When/How/Why The Beach Boys were dismissed and dubbed "unhip"?

[Justin]

1) The failure of completing SMiLE and releasing Smiley Smile in its place and...
2) The Beach Boys backing out of the Monterrey Pop Festival

...caused....

1) the downfall and shunning of The Beach Boys from the social consciousness;
2) inflicted severe irreparable damage to the band's legacy and integrity--both of which, the band has never been able to recover from*

Would that be a fair assessment?


Please forgive the bold (and perhaps uninformed) statements I've made here but I'm trying to pin-point the event or the series of events that contributed to the band officially losing its place among the most respected participants in the music scene after Pet Sounds.  When The Beatles, Hendrix, The Who and The Stones were all releasing groundbreaking music during this time....I'm wondering how or why The Beach Boys' post-Pet Sounds output was largely ignored, year after year?  

*The effects of this slide from the top, I believe, permanently sealed their legacy as we see it today.  As much as we want to not believe it---most of Joe Public associates The Beach Boys with surfing; with the band's career climaxing and ending with the release of Pet Sounds.  Everyone sees Pet Sounds' beauty and importance--but it ends there.  Why is it that The Beach Boys never fully recovered from their fall and their later catalog rediscovered---or perhaps discovered for the first time---by the mass public?  

Let's take for example, "Sunflower"...an album we all agree is one of their strongest during this period.  Both fans and critics hailed it as a success....so why wasn't this album the band's turning point?  Why did the public still not care?  The album charted 151 and 29th in the US and the UK, respectively.  Did no amount of good reviews from critics make fans want to come back to The Beach Boys?  Why were The Beach Boys being punished?

I'm sorry for the rambling post....but all these thoughts are coming up in my head as I'm revisiting their catalog...specifically the post Pet Sounds section.  It saddens me that such wonderful material on each album from Smiley Smile to Love You is practically unknown to the mass public.  If anyone wants to entertain my questions or perhaps point me to some good sources that could fill in the blanks for me--that would be most appreciated!

[cablegeddon]

Radio had to be so important in the 60s/70s. Radio changed a lot during those years. Rock on FM-radio became the hip thing.

I love BB but if you put up Sunflower/Holland against The Who's Who's next and Led Zeppelin IV it's pretty obvious wich side is going to go over with the kids.

[stack-o-tracks]

Most people dont' even know Smiley Smile, I think. Or the Monterrey Pop Festival.

You feel like it's because of the collapse of Smile but. In '67 they had a completely different sound than ever before. People were looking forward to Smile because of Good Vibrations, but then they released this album that sounds like a bunch of stoned hippies. I'm sure that alienated a lot of their fan base.

Later in their career, they relied on other songwriters so the sound just kept changing. f***ed with the formula too much. Dennis wrote great songs  but they didn't have the commercial sound Brian could create. And the other guys to a lesser extent.

Their music from the early 60s is completely original and paints a beautiful picture of early 1960s SoCal. Their later stuff didn't, and people didn't relate/weren't interested.

[stack-o-tracks]

God Only Knows went to 39, Kokomo went to number 1.

Art versus commercialism.

The band could have gone in Mike Love's direction and kept riding the wave to the top of the charts. The Wilsons were picking up different vibrations than Mike.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

I think Stebbins (in his FAQ book) correctly pointed to the fact that they started as a twin guitar garage band and evolved into a keyboard/vocal based entity with little reliance on guitars in their overall sound, basically just as blues based guitar pyrotechnics became THE hip thing!

Funny how this is true, yet we also rip them endlessly over the times (Bluebirds/All I Want To Do) they did attempt rockin guitar shreddery!

[Myk Luhv]

It's probably because they were pretty terrible at such obvious attempts at rock guitar shredding. (And yet, I think "Student Demonstration Time" has a cool backing track... too bad 'bout them awful lyrics!)

[Justin]

Radio had to be so important in the 60s/70s. Radio changed a lot during those years. Rock on FM-radio became the hip thing.

I love BB but if you put up Sunflower/Holland against The Who's Who's next and Led Zeppelin IV it's pretty obvious wich side is going to go over with the kids.

Good points cablegeddon...and I totally get what you're saying.  But surely we are not saying that anything that wasn't hard rock and roll during this period was bound to fail?  Paul Simon was coming into his own during this time and succeeded very well with his own albums.  He experienced both critical and fan success in his first albums.  Yet, both "Wild Honey" and "Friends" had gotten a strong 4/5 stars from Rolling Stone Magazine at the time of their release and neither cracked the Top 20.  It seemed to me that the general public had basically lost faith in the band...?

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

I used to think of  Student Demonstration Time's lyrics as being awful, but now I just look at them as soooooo Mike! The guy's trying to be hip and counterculture, but all he's really doing is telling the listener to avoid student demonstrations because the cops will kick your ass!

Good lyrics, I think, should give the listener a peek into the mind of their author, and SDT's certainly do just that.

[Myk Luhv]

I guess you must think "Lazy Lizzie" has good lyrics too, huh?

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

Can't say I know them offhand.

Here's the thing: the words for SDT are awful ONLY if you think Mike had no right to write such a song. If you look at them without bias, there is really nothing wrong with them. No better or worse than Neil Young's Ohio (OK, Ohio has better lyrics: but not by too far) really.

[Summertime Blooz]

Let's take for example, "Sunflower"...an album we all agree is their strongest.  

Are you forgetting Pet Sounds? That's their masterpiece. Anyway, I think the Beach Boys PR problems in the late 60s stemmed from the fact that they were perceived  as too "establishment" by the burgeoning counter-culture zeitgeist of the times. You make enough records about surfing, girls in bikinis, and hot rods and some people just stop taking you seriously. It might be instructive for you to look at the Billboard charts of the day and compare the sound of what was popular then to what the Beach Boys were doing.

[Justin]

Let's take for example, "Sunflower"...an album we all agree is their strongest.  

Are you forgetting Pet Sounds?

Well no.  It's pretty clear that Pet Sounds was well respected and well received when it was released.  My post was focusing on their post Pet Sounds output which I feel has gone practically unnoticed to the general public despite some of the albums getting strong critical reviews.

[Summertime Blooz]

Let's take for example, "Sunflower"...an album we all agree is their strongest.  

Are you forgetting Pet Sounds?

Well no.  It's pretty clear that Pet Sounds was well respected and well received when it was released.  My post was focusing on their post Pet Sounds output which I feel has gone practically unnoticed to the general public despite some of the albums getting strong critical reviews.

Even if you're talking post-Pet Sounds, there is not one single album that everyone is going to agree on as their strongest. There are supporters for Wild Honey, Friends, Smiley Smile, Love You, and even 20/20.

[Justin]

Correct but even though the love is shared for those other albums as well, it seems "Sunflower" is favored: http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,11925.0.html

My mistake in my original post was to clarify that "Sunflower" was one of the stronger albums of the post-Pet Sounds period and not the strongest of them all.  I've edited my original post to avoid confusion.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

I think Stebbins (in his FAQ book) correctly pointed to the fact that they started as a twin guitar garage band and evolved into a keyboard/vocal based entity with little reliance on guitars in their overall sound, basically just as blues based guitar pyrotechnics became THE hip thing!

Ehhhh...maybe. But Sgt. Pepper was probably the hip album of 1967, and it's not all about blues based guitar pyrotechnics.

The difference, I think, is that after January 1967, so-called hip rock musicians and rock audiences began to take themselves very seriously. Rock was, now, a serious thing. Hendrix was serious. A man burning his guitar on stage was serious business - something that might scare children and turn off old people (you know, over 30...). The Doors were serious. Jefferson Airplane (despite what now seem like hilariously dated lyrics) were serious. Pepper was the Beatles going straight-faced (wasn't McCartney who quoted Dylan as saying something like, "Oh, I get it. You don't want to be cute any more."). This was anticipated, particularly, I think, by Dylan who put the idea in people's heads that if rock and roll was going to really be good, it had to aspire to important, serious matters. Children probably shouldn't like it - if they did, it would be immature, etc. And while The Beach Boys were certainly moving in the "right" direction, they had a HUGE mountain to overcome with their "fun in the sun" image. To many, they represented fun, not, say, spiritual or intellectual enlightenment or advancement. That doesn't mean, of course, that they couldn't have still produced hits with such themes - they could have attracted the same crowd that, say, liked The Cowsills or The Archies in the late 60s. But that wouldn't have made them hip either.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

You've just described the greatest tragedy of rock n roll/pop music!

I couldn't agree more: though, Sgt. Pepper had at least a lot of lead/rhythm guitars all over it.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

I couldn't agree more: though, Sgt. Pepper had at least a lot of lead/rhythm guitars all over it.

Certainly. Actually, it has some fantastic guitar playing on it (most of the fantastic stuff done by Paul, I think). But it's not the kind of guitar-driven music that was certainly popular at that time and continued to be for the next few years (Hendrix, Cream, The Who, etc.)

[Nicko1234]

I think a more interesting debate is why The BBs' popularity plummeted in the U.K. after Cottonfields. After that the band didn't have another decent hit for a decade until Lady Lynda (and how that became a hit is another question to be answered).

[phirnis]

I love the Sunflower album as much as anyone but with a lead-off single like "Add Some Music" it's probably no wonder it wasn't a huge smash for the group. Personally I think it's a very good and charming little song but at the time it might have sounded a little too much like a bunch of bored millionaire rock stars singing about things all nice and cozy and that apparently didn't get them back into the limelight.

[Zack]

I love the Sunflower album as much as anyone but with a lead-off single like "Add Some Music" it's probably no wonder it wasn't a huge smash for the group. Personally I think it's a very good and charming little song but at the time it might have sounded a little too much like a bunch of bored millionaire rock stars singing about things all nice and cozy and that apparently didn't get them back into the limelight.

The voice of Mike Love on Add Some Music is like an aural candy-striped shirt.  And when he sings "The world could come together as one/if everybody under the sun/would add some music . . . " it was obvious they were trying too hard.

[filledeplage]

1) The failure of completing SMiLE and releasing Smiley Smile in its place and...
2) The Beach Boys backing out of the Monterrey Pop Festival

...caused....

1) the downfall and shunning of The Beach Boys from the social consciousness;
2) inflicted severe irreparable damage to the band's legacy and integrity--both of which, the band has never been able to recover from*

Would that be a fair assessment?


Please forgive the bold (and perhaps uninformed) statements I've made here but I'm trying to pin-point the event or the series of events that contributed to the band officially losing its place among the most respected participants in the music scene after Pet Sounds.  When The Beatles, Hendrix, The Who and The Stones were all releasing groundbreaking music during this time....I'm wondering how or why The Beach Boys' post-Pet Sounds output was largely ignored, year after year? 

*The effects of this slide from the top, I believe, permanently sealed their legacy as we see it today.  As much as we want to not believe it---most of Joe Public associates The Beach Boys with surfing; with the band's career climaxing and ending with the release of Pet Sounds.  Everyone sees Pet Sounds' beauty and importance--but it ends there.  Why is it that The Beach Boys never fully recovered from their fall and their later catalog rediscovered---or perhaps discovered for the first time---by the mass public? 

Let's take for example, "Sunflower"...an album we all agree is one of their strongest during this period.  Both fans and critics hailed it as a success....so why wasn't this album the band's turning point?  Why did the public still not care?  The album charted 151 and 29th in the US and the UK, respectively.  Did no amount of good reviews from critics make fans want to come back to The Beach Boys?  Why were The Beach Boys being punished?

I'm sorry for the rambling post....but all these thoughts are coming up in my head as I'm revisiting their catalog...specifically the post Pet Sounds section.  It saddens me that such wonderful material on each album from Smiley Smile to Love You is practically unknown to the mass public.  If anyone wants to entertain my questions or perhaps point me to some good sources that could fill in the blanks for me--that would be most appreciated!

Justin - You pose an important question.  At that 1967 or so juncture, there were older fans, say late 20's who were the beginning of what is known as the post WWII baby boom, who were in the first wave of rock and roll.  They identified with the early work, and were Chubby Checker fans, doo-wop, etc.  Next came the second wave of boomers, in the early teens, who weren't Elvis people, but, Beatles, Stones, Beach Boys, etc. whom I followed.  A couple of dynamics were going on...and at lightning speed.  One was the emergence of psychedelic music and accompanying pop art, a war (Vietnam) race issues, women's rights,etc., and a look to music to be a voice for some of these problems. 

There was a mixed (and false perception, in my opinion) that the Boys should stay in the car and surf box, because it was a safe place for the fans, and, that they shouldn't be allowed to grow...and change with the times.  Of course, that is ridiculous.  Singers who changed their formats to renew themselves were often looked at as hypocrites.  Then, there is the dynamic of the industry, who seemed to want to stifle their growth.  But, the genie was already out of the bottle.  People tend to rebel against repression, and grow anyway. Artists are no different; especially artists and musicians who become the voice of society. 

My kids are always looking for what they call "fresh beats" - new music...and in a matter of months, new bands like Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, etc., caught the attention of young people.  And a second layer emerged, with The Monkees, The Cowsills (yes, as in John Cowsill!) and Sonny and Cher. This layer came with TV shows.

Blaming the Smile dynamic, I think is misplaced.  Americans had no idea how hugely popular the Boys were in Europe, who did not have the same social issues and war as we had, here.  Real Boys' fans were patiently impatient,  but, accepted the newer music, look and growth and continued seeing them, live.  Surfs Up was important, as well as Holland, Wild Honey, and 20/20.

The odd place to hear BB music was on fm, which was, and has displaced am radio, for music lovers, for the most part. The fm stations were playing Pet Sounds and Smiley in boutiques in Harvard Square!  It was such an unlikely place because it was that intellectual hippie-type subculture, who had castigated the Boys as trite, and irrelevant.  Someone had finally opened the oyster and found Pet Sounds which was awesome, but not a commercial success at the time.  This opened the door for critical appreciation of Smiley and a welcome for Surfs Up and Holland. 

One of my professors, (for something unrelated) post grad (way post grad) explained to me in this analogy, that sometimes the "back door" (fm stations) became the "front door" for artistic and critical acceptance of the Boys' music.  All of a sudden, these former fans woke up after the Vietnam War ended and saw that the Beach Boys were right there, the whole time.  Even though they still sang the girly-surf-car songs, they had constructed a catalog that was mind blowing.

Hope this helps fill in the blanks...

[Steve Mayo]

those damn white suits! 

[Paul J B]

They were not "unhip" due to anything other than the fact that their post Smile records no longer had the Genius of Brian Wilson at the helm. I would say that by 20/20 the Beach Boys as co-producers were getting pretty good at it but by then it was too late.

Mike Love was always "hip". He was sporting a beard and wearing stripped pants as soon as anybody else. They became unpopular because they released really inferior records post Pet Sounds. Inferior because Brian stopped being the writer/arranger/prodcer he was. They stopped making great records and a lot of people stopped caring as a result.

Not showing up at some pop festival in California did not make some guy in Oklahoma think "well I guess I'm done with those Beach Boys" .....However, hearing bits of Smiley, Wild Honey, or Friends would have and likely did. Especially Smiley.... Good Vibrations is a huge monster hit and then the fans and music buying public get Smiley Smile.

[SMiLE Brian]

Every band has has a season of popularity and the Beach Boys' "endless summer" of 1962-1967 changed into the winter of ragged guitar based acid rock.

[LostArt]

Striped shirts.  Old fashioned haircuts.  Seriously.  The music was really cool and mostly hip (Christ, I hate that word), but the image that the Beach Boys presented was not keeping up with the times.  And the times, they were a-changin'.  The Beach Boys were primarily a singles band in the '60s.  Go to Wikipedia and look up, say, Help Me Rhonda, and look at the pic of the record sleeve.  Now just scroll forward through the singles and look at the sleeves from each single up until, say Break Away in '69.  Striped shirts on Sloop John B in '66.  Striped shirts on Darlin' in '67.  Hell, even on Good Vibrations they look like a bunch of dorks (for late '66).  Check out the sleeve for Then I Kissed Her, which Capitol put out while waiting for Brain to get his sh*t together in '67.  Look at Do It Again ferchristsakes.  Are you kidding?  For comparison, look at the Beatles singles from the same time period.  That'll tell you a lot about why the Beach Boys lost cred with the young folks growing up in the mid to late '60s.