as much as the need to carve a niche, as your prime audience ages, and bring newer fans aboard.  Finding what works at each juncture can be such a challenge. 

It did seem that things seemed to gel for them this year, in an extraordinary way, and after they have rested and regrouped, we'll probably see some great stuff. 

Personally, I'd like to see exclusive authorship of work by them.  There have been works done pretty much by all that they might opt to record, as a group.  We'll see... ;)

The three best songwriters in the Beach Boys were Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson. And, in keeping with the thread topic, they were also the most creative, artistic, and progressive. In my opinion, there was a direct correlation with drug abuse, alcoholism, and psychological problems and the decrease in the quality of the compositions, artistically speaking.

In the period following Holland, 1974-1977, Brian, Dennis, and Carl were still functioning at a very high level. Specifically, Love You and Pacific Ocean Blue are true works of art. And then the rot set in.

After 1976, and I think all of Love You and most of Pacific Ocean Blue were done by the end of 1976, there was decline. Slow at first, but decline nevertheless. The alcohol and the drugs and the mental issues took its toll for the rest of the 1970's. By the time Carl had cleaned up and wanted to resurrect the Beach Boys, Dennis was dead and Brian was permanently damaged by Landy. With those two "artists" basically gone, the game was over, at least with The Beach Boys. Carl made a few stabs at progressive-type songs, but his influence wasn't enough.

You know I agree with you on this.

Disagree - after Holland they at least tried... and even after the release and success of Endless Summer (viz. the Caribou sessions).

Murry buying the farm didn't help.

Carl? Sorry but no.

First of all, lyricism is a part of songwriting. Morrissey is considered a songwriter after all and Bob Dylan`s lyrics are certainly a big part of why he is considered to be a top songwriter.

Secondly, even if you were only including the songs that Mike wrote solo (which would hardly be fair as Carl wrote nothing on his own) then the best stuff would still rival Carl`s.

Mike's best solo stuff rivals Long Promosed Road, Trader and Feel Flows... really? I love some of Mike's solo stuff both with the band (Big Sur) and without (Viggie), but nothing he did ever touched the exceptionally high standard of these trio of Carl songs. They really are three utterly stunning pieces of work.

Not to try and negate your point, but Morrissey always writes the vocal melody in his songs, whereas  I'm sure Mike was only a sporadic contributor in that department with Brian.  His songwriting is held in higher regard (overall) in my house at least.

In their defense, the country and American culture as a whole changed. Vietnam was over, Nixon's administration was falling apart, and then over. The whole country was looking back for innocence and comfort, not just the BB. It seemed the country as a whole had lost it's way.  An era had ended. People saw the BB as a way to feel comfortable and happy again. You can't blame the group for that.

Lyrics by one Rieley, Jack.

Sorry. I'd much rather listen to the instrumental demo of "Angel Come Home" over any version of "Big Sur" or "Viggie" any day!

That's still a pretty desperate move.   The whole songs from movies thing just seemed less like a theme and more of an excuse.  Compilation or not, it's still pretty pathetic.

Don't forget the departures of Blondie and Ricky. I know many are not huge fans of their own songs but you can't underestimate what they added to the other's songs from that creative period. When they left the BB's lost the 'grit' from their sound.

While listening to MIU this morning I wondered if there were any Beach Boys fans who were of the opinion that after 15 Big Ones and Love You this was their real comeback album? I'm not saying that's my opinion, but I can easily see lots of fans preferring songs like Kuna Coast to Johnny Carson. I love Matchpoint Of Our Love, My Diane and Pitter Patter.

I can see that it might seem like they gave up, but I don't think they did. I think they carried on trying to have hit albums right the way through to '85 and possibly even through to SIP. So maybe it depends on what they gave up. After Holland, they tried bringing back Brian to produce an album but 15 Big Ones might not have been what they had in mind. Love You followed that and is a fantastic album but probably wasn't the hit they wanted. I'm not sure what happened with Adult Child, but it's a better 'album' than MIU and so it seems that either Brian withdrew himself, or Al/Mike decided to try a different path with MIU. MIU sounds a bit like everyone had given up (poor songs, poor vocals, poor production) but I think it was probably the best that those present could muster. That didn't work either and we ended up with Bruce and LA, which I think is a better album than MIU but still isn't commercial and not much of an artistic statement. But they were still trying and I think that's evidenced by the different approaches to creating albums and very specifically by the misjudged foray into disco. It's harder to say exactly what they were trying to do, but they certainly were trying and they still were during KTSA and '85 (where again, they tried a different approach).

In my view, they'd had a period of trying to create great albums (up to Holland) that the public weren't interested in. They were using new technologies and trying different approaches musically, but the environment was just wrong. Wild honey through to Holland is probably my favourite stretch of Beach Boys albums, but they weren't successful commercially. If I'd been one of the group through that period, putting my heart and soul into creating music that I thought was great, I'd have felt the surge in popularity centred on Endless Summer and the 'oldies' as a quite demoralising. For me, the big change after Holland is that Dennis' creativity became largely absent from the Beach Boys as recording artists. Dennis eventually became consumed by other things, but for a time in the mid-70's I think the group could really have re-found some commercial recording success if Dennis had been established as lead writer/producer with support from the group. I don't know if he could have held that role or if he'd have wanted to, but I doubt the group would have let him. With the benefit of hindsight, I think that's where it went wrong and it might be that Dennis did give up as a recording Beach Boy at some point in the mid-70's.

I wasn`t only talking about 3 songs and the fact that they can be individually named sums it up really. Carl wrote (or co-wrote to be more accurate) maybe 10 or 15 good songs in his career which spanned nearly 4 decades. I would say that Mike has written at least as many as that solo. If you include the lyrics, which it`s only fair to do, then he has to be seen as a better songwriter than Carl.

Wasn't Adult/Child rejected by the label?

Long Promised Road, Feel Flows, The Trader, Angel Come Home, Keepin' the Summer Alive, Livin' With a Heartache, It's Gettin' Late, Where I Belong, Heaven, Givin' You Up, Of The Times, Like A Brother, I Wish For You....Carl's greatest hits.

I'm not sure if Carl's songwriting over all is much better than Mike's. But Carl's biggest strength creatively was as a producer. This included arranging old songs for live shows. I think Carl's solo albums might have been better if he produced them himself.

Mike was much more of a lyric writer than Carl, musically Carl had some good ideas, but yeah his talent lay mainly in his musicianship, vocals, and production work. Mike's was and is in bass and lead singing, being an emcee, and writing lyrics.  They didn't really have the same role in the band.

It's not that say The Beach Boys didn't try from 1973-80 to one degree or another, it was more that their focus became more on what they had done than what they were doing. Once Ricky and Blondie left there was really no pretence of being contemporary, which was a shame.

There have been a few songs that Mike pretty much wrote on his own. All be it with production and arrangement help. Let the Wind Blow and All I Wanna Do (arr. by Brian), California Saga (produced and possibly arr. by Carl). Not sure about Everyone's in Love with You. Sumahama (produced by Bruce?). But The songs that Mike wrote, and the songs that Carl wrote are pretty compatable. Only Long Promised Road and Feel Flows are on a different level.

Mike only wrote the "Big Sur" part of the California Saga, the other two songs were written by Al.

It seems like we are really talking about Carl here. Carl was the leader of the group from '68-'73. After Endless Summer, I think he did give up. Brian 'gave up' in '68 after 'Friends', and Mike was always more about touring and commercialism than leading the band artistically in any case. I think this is kind of when the group changed from a 'band' mentality to a 'corporation' mentality.

I would also add, regardless of it's failures, 'L.A. (Light Album)' was at least a fair attempt at producing a valid record.

I meant to say Big Sur.

I wonder if Carl's back problems, plus drugs and booze put a damper on his group "leadership" post-Holland...

The mid 70s was sort of a new renaissance for the group. Sure all their best albums were behind them but they were resurrected in the mainstream again thru the nostalgia.
Some people see the nostalgia as good and others don't. I look at it in 2 ways-
#1 All their early output was amazing and can never be undermined, those songs are albums defined the golden era of rockNroll.
#2 All the great music they did from Pet Sounds to Holland needs to be viewed for what it was, each album was so unique, and even if these albums didnt get the promotion they deserved nor the commercial regard they still represented the progressive era for the Beach Boys; and as most of us know those albums were very successful elsewhere outside the US. And as others have mentioned with Vietnam being over/ rockNroll getting back on track younger generations were getting into the BBs.
ALL "REAL" music zealots will always look at the Beach Boys beyond the hit singles and Pet Sounds. And thank god the Ramones came along and in their own way picked up where the Beach Boys left off in the mid 70s.
The BEST rockNroll was and will always be from the United States. NOT ENGLAND.   

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Why did Blondie leave? Could someone please provide me with some insight?

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ELVIS IS THE KING OF ROCK N ROLL!!!!!!!!! true fact.

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Good music is good music no matter where it is from. (Though I do love all the bands Hypehat posted)

cool!

edit:  :smokin

Id love to hear a bit of inside info on how Mike came to write "Big Sur". Any chance he might have just bought it off some folk singer and hushed it up? sorry Mike, I'm sure you did write it...

Maxwell's Silver 'Ammer, came doon, upon his 'ead! Maxwells Silver 'Ammer, made sure that ee wurze dead *clang clang*

Will never understand why people rate Abbey Road so highly. 1/3 good, 1/3 mediocre and 1/3 utter, utter dreck.

Mike's bunghole of a brother, who was managing the band at the time, got into a fight with him backstage and called him a n*****.

I saw something heavy go down with Blondie at a Winterland San Francisco show.

I agree. It's not a bad album but I like all their other stuff better.

What went down?

It took me awhile to really figure it out but generally speaking as far as progression, contribution, consistency and IMPORTANCE I would say that the Beach Boys memorable timeline for music output would definitely be concluded by the Holland album. From the beginning to Pet Sounds they were a highly successful group  with a formulaic persona. 1966 was their pivotal peak of excellence, 67 to 72 was them taking control as a group and making cohesive contributions even if they werent commercial viable in the US at that time. The mid 70s was when their claim to fame was identified by a certain time frame and the landscape of rockNroll was no longer relevant in the mainstream- in otherwords from that point onward their reputation of importance was pretty much set in stone in the sense of nostalgia, that's a good or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. 1977 was the year that they put out their final significant album til 2012.
They never literally "gave up" after Holland but I would say its safe to say if they never made another studio after Love You it wouldnt have changed history that much in terms of relevance and importance. Holland was the last good album they did as a group with everyone contributing. Love You was Brians album like Pet Sounds- after that when Brian relinquished leadership again their new music for the remainder of the decade and ongoing til recently was pretty much disregarded as record company fulfillment.

Not if Mike wrote way more crappy songs, he doesn't.   I get the point you're making, but the reason it doesn't quite hold up is the rather large number of BAD songs Mike was associated with, and the comparatively few Carl was associated with.  If you're comparing their skill level, you have to include that too.  You could certainly make the argument (and that's really what you are doing) Mike was more prolific than Carl...no question about that.  But by virtue of being more prolific, if you cowrote 100 songs and 20 were great, and another guy cowrote 40 songs and 15 were great, the first guy isn't the better songwriter.  He just wrote more songs.

Totally disagree with this...Carl just doesn't strike me as someone who had that songwriting 'spark', in the way that Brian or Mike, or Dennis did. Someone who is a good musician and arranger CAN turn out some changes, a bit of melody, if they're presented with a lyric, and that's what Carl's stuff sounds like- the product of 'work' rather than inspiration.

He may not have written a Kokomo, but apart from those Jack Riely co-writes, and Angel Come Home, I'd happily never listen to anything of his again.

I am writing this because I am shocked that at this point Mike is seen by some to have done little more than for instance Bruce. Mike's bad songs are truly bad, but so were Carl's. You can say Mike went to bat more often and thus had more good songs, but there was more to it than that. Mike was Brian's most frequent partner through 1965,  and after that (especially through 1970) they still often brought out the best in each other. Even Dennis gave Mike a lot of credit in interviews for being the main lyric guy and this was in 1977 a period that saw the real heavy division between them become more and more unworkable.

I'm not putting Carl down by saying this. He meant much more to the music side of things and was obviously the real glue that held the Beach Boys together. Judging by his 1971-72 work, Carl could have become better than Mike if he hadn't become very conservative in his tastes by the mid seventies. Sadly nobody else brought out that spark from Carl except Jack. He wrote some good things with Brian in the late sixties, but Trader, Feel Flows, and Long Promised Road are the only really great examples of Carl forging his own sound as a writer. Angel Come Home and Heaven are both fine songs, but considering what he wrote along with them they seem to be flukes. Again Carl was a great singer, producer, and leader, what he wasn't was a great songwriter. He got there a few times but Mike was obviously more dedicated to that aspect.

As far as Mike I think he did lose something as a writer in the mid seventies as well. Some of First Love is pretty good, a few cuts like Goin' On were cool, but he had dozens of great songs as a lyricist before the mid seventies. I can't really fathom why Carl would ever be seen as somebody as good as Mike in that one area. As bad as he got later, it doesn't dilute what Mike did before. I mean we got all those great hooks from him and Let The Wind Blow, Big Sur, Please Let Me Wonder, show him to capable of writing as sensitively as anyone.

I think there is that old thing about the Wilson's being art and Mike being commerce. It's true in some ways, and I don't deny Mike's direction has often been wrongheaded after Endless Summer. Yet his performances over the last ten years often show how much he treasures a lot of the more arty stuff as well, especially on the reunion tour. He obviously also cared about his work during the Beach Boys first decade. Perhaps the Wilson's would have been able to go further without Mike after 1973, but I seriously doubt it. After Murry died none of them were as vigilant about being current. Drug use obviously played a big part in it, but I think Murry provided his songs with a dysfunctional, but very real motivation that was never replaced.

I also want to say that while Carl obviously fought the first few years he came back for the show to be sharp, after Dennis died he seemed to do little but go along with the oldies stuff and didn't maintain the same sense of aesthetics. Of course the box set tour is a shinning exception, but the general goings on in 1984-97 were very dull and cheesy. I don't fault Carl personally for backing away after 1973 and more so after 1983,  but just because he was by most accounts a wonderful guy doesn't excuse his complacence as an artist any more than Mike's. Love doesn't have the personal rep Carl did, not by a long shot, but that he could be difficult doesn't make him more misguided than the others.

To be honest, even if we were ignorirng everything pre 1978, I'd still take Mike's efforts over Carls. Something like Sumahama is so gloriously tasteless, that it's somehow brilliant...Carls stuff is just forgettable.

Subjects like this are a mindfuck. I think its easiest to look at their first ten years of output (up to Holland) as the consistent period. Even if Brian was pulling out before that he knew they could pull it together and their record sales in the UK from Pet Sounds and onward prove it. Even if there were prevalent changes after that it needs to be viewed as a sign of the times not as any decline. Its really a waste to dissect their music to the point where theres more discussion of what wasn't as good when there was SO MUCH that was good!

I'm fairly new to the post-Holland stuff, so please don't crucify me for this very general and probably unfair, un-thought out comment.

I'm not sure I would call it "giving up," but there's a definite difference in quality (musically and production-wise) between the pre and post Wild Honey material.  I want to say they sound like a crappy Beach Boys tribute band, but it might be more accurate to say they sound like a different band altogether.  I find very, very little of their material post Wild Honey likeable-- emotionally or viscerally, to use AGD's terminology.  And it's not for lack of trying.  I want badly to like their post WH material.  I revisit and revisit and revisit, but no dice.  Love You, to me at least, is a joke.

I'm not a BB history expert so I won't pretend to speculate whether they gave up or not.  All I know is I should probably give up trying to like their later stuff.

How can't you find Friends likeable? It's so dopey and sweet and chilled out.

I reckon it'll come to you. I remember coming to those albums up to Holland expecting 5 lost Pet Sounds and coming away a bit non plussed on my first few tries. So IDK

There's no way I could stop at Wild Honey. Friends has its moments, 20/20 is a great album, Sunflower is a great album, Surfs Up has a few great songs, and Holland was great too. I understand how their music declined in the mid 70s but Love You is good- it's not Pet Sounds but its a solid fucking album.

Friends is the grown-up version of Pet Sounds. It's the most underrated BB album of all time.

I'm not the biggest fan of Sunflower or Surf's Up. Call me a Brianista, but I guess I liked it when Brian was in control of the album's vision: then it didn't seem like a collection of random songs.

Love You is no joke. It's a beautiful collection of songs that sticks it to the man in the greatest way possible. It's a rebellious album with Brian Wilson chords and harmonies strung all throughout it. God, just let us go on our way - aching cry for help to get a girl. "We'll do it holding hands, it's so cold I go burr" - some of the greatest not-one-f*ck-given lyrics in rock history. If you listen to 'Mona' with vintage Spector in mind, it's the greatest rock tune never to be recorded in the early 60s. Johnny Carson? Screw the rules, I want to write a song about Johnny Carson. Side 2 is vintage (not literally) Pet Sounds material: The chords in 'I'll bet he's nice' are stunning, the harmonies in 'The Night Was So Young' are breathtaking. Airplane is AMAZING. Give it another try. I disliked this album at first, but it grows on you fast though, and never lets go.

EXACTLY!  Love You is not only a great album, it was the LAST good Beach Boys album and the last Beach Boys album worth getting.

I dont' 100% agree, basically because of the Bambu tracks on LA, but yeah...Love You is definitely the last AWESOME Beach Boys record, for me.

Have we got the point where we can admit TWGMTR was an unlistenable, autotuned mess yet? B/W I've been smashing the f*** out of 'Chain Reaction of Love' recently. I really wish they'd come through with that proposed '96 lp...that could have been awesome.

I concur. The Light Album has Good Timin, Angel Come Home, and Baby Blue- the rest of it is forgettable. Keepin the Summer ALive  has the title song, rad Chuck Berry cover, and Goin On and likewise the rest is forgettable. The Beach Boys were pretty much wasting studio time after Love You.

Some days I love that album. Other days I question why I love that album.

The lack of cohesion kills it for me. I listen to Daybreak more than any other song on that album (well, besides PCH)....yet I think Daybreak and Beaches ruin the vibe of that album epically. It's a solid effort by a great band, somewhat tarnished by inner band politics and modern day production. I still get enjoyment from it though.

I dont' 100% agree, basically because of the Bambu tracks on LA, but yeah...Love You is definitely the last AWESOME Beach Boys record, for me.

Have we got the point where we can admit TWGMTR was an unlistenable, autotuned mess yet? B/W I've been smashing the f*** out of 'Chain Reaction of Love' recently. I really wish they'd come through with that proposed '96 lp...that could have been awesome.
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The last three songs are the best post Holland Beach Boys work.  FTTBA is among my 15 favorite Beach Boy songs.

I don't quite agree that none of them were vigilant about being current after Murry died.  I think Dennis and Carl wanted to move with the times. Look at what Dennis did with POB. I remember reading somewhere that Brian said Dennis was the most up to date musically (paraphrasing).

It would be wrong to say Sunflower lacked Brian's vision. Though Carl took over mixing, Brian's voice, songwriting, and musical style is all over it. Though Brian took a much bigger back seat to Carl on Surf's Up, there were still tracks where he lead the group and if not at as many sessions he still wokred on almost every song.
Love You I don't get myself. I just don't like much of it and find only a few teacks to be anything special. I do however like much of the unreleased follow up, Adult Child. TWGMTR sounds muffled on CD but the vinyl has a better track sequence and sound.

My opinion is that Dennis is really the only member who came close to Brian as a songwriter and producer. After Dennis, I think Al was fully capable as well, but seemed to spend more time in the studio and was sort of kept on the sidelines due to group politics.

Carl was certainly an outstanding producer and mixer, and excelled at finishing what the rest of the group started. I get a sense that Dennis sometimes abandoned some of his works-in-progress, Al seemed somewhat a perfectionist, and of course Brian was just tossing nuggets out to the group here and there. Carl brought it all into one 'Beach Boys' unit. I doubt the band could have pulled together any of the records of the 20/20-Holland era without him. But I don't really view  him as a songwriter specifically. Not that he wasn't capable, I think he was just more focused on the other aspects, including gluing the whole deal together.

Mike Love is a great songwriter. The proof is in the pudding ... if he only ever did the Wild Honey record, that's enough for me. Not a producer at all of course.

I don't believe Carl was complacent - one of the things he hoped would come from his solo tour and album was to kind of kick the rest of the guys in the butt, get them motivated to do some great new music. Carl's solos may not be to your personal taste, but give him credit for not just cranking out Beach Boys soundalikes. After the 1985 album, he did seem to step back a bit, probably sensing that he was fighting a losing battle. His attitude may have been along the lines of "I can't fight the oldies thing, but at least I can try to get the guys to go out and do those songs the best they can". It may not have appeared so, but even in the Love-lead years of the 80's and 90's, Carl was still the onstage leader.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what Mike was trying to convey was the fact that Carl stopped being a progressive artist after Holland. Some of it was due to personal issues, but once he cleaned up, he made music that was very safe, inoffensive music. Not to say it was bad (although much of it is not to my own personal taste), but he lost his edge. Vocally, he was great in studio until Still Cruisin'. He was great live for the rest of his life.

Yeah when you really dissect the songs as far as what he was writing in the early 70s and then after... but it got to the point from the mid 70s onward where their records had a "forced" vibe due to the hostile atmosphere they were in and the climate of the music industry/pressure from the record company.

Well, yeah, considering that 1) 15 BO was a rush job,  2)Love You was a BW solo in all but name  3) Dennis and Carl were almost totally absent from MIU  4)LA Light was basically So Tough as far as structure, minus the progressiveness 5) KTSA was more of a real album, but Dennis wasn't around . 6) BB85 was the last actual 'real' BB album until TWGMTR .   

I'm glad you like it...I don't get any pleasure from finding it unlistenabl. I can imagine that one Al sings being great, in another dimension, where they just recorded his voice, rather than tuning the piss out of it.

Re Carl or Mike. Five letters: Tune X.

Carl, every time.

Very well said.

Ah, cmon- REALLY? It's just some bog standard chords that happen to be played on strings...it's nothing, it's not a song, it's just Carl having a go at 'doing a track'.

If you want to pick one track to go 'TRUMP CARD' with, it's Big Sur all the way. It's a damned good song. Mike may be a pantomine villain, but he nailed it with that one. It's worthy of Neil Young or Gene Clark.

They were all talented in their own unique, individual way. Nobody in the Beach Boys got a free ride, they all brought something to the table.

Did you suspect i might have been joking a tad? Although i do think Tune X is great, particuarly the catchy twangy guitar riff on the fade, but obviously i wasn't serious about using it as a trump card.

Although if i were to pick a trump card to successfully fart all over Big Sur, then i'd say Feel Flows and/or Long Promised Road are both superior. Love Big Sur, prefer and more highly rate Carl's Surf's Up tracks. And Trader is the best track on Holland.

Agreed with all this, though I think you're being harsh on That's Why God Made The Radio. There's some good stuff on there (Isn't It Time, Bill & Sue, From There To Back Again, Shelter, Strange World) but I have to make a real effort to listen past the godawful autotuning, nasty drum sound and other Joe Thomasisms in the production to appreciate them. It's the best Beach Boys album since LA, but not half the album it could have been.

I have my criticisms of TWGMTR (too "echoey," Mike's voice weak and buried in the mix, Foskett's performance is subpar, etc.), but the autotune strangely isn't one of them.  I agree that it could have been better overall, but I love this album.  It didn't have to grow on me as some of the 70's material has had to. 

Mike's trump cards are of having co-written classics like Warmth of the Sun, Good Vibrations, California Girls and dozens of others though...

Carl having co-written Feel Flows, Long Promised Road and Trader (3 songs?!?) doesn't compare...

I think that, even thought the Beach Boys lost their creative edge after Holland, there was an effort to remain current sounding up through Kokamo. They really haven't surpassed that sound much. A few songs on TWGMTR do have some of TLOS creativity though. But as cheesy as Still Cruisin and BB85 might have been, they still fit in with the times. SIP and TWGMTR are mostly dated sounding. Except, I agree the last 3 songs are timeless.

Correct and to the point.

Nope...there are people on here who think 'Make it Good' sucks, ffs...nothing would surprise me!

I used to feel the same way, but it grew on me. Nobody though will ever get me to like 'Don't Hurt My Little Sister'.

Well basically Billy is right in what I was trying to say about Carl. Not that he didn't work hard or try to put The Beach Boys best foot forward, but he came to a point where he stopped fighting for it to be anything other than a pretty lame version of The Beach Boys. Politics, health, his change in taste in the mid seventies, hard drugs in the mid to late seventies, this all put him away from the way he was going from 1961-73. How and why The Beach Boys didn't continue to so the nice mix of old and new is complex, but the blend from 1973-75, fall 1993, and 2012 should never have been deviated from. Mike may have lacked the ability to see that until the early 2000's but Carl had to have realized it.

The basic thing to remember is that something changed in every Beach Boys over the course of the seventies. As the decade dawned even Brian was still in good enough shape to performing and writing at a brilliant level. Over the course of the decade only Dennis held his own in the studio, but as early as 1977 he wasn't the same on stage, and after early 1979 he didn't do anything with much follow through  in the studio that I can think of. I think Dennis added a lot to the shows through 1976 and had he stayed healthy Carl would have had help keep the balance.

My original post only brought all this up to make clear that Mike deserves blame for the oldies route, but not solely. Second I wanted to point out that what happened after Holland in no way negated how important Mike was up to then and that he made more of a mark than Carl as a songwriter.

Well...with respect to The Beach Boys...Brian's role as primary producer lasted about 6 years. Carl's role as primary producer also lasted 6 years. Perhaps that is just how long someone could last producing the Beach Boys. I would say it was analagous to "herding cats."

Good point!

I would say the most important aspect to consider here is how consistent musically they were from their heyday to the progressive period to the mid 70s where the nostalgia factor took over. 62 to 65 they were busting out records like crazy and even  tho they had a schtick for the most part it was constantly evolving to where Pet Sounds and Good Vibrations peaked. And its very important to consider the huge shift rock made from the single being the emphasis to the album. From Pet Sounds onward each album was very much its own entity- they all had their own sound. Then when they had that gap of no new material and their golden era put them back on top they rode a new wave of success. Also cant forget that the 70s was a very excessive era and rock no longer had that genuine quality of what it once was. Plus after Love You all their remaining albums til Dennis' passing were made up of songs from previous sessions and whatnot, the consistency and quality of the material was definitely defunct. 

Did they give up, or did they finally succeed in what they were trying with their progressive albums, aka trying to be succesful. When they finally got the stadiums and millions, the finally reached the place they were trying to get to since the late 60's. In a way that's not giving up. They made it, and the pressure was off.

True.

If I were in their shoes, I think I, too, would've grown frustrated with trying to get the audience interested in the more mature sounds when the masses only wanted oldies, oldies, oldies. Or new songs that sounded like the oldies. Remember, we are the die-hards here. We represent only a small fraction of the folks that bought Beach Boys records, attended the concerts, etc. I see every act eventually cave in to what their audience wants.

Commercially and financially 1973 was a godsend. Artistically it was not. Their newfound level of success was down to a comp album of decade old material. The band and Warner Bros should have seized the opportunity and started a new promotional push for Holland/new single tie in to show the re interested masses what they were about now not 1964.

Thats true. Some people get it and others dont but the key factor to the lack of commercial success in those post- Pet Sounds albums is the lack of promotion from capitol and warner bros. The music was great but the record company wasnt doing their job!

I mean Thats why god made the radio is a solid album, it aint great but it sold well for a number of reasons, namely the anticipation of it being the first new Beach Boys album since 1985 to include Brian, the commemoration of their 50th anniversary AND there was press and media giving it attention! All those factors combined made it a number 3 smash!

I agree.... And aren't goals things to be achieved? What's wrong with setting out to be a huge, gigantic successful band and taking some time to enjoy having reached that peak? So, you bust out a bunch of your biggest, earth shattering hits for the fans live? So what? All the hidden nuggets are on all the old albums at home. Even better is they toss a few of them into the live mix, but it's not do or die....

I don't think the Beach Boys ever gave up and still haven't. Things got a bit confused and from BBs 85 to TWGMTR they might have basically given up a bit, but it didn't last.