The Smiley Smile Message Board

What mistakes have The Beach Boys made in their careers?

Brian hasn't made a mistake yet, in his whole career.  :bw

We’re still waiting for Brian to make a mistake.

Too many to count

. Releasing Ten Little Indians as a single instead of Chug-a-Lug
. Brian becoming acquaintances with Loren Daro
. Brian taping over the master tapes of The Little Girl I Once Knew with Row Row Row Your Boat
. Pulling out of the Monterey Pop Festival
. Not releasing new material for eight months after the release of Good Vibrations
. Brian spending too much time on the Heroes and Villains single and letting SMiLE die as a result
. Releasing Then I Kissed Her as a single in April 1967
. Not releasing Vega-Tables as a single
. Releasing Gettin' Hungry as a single
. Releasing Smiley Smile as the follow-up to Pet Sounds
. Not releasing Lei'd in Hawaii
. Releasing Bluebirds Over the Mountain as a single
. Not releasing Can't Wait Too Long as a single in 1968
. Brian not hiring a lawyer before signing over Sea of Tunes to Murry
. Releasing Add Some Music to Your Day as the lead debut single of their Reprise career
. Releasing Cool Cool Water as a single, with It's About Time as the b-side
. Releasing Slip on Through as a single, with This Whole World as the b-side
. Not including Fourth of July and (Wouldn't it Be Nice) To Live Again on the Surf's Up album
. Including Take a Load Off Your Feet on the Surf's Up album
. Not realizing Mt. Vernon and Fairway (A Fairy Tale) to its full potential
. Releasing Child of Winter as a single two days before Christmas
. Not releasing Good Timin' in early 1975
. Releasing 15 Big Ones as the follow-up to Holland
. Releasing Susie Cincinnati as the b-side to three singles, before including it AGAIN on 15 Big Ones
. Releasing It's OK, a sure summer hit, in late August 1976
. Releasing Honkin' Down the Highway as the lead single off of Love You
. Not releasing Adult/Child
. Only including one track from Adult/Child on the MIU Album
. Including Hey Little Tomboy on the MIU Album
. Releasing MIU Album as the follow-up to Love You
. Rejecting Constant Companion for LA (Light Album)
. Including Here Comes the Night on LA (Light Album)
. Not releasing the Curt Boettcher mix of Shortenin' Bread as a single
. Everything about the year 1981
. Releasing It's OK AGAIN as the b-side to It's Gettin' Late in 1985
. Allowing the 1995 reunion album to die
. Little-to-no marketing for the recent copyright extension releases

Constant Companion was considered for Light Album?  wow!

Don’t forget releasing best of The Beach Boys 6 weeks after Pet Sounds, and Endless Summer yes technically those are capitols fault, releasing here comes the night disco version. Wipe Out with the fat boys, beach boys medley. Not releasing California Calling as a single, Fun fun fun with status quo. Summer in paradise john stamos  forever and Stars and Stripes vol 1. Not releasing the Friends and 20/20 sessions on cd. Not releasing so much vast concerts from 68-74 on cd/dvd.

Does Dennis meeting Charles Manson count as a career mistake?

At the very least I suppose you could say they should not have released, let alone altered, his song.

Personally I think that made The Beach Boys saga more intriguing. The all American golden boys of summer crossing paths with evil. Fascinating.

Good list of missteps. Just for the record, Forever was the b-side of single edit of Cool Cool Water, with the promo copies going out to radio stations containing only Cool Cool Water, in mono on one side and stereo on the other, so there was no chance for DJ's to flip the single over to Forever, which, IMO, had a much great chance of getting Top 40 radio airplay.

I think that not releasing a live album between L.A. and KTSU was a missed opportunity. I think having an album with good quality live versions of "Angel Come Home", "Roller Skating Child", and even "Shortnin' Bread" would have perhaps improved the overall reputation of those albums. It also would have bought them time to really focus on the best quality material for the next studio album.

On a more controversial note, I think perhaps not breaking up as a group after Holland might have been a poor choice in retrospect, considering how things quickly fell apart after they changed managers. I think that their output after Pet Sounds would have eventually attained cult classic status, and they may well be much more respected today.

Mike's decision not to continue making music and performing with the C50 lineup, latter part of 2012. The band was on fire and in demand for the first time in ages, having scored a top-5 album of original music and one of the most acclaimed tours of that year, and Mike chose to walk away. It's right up there on the "what could've been" list from the band's entire career.

Carl and Al not pairing up to steer the direction of the band away from Mike's control upon Carl's return in 1982 (or at any point prior to Carl's passing)

 
The last two posts, one by GF and the other by Southbay- :woot :woot :woot :woot :woot :woot :woot :woot :woot :woot

Really , Getting In Over My Head makes Summer In Paradise a stone wall classic album  :lol

They've made quite a few mistakes.  Not completing SMiLE at the time was one of their biggest.  Obviously with BW's mental status at the time, it was the appropriate thing to abort it, but man it would have been nice to have an original completed album to listen to instead of the glossy 2004 version or the fragmented (but beautiful) 2011 box set. 

And you could argue quite a few mistakes were made during the mid-70's and onwards.   :)

What about this? I know nothing of it.

Hey!

That’s probably indicative of their career in general. Grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory.
Sticking to the topic and the year, not managing to produce a decent live album or live DVD of the C50 despite having 70 plus performances to choose from. (The Chiba performance achieved both a great TV record and soundtrack in a week.)

Same. I tried to look it up and couldn’t find anything on YouTube, and only one passing reference to an unreleased mix on Wikipedia.

Oi, it's a joke. A reference to the final track off The Beach Boys Today! album...

Jiggy  made a point of referencing the 1995/96 projected as one of the mishaps, and I couldn't agree more. A Beach Boys version of "Gettin' In Over My Head" could possibly have been another "God Only Knows". I can clearly hear in my head a Pet Sounds sounding version of the song with an Al, Bruce, and Carl "vocal round" fading out the song. Pair that with songs like "It's Not Easy Being Me", "Still A Mystery" and "Soul Searchin'" and it just might have been the best Beach Boys album since Sunflower.

How about having little to no licensed merchandise, outside of concerts or promo materials?  When I was a teen in the 80s, I would have killed to have a BB t-shirt, poster, buttons, patches, etc.  Even now, it bugs me to go into a store and find merch for lots of bands, but never anything Beach Boys. 

I agree, and I would also say that for the most part, a lot of their merchandise has not been very good.  One that I do really like is:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiR9uj_2tzhAhWD2FkKHaNBDAkQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fplanetrock.backstreetmerch.com%2Fartist%2Fbeach-boys%2Ft-shirts%2Fbest-of-ss&psig=AOvVaw0TItLoFcPvD0NH8xbiZ2IY&ust=1555782327768134

I’ve been saying that for years. Ever since Mcfarlane Toys put out the rock star action figures in 2001, Jim Morrison, The Beatles etc The Beach Boys would have been great. The iconic striped shirt action figures. I saw a beach boys t shirt a year or so ago at the mall, Black shirt... It was horrible. It’s unfortunate they never tried to merchandise themselves. Try doing what the Grateful Dead does.. RELEASE EVERYTHING

This.

This was redemption for everyone involved and Mike decided, “nah.”

Even Brian could have gotten into that game during the time that he was touring SMiLE. How cool would it have been to see t-shirts with 1966 Brian alongside t-shirts with the Beatles, Pink Floyd, and Johnny Cash?

Re: licensed merch - I just remembered those little die-cast cars from circa 1999.  After going wedding-dress shopping, my mom and I stopped at a brand new Target store, the first one in our area.  They had all of the cars on a endcap display, and I bought one of each. 
Last year, my mom and I stopped for lunch at a Cracker Barrel after she picked me up at the airport to go to a family gathering.  The shop happened to have a navy-blue tee with a cool Surfin USA design.
Also, there was the Reyn Spooner Aloha shirts that incorporated the album covers.  And i was in a Pendelton outlet a few years ago, and saw that they carry the shirt in what they call "Beach Boys Plaid", with a little label inside explaining the BB connection.  The price tag had a picture on the back from the Paradise Cove photo shoot.  My husband and I both have those shirts. 
So yeah, there is a bit of merch, but you really have to look to find it, and it's not likely to be around forever.

Main ones?

Imo...

- Not releasing Smile in spring 1967
- Not headlining Monterey Pop
- Not releasing a fragmented version of Smile - anything over the Smiley Smile re-recordings.
- Waltz pop is endearing, but as a career step Friends was nothing but a complete disaster.
- Not including 4th of July and WIBNTLA on Surf's Up.
- Not releasing Good Timin' as their comeback single in 1974/1975.
- Losing Ricky Fataar and Blondie Chaplin as band members.
- Losing Jack Rieley as band manager.
- 15 Big Ones. An album of originals was desired and warranted.
- Having any of Mike's family members involved in any capacity whatsoever.
- Allowing BJ back into the group, their very own Ned Flanders.

No need to address more points. Beyond 1979 it was all over anyway...

Imo it was not appearing at Monterey and not releasing a strong album of original material in '76.
I don't count the non-release of Smile, as there really wasn't a possibility to release it, as it wasn't even finished. I also limit my focus on the 60s and 70s, when they were a relevant act. For the latter years I think the main "mishaps" were not recording and releasing an album with Brian in the 90s featuring his then new songs ("Soul searching" "You're still a mystery" etc) and of course not continuing the band in 2012 while Brian was already thinking up songs for another album (btw I was one of the persons who said there shouldn't be another album after the strong ending of TWGMTR, but after hearing how good they still sounded and Brian being actually inspired and "in for it", could've made for some super new music).

  Why do you consider "Honkin' Down the Highway" a mistake as the single from LOVE YOU? I think the mistake was releasing the LP April 11 and waiting until May 30 to put out any single. Also, editing out the drum intro for the single. (I could see "The Night Was So Young" as the single btw)

I personally think Let Us Go On This Way should’ve been the first single, personally

Here are 10 off the top of my head (some minor and some major, but all standouts for me):

*All the spoken word tracks on the albums from 1962-1965
*The title of their fifth album, which absolutely should have been called Fun, Fun, Fun instead
*Not immediately building on the momentum of Good Vibrations (arguably the biggest one)
*The fact that Never Learn Not to Love actually made it onto an album
*The sale of Sea of Tunes (another big one)
*Given the amount of quality unreleased material they had by 1970, using Student Demonstration Time on an album
*The loss of both Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar around the same time as the release of Endless Summer (another big one)
*The "Brian's Back!" campaign and the half-and-half concept of 15 Big Ones
*The direction Mike took the band from 1979 to 2011 (arguably the biggest one)
*Al, Bruce, and even Carl allowing themselves to become Mike's Messengers

BONUS: Brian not quitting the Beach Boys in 1966 and doing Good Vibrations and Smile as solo works

Regardless, I don't see the non-release of Smile itself as a mistake because it was more or less a foregone conclusion given the circumstances at the time. What happened instead, i.e. having the releases of Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, and Friends all somehow happen in the space of 10 months, was anything but a mistake. In retrospect, the fact that they managed to get back on track that quickly with three of their best albums is seriously impressive.

Cancellation of the world tour in 1977??? Of course if they didn't,  the whole world would see what Australia would see.

There's....a lot more to the story than that. The truth is...there's someone else who shares initials with him who's a lot more to blame for that happening.

What an absolute crock. Especially since we've been told for years how Mike is in full control of his career and decisions...now the "truth" is hinting that Mike's decision to walk was the fault of someone else and not Mike? Revisionism 101.

Mike made his decision not to continue with the other guys who wanted to do more as a reunited group. Period.

Fine. You obviously have all the facts.

The facts have been on the table for years at this point. If people would look at the facts instead of trying to backpedal and spin what actually happened in some attempt to do damage control for Mike or shift blame for Mike's own choice and decision onto others instead of Mike himself, the facts would rise above the spin and BS. Obviously that hasn't happened. The ultimate fact remains that Mike as one of those four people on stage and in studio during C50 who was in the Wilson music room in Hawthorne making music before there was a "Beach Boys" chose to go his own way and the other three original members continued to perform and record together as a group after the last C50 shows.

That was and will always be Mike's decision, and Mike's alone, along with the consequences of that decision. If someone is described as being in "full control" over their decisions and career moves, those decisions have to be owned by the person in full control over making them.

Granted, none of us were there behind the scenes to know the full details. But nobody forced Mike to start booking M&B shows, right?

Even if he didn't like Brian's wife, how does Mike's decision to move on from C50, spin it as "it was only for 50 shows, then extended to 70+ shows!", complain about backlash with venues if he had reneged on M&B offers, etc, rest with anyone but Mike himself? Let's face it - Mike could/can get out of whatever commitments he had well in advance if he reallllly wanted to, if that's the strawgrab that anyone wants to make.If it would have ultimately benefited his mission of gaining more critical/public respect, not losing full control of the band, he'd have found a way to continue C50 in *some* fashion.

And if Mike had gotten heaps of critical praise for HIS lyrical contributions to TWGMTR, to HIS contributions to the C50 live show... if Mike himself got a particularly high level of standing ovations when HE took the stage in C50, and if there were articles stating how Mike was such an important element of the band, it would have placated his ego, and there's no way he would have just walked away from C50.

It seems quite obvious that Mike didn't get what he wanted out of the project songwriting-wise and praise-wise (feeling that way is certainly his prerogative), he didn't like that a well-meaning spouse of his cousin/bandmate was perhaps too demanding/controlling for his tastes (his prerogative again), and he decided to blow the whole thing up and found a creative way to leave Brian, Al, and Dave out in the cold. He pulled that trigger, nobody else. I can be annoyed/pissed at that, but I can also understand why someone would do that. I just don't understand why people want to deny this is the case. Thoughts, 37!ws?

It didn't have anything to do with liking or not liking anybody - it had to do with an e-mail received that said that Brian was not going to do more dates -- and Brian didn't know about that. By the time Brian found out that it was spoken for on his behalf and told the powers that be that he wanted in, it was too late: the scheduling was already done, the contracts had already been signed.

If this is not true, then please, provide a source.

I feel very confident in saying that if this email had never existed, Mike would still have put an end to C50 for the (somewhat understandable, I suppose, even though I deeply disagree with his logic) reasons that I stated in my prior post.

He was deeply dissatisfied for a number of reasons which he has complained about many, many times since then - this email just gave him some sort of "out" or "excuse" the he could deflect blame upon.

Do you really think Mike would not have killed C50 anyway, absent the existence of this email?

How about getting the context of the email exchange in which that one email has been pulled out and waved endlessly as "proof" for the past 6 years or so? Context, as in what emails may have been sent before and after the one everyone seems to pull out of the bigger exchange?

And what contracts were signed by Mike, exactly? Nutty Jerry's? They cancelled the show after finding out they booked Mike's band and not the C50 lineup. Or was it the gig in South America or wherever it was that never happened either?

Anyway we're walking over the same ground that has been trampled on for 6+ years.

Find the context in which that email appeared. For all the incessant Neville Chamberlain-like waving of one email in everyone's faces, no one seems to want to discuss how that email came to be.

And the email doesn't explain why Mike walked away from the chance to record more material with Brian, Al, and David even after the tour when there was talk of recording more music. I guess there is an excuse for that too which absolves Mike of any personal responsibility for his choice to bail out on everything related to the original 4 members getting together to make music?

There a dozen reasons or more, hashed out over the last 6-7 years on this board, for why the "no more shows for Wilson" e-mail had nothing to do with the end of the reunion project/tour.

Why is this still having to be hashed out? Do I have to go grab a bunch of old posts/articles/links to make this case *again*?

By Mike's *own* words, *he* made the decision to not continue the reunion. In interviews and in his book, his listed a LITANY of issues he had with the tour from the get-go. In no interview nor in his book has he ever expressed that he *wanted* to continue the reunion and was prevented from doing so by external forces/factors. In Mike's own book, he acknowledges that prior to the end of the tour, Brian WANTED to continue and that he (Mike) did not.

I've laid out tons of interviews between 2012 and 2018, as well as discussion of what's in Mike's book, and I've even broken down the SCANT number of shows Mike booked in 2012 post-C50, and there have been knowledgeable people in the industry who have spoken to how they EASILY could have continued the reunion even *after* Mike started booking those small number of shows for his band. They could have bought off those Mike/Bruce shows, postponed them, canceled them, or re-booked them as "reunion" shows. They even could have DONE those shows and *then* reconvened for more reunion activity.

If Mike had one time expressed any sentiment along the lines of "I *wanted* to continue the reunion, but a one-line e-mail from Brian's camp that was later walked back prevented me from doing so *in perpetuity*", then I'd start to buy the idea that the end of the reunion came at the hand of anybody else.

Why is it still being hashed out? Good question - but the answer isn't difficult to find, is it? As I said all the facts have been on the table for years. Yet some seem hell-bent on trying to either rewrite the history of how it happened or else find some way to absolve Mike of any responsibility for his decisions and actions. And for owning his own words too, which again have been on the record for years at this point.

As in many, many, many cases with this band if things turn out positive overall for Mike he takes responsibility for the role he played. If it turns out negative, he ducks and dodges his responsibility and blames others. It's been that way for a long time and probably won't change. All that changes is the scapegoat used to explain whatever situation came up negative.

Nutty Jerry was the real victim in all this. ;)

I would argue that a misstep was not permanently enlisting Jan and Dean into the band following the success of Barbara Ann. It seemed like when they worked with Brian that both sides got their biggest hits. In interviews, Jan and Dean lamented the fact that they only had their two voices and wanted to be part of a larger vocal group. Their harmonies with Brian on Surf City added a new dimension on the high end. I also think they could have been mature voices in the band that would help Brian in his fight to change their creative direction to compete with the Beatles.

  Occasional contributions aside, pre-accident Jan Berry was never going to be a Brian Wilson/Beach Boys sideman.

Especially for the fact that Mike more or less DID continue the reunion tour, including the video wall, the "50th anniversary" theme, Carl and Dennis singing their songs on videoscreen... just excluding any other Beach Boy (except for Bruce of course and from time to time David). He even got Jeff Foskett

After listening to some of the radio performances the Beach Boys did in 2012 and also watching parts of the Japan show on youtube, the disaster of the finally released live album has to be mentioned in this thread if it wasn't already. They even used some of those named performances (which sounded mostly fine as they where) on the album and still messed them up. Talk about blowing a chance. This could've been one of the Beach Boys' best live albums. All in all the records sound like the audio track of a saturday evening TV show in Germany (and that's not a compliment).

Said the same thing myself in page 1.
I still hope someone, some day, will put together a good fan mix of the best of the best from Chiba, BBC2, the (NPR?) plus any other offical audio released that year. We have heard it, but just need someone with the technical know how.

Regarding C50 recordings, I think there are "best available source" comps floating around. You can get the majority of the 61-ish songs performed in soundboard quality between the C50 official live album, the Japan pro-shot show, that London radio broadcast, the Arizona soundboard pulled from the C50 Blu-ray, and so on. I think it only leaves 10-15 songs that only exist as audience recordings.

Speaking of, does anybody have the full Berkeley June 1st, 2012 show? I've been meaning to track that down for years, and I'm curious if it actually exists complete. There are YouTube clips of course.

The C50 live album is weird. Some stuff (e.g. "Getcha Back") sounds pretty okay, while others are autotuned excessively (e.g. "Don't Back Down"). The tracks all sound a bit sterile, but I prefer that to excessively wet mixes with too much audience noise.

Interestingly, the Arizona show released on Blu-ray sounds pretty okay overall.

I'm not fully blaming Mike for the lack of subsequent C50 live releases, but I can't imagine Mike walking and the reunion ending in rather shambolic fashion *helped* the chances of more C50 live releases. Between not wanting to continue to publicize a more substantive live lineup, and not wanting to continue doing projects tied to Joe Thomas, I can't imagine Mike was or would have been pushing for more C50 releases. I think the live album and Blu-ray that came out had already been contracted, so they had to come out.

But there was discussion of the Red Rocks show coming out in some form, as that was professionally shot. They apparently shot the Hollywood Bowl show in 3D, and that never came out.

I don't know what the Blu-ray project was going to be that was planned through "Pledge Music" and then canceled. But I don't think it was going to be a full show; it sounded like it was going to be a documentary covering the whole tour. That whole thing fell apart due to apparently a whole other (e.g. non-Beach Boys) business debacle.

But I've long hoped for a bunch of live shows from throughout the years to be made available online via download (would be super cheap to do, and would be free money for BRI), and that they could simply mix in some C50 stuff into other eras.

Biggest career mishap:

The day Carl started to smoke.

 :-[

I think Joel nailed it. It's mindboggling to think how different things would be today had he not started. What an incredible game changer that would have been.  :smokin

That and if Dennis and not gone swimming on Dec 28 1983.

I know it's semantics and kind of icky to even talk about, but really Dennis's and Carl's issues were more life mishaps than career mishaps for the group, in terms of by the time they passed away.

Setting aside the whole issue that it's not impossible that Carl would have gotten sick without having smoked, while his death was tragic for a million obvious reasons, and while the band could never *not* miss Carl's voice and presence, the band wasn't doing much in the final years leading up to his death.

Smile vs. Smiley Smile, shifts in musical direction, record contracts, all of that stuff at various moments in time directly impacted the band's career at those moments more than Carl's death impacted the band *in* 1998.

While it's unknown what might have happened with the band had Carl lived (I would assume another album of some sort at some point would have happened), I don't think a 1998 or 99 Beach Boys with Carl would have been a career-changing difference between what happened without him. Al *probably* would have been gone even had Carl survived. Carl surviving may have slowed the breakdown of the Mike-Al issues.

Carl and Al being gone by 1998 certainly *was* impactful, but it was really the tipping point or death knell for the true "touring band" as it had existed up to that point.

Regarding Carl, I'd say a bigger career mishap for him and the band was his (and the band's) creative inactivity by the time the 80s rolled around, and certainly into the 90s. Carl could have and should have issued numerous solo albums, the band should have been working on numerous albums. They could have been doing a late-1993 "boxed set" type of setlist for all those years instead of for just a month or so in late 1993.

Carl had little output after his 1983 solo album. He had a few contributions to BB '85, no writing and only vocal contributions to *some* tracks on "Still Cruisin" and "Summer in Paradise", and scattered work on the "Beckley Lamm Wilson" album. And then a few BB one-off projects we know about. He no doubt worked on other things we've never heard. But he seemed to resign himself to constant touring and little creative work (or even studio work in general even doing other people's stuff) in the last 10-15 years.

I tend to believe that had Carl stayed with us that had he stayed with the band, Mike Love would not have been able to pull the shenanigans he has with the Beach Boys name attached to them. He would have kept an eye on the lovester and not allowed things like StaymoHs to be on board for instance, or somehow prevent Mike Love from getting the ok to have the license. The other scenario would be that he would wash his hands of the touring band and go with Brian along with Al and reclaim the BB name and send Mike packing to tour under his own frigging name.

I don't know if this has been mentioned or not, but I think not releasing the original version of Oh Darlin' with Brian singing was a mistake. I was just listening to this last night(a few times in a row, actually), and it's much better than I remembered. I think it's much, much better than the slower and, frankly, boring version. The Brian version is a little more uptempo, and it shows that at least in the studio, Brian was capable of delivering a very good vocal. It would have also given him much more of a presence on a studio album by the group when they sorely needed it.

I love Carl and we'll of course never know what would have gone down. But Mike was already essentially running the touring band (operationally, not musically) while Carl was still alive. As retold in books including the Marks/Stebbins book, Al didn't agree with Mike's plans to have his own company produce the tours, and Carl didn't put up a fight and didn't back Al by all indications.

I think it's possible had Carl not been ill, he may have continued to try to broker peace between Al and Mike. Certainly, had that occured, there would have been no need to issue a "license" to use the name in the first place.

It's also, for better or worse, apparent that Carl never seemed to stop Stamos from being involved with the band. Carl participated in "Full House" episodes, participated in having Stamos on the SIP album, and played gigs where Stamos was present throughout.

I'm not attacking Carl for any of this, and certainly by the time of his illness I can't fault him for putting all the band politics BS on the back burner. But it's definitely part of the story that, even in the 90s prior to his illness, Carl seemed to be pretty resigned to what the band became by the late 90s (if not sooner). Back when he left in 1981, he took issue with the band's setlists, rehearsal time, and willingness to record more albums. By the 90s, while they stayed generally rehearsed and sounded professional, the setlists were pretty stale (with some specific exceptions such as late '93), and they certainly were not remaining active in terms of releasing albums.

Carl even mentioned in a 1989 interview that his vision of the future was Mike still touring even after everybody else had dropped off. I don't think he was actively advocating for that to take place, but he rather presciently noted that that seemed the most likely scenario.

I've often said that the most likely scenario I could envision had Carl survived is that Al probably still would have eventually been gone, and then they all probably would have done a reunion tour in like 2005 or 2007 or something with everybody involved. Would Carl have objected to Mike trying to (according to the Marks/Stebbins book) bring David Marks in as a replacement *for Al*? Would Carl have been okay with Al being thrown to the curb and replaced with David Marks? I honestly don't know. Carl sent a message through the BB organization congratulating Dave when he (Carl) heard Dave was back in the band in late 1997, but I don't think we'll ever know how it would have played out had Carl been well and still touring with the band. Would Mike still have been so strenuously trying to get Dave into the band at that particular moment? Would they have all toured as a five-piece at first?

The version of "Oh, Darlin'" with Brian singing uses the same backing track as the eventual released version. Barring slight tape speed variations on the circulating versions, the backing tracks are the same (obviously the final released version had more overdubs).

I actually like the song, the composition itself, and I particularly have always liked the dissonant backing vocals during the bridge.

But no version of the song was ever going to change the band's fortunes in any way. Again, I like the track, but its production is cheesy and wonky, the arrangement is pretty limp and cheesy, the lyrics aren't that great (either version). That circulating Brian scratch vocal, while certainly interesting to fans and scholars (there aren't a ton of KTSA-era Brian leads), is pretty choppy and a bit croaky. Definitely sounds like a guide/scratch vocal.

But any version of the song was never going to be a hit or even released as a single. I think a vastly rejiggered version of the song, with more organic, sparse production, possibly some rewritten lyrics, could have been quite good.

I'd love to see an expanded KTSA with the Brian lead and all sorts of other tracks from the era. But I wouldn't say not releasing a creaky Brian guide vocal was in any way a career misstep.

I agree with Jay that not releasing "Oh Darlin'" with Brian on lead was a misstep while I also agree with HeyJude that it wasn't a truly fatal misstep as by that point, nobody really cared by then anyways.

But anyways as for all Brian's Beach Boys material, especially from Today! on, I don't think you could find a more forgettable song (or at least a more forgettable recording). Carl's vocal redefines the word workmanlike and is also a bit sleepy, the backing track absolutely plods and Bruce's "God only knows" during the tag is just the kinda self referential embarrassment that makes it tough to be a Beach Boys fan sometimes.

It's crazy because after all this time dismissing the song as a useless piece of nothing, when I heard the version with Brian on lead, the song suddenly became alive. Not a great, classic song by any stretch, but a decent album track. I assume the Carl vocal was chosen because of commercial considerations, though perhaps Brian wrote it for him?

As far as the production, it's just Bruce Johnston through and through. Cardboard, boring, no balls but at the same time not light enough to be pleasantly light (if one gets my idea, I know it's hard to communicate on this kinda thing via text). However, as bad as the production is, I think blame has to go to the songwriters (Brian and Mike) for not giving enough of a crap to have this promising tune turned into a big stinky pile by release.

The Summer of love video was the nadir of their entire career.

I didn't say releasing it would have changed their fortunes. I was just saying that any new Brian lead song or appearance on a new BB's album would have been something that hardcore fans wanted.

Sure, I agree there are plenty of individual things/decisions that I and other hardcore fans would have liked. I was looking at addressing the title of the thread, which is "Career Mishaps." Not releasing an early outtake of an already-middling song because some hardcore fans (myself included!) would like to see it released doesn't amount to anything near a "career mishap" to my thinking.

"Career mishaps" would be things that could have potentially changed their fortunes. The bigger picture things like releasing "Smile", not going "oldies" at various points in their live career, choosing not to try to stay relevant and active in the studio, doing the Brian-Paley album, etc.

You right. I wasn't really thinking of the "bigger picture", so to speak. I was thinking that a bigger Brian presence would possibly have increased sales from the more hardcore fans. But thinking it over, it probably wouldn't have amounted to much in the way of sales, or a possibility of the album charting. Did KTSA actually chart in any way?

It charted but did worse than LA Light

The band was just not on critic/consumer radar much by 1980 in terms of new music. Really, their main post-Holland run of success on the charts had to do with the 1976 promo push that helped "15 Big Ones" and its singles do relatively well.

Love You, MIU, and LA had all done middling to poor on the charts. KTSA actually, according to Wikipedia, scored a slightly higher peak album chart position than LA:

15 Big Ones - #8
Love You - #53
MIU Album - #151
LA (Light Album) - #100
Keepin' the Summer Alive - #75

But post-15BO, you can see the general trend for the band was poor album sales, with what little sales/chart action they *did* see being fueled by simple name recognition, some degree of staying on the radar by continuing to tour, and maybe a tiny bit of sort or reverse momentum from a few decently-performing singles (e.g. "Good Timin'" just barely scraping into the Top 40 by hitting literally #40).

"Goin' On" is an immensely more "commercial" and catchy single than "Oh, Darlin'" ever would have been, and even that single stalled out at #83.

A song like "Oh, Darlin'", and an album produced by someone of the caliber and style of Bruce Johnston, just had so very little chance of being a hit in 1980. It appears they did try to push "Oh, Darlin'" as a single in some international territories, and it appears it didn't chart and/or didn't do well in any of those territories.

You can see that most of their post-60s *singles chart* success usually was more traceable to being a fluke and/or due to some sort of novelty/stylisti/genre factor (e.g. covers of old songs and songs with some bit of novelty stylistically). Their biggest hit singles were a cover from "15 Big Ones", two covers from "MIU" (and "Come Go With Me" being pulled as a single three years after MIU for the "Ten Years" compilation and then becoming a moderate hit was an even bigger fluke!), the awful 1981 medley of their 60s hits, "Kokomo" which was absolutely a catchy song but also a bit of a novelty song, "Getcha Back", which was certainly a throwback style song and an arguable slight rewrite of "Don't Worry Baby", and so on.