Seventy-three and still rocking!!!!

I object to "All I Want To Do" (mere macho posturing) but I don't hate it----or any other BB song.

On the other hand, I love "Barbara Ann"----what a joyous racket! Even at the end of 1965----a most fertile time musically----it stood head and shoulders above everything else, for me at least. I can't understand why it gets so much hate.

[Sunflower/Surf's Up!]

I think this is my third bout of posting here. Looking way back through the list of new arrivals it struck me that it's been pretty amiss of me not to have introduced myself at some stage, however briefly----for which my apologies. Perhaps I was waiting for Mike's 73rd birthday to do it. :=)

I'll be brief: It was getting Brian's "autobiography" as a birthday present a decade or so ago that reawakened my interest in the Boys (they'd always been on the edge of my radar----I'd grown up with their music). I then bought the Sunflower/Surf's Up! 2fer, as I was familiar with side two of SU. Several tracks in,  I was wondering what all the fuss was about (!) when I heard "All I Wanna Do". It was my on-the-road-to-Damascus moment. The next step was to find kindred spirits...

[TUSOA]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_United_States_of_America_(album)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=yqVF4EXFu18

I post the wiki and YouTube of it only because I'm shocked someone here hasn't already mentioned it. The United States of America. This, to me, is the textbook definition of an unfairly overlooked masterpiece. Along with Forever Changes, I'd say it's the best album of the psychedelic era, but nobody outside of serious music buffs seems to know about either.

I used to own both. I agree about TUSOA being unfairly overlooked, as it broke seriously new ground. FC has some fine tracks too.

I must confess to not being crazy about either album. I prefer Love's earlier stuff (up to but not including "Revelation") and gave up on TUSOA quite early on.  

I have nothing against polls as such. That said, I tried a couple of the Survivors but found it painful going, having to cross off songs I love, songs written, sung and played by musicians I respect.

A more positive approach, to my mind at least, would be to come from the opposite angle---i.e.,  starting with the least-liked track on the album in question, moving on the second least-liked track but adding rather than subtracting, the last track added (by default) being the winner.

Just a thought...     

"Barbara Ann" is my all-time most played BB song. Why? Simple----it's the only BB 45 I've ever owned.   

the creepy miscreants whom pop in and out on occasion

I keep coming back to this unfortunate phrase. If any MB doesn't suffer from creepy miscreants it's this one. 

Up.

Barbie Girl is one of the most wretched, horrid, and downright asinine songs I have ever heard in my entire life. Even when I was little, I fucking hated it. Oh, and DAMN YOU FOR REMINDING ME OF THAT GOD-FORSAKEN "SONG"!!!

Oh come on! Anyone who isn't genuinely moved when Ken sings "Come on Barbie let's go party" must have a heart of stone.  

Wonderful to see "GOTB" getting some kudos and not just crap thrown at it.  

[Then you get total crap like Girls On The Beach]

Then you get total crap like Girls On The Beach

You should buy and read a copy of Philip Lambert's 'Inside The Music Of Brian Wilson' - he wrote 2-3 pages on this song alone - the basis of it being that this song was the first sign of Brian's "new focus on innovation and structural cohesion."

You may not like it, but it's definitely not crap.

He also said the perfectly pleasant 'Carl's Big Chance' was total crap as well... I'd hate to think what adjectives he uses to describe, say, Barbie Girl by Aqua or anything by Robbie Williams.

Total crap? "A modest instrumental ... It may be filler material but the Boys deserved a break, and Carl Wilson fans deserved a treat." (p. 156)

"Girls On The Beach" is awesome. Robbie ain't bad either.

I would agree with those saying Today/Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!!). I think they're a pretty good mid-ground for the band's output.
I would probably disagree with Pet Sounds, even though (most of) all of us love the album dearly. I liked the album okay, but it didn't really make a fan out of me.

What did make a fan of me was Sounds of Summer. I remember listening to it and falling deeply in love with "Wild Honey" and "Darlin'," and I haven't looked back since.
The Platinum Collection is nice and all, but it's a bit of a commitment for someone who isn't even a fan yet.

So, I would just figure out if they would prefer to listen to an album, or to a compilation.

Actually it's not your post I want to comment on but the wonderful quote down below it. :=)

[Surf's Up!]

Only because there's an edit button...

1. Surf's Up!
2. Pet Sounds
3. Today!
4. Surfer Girl
5. Wild Honey

https://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/thebookofseth/hapshash-and-the-coloured-coat-feat-human-host-and-the-heavy-metal-kids

It all depends on who that person is. (So I agree with Ron's first post on that count.) It's impossible to plan a general "strategy".   

[Surfin' Safari]

Wrote this ages ago about the underrated closer on Surfin' Safari:

"I have often wondered why no one (to my knowledge) has ever mentioned 'The Shift' as a pointer to the future. Most reviews quickly dismiss it as 'a fashion statement by Brian and Mike' or words to that effect. On the face of it, the main tune is a 12-bar blues (I I I I IV IV I I V IV I V). However, Brian 'shifts' the key up a whole tone in bar 3 and back down again in bar 12 (in Carl's solo too). As far as I know this is unique----no-one else has ever done this."

This is a great aspect of a Beach Boys song that doesn't seem to get mentioned at all.

Lambert calls it "a step forward in Brian's musical development."

I think his interpretation is in line with yours, but it might be a little more in-depth:

Overall the song is in the key of A major, but when the A section begins we hear two bars of G chords.  After that there are two bars of A chords, and then the song continues as a blues progression in A through the end of the section.  In other words, Brian plays on the song's title by "shifting" the first two bars of a blues progression down a whole step from A to G.  This is all anticipated in the introduction, where a C chord similarly shifts up to a D chord.  In fact, at the beginning of the song, when we hear the intro C and D chords and then the vocals enter above G and A chords, it's hard to tell exactly what key the song is in; the key only becomes clear when blues progression eventually asserts itself.  This is Brian in experimental mode, placing his personal stamp on a time-worn convention.

He also mentions that something similar happens in "Finders Keepers."

Thanks! Curiously, my shift is up and Lambert's shift is down (perhaps I should rephrase that, lol).  

Quill (1970 Cottilion Records). Self titled LP (and the only one they ever released) by this Boston-based psychedelic-progressive rock group, Quill are the least-known band to have played Woodstock in 1969. Great band, check 'em out.

Thanks for the heads up. I checked out tracks from the album on YouTube. Certainly worth a listen, folks. As for their performance at Woodstock, talk about bad luck! (See their wiki page.)

[Surfin' Safari]

Wrote this ages ago about the underrated closer on Surfin' Safari:

"I have often wondered why no one (to my knowledge) has ever mentioned 'The Shift' as a pointer to the future. Most reviews quickly dismiss it as 'a fashion statement by Brian and Mike' or words to that effect. On the face of it, the main tune is a 12-bar blues (I I I I IV IV I I V IV I V). However, Brian 'shifts' the key up a whole tone in bar 3 and back down again in bar 12 (in Carl's solo too). As far as I know this is unique----no-one else has ever done this."

This is a great aspect of a Beach Boys song that doesn't seem to get mentioned at all.

Procol Harum. This song alone warrants their induction...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOj3kJKy-_U

[KtbC]

It's alright for a debut, but if I had to pick a really good CC album it would most definitely be Colour By Numbers. It's much more polished and varied.

This is the tracking order of KtbC that I'm familiar with. Maybe yours is the other one, which ends with "DYRWTHM" and omits the wondrous "T(COTH)". I should imagine that is less satisfying. 

"Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" – 4:22
"I'm Afraid of Me" [Remix] – 3:16
"You Know I'm Not Crazy" – 3:36
"I'll Tumble 4 Ya" – 2:36
"Love Twist" [Featuring Captain Crucial] – 4:23
"Time (Clock of the Heart)" – 3:41
"White Boy" [Dance Mix] – 4:40
"Boy Boy (I'm the Boy)" – 3:50
"White Boys Can't Control It" – 3:43
"Take Control" – 3:09

Speaking of Culture Club: Has anyone else noticed that the first three notes of "Karma Chameleon" and the BB's "You're So Good To Me" are identical in just about every respect?

Steve Hillage's version of "Hurdy Gurdy Man":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKTpKG5jQIo

Oh My God....  

Is that meant positively or negatively, LBRiaT?

It's meant to be embarrasing  

Why, its a good album.

It's alright for a debut, but if I had to pick a really good CC album it would most definitely be Colour By Numbers. It's much more polished and varied.

I think the two complement each other very well. These days I begin and end each day with a track or two from one or the other. Love 'em both.

"Seven And Seven Is"----Love

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCoKcAD6FJc

"Society's Child"----Janis Ian

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYJ2wLon6KM

Oh, and "I'm Only Sleeping"...

I got ticked off for resurrecting some old threads a while back. But hey, I saw this old Captain Beefheart topic and being a major Beefheart fan I went for it. And a bunch of others posters followed suit, with most sensible and enlightening posts. I think "sensible" is the key word here. (Thinks: Must resurrect it again some time.)

I believe the answer to "Porrohman" may lie in this short story by H.G. Wells.