Seconding what Add Some said about meeting fans being part of the job. I think a lot of artists only meet fans because they can make money doing it or because they're so polite they can't say no. It's still a bother. Now, if you're naturally extroverted and good at talking to people, it's easier to get some enjoyment out of that. Mike definitely seems like a people person, so it doesn't surprise me at all that he enjoys talking to fans. He's totally in his element! Brian, meanwhile, is more introverted, and having to talk to a bunch of total strangers for no reason other than they paid you sounds like hell to an introvert.

Also worth noting that behaving oneself well in meet and greets is a skill you can develop. In the J-Pop and K-pop idol factories, one of the things you learn is how to behave yourself around fans, how to always be polite and how to always say the right thing. It's part of the image. Now while there were manufactured groups in the 60s, of course, I don't think the PR lessons were as intense as they are for Idol groups. This still allows for some real personality to get out. Who knows what advice they were given before interviews?

Finally, and most importantly, no matter how much of a people person you are and how well you're trained, you're still human, and there are days when you don't want to have to condescend to listen to someone tell you "you're the greatest person in my life!", or deal with some of the heavy stuff people throw at you (I know fans who told Lady Gaga stuff like "you saved my life when I was considering suicide"... while ultimately a positive message, that's really dark stuff and I imagine it's not always easy for the receiver, especially if they're an empathetic person who feels what other people feel very quickly). All it takes is one bad day for someone to badmouth you forever. I read a review once that said Ariana Grande was so mean and terrible to her fans because... she didn't come out to meet them after the show? Or she looked at someone the wrong way? Never mind every other time she was friendly, never mind that she released high quality versions of songs she hated because she knew her long-time fans would love them, that guy is going to spend the rest of his life telling everyone Ariana Grande is a terrible human being. If you want an example closer to the Beach Boys, stories of interacting with Van Dyke Parks range from "he was the nicest person ever and he spent 12 hours with each fan discussing the trumpets on the mix of a B-side from 1976 and then bought everyone dessert as an apology for leaving" to "he burned my house, salted my fields, gave me acne, and burst into flames when I mentioned the word 'smile'."

Who is the "real" person? They're all real! Ariana Grande side-eyeing a fan after a concert and Ariana Grande taking pictures with fans outside of her show are both "her." So I bet that Bruce Johnston is both a nice guy who appreciates his fan and a guy who may resent some of the fanaticism. It's contradictory, but we all have difficult and conflicting feelings about something. These folks just happen to be in the spotlight and have forums dedicated to tracking their move, so any slip-up they make is magnified while our bad days are washed away like refuse into the gutter on a rainy day. It's not really fair to judge 'em by these highly artificial contexts or spaces where someone is asking for their time.

[Let Him Run Wild]

I think two particular songs around Summer Days era- Let Him Run Wild [...] would have done VERY well on Pet Sounds - both lyrically and musically.(Some additional recordings would've been needed, though).

I'm so happy to see somebody else has thought this! I thought I was committing Beach Boys heresy. It kind of reminds me of "Here Today" and especially "I'm Waiting For the Day." That sort of quiet, melancholic verse juxtaposed with a full, almost ironically happy chorus. I think it may have needed some more musical elaboration to truly fit into Pet Sounds, but it's definitely the closest musical link to "Pet Sounds" off "Summer Days."

Oh man, I can't believe I missed this... and by a day. So many questions!

"Why isn't your magnum opus 'Summer in Paradise' available on Spotify? I was ready for the summer of love!"
"Was having Van Dyke Parks on Kokomo and Summer in Paradise part of some long term humiliation plan? Because if so it's kind of brilliant."
"How many baseball hats do you own?""
"Why haven't you followed me back on Twitter?"

ALEXANDER HAMILTON (alexander hamilton)
When America sings for you, will they know what you overcame?
Will they know you rewrote the game?
The world will never be the same

Finally bought it after months of streaming. Strong recommendation to fans of musicals, hip-hop, and/or historical depictions of the founding of the United States. 

@Rick5150 No worries! I was being tongue-in-cheek with the Florida thing; we all know California is famous for sun and beaches and all that stuff. Just had to put in a token protest from the sunshine state

As for the "forest fire" line, I didn't realize it was actually played at drive-ins. That does makes the line a little less random. Nevertheless, I still dislike it because it's supposed to be funny but doesn't really come across as amusing to me. I suppose it's not the worst, but it's still my to-go example of a bad Mike lyric.

Thank you all for your welcomes! (Or perhaps, "You're Welcome" for your welcomes?) Glad to know GIFs are welcome too - I'll have to upload them all somewhere to use 'em.

Most importantly, I need to start making Beach Boys GIF sets. And Beach Boys memes. Oh, the memes. Maybe I'll make that thread one day.

Surprised nobody's mentioned this from the Reddit AMA:

lsda 710 points 2 years ago
If you could give any advice to yourself at age 18, what would it be?

officialbrianwilson 1997 points 2 years ago
Don't take drugs!

Seems he regards them as villains. And in his case, I definitely think they did more harm than good. Is there an alternate universe where Brian Wilson consumed drugs and it turned out alright? I'd say sure, but that's an alternate universe where so many things played out very differently.

I'm glad this got bumped so I could post in it. I have confused feelings about the lyrics to California Girls. I can say with certainty the first verse is much better than the second verse. But even then, I can't say that it's great.

Well, East Coast girls are hip - I really dig those styles they wear
and the Southern girls with the way they talk - they knock me out when I'm down there
The Midwest farmer's daughter really makes you feel alright
And the Northern girls with they way they kiss - they keep their boyfriends warm at night

The basic concept here is solid enough: let's cover a stereotype of an American region. The (North) East Coast is full of sophisticated, style-conscious people; Southerners have cute accents. But then Northerners (New Englanders? The Minnesota/Wisconsin region?) ... live in a cold place? And are therefore good at kissing to keep that cold away? Eh. Not as easily accessible as the prior two stereotypes. Then the Midwest is full of polite people. But "really makes you feel alright" is such a boring way to express that. The "really" is a lyrical filler that doesn't really express anything but uses up two syllables. Syllables are precious in a song - because you get so few of them and they're tied to a pre-existing melody and stress pattern, you must be very economical and conscious in order to craft a good lyric and express something compellingly. Words like "just" and "really" and "even" are crutches. Combined with a bland statement like "feel alright," the entire phrase feels like filler.

I love the contrast of the chorus with the first verse. Mike's just done telling us that American girls are all great (with one notable region missing) and then says to forget all that, because they all should be California girls! Love the juxtaposition of it. And it really reinforces that there must be something special about California girls, because it's not like he's saying "East Coast girls are snobs; Southern girls have stupid accents; Midwesterners are doormats; Northerners freeze to death" - he's saying they're even better than these great girls he's discussed. There's something very dreamy about the way "I wish they all could be California girls" is repeated over those chord changes. It really heightens the fantasy aspect of it. But the second verse... ech.

The West Coast has the sunshine and the girls all get so tan
I dig a French bikini on Hawaiian Island dolls by a palm tree in the sand
I been all around this great big world and I seen all kind of girls
Yeah, but I couldn't wait to get back in the states - back to the cutest girls in the world

First of all, "the West Coast has the sunshine"? I promise you, the East Coast is not just New York and New England. The Southern states are well known for their favorable climes. And uh, how about Florida? Did you forget about Miami? Even more sunshine than California  But let's forgive that for a moment. I feel like this is what people refer to when they talk about this song seeming sleazy. It sounds like Mike's just sort of ogling girls in bikinis from a distance while they're tanning on the beach. And there's nothing wrong with being attracted to women, but the way it's written just sounds so leery.

This isn't Mike's worst effort nor his best effort. I mean, you have stuff like "if you say you watched the movie, you're a couple of liars/and remember, only you can prevent forest fires" from "Drive-In" that's honestly cringeworthy. And then there's stuff like "Fun Fun Fun" which, while not Shakespeare by any means, is actually fun. "California Girls" is alright, I'd say. It's only the second verse that makes me wrinkle my nose a bit when I listen to it, but you've got those lovely background vocals to focus on anyway. The music is definitely more advanced than prior Brian efforts, but which are the really "advanced" parts? There's the opening portion, which is wordless, and the chorus, which is well served by only a single lyric. The single lyric is iconic ("I wish they all could be California girls" is a famous line) and also allows you to focus on all the lovely harmonies going on. Brian would reuse this technique of a single lyric repeated over different, counterpointing melodies later on ("God only knows what I'd be without you," "I wanna go home/hoist up the John B sail", "Have you seen the grand Coulee working on the railroad?") to great effect, so no points docked there. The verses aren't too crazy, and accordingly enough the lyrics aren't too crazy either. There are likely better example lyrics for the case of "Brian dumped Mike" - by the way, a proposition I'm not sure I agree with. But then again, I'm a baby fan, so who knows?

I didn't realize how pervasive the Beach Boys' influence was until I started listening to them more seriously, and then I started hearing them everywhere!

ABBA is one that was profoundly influenced by the vocal harmonies of the Beach Boys. There's one song, "One Man One Woman," where during the second verse you can hear Benny Andersson imitate Brian Wilson's signature falsetto. ABBA was big on background harmonies juxtaposed against a lead vocal (which may itself be harmonixed), and that influence clearly comes from the BB.

Eagles is another one I didn't realize until I saw them in concert. One of the members said "the Beach Boys were pioneers. We were just settlers." And it made sense when I listened to, say, "New Kid In Town," the harmonies were certainly reminiscent of them.

For more modern artists, Lana Del Rey has gone on record as saying she's influenced by the Beach Boys. It doesn't show through on her official material much, but her laptop demos show an interest in these vocal tapestries and unusual harmonies. She's also interested in the Beach Boys as an example of Americana- she went through a phase where she was all about American flags and white trash kitsch and celebrating the South and the East and West Coasts (at separate times). Not saying she took Smile to heart or anything (though I think her desire to explore the Americana concept and the BW/VDP exploration of Americana on Smile are curious coincidences), but that they're just this Great American Band, and she self-consciously invokes a lot of that sort of imagery. Her latest single, Love, makes an explicit lyrical reference when she says "Don't worry, baby." If it were someone else, I would've written it off as just a common phrase, but coming from her, I definitely think it's on purpose.

And if you want to see how the pervasive Beach Boys harmonies are, I checked out this random track called "Eloise" by some Swedish band. Right before the final chorus, there's a section where they go "ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba" in this nasally voice, then counter it with another line, and then a Wilsonesque falsetto soaring above. You simply cannot escape their vocal influence!

I think this shows that really, it didn't matter whether they sang "it opens when I want with the cellunoid system" or "wouldn't it be nice if we were older" or "columnated ruins domino" - the magic was the vocal arrangement, and the lyrics were simply the thing you put on the vocals that gave them "meaning" because you can't have wordless tracks in this day and age. The surf and cars lyrics are a cute capsule from a prior time, and one that's not as relatable as it was then (surfing is no longer a fad, and "car culture" has changed significantly nowadays); the Tony Asher lyrics are universally relatable and cute but rather simplistic; the VDP lyrics exist outside of mortal concepts like "time" and "space" and "emotion" and are therefore both eternal and nigh-inaccessible. The music, and I mean the great vocal blend and the harmonic twists, not the surf guitar and 50s rock-and-roll chord progression - that's what's broke through all the barriers and that's their contribution to music and to popular art.

[Those aren't choices that make sense within the context of the Beach Boys' legacy, and it short-changes that legacy in service of ephemeral commercial considerations]

When people hear things like digital artifacts from tuning, or in earlier days a cheesy electronic drum sample, maybe some people aren't that picky about their margaritas and that's cool.  But for a lot of people, that just takes them out of the moment.  Those aren't choices that make sense within the context of the Beach Boys' legacy, and it short-changes that legacy in service of ephemeral commercial considerations.

I couldn't think of a better, more concise way to explain it! I can't separate the fact that autotune was the sound of one young generation any more than I can separate the fact that cheesy drum reverb was the sound of a different young generation. Going back and using cheesy drum reverbs uncritically makes you sound dated, and you don't even have the benefit of having been the one to use it in context at the time. Using them carefully can add a 'retro' element to a work. It's the difference between wearing 60s-style make-up to work and wearing an entire 60s-inspired outfit complete with miniskirt, flat knee boots, and big hair. The former adds flair; the latter looks like a costume. The same thing applies to music; too often with 'legacy' acts in the 80s and 90s, they sound like they're wearing a sonic costume... and not because they think these new trends can be used interestingly and creatively, but because it's what's selling now.

I mean, is there an alternate universe where 808s and autotuning and samples made sense on a Beach Boys record? If you look at Sweet Insanity, you get rapping and sampling - either a visionary example of meta-reference or a shameless rehash of old sounds and cashing in on modern trends. I was listening to Smile and there was one part - I'd have to check the tracks because I don't have the names memorized yet - where the voices sort of start echoing, but the delay between each echo decreases until the whole thing sort of mushes together and sounds like an explosion. I was thinking this was a surprisingly modern-sounding technique; I could imagine something similar being used in a modern day album by some alternative pop singer. There are modern vocal manipulation techniques, for example (chopping and screwing), that I think could be used. They'd be a link between that sort of early vocal manipulation by tape-cutting and delay, and more modern, sophisticated electronic control of formants and the like. A way to stay modern without sacrificing what makes you you.

Two moments off Pet Sounds stand out.

After the instrumental break, there's the hook "God Only Knows What I'd be without you..." But it stays on the same chord and continues into the verse: "If you should ever leave me..." I don't know why, but it gives it such a sense of urgency and seriousness. It's nothing special, and yet it's probably my favorite moment in the song.

Also the part in Sloop John B. where the instruments drop out and you have all that vocal counterpoint going on is H E A V E N L Y. It's a contender for favorite moment on the album, period.

Autotune can be a genuine artistic choice. I've heard artists use it to good effect when they want to emphasize an inhuman sentiment or detachment from a situation. It can be used simply to provide textural diversity, which is how Cher used it in "Believe" and is one of my favorite uses of it. It can be part of a genre - T-Pain popularized the association of songs with many autotune artifacts with hip-hop and RnB, to the point where more people associate it with T-Pain than they do with Cher, who pioneered it and had a hit song with it! I don't have a knee-jerk reaction against autotune. I also don't think it means you're a bad singer. I've tried to recreate the autotune effect and in my experience, it has much more to do with the particular autotune algorithm you're using (a bad one algorithm leaves much more noticeable artifacts) and the speed of correction (single most important variable in my opinion) than how bad you're singing. If you sing badly, unless you literally go back note by note and force the singing into a certain melody, it's just going to sound like a distorted version of whatever you sang. There's only so far you can go with autotune and if you change it too radically, you get ridiculous shifts (and that's not what you hear on Kanye West records). Like anything, it can easily become a gimmick in the hands of an unimaginative producer, but that doesn't mean it's inherently worse than, e.g., the gated-reverb drums of the 80s.

With that being said, autotune as used by "legacy" or "classic rock" artists leaves a sour taste in my mouth. If it's being used as a stylistic effect, it reeks of "hey, I'm down with the kids too!" and sounds really painful. Not to mention autotune is already sounding dated - I don't think you can go an entire song with autotune artifacts anymore. If it's being used to "fix" a poor vocal performance but it's not well done and leaves artifacts, then (a) it highlights that you're fixing something, which is bad and (b) that you couldn't even fix it well. Billy Joel's autotuned performance of the National Anthem is my go-to example of really poorly done autotune. I have not heard later BW albums, but I pray the autotune isn't that bad...

Perhaps this has been answered, but I can't find it anywhere. Van Dyke Parks claims that he left before Brian recorded "Fire." Various bystanders claim that for "Fire" Brian had the musicians involved wear plastic firefighter helmets to "get them in the mood." Ok but...



...why does there exist a photo of what appears to be Van Dyke wearing a firefighter helmet? Did he remember wrongly and was in fact at that session? Or were the firefighter hats used for an entirely different session beforehand? Is this a fake picture? What is the truth?

Yo! I'm a new fan. I first listened to the Beach boys something like ten years ago and I liked a handful of songs like Fun Fun Fun, Wouldn't It Be Nice, Heroes and Villains, I Get Around... basically some singles. I never got to look into their stuff further because I didn't have the albums. Cut to half a year ago, I decide to check them out on Spotify for whatever reason and I am just shocked that Brian Wilson basically did all the things I wished somebody would do in music. Cool harmonic progressions. Intricate vocal arrangements. Also, on Smile, crazy metaphorical lyrics (I know he didn't write them but he asked for them so it counts). Like everyone and their mother, I was fascinated by the specter of the Smile project, and I firmly believe that had it been released, it would have gone down as an influential and boldly experimental pop work - can't speak about the record sales, though. I haven't really looked into the band's post-Pet Sounds work except for a couple of songs (heard "Sail on Sailor" live at the BW concert and thought it totally rocked??? and on the other side of the spectrum is Kokomo, which is the textbook definition of a guilty pleasure), so there's still new things to find out. I also admit that I love reading about the band drama and am waiting for the day some intrepid Beach Boys fan writes some Tolstoyian fanfiction version of "The Making of SMiLE."

I am what some folks call a Whippersnapper, and I don't think enjoying classic rock-era material means you can't also enjoy modern pop music like Ke$ha or Lady Gaga (though they stopped being relevant five years ago for rather unfortunate external reasons... but I digress). I like transparently commercial club bangers and I think they're brilliant in the function they serve, much like Pet Sounds is brilliant in its own context. Grand album, but if they started playing it at a club, I think I'd leave. I really do enjoy music in its many permutations, and I'm always looking for new artists and songs to check out.

I've been doing some lurking, but only recently decided to step out into the light. Look forward to meeting y'all! One question: what is your policy on reaction GIFs?