The Smiley Smile Message Board

Favourite: Sunflower
Least Favourite: Summer in Paradise
Overrated: Holland
Underrated: 20/20

What do you guys think?

Agreed...I'd be pretty similar:

Favorite: Sunflower
Least Favorite: Summer in Paradise
Overrated: Friends*
Underrated: L.A. Album

*within Beach Boys fan circles...of course the general public doesn't give a damn.

Favorite: Friends
Least Favorite: Keepin' The Summer Alive
Overrated: Holland
Underrated: 15 Big Ones

For me, this might be the toughest question ever!

Favorite: Pet Sounds
Least Favorite: L.A. (Light Album) - Unless you count Stars and Stripes, Vol. 1 as a "proper" Beach Boys' album
Overrated: Holland
Underrated: The Beach Boys (1985)

Favorite: Love You. I can play it in any mood and get the highs and the comforts and the excitement and the "what the durka?" moments from all the best Beach Boys records on this one LP.
Least favorite: Still Cruisin' (cop out, perhaps, but I'll stick with it). Reusing the old songs and the mixed quality of the "new" songs makes it the album I play least.
Overrated: hmm, this one hurts ... um ... I'll go with 20/20. I like the outtakes and B-sides more than most of the "new" material on it. Always felt like a hodge-podge album to me.
Underrated: I'll go Holland. I know it tends to be hit or miss with fans (and several already have it in their overrated pile) but it was nice to see the Beach Boys try to be progressive and stretch out a bit. It also felt like the logical progression from Sunflower, Surf's Up and Carl and the Passions - So Tough. It's the best distillation of the Blondie and Ricky years in terms of weaving their songs and vocal / instrumental contributions into the sound, Carl and Dennis are providing top-notch material, Al and Mike challenge themselves and Brian's material still packs a wallop and shows inventiveness and spark (how much of that is Brian and how much of it is Carl / the rest of the band, well ...)

I'll even do an honorable mention for "least necessary" album, with the Royal Philharmonic album. I want to love it. I promise I do. I want to enjoy it. I just find it so underwhelming and even occasionally aggravating. I love remixes, alternate takes, live versions, demos ... but letting others slather orchestral arrangements over classic recordings definitely blunted a lot of my emotional energy for these recordings.

Like many of you, I am not sure I could ever go so far as to say I hate a Beach Boys album ... even "Summer in Paradise" has a few good vocals and a couple songs that could be salvaged with better production. I figure a least favorite can still be a favorite, even if it's in the bottom 10 instead of the top 10. ;)

Favorite: Sunflower
Least Favorite: Of the original, non SIP, hate to say it but maybe Smiley Smile
Overrated: Beach Boys Love You
Underrated: tie between In Concert(which I think absolutely rocks and gets little credit for it), and L.A.

Oh boy, here we go...
Favorite: always changes, but probably either Wild Honey or sunflower
Least favorite: this is really difficult, because I think that every album has redeeming qualities. SIP is an easy answer for most people, but I like about half of it so thats not it. I would say MIU, but it has 2 or 3 really really good songs on it. So I’m going Keepin' the Summer Alive. Even though it has 3 amazing songs with the title track, Livin' With a Heartache and Goin' On, it also has one of the worst songs ever written with When Girls Get Together. I’m serious, my mind boggles why When Girls Get Together was put on this album. It’s terrible. I would rather listen to Summer of Love on a 10 hour loop than When Girls Get Together. When Girls Get Together is just an atrocity of a song.

Overrated: I’m going to get hate for this, but Smile.
Underrated: L.A. (Light Album) and BB85

Favourite: Pet Sounds
Least Favourite: Keepin' the Summer Alive?
Overrated: Not sure (Friends maybe?)
Underrated: Sunflower (Removed from the updated version of 'RS 500')

Favorite: Smile (even in its unfinished state)
Least favorite: The Beach Boys (1985), except for Male Ego and Getcha Back.
Overrated: All Summer Long
Underrated:Friends (from outside the fan base)

" it also has one of the worst songs ever written with When Girls Get Together. I’m serious, my mind boggles why When Girls Get Together was put on this album. It’s terrible. I would rather listen to Summer of Love on a 10 hour loop than When Girls Get Together. When Girls Get Together is just an atrocity of a song."

WHEN GIRLS GET TOGETHER made the cut for two reasons:
1. Because of the fragmented nature of LA Light Album, CBS required a specific number of Brian Wilson compositions on KTSA. It may even have been six; I don't know for sure.  Various tracks from the vault were considered, among them SAN MIGUEL.  But Girls was written by Brian and Mike, so fit the label criteria.
2.  Bruce Johnston LOVED the song.  I had a conversation with him about it back in 1982, in Paducah, Kentucky.  He said when he was going through vault tracks he listened to it and was floored by the song, particularly the Tympani part.  He said to me, and I quote, "I told Carl it just HAD to be on the album."

Favourite: Friends
Least Favourite: Summer in Paradise
Overrated: Pet Sounds (it's overrated but i love it)
Underrated: Sunflower

Favorite:  Pet Sounds

Least  favorite: Surfin' Safari

Most underrated: The Beach Boys (1985 album)

Most overrated: Holland

Favorite: Sunflower  (Close second Love You)

Least Favorite: Stars And Stripes

Overrated: BB85

Underrated: SIP (That's not to say it's gold, but I don't think it deserves the hate it gets- there are some nice gems hidden in there)

Favorite: right now, probably Today
Least favorite: Summer in Paradise - no competition
Ovarrated: none
Underrated: Wild Honey, Surfin' USA, Love You...

Favorite: The Beach Boys Love You

Least Favorite: There's a lot I haven't listened to (for a reason). I would say Stars&Stripes or SIP.

Overrated: 20/20

Underrated: The Beach Boys' Party! (With 15 big ones as a close contender)

Favorite: Surfin' USA
Least Favorite: Stars And Stripes
Overrated: Beach Boys '85
Underrated: Pet Sounds

Favorite: Pet Sounds
Least favorite: Summer In Paradise
Overrated: Surf's Up
Underrated: Party

Favorite: Pet Sounds

Least Favorite: Summer In Paradise

Overrated: I don’t know, but I’m leaning towards SMiLE. It’s astonishingly brilliant and I adore it, but it’s been built up like the second coming of Christ here. It’s not better than Pet Sounds. Nothing is.

Underrated: That depends. I’d normally say Sunflower or Wild Honey, but among us hardcore fans here, I’d say LA Light Album. It’s decidedly not a really great album but it more than has it’s moments. ‘Baby Blue’ and ‘Good Timin’’ are about as good as anything on one of their more celebrated albums.

Favorite: Pet Sounds
Least Favorite: Summer in Paradise although 85 is real bad too. That at least has Getcha Back though.
Overrated: I guess 20/20? Doesn't have good album flow.
Underrated: Surf's Up. Might be better then Sunflower.

Favorite: Right now it's Friends
Least favorite: 15 Big Ones
Over rated: Sunflower
Under rated: Love You

Favorite: Sunflower
Least Favorite: Stars and Stripes
Overrated: The Beach Boys Love You
Underrated: L.A. (Light Album)

Although I did have Pet Sounds on a few nights ago, and far from being tired of it, I found myself marveling at the inventiveness of the instrumentation, and agreeing with the POV of the lyrics.
Sunflower has been my favorite for a number of years, though. In fact, I might put it in the underrated category, but at least the die-hards know it's a great album.
Yeah, I could have put Summer in Paradise in the least favorite category, but at least it has a few new songs on it, even if most of them are crud. S&S has nothing to recommend it, other than Willie's version of Warmth of the Sun, and Timothy B. singing Caroline, No. I Can Hear Music is pretty good.
I will never understand the cult of LY - a damaged artist cranking out a crude, Crayola textured album featuring the worst vocals every by the band. L.A. gets a bad rap because of the 10 minute disco atrocity, but it's actually a very strong album that finally brings Dennis and Carl onboard as songwriters again. This is what the followup to Holland should have sounded like.

I never count Stars & Stripes as a legitimate Beach Boys album. They may be on it vocally, but it’s not their album. As it’s a tribute album, none of them sing lead and it of course doesn’t feature any new songs.

<3 - My friend, you just wrote the reason!

This album is a celebration, a fantastic sarcastic show of an album.

Copying Bangs famous quote, from Wikipedia:
Lester Bangs said the Beach Boys were "a diseased bunch of mo'fos if ever there was one…But the miracle is that the Beach Boys have made that disease sound like the literal babyflesh pink of health…Maybe it’s just that unprickable and ingenuous wholesomeness that accounts not only for their charm, but for their beauty—a beauty so awesome that listening to them at their best is like being in some vast dream cathedral decorated with a thousand gleaming American pop culture icons."

wrong post

His words absolutely nail the deeper appeal of The Beach Boys. What listening to albums such as Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, Friends and Love You is like. This is not normal music by not normal people (as if there’s such thing as normal). These albums are unique and outsider and I thank the stars above for that. This band is like no other and Bangs nailed just why. Thanks Lester.

I wouldn't put Love You in the same category as Smiley, Honey or Fiends. Those three albums feature some of the most beautiful vocals ever recorded.
I knew the first time I listened to Smiley that it wasn't going to be Smile, that a lot of people hated it. It's almost an accapella album. I love it, and I don't even imbibe.

I put Love You in the same category as Smiley Smile, Wild Honey and Friends because they’re strong examples of where The Beach Boys, especially Brian, were musically generally out of step with everyone else in pop music and were uniquely brilliant. One could argue that Love You is an even better example of this because it’s the biggest, most different oddball out of all.

Beautifully spoken Summer_Days

Favorite: Sunflower
Least favorite: Summer in Paradise (I don’t consider Stars and Stripes a Beach Boys album).
Most overrated:  Surfs Up
Underrated: MIU Album

I have to disagree on Love You being uniquely brilliant.

Figured somebody would’ve. It’s very divisive and I totally understand those who have difficulty with Love You. It’s not as grand as Sunflower, it’s not in the same ballpark, no scratch that, it’s not in the same hemisphere as Pet Sounds. It’s not that kind of brilliant. Nothing is as brilliant as Brian’s untouchable masterpiece. I wouldn’t call Love You a masterpiece at all actually. It’s just a peculiar, memorable, endearing, enduring, sweeter than candy peek into Brian Wilson’s heart and soul. That’s what makes Love You it’s own kind of brilliant in a delightful, offbeat way. Your mileage may vary.

I'll probably agree on Love You but disagree on Smiley Smile. Obviously GV is good.  Same with H&V and Vegetables.  There are some songs/parts of songs I don't understand and never will and others I flip-flop on.  I think I've only heard the entire album fully a handful of times. Love Wild Honey, and haven't had a chance to buy a copy of Friends yet but I like what I've heard so far.

I'm sure that Smiley sounds better on marijuana or LSD, but I don't know, having never tried either. I just think the vocals are so amazing - strip away all the production the Boys had been using for the previous 2 or 3 years, put the focus solely on thos beautiful voices.
And Love You probably sounds better on Prozac.

@All Summer Long if you have a smart phone and have either Google Play, Apple Music or Spotify (I haven’t used Spotify in a few years but I’d be surprised if the album isn’t on their anymore), you can listen to Friends or the whole album on YouTube. Friends is one of the true great Beach Boys albums, warm, sweet, laid back and harmonically gorgeous.

Fav: Tied between Smile Sessions and Love You (Pet Sounds is in a close third, with MIU/Adult Child a distant 4th). Each of these albums are very off the wall in different ways. I love Brian's control on the production studio/vocals. There isn't anything else like it, and nothing since imo. Songs are instantly hummable imo, heck I'm doing a sheet music project on Love You, if that confirms my biases.

Least Fav: KTSA - the way the vocals are processed is so irritating to my ears. I just can't get past it... Songs are below average imo and better mixed on other sources (see When Girls Get Together), there are better scraps too (Brian's Phil Spector stuff, Dennis' Bambu stuff, even Mike's stuff left in the can are better material than what came out, besides Goin' On imo, unlike LA, I am not a fan of Bruce's soft production touches).

Underrated: Beach Boys (1985), I think it deserved a better chart placement/promotion. Imo, good songs, good balance of Bw input + band. Good singing, the band finally sounds youthful-ish again after the disaster that was KTSA... Can't stand the Culture Club production now, but there are good songs in there, especially Getcha Back (even tho it's a Springsteen rip off), Where I Belong, and Male Ego (which should have appeared on the main LP instead of hidden in the CD release... The band shouldn't have been kicked to the curb like they were after this album came out and dried up.

Overrated: Sunflower (I love schmaltzy songs, but Add Some Music just comes across as dentist waiting room music. It needed more of a hard edge like Surf's Up. Maybe it should have been a double album of Sunflower/Surf's Up, and put the whole package together as a double LP, especially since Sunflower completely bombed).

These are my thoughts as of today, things ebb and flow, much like the fortunes, legacies, and turbulence of this band.
 :bw

Best in a nutshell:

It was charming and funny when Brian asked me, in 1969, what my favorite BBs album was, followed by a quick (before I could answer), "I mean, except for 'Pet Sounds'." I said "Friends" and he was so happy. He really loved that album. That would be my most underrated - although "Love You," in all it's oddities, was brilliant.

I have no idea how to pick between "Pet Sounds" and "Smile" as a favorite (okay, "Smile" was a BW band recording, not BBs, but it should count, I think).

Worst: The first time I heard SIP (decades later, thank heavens) and through a link on this MB, I was laughing so hard I was crying. Then I realized that they were apparently serious. I've never made my way through "Stars and Stripes," and probably won't. Life is too short. I also really hated that disco monstrosity on "LA Light."

Overrated: I really don't have a good answer, other than the last paragraph. There was something brilliant on nearly all the other albums.

I actually like HCTN. The BB vocals on a disco track just work for me