How Could the Beach Boys Have Kept Themselves Relevant after 1966?

[I. Spaceman]

Sorry, I somehow typed "and" when I meant "are".

[Ron]

Spinning off the Neil Young thread, the indifference towards the group shown by American culture in 1967-73 seems to have various explanations:

1) Cheesy image that the music could not counteract

2) The band's name

3) Brian's sporadic involvement

4) Historical trends outside the band's control

I don't quite buy No. 4 because I don't see why they couldn't have reinvented themselves as a CSN&Y or Mamas & the Papas kind of outfit. They could never have made a White Album or Beggars Banquet because they did not have that edge in the group (no Lennon or Keith figure), but there were harmony-rock options in 1967-70 that Brian could certainly have written albums for.

My own feeling is that, although Wild Honey to Holland is musically a good run of albums, the stylistic variations were just too confusing, and the record company politics meant they never had a clear run at marketing a new image with a solid album/tour package. Brian's image as the man tortured by Smile's failure to appear also haunted the period and meant the albums that did appear were always compared unfavorably to the lost masterpiece or Pet Sounds. Imagine how the White Album would have gone down if Sgt Pepper had been unfinished and instead we got Smiley Sgt Pepper.  

The reason the Beach Boys didn't stay relevant after '66 is in my opinion because they were just never hip.  They're all dorks, they're likeable but they were never going to be relevant in the ultra-cool era of the late 60's and early 70's.  Nothing really lasted through that early time into that period, though, outside of what, the Stones and Elvis?  We're talking about a group that was birthed in 1962!  Nothing from '62 stayed relevant in that age, like all those bands and artists no matter how great just fell off the radar.  The Beatles changed so drastically that they became a literal caricature of themselves with Sgt. Peppers and then again with the White Album.  The Beach Boys weren't going to do that, they were brothers from Hawthorne simple as that.  Even the cheesy 80's Beach Boys was essentially.... STILL the 1962 Beach Boys!  Cheesy and dorky just like they started.  God love em. 

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Pet Sounds ultimately failed to please in the way that the previous albums didn't at the time because it wasn't the kind of album that the teenyboppers were expecting or wanting nor did the serious rock music fan particularly care to any great extent about what The Beach Boys were doing.

Don't forget...Pet Sounds wasn't immediately restocked when a store sold out. Weren't stores getting the comp instead?

[Jason Penick]

I'm more shocked by the fact that the group fell off of American Top 40, rather than that they failed to catch on with the emerging underground rock scene. Look at the charts from say 1967-1972 and you could see who was tearing it up, so to speak. Roughly in order: The Mamas & Papas, The Association, The Rascals, The Monkees, The Buckinghams, Gary Puckett, Classics IV, The Cowsills, The Carpenters, Bread, The Partridge Family, Osmonds etc. Are you telling me The Beach Boys were too square to fit in amongst that crowd?

Their late 60s singles continued to chart locally in L.A. and over in England, so it's not like they were commercially non-viable. I think there has to be some other reason that radio programmers wouldn't pick up on their songs; the image thing doesn't really hold water when it comes to the pop market, as the pop charts at the time were filled with squares.

[Cabinessenceking]

I'm more shocked by the fact that the group fell off of American Top 40, rather than that they failed to catch on with the emerging underground rock scene. Look at the charts from say 1967-1972 and you could see who was tearing it up, so to speak. Roughly in order: The Mamas & Papas, The Association, The Rascals, The Monkees, The Buckinghams, Gary Puckett, Classics IV, The Cowsills, The Carpenters, Bread, The Partridge Family, Osmonds etc. Are you telling me The Beach Boys were too square to fit in amongst that crowd?

Their late 60s singles continued to chart locally in L.A. and over in England, so it's not like they were commercially non-viable. I think there has to be some other reason that radio programmers wouldn't pick up on their songs; the image thing doesn't really hold water when it comes to the pop market, as the pop charts at the time were filled with squares.

Monkees and Mamas&Papas went downhill right about then as well.

[harrisonjon]

The Beach Boys couldn't project youth to that pop market once they passed their mid-20s, so it was logical that someone like Donny Osmond or David Cassidy would take over essentially the same niche especially with the TV-friendly images they had. They also had female members to attract the youngest girls (Marie Osmond, the Partridge women, Karen Carpenter).

[Ron]

I'm more shocked by the fact that the group fell off of American Top 40, rather than that they failed to catch on with the emerging underground rock scene. Look at the charts from say 1967-1972 and you could see who was tearing it up, so to speak. Roughly in order: The Mamas & Papas, The Association, The Rascals, The Monkees, The Buckinghams, Gary Puckett, Classics IV, The Cowsills, The Carpenters, Bread, The Partridge Family, Osmonds etc. Are you telling me The Beach Boys were too square to fit in amongst that crowd?

Their late 60s singles continued to chart locally in L.A. and over in England, so it's not like they were commercially non-viable. I think there has to be some other reason that radio programmers wouldn't pick up on their songs; the image thing doesn't really hold water when it comes to the pop market, as the pop charts at the time were filled with squares.

Fairly good point. 

The other answer is, though... Brian started doing drugs and drugs are bad.  You could make a point that his drug use SERIOUSLY hurt the band.  He makes that point himself all the time. 

'66, little drugs = great music

'67, drugs - sh*t doesn't get completeted, lawsuits, fights, money dries up, etc. 

[I. Spaceman]

He also says he wrote California Girls after his first acid trip.

[Newguy562]

They could've let Manson be the leader of the group. 

[dwtherealbb]

here's a question:

where did the band get its "Square" reputation from? Wasn't Dennis seen as sort of countercultural?

[I. Spaceman]

here's a question:

where did the band get its "Square" reputation from?  

Take a look at them. Compare.

[SMiLE Brian]

The BBs are truly immortal for being popular during many different eras of rock and roll.

[SamMcK]

This guy looks cooler to me:



Than this guy:

[I. Spaceman]

Who the hell is that?

[EgoHanger1966]

Who the hell is that?

A duck pretending to be Mick Jagger.

[I. Spaceman]

Nice one, EH66.

[Cam Mott]

Pet Sounds ultimately failed to please in the way that the previous albums didn't at the time because it wasn't the kind of album that the teenyboppers were expecting or wanting nor did the serious rock music fan particularly care to any great extent about what The Beach Boys were doing.

Don't forget...Pet Sounds wasn't immediately restocked when a store sold out. Weren't stores getting the comp instead?

I think this is a fan-tasy published back when it was thought Pet Sounds didn't sell well and Best Of is what drove it from the charts, neither of which turned out to be true. Maybe there is some kind of evidence that it was widespread but I doubt it.

[urbanite]

It's almost impossible to put into words the changes America went through from the early 1960's into the late 1970's, largely because of the Vietnam war, civil rights battles and the growing use of drugs.  The striped shirt Beach Boys could not stay hip, but their music could have stayed popular.  Wild Honey is one of my favorite albums, but there is only one song, Darlin, that was going to be playable on the radio.  For whatever reason, probably because Brian Wilson was declining in skills and abilities, they didn't produce enough radio friendly and catchy music.  I think they could have addressed the void left by Brian's drug use by finding a songwriter and a producer to pick up the slack, like they did with Jack Reilly and the Surf's Up album.  My impression is also that members of the band liked to tour and make easy money, but when it came to writing new music and working like perfectionists in the studio, they weren't interested in the hard work that would take, and didn't make the effort.     

[Ron]

As for that last line, Mike's kinda still doing that, isn't he?  About 5 months ago, he ditched Brian and his perfectionist ways in the studio for another tour of the western U.S.'s indian casinos.  Leopards have spots... dogs have old tricks... etc. yada yada yada

[Myk Luhv]

Non-LP singles and EPs are not something American bands generally seemed to do, then or now, which I think is sort of a mistake. It would allow you not merely to get out more "product" but to give a taste to fans of a potential musical direction you could sustain for an album project -- or simply that sole single or EP -- should you desire... or just compile the single/EP tracks onto an album. I don't know that it would've helped The Beach Boys in particular but it might have provided an interesting way to not worry so much about Capitol: release stuff on other labels. Could a group like The Beach Boys even do that or was their contract exclusively with Capitol?

[celticsurfer]

And if instead of those little albums of 20/25 min long, they had released  a double LP full of Feels and all those little songs from Smiley/Wild honey/ Friends
they would have exposed better the richness of their music.
(Abbey road second side is a good example also Frank Zappa Uncle Meat).
They needed a strong management after Pet Sounds brilliance.

[Kurosawa]

This guy looks cooler to me:



Than this guy:

Denny was stuck behind the drums while Mick was out front. The BB have no clue of marketing or image and never have. I mean, they put their best looking guy, the only one with real sex appeal behind the drums and they put the balding guy who sings through his nose as the lead singer.  That and they manage to screw up every good thing they get going...it's amazing that they made it at all, but the songs were just that great (for a while).

[Bill Ed]

Maybe they should have used the same tailor as The Moody Blues.

[hypehat]

Denny was stuck behind the drums while Mick was out front. The BB have no clue of marketing or image and never have. I mean, they put their best looking guy, the only one with real sex appeal behind the drums and they put the balding guy who sings through his nose as the lead singer.  

1) They needed a drummer. No-one else wanted to.

2) Mike Love was a great fit for 'lead' on the early singles, and Brian took his fair share of leads too.... as did Dennis, eventually.

3) Someone also had the masterstroke idea of getting that drummer out from behind the stool every show and singing 'You Are So Beautiful' to the crowd, in such a manner that he impregnated the first 10 rows. I think they knew what they had.

[Paul J B]

This guy looks cooler to me:



Than this guy:

That is really funny and really revealing. A blatant reminder that STYLES and fashions through the decades amounted to nothing more than COSTUMES in many cases. The Beach Boys may have, and certainly did have, an image problem through much of their careers, however what others have done and continue to do in the music biz is as laughable and dorky as one could imagine. Bands running around with capes, make up, and worse were and are somehow cool. 

I like a lot of the Stones music....but I remember Mick in the football pants and he looked like a total moron as he has through much of his career.