were there any social critics of the beach boys in their early days?

[rab2591]

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

This is not true! Led Zep stole most of their music from other artists and gave them zero credit! Do some research it's out there for all to see.

Led Zepplin is  the ultimate antithesis of everything rockNroll was about. Ben Weasel said it best: Robert Plant is a slimy f***, John Bonham really sucked
Those greedy f*ckers, those phoney shits They made their money off idiots.  12 dollar concerts were all the rage, They bought cocaine for Jimmy Page
"Stairway to Heaven" makes me see redBonzo's buried, only three more left
I hate Led Zeppelin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrp2N_i7Axk

Meh, it's all subjective. I was brought up on classical music and Led Zeppelin. They're like the Beach Boys to me, I listen to them half out of nostalgia, half because I think they're friggin great. Their music takes me to a great place....just like all great music should.

[kookadams]

Define "Muzak"

Worthless background music made for commercial value etc. sh*t you'd hear in an elevator or thats sold at starbucks. Pretty much the majority of the mainstream hit songs of the 70s, 80s to the current. No substance or historical value///

All music has value in the eye of its beholder. Your loss if you won't listen to each decade's good music.

Well- the "good" music of the 70s, 80s and 90s wasn't what was on the charts. If I wanna hear good music of the 70s Ill listen to the Ramones, if I wanna hear good music in the 80s Ill listen to the Surf Punks, Black Flag, Dickies etc. If I wanna hear good music in the 90s Ill listen to the Queers. NONE of those great bands had hit records. If I wanna hear good music from the 50s and 60s there was plenty of it.

[kookadams]

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

This is not true! Led Zep stole most of their music from other artists and gave them zero credit! Do some research it's out there for all to see.

Led Zepplin is  the ultimate antithesis of everything rockNroll was about. Ben Weasel said it best: Robert Plant is a slimy f***, John Bonham really sucked
Those greedy f*ckers, those phoney shits They made their money off idiots.  12 dollar concerts were all the rage, They bought cocaine for Jimmy Page
"Stairway to Heaven" makes me see redBonzo's buried, only three more left
I hate Led Zeppelin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrp2N_i7Axk

Meh, it's all subjective. I was brought up on classical music and Led Zeppelin. They're like the Beach Boys to me, I listen to them half out of nostalgia, half because I think they're friggin great. Their music takes me to a great place....just like all great music should.

NOSTALGIA is the key word. Everything great in music is nostalgic. It was either in the past or reminiscent of it.

[hypehat]

Why is it so important that these bands were successful? Is the 50s your favourite era because rock and roll was the dominant music? (Not really true, depending on who you ask).

And oh god, your point about nostalgia being the point of music is so depressing.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

NOSTALGIA is the key word. Everything great in music is nostalgic. It was either in the past or reminiscent of it.

I  disagree. Some of my favorite musicians happen to be forward thinking artists, like Brian Eno, or Brian Wilson in the mid 60s. Where they great and popular back then because of nostalgia? No offense, but that argument doesn't hold water. And, seriously...even amongst people who don't like Led Zeppelin, you are the ONLY person I've ever seen criticize John Bonham's drumming.

[kookadams]

I mean its nostalgia now. The nostalgia of past sentiment. And I never criticized bonhams drumming- that was quoting a song from a shitty group called screeching weasel- its a funny song that tells it like it is.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Oh, okay.

One thing I want to say and then will try and steer it back to the original discussion... music is subjectively good. Most people worship the Beatles; I think they put out some great music, but some of their earlier songs annoy me. I happen to love Pink Floyd, but there are others who don't like them. With that in mind, there is a very good reason why I always try to respect people's opinions even when they differ from my own.* Well, besides the fact that it's common decency. Anyway, it has been scientifically proven that no two people's taste buds are the same. It's not just how the brain reacts to a certain flavor; it's the signals the brain receives as well. That statement is concerning taste as it relates to food, but I wonder if how the brain perceives sound operates on a similar principal. I'm sure it does, but too lazy right now to look it up.

*One thing about me...you'll NEVER see me post anything about how this person sucks, or that that person has no talent. Rather, I say things like 'I really don't care for...' or 'it's not my bag'. Why? Because who am I to judge someone's ability, being a writer myself? If someone writes something, and is putting effort into it, well...I'm not going to be one to piss on someone's baby.

Figuratively speaking.

[kookadams]

I just see that there's different levels of music appreciation. The basic one is very shallow and it's what most people follow, and its a very general spectrum. I personally have a very deep level of music appreciation. Those who get it can see where I'm comin from and what it means. Those who don't- criticize my knowledge and disregard it as pretentious, condescending rambling. Music and religion can go hand in hand- for me music is my religion. For someone who is religious they would get offended by someone discrediting their god. So for me when someone discredits the beach boys or undermines their output and historical significance I take it personal.
The beach boys and beatles have been compared due to being peers and having existed simultaneously. The best way I can sum up that comparison is the beatles being quantity and the beach boys being quality. The beatles had a commercial career that no other artist or group surpassed and their legacy has been recorded as a phenomenon. The beach boys on the otherhand from what Ive noticed sometimes get pigeonholed from their peak era and not always given the whole credit that they deserve.
Conspiracy or not the beatles were a great group but certainly not THE greatest and I feel bad for anyone who can think that and not have a mind of their own. They came to the US on a rebound of the Kennedy assassination and took advantage of a country in gloom- in otherwords their timing was impeccable. I can listen to their music and agree that it was good but it'll never touch me on a level that the beach boys did. The harmony the beach boys had is an entity that puts them above any rock band in my criteria.

[Wild-Honey]

You take it personally when someone discredits the music you like yet you are doing the very same thing.  It's personal preference. If people dislike the BB's I think it's their loss.

[filledeplage]

The question, though, seems to me to be about scholarly work not journalism. To be honest, I'm not sure if there was much scholarly work being done on rock and roll in the early 60s - academia was a pretty elitist enterprise then carried out by white men who wouldn't have considered rock and roll to be a serious research area. I have seen more contemporary articles though that say essentially what you are saying. The criticisms like the ones you are describing mostly came at the time from the folk music quarter who saw pop music as whitewashing the real issues occurring in the United States.

Exactly! Scholarly work not journalism.  My first instinct was whether it was a term paper topic, (gave me a little chuckle, whether I'm correct or not!) which needed fleshing out.  However, on the other hand, this forum would be a great place to start to sound out some ideas.   

My sense is that the folkies, such as Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, etc., had a certain credibility with their nascent work in the coffee houses, and seemed to be taken seriously and sort of became ingrained in academia, in a way that contrasted rock coming in the "back door," historically.  These folk bands played coffee houses, folk music venues, and their existing academic connections got them on that track.  It is interesting, that the folkies, some of whom were already doing work on PBS (public educational television) (Pete Seeger) which gave them credence to be fodder for academic analysis of their work. 

My gut makes me think that the acoustic guitar was less obtrusive than the electric counterpart, making me think that the sonority of the instruments, required an ambassador such as Leonard Bernstein, who was familiar with both styles. 

JMHO 

[Myk Luhv]

Instead of criticising music created since some arbitrary date when "good music died" or whatever -- which makes you sound eternally elderly -- perhaps a more valid criticism should be directed at record labels, especially the big ones, for not taking chances on the people they sign. At the same time, blame huge corporations for owning virtually every radio station you're likely to hear playing music that isn't publicly funded or community based, since these stations (like those record labels) also don't take chances on the format or artists played. This isn't because the music sucks, it's these companies that suck. You can even more easily today find excellent music, it just takes both more and less effort: Go to Bandcamp, trawl through the endless hordes of unsigned or independent artists. Like every point in time, you're bound to find some goodies amongst the uninspired noise.

[filledeplage]

Instead of criticising music created since some arbitrary date when "good music died" or whatever -- which makes you sound eternally elderly -- perhaps a more valid criticism should be directed at record labels, especially the big ones, for not taking chances on the people they sign. At the same time, blame huge corporations for owning virtually every radio station you're likely to hear playing music that isn't publicly funded or community based, since these stations (like those record labels) also don't take chances on the format or artists played. This isn't because the music sucks, it's these companies that suck. You can even more easily today find excellent music, it just takes both more and less effort: Go to Bandcamp, trawl through the endless hordes of unsigned or independent artists. Like every point in time, you're bound to find some goodies amongst the uninspired noise.

The question the thread is whether "there were any social critics of the Beach Boys?" I took that as the position that would put the band on the receiving end of criticism.  Much of rock music was characterized, in some regard as "music of rebellion." That was directly at odds with those in power.  And, the demographic of the music is that of those people who were born in the late 1930's or 1940's and 1950's to a greater extent.  Folk music carried a "message" but, without the "stigma" in the same way of rebellion.  There was a sort of academic connection to public television, although they had major record company labels as well.

Their fans by definition would be 70 ish, 60 ish, and 50 ish, and those perhaps who latched on with Full House, or in an academic context. (That is reality, whether people diss Stamos or not)   I hope I did not leave anyone out.   It is not a band of young people any longer. Those who grew up alongside the music, in my view, know it best, since they contemporaneously experienced the social changes that drove the changes in the music.   I'm not sure whether your "elderly" comment is directed at me, or generally to responses elsewhere.  I'm amused because Beach Boys music has an "eternal youth" attitude and chronological years of life will never correspond to a youthful attitude.  

It is too bad that there appears to be a growing conflict as between young posters and "contemporaries" of the music.  There is no need.  And, I'm delighted that young people seek this music out, alongside the Boys, but there is, for me, no hard and fast black line of demarcation of any music "dying."

Music is a live, and ever- changing art form.  And, great musicians such as the Boys have kept it "fresh" where others have rested on their laurels.  

[filledeplage]

You take it personally when someone discredits the music you like yet you are doing the very same thing.  It's personal preference. If people dislike the BB's I think it's their loss.

Yes, Wild Honey, it is their loss!

[Wild-Honey]

You take it personally when someone discredits the music you like yet you are doing the very same thing.  It's personal preference. If people dislike the BB's I think it's their loss.

Yes, Wild Honey, it is their loss!

Hi filedepage

I don' think Dr V's post was aimed at you.   And I don't know if there is a divide amongst the ages here as Hypehat and RBDude are young(ish) and weren't in agreement with Kooks post about liking older music for nostalgias sake.   There are SOME songs I like for nostalgia alone, but they tend to be comedy-type songs like Incy whincy teenie weenie yellow pokda dot bikini, and that's because it reminds me when we sang it in a school concert.  But most of the music I like from earlier eras I like because it is EXCELLENT music, and the BB's are included in amongst, if not at the top of my list.  TBH I really don't care where or when music comes from, if I like it, I like it, if it's top 40 and I don't like it, I don't like it.  If it's from the guy down the road who makes his own songs but has never made a record in his life, If I like it, I like it.

[kookadams]

In spite of everything as a retrospective the most important thing is the spirit of the music. Times goes on, fads come and go but the Beach Boys are historically known as the most timeless group to ever exist. Its sad that theres no more mainstream radio to expose younger people to their music but that spirit in their music will never be defunct. That was the most progressive era in pop culture and the mark it made runs deeper than anything.

[filledeplage]

You take it personally when someone discredits the music you like yet you are doing the very same thing.  It's personal preference. If people dislike the BB's I think it's their loss.

Yes, Wild Honey, it is their loss!

Hi filedepage

I don' think Dr V's post was aimed at you.   And I don't know if there is a divide amongst the ages here as Hypehat and RBDude are young(ish) and weren't in agreement with Kooks post about liking older music for nostalgias sake.   There are SOME songs I like for nostalgia alone, but they tend to be comedy-type songs like Incy whincy teenie weenie yellow pokda dot bikini, and that's because it reminds me when we sang it in a school concert.  But most of the music I like from earlier eras I like because it is EXCELLENT music, and the BB's are included in amongst, if not at the top of my list.  TBH I really don't care where or when music comes from, if I like it, I like it, if it's top 40 and I don't like it, I don't like it.  If it's from the guy down the road who makes his own songs but has never made a record in his life, If I like it, I like it.

Sometimes the "you" in a sentence, can be interpreted as "one"  such as "you might think" or "one might think" is really the same.  (The term "elderly" in the post.)  God forbid that any of us grooving to the Boys could ever be construed as "elderly." The music is the barrier to that term.  And generally, "contemporaries" of this music are generally 50-ish at the least.  What doesn't cease to astound me, is the number of my kids' friends, who love the rock music of their parents.  The staying power and "spirit" of the music (as kookadams explained it so well) is amazing. 

In a gazillion years would I  ever have listened to the music of my parents, ( as a steady diet) the real 40's stuff, and to be sure, they thought it was pretty great.  One of my kids saw the Stones a few years back, and came home with that concert "afterglow" and told me how awesome he thought the music was and how he really "got" why they were so huge, and lasted. 

It is a true adventure to explore this music.  But, as was also posted above, it shouldn't be ever taken personally if others don't share the same passion, as everyone has a right to his/ her own tastes.  It is the great beauty of the iPhone/iPod/mp3 player.  No one even has to know...

That post which asks about "social critics"  - I'm still not clear about what the question means...

[SMiLE Brian]

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

This is not true! Led Zep stole most of their music from other artists and gave them zero credit! Do some research it's out there for all to see.

Led Zepplin is  the ultimate antithesis of everything rockNroll was about. Ben Weasel said it best: Robert Plant is a slimy f***, John Bonham really sucked
Those greedy f*ckers, those phoney shits They made their money off idiots.  12 dollar concerts were all the rage, They bought cocaine for Jimmy Page
"Stairway to Heaven" makes me see redBonzo's buried, only three more left
I hate Led Zeppelin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrp2N_i7Axk

Meh, it's all subjective. I was brought up on classical music and Led Zeppelin. They're like the Beach Boys to me, I listen to them half out of nostalgia, half because I think they're friggin great. Their music takes me to a great place....just like all great music should.

NOSTALGIA is the key word. Everything great in music is nostalgic. It was either in the past or reminiscent of it.

Using your logic, Chuck Berry should have sung songs about slavery...

[Mendota Heights]

and by that i mean anthropologists and sociologists who criticized them as painting a smiley face over "Amerika". For those that don't know what "Amerika" means its a euphemism to describe cold war America as a fundamentally racist oppressive society.

The "Amerika" spelling was 1st used by the KKK during the 19th c., then taken up by the Yippies (and other leftists) in the 60's  -- the implication being that the USA = Nazi Germany. Because JFK and LBJ were the same as Adolf Hitler, these jackasses pretended to believe.

America is spelled "Amerika" in Swedish (and most likely in a lot of other languages as well), so it probably was not some fringe group who first used that spelling.

For your reference - a very old poster (The Swedish America Line):

[Myk Luhv]

20-somethings who complain about music from the '90s (or '60s) being REAL MUSIC compared to music "these days" are just as conservative (probably a better choice of words) as people who lived through the '70s and don't listen anything beyond 1975 and stuff like that. In both cases it's ridiculous and obviously ignorant.

[Don Malcolm]

That post which asks about "social critics"  - I'm still not clear about what the question means...

I'm just thinking that the OP was asking if the BB's music in the 1962-65 days had any kind of "backlash" as was more obviously the case from 1968 on. As you pointed out, there was little academic interest in rock music--indeed, not much interest in studying popular culture in general--until the mid-70s. Such a time frame isn't in sync with what the OP was asking, so I think we can set that aside. So the question might be rephrased: were there factions who were negatively disposed toward the BBs music during the 62-65 time frame?

My recollections of the BBs reception in the pre-PS era is that by '65, a certain faction of fans (general fans, not BB fans) influenced by the continuing wave from the British Invasion had decided that the BBs were too soft, too "pretty." It seemed as though Brian wasn't worried about this much, as he began to write more songs that used someone other than Mike as the lead singer. Sales weren't affected much (SD/SN was a big summer hit in '65) and let's face it, rock critics were not yet in their ascendancy until the advent of Crawdaddy and Rolling Stone. It wasn't until '66 that a genuine "rock press" sprang up and people began taking sides.

I know so many people who venerate Pet Sounds and dismiss all the previous music out of hand, however. They are the ones who were caught up in the "hip" movements of the 60s' second half--fortunately, it seems that virtually all of the younger posters here are free from that rankling phenomenon, and can judge all of the BB's music on its own merits.

[Kurosawa]

I would assume by "social criticism" that the question is, were the BB criticized in the media for celebrating a hedonistic lifestyle with scantily clad girls and young men wasting their time doing things like chasing girls, surfing, racing hod rods, etc. I don't know if that happened or not-people generally think of the BB as very white and very square, but a half naked girl was the same in 1962 as they are in 2013, and that was the subject of a lot of their early songs. Maybe by the early 60's the whole rock and roll is the devil's music thing had played out, at least until the whole drug thing started later on.

[filledeplage]

I would assume by "social criticism" that the question is, were the BB criticized in the media for celebrating a hedonistic lifestyle with scantily clad girls and young men wasting their time doing things like chasing girls, surfing, racing hod rods, etc. I don't know if that happened or not-people generally think of the BB as very white and very square, but a half naked girl was the same in 1962 as they are in 2013, and that was the subject of a lot of their early songs. Maybe by the early 60's the whole rock and roll is the devil's music thing had played out, at least until the whole drug thing started later on.

This is an intriguing question. (And probably someone's homework) 

But, I'm thinking that the Boys had a film connection, especially with America's sweetheart, Disney's Annette Funicello, an original Mouseketeer, groomed by Walt Disney for his Mickey Mouse Club TV show, in 1957, in "The Monkey's Uncle," singing the Sherman Brothers music in 1965.  They (Sherman Brothers) won best musical score in 1964 for Mary Poppins.  They could not lose as this movie came on the heels of an enormous blockbuster brand.

With this perceived alliance, with a Disney project, they might have escaped ax-grinding as against early rock music, in general.  And while "hedonistic" in general, it was almost an "accepted hedonism" as it was a Disney connected brand.  Annette was in many beach-genre movies, but with adherence to Disney's request that she not wear a bikini, while off the Disney payroll, as it were.

[clack]

Up until late '66 early '67, there was no major division within the audience of young white pop music listeners. Top 40 AM radio was the only game in town for pop, and you'd hear the Beach Boys next to Marvin Gaye next to Frank Sinatra next to the Animals. It was all just pop music, no place for music snobs.

The music snobs -- those who might look down on the "hedonistic" music of the Beach Boys -- were tuned in to jazz, or folk, or classical, or maybe "easy listening" stations.

[Kurosawa]

I would assume by "social criticism" that the question is, were the BB criticized in the media for celebrating a hedonistic lifestyle with scantily clad girls and young men wasting their time doing things like chasing girls, surfing, racing hod rods, etc. I don't know if that happened or not-people generally think of the BB as very white and very square, but a half naked girl was the same in 1962 as they are in 2013, and that was the subject of a lot of their early songs. Maybe by the early 60's the whole rock and roll is the devil's music thing had played out, at least until the whole drug thing started later on.

This is an intriguing question. (And probably someone's homework) 

But, I'm thinking that the Boys had a film connection, especially with America's sweetheart, Disney's Annette Funicello, an original Mouseketeer, groomed by Walt Disney for his Mickey Mouse Club TV show, in 1957, in "The Monkey's Uncle," singing the Sherman Brothers music in 1965.  They (Sherman Brothers) won best musical score in 1964 for Mary Poppins.  They could not lose as this movie came on the heels of an enormous blockbuster brand.

With this perceived alliance, with a Disney project, they might have escaped ax-grinding as against early rock music, in general.  And while "hedonistic" in general, it was almost an "accepted hedonism" as it was a Disney connected brand.  Annette was in many beach-genre movies, but with adherence to Disney's request that she not wear a bikini, while off the Disney payroll, as it were.

Yeah, that's also something I was thinking about.

Poor Annette...MS is a horrible, horrible disease.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

I don' think Dr V's post was aimed at you.   And I don't know if there is a divide amongst the ages here as Hypehat and RBDude are young(ish) and weren't in agreement with Kooks post about liking older music for nostalgias sake.   There are SOME songs I like for nostalgia alone, but they tend to be comedy-type songs like Incy whincy teenie weenie yellow pokda dot bikini, and that's because it reminds me when we sang it in a school concert.  But most of the music I like from earlier eras I like because it is EXCELLENT music, and the BB's are included in amongst, if not at the top of my list.  TBH I really don't care where or when music comes from, if I like it, I like it, if it's top 40 and I don't like it, I don't like it.  If it's from the guy down the road who makes his own songs but has never made a record in his life, If I like it, I like it.

Well put. BTW, I'm actually going to be 35 on 13 August, and when I first joined the wacky world of the Beach Boys internet community back in 1996, I was one of the younger BB fans on the net. Hell, my nickname back in those days was 'kid'.  I've noticed in the ensuing years that there are now fans of the BB online who were born after I became a fan in 1995, and that just blows my mind. Now my daughter is becoming obsessed somewhat with the BB, but seems to be more of a fan of Brian himself.

To add to this, I admit that my love of the 80s music does stem from nostalgia a great deal.