This is not meant to be a comparison of talents between the groups. What this is meant to do is to say if the Beach Boys would have been better with someone who had a more combative personality. It might have kept the group in the top 40 after 1966, but it also would have broken the group up when there time had come. Here's a good quote I think that encapsulates this sort of attitude:

"No, wait a minute. Let's stay with this a second; sometimes I can't let go of it. Nobody ever said anything about Paul's having a spell on me or my having one on Paul! They never thought that was abnormal in those days, two guys together, or four guys together! Why didn't they ever say, 'How come those guys don't split up? I mean, what's going on backstage? What is this Paul and John business? How can they be together so long?' We spent more time together in the early days than John and Yoko: the four of us sleeping in the same room, practically in the same bed, in the same truck, living together night and day, eating, shitting and pissing together! All right? Doing everything together! Nobody said a damn thing about being under a spell. Maybe they said we were under the spell of Brian Epstein or George Martin. There's always somebody who has to be doing something to you. You know, they're congratulating the Stones on being together 112 years. Whoooopee! At least Charlie and Bill still got their families. In the Eighties, they'll be asking, 'Why are those guys still together? Can't they hack it on their own? Why do they have to be surrounded by a gang? Is the little leader scared somebody's gonna knife him in the back?' That's gonna be the question. That's-a-gonna be the question! They're gonna look back at the Beatles and the Stones and all those guys as relics. The days when those bands were just all men will be on the newsreels, you know. They will be showing pictures of the guy with lipstick wriggling his ass and the four guys with the evil black make-up on their eyes trying to look raunchy. That's gonna be the joke in the future, not a couple singing together or living and working together. It's all right when you're 16, 17, 18 to have male companions and idols, OK? It's tribal and it's gang and it's fine. But when it continues and you're still doing it when you're 40, that means you're still 16 in the head."

I'm not talking about musical ability per se but more in attitude/worldview. It seemed like Lennon, especially with the circumstances he was brought up in, had a very cynical and dour worldview and really pushed his band mates with his abrasive personality. Although the Wilson brothers grew up under questionable circumstances, all five of them grew up to some degree in prototypical white bread 1950s America with hot rods, girls, drive ins, beaches etc. Lennon (or any of his three bandmates for that matter) grew up in very different circumstances/cultures. Dennis I think was the closest thing to Lennon in terms of personality. But Dennis never really seemed to want to lead and was really there for the ride in his early days. It wasn't until the band had fallen off the radar that Dennis started becoming more of a serious musician.

i sometimes wish that Carl would have followed through with his threats to leave the group and start a new one with Blondie and Ricky.

one side note is that what genre would you classify the Beatles from about 66-69. They're not really a hard rock group in the sense of Led Zep or Hendrix, but they're definitely not a pop group either. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNTOwMD1mC0

- fantasies of logorrhea
- various ways to commit suicide
- anger towards all the girls your age not being hot anymore and wanting to go back to when they're 15 to do them
- alternate theme song to Rockie
- do me or you're sleeping outside in subfreezing temperatures
- the story of Ponce de Leon - in song form!

[My Diane?]

Lightning round:

Which song: Inappropriate relationship with sister-in-law
My Diane?
Which song: Gonna straight up bang you with "the wood".
All I Wanna Do?
Which song: Weather conditions make me horny
IDK
Which song: Lack of proper shoes leads to potential blood poisoning and death.
IDK
Which song: Who needs church? Let's do it on the couch.
IDK
Which song: Gambling addiction leads to trouble with the mob. Bad news.
Celebrate the News or Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

Why would Murry beat up his own sons for?  I have read that Murry hit Brian in the head with a 2x4 and beat up Dennis and i do not know if Murry beat up Carl!  My question is Why?

that was sixty years ago. Times were different then.

instead of 15BO how would an all covers album have done in 1976 (could be called 15 Covers). And what I'm wondering is how do you think they would have done covering these songs?

1. St Elmos Fire (originally by Michael Franks)
2 Best of My Love (originally by Eagles)
3 Tin Man (originally by America)
4 Time (originally by Pink Floyd)
5 Hello Its Me (originally by Nazz, made popular by Todd Rundgren)
6 Jackie Blue (originally by Ozark Mountain Daredevils)
7 The Light That Has Lighted The World (originally by George Harrison)
8 At Seventeen (originally by Janis Ian)
9 Ridin the Storm Out (originally by REO Speedwagon)
10 Captain Jack (originally by Billy Joel)
11 Benny and the Jets (originally by Elton John)
12 Mind Games (originally be Lennon)
13 Ten Years Gone (originally be Led Zep)
14 Band on the Run (originally by Wings)
15 Turn That Heartbeat Over Again (originally by Steely Dan)

what do you think is the most well known/iconic picture of the group? Here's my candidates:
- Surfin Safari album picture
- few pictures from that same era with them wading on the beach, holding a surfboard; also the picture with Brian and Mike holding a surfboard with Dennis, Dave and Carl sitting
- the "Do You Wanna Dance" single picture (why did they allow Dennis to have his shirt off)
- the stripped shirt picture with Al and Dennis in front and Mike Carl and Brian in back (all of which have both fists on their chin
- the picture of them in white shirts with Brian having his hand on a ladder and Carl's head on the right barely making it into the picture
- the Pet Sounds album picture

a guy pissed off his pen pal didn't write him back

How about a game where one describes what happens on the song, and others have to guess? "A guy goes on a winter holiday with his girl and it's great, and there's pretty much no-one else around" -> Time to get alone. And so on.

Alright. A guy meets his old girlfriend from high school, several years after the fact, and is appalled at what's become of her.

although this would make it moved to another forum why not stipulate that it doesn't have to be by the BBs.

Sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun

I'm gonna play devil's advocate here and say: if the BB's had never took off as a group, would the Wilson bros have done better? I actually asked a similar question on one of the earlier threads. In particular, it might have helped Dennis since he wouldn't have all that money to piss away.

the idea would be to name a line or two from a song and someone would guess what song it is. For instance:
"can't make myself say what i plan to say"

Bringing this back to the OP's question: YES THERE WERE. social critics of the Boys - mostly from the with-it hippie-types back then.*

After Smile failed and Rolling Stone dissed the BB as has-beens, many rock critics and writers fell right into line to echo that idea.  Underground press-types liked to say: The BB were over the hill, reactionary.  Too white.  Or at least white-bread.  No soul (obviously never heard "Wild Homey").  We were all told that the Hip Kidz were rebelling against school, while the BB sang about "be true to your school", cars 'n' girls, how quaint, how old-timey, how un-socialist workers party,  buncha football hero jocks, etc. etc.

This was years BEFORE Mike joined the GOP, BTW.  We are talking "Smiley"/"Friends" era for this kind of talk, which only stopped when the Boys reinvented themselves for the early 70s.

To be fair some perceptive journos never gave up on the Boys during this critical drubbing, like Lester Bangs.


*(I resemble that remark)

None of them to my knowledge (save Bruce) have said much about politics one way or another. And that's a good thing because doing so risks alienating half your fan base. With that said, there are things inherently political in music even if it isn't intended to. There early stuff may have sounded rebellious but it was clearly in a wholesome type of way and very much a soundtrack to the pre-revolution America of drive-in movies, malt shops ad nauseam. The more "raised fist salute" type of music seen in stuff like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHfB63ln1Ig , didn't come until the last two or three years of the decade.

But even if the sort of anti-cold war America views didn't come into the mainstream until the late 60s, its not like it came out of nowhere. The areas where that type of mood existed were in a select group of areas like the East Village of Manhattan, North Beach in San Fran, as well as in some universities (Columbia, UCB). So my question is if a lot of the anthropologists and sociologists (think of someone like Hebert Marcuse) criticized them for their music being a homage to cold war America.

does "It's About Time" vaguely remind anyone of "I Got A Line on You" by Spirit?

was Murry considering sending Dennis to a military school in the early 60s? It seems like the Wilsons couldn't control him and in those days, delinquents were sent to a military academy to straighten them out.

is "She Knows Me Too Well" autobiographical? If it is, it sounds so unlike Brian.

I think it sounds very, *very* Brian -- there's a whole huge thread through many of his best songs of almost worshipping a woman who's clearly too good for him (or so he thinks) but who loves him anyway, from Don't Worry Baby through She Knows Me Too Well, You Still Believe In Me, Don't Let Her Know She's An Angel... it's a recurring theme in his songs, including a lot of the most personal ones.

"I treat her so mean I don't deserve what I have" or "i don't seem happy until i make her break down in cry"? That doesn't sound like Brian. If anything, it sounds like it was about Mike and his first wife.

is "She Knows Me Too Well" autobiographical? If it is, it sounds so unlike Brian.

Some of the stuff on CATP sounds like either Neil Young, Chicago or CSN. Some of their early stuff is sort of like the Four Seasons.

From 1968 onward rock music was no longer commercially viable in the United States.

Actually, rock music really took off from 68 onward. Take a listen to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9bP-LbR8u8

There wasn't much of this type of music before 1968

here's the things I can debunk from movies
- Brian did not have a beard in 1968 and was not as catatonic as portrayed
- Dennis was not the whiny b!tchy character as portrayed in "American Family"
- "Barbara Ann" was not recorded in 63 or 64 (in Summer Dreams)
- At the beginning of part two from "An American Family" they show the California Girls scene from 1968, not 1965
- Love to Say Dada does not contain the words "Geronimo Leaps"
- Mike was not a surf buddy of Dennis

Indeed, Mike's post is one of the better things I've ever read on this board. Although, I would say that Brian's onstage behavior I think may have been worse than implied. Take this clip from Maryland 1977 for example. Watch what Brian does after Feel Flows. While Carl introduces Dennis(who then introduces the next song), Brian is completely zoned out, singing and playing bass to whatever is playing in his head. It's like he forgot that he and his band are in front of thousands of people, and supposed to be playing a concert. I think that he might have been in far worse shape at the Knebworth than what the dvd and cd would have you believe. He pretty much ruined the first minute or so of In My Room by loudly banging out a fast boogie woogie riff that had absolutely nothing to do with the song. I'm not sure if it's on the officially released version, but on the bootleg audio Brian can also be heard playing Rhapsody in Blue right as the band goes into California Girls.

another clip from that concert is where they take a break between songs and starting at 4:29, Brian starts to do some bizarre warm-up routine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXwNfIDtRJs

Ridin the Storm Out REO Speedwagon

I mean none of us know first hand since we were never there with them in person, but has anyone read in books or what not when Brian started to seem sort of off his rocker? At the latest I would say it was during the smile sessions but I've heard others say he was exhibiting behavior like that even before the beach boys existed.