And speaking of 70's LA and The Beach Boys' backyard, the sound of Sunflower is very idiosyncratic, but possibly the wrong sort of idiosyncratic? It's no folky strummy CSN, it's lavish and twee and sugary. It wouldn't be unfair to equate The Beach Boys with people like Randy Newman or Gram Parsons on the label - they shift enough copies of Sweet Baby James & Ladies Of The Canyon to cover these interesting experiments that don't sell well.
People like Randy never exactly chased the zeitgeist (and Gram always thought it passed him by, I think) but what's sad about The Beach Boys is that it could have been cool for them to settle into the post-Holland era as that sort of artist, rather than chasing past glories*. It takes a certain kind of bloody-mindedness, I think that's the word, for them to stubbornly cling to the idea that Brian Wrote The Hits when they had Dennis, Carl, Blondie & Ricky also able to write quality material. Brian no longer had to be the Goose That Laid The Golden Egg!
*memory declining in my dotage, but was there any motive to 'Brian's Back!' in the group along the lines of 'Brian is getting worse and worse in LA, maybe the road will straighten him out'? Because drugs are so hard to find on tour with a 70's rock band...
Good points. I think we may however be over analyzing this a bit when we have basically ascertained why The Beach Boys popularity took a downward shift stateside in the late sixties and early seventies. Again Mike Love said it best, their image was out of step with the times. Moreso the songs they were writing from a topical and stylistic point of view were out of step with the times. That doesn't mean they weren't good quality songs but they didn't fit into any of the popular genres of the day as hypehat somewhat referenced above.
Also it's important to remember that in a lot of cases the impression you make in a big time, clutch situation is very important to how you are viewed by your public. This is certainly true in sports and film and to a degree true in music as well. The difference is that athletes and films (and their stars) are usually hyped up far more than most records are. The Beach Boys in 1967 by their own admission delivered a bunt instead of a grand slam with "Smiley Smile". This was extremely damaging to their reputation as artists who could deliver the goods or even deliver on their promises after "SMiLE" was quite possibly the most hyped record of it's day coming off the back of the megahit "Good Vibrations", the "Brian Wilson is a genius" campaign and all the rest.
Most athletes who fail to deliver in the clutch are often derided by the sports media as chokers. Carlos Beltran will for instance always be looked upon by some Mets fans and the media as a chokejob and a bad signing by the organization because he looked at a called strike three to end the NLCS in 2006. (sorry Wrightfan, best example I could think of at the moment). This is despite the fact that Beltran was overall a solid player for The Mets and if we are to be fair is likely undeserving of that reputation. Kevin Costner in 1995 I believe had a major film release entitled "Waterworld" which I believe at the time was the highest budget film ever produced. The film was a complete flop at the box office and Costner's career has really never gotten back to where it was before "Waterworld". The Beach Boys never did deliver "SMiLE" to the masses (well not at least until 2011). To make matters worse, Brian Wilson made the decision to retreat from the studio to seclusion putting even less of an emphasis on public life than he had prior to the collapse of the "SMiLE" album. So in the mind of the general public who at the time were obviously not given all the information we have at our disposal today and a lot of misinformation to boot (thank you Jann Wenner) were given the impression that Brian Wilson and his Beach Boys were a failed musical act who decided to pack up their bags and go home.
It didn't matter that the boys aside from Brian were still touring and still releasing records at a regular clip in the aftermath of "SMiLE". The public wasn't going to give them a second chance regardless of who was writing the songs. The general public looked upon them as a failed musical act and I'm guessing that there were at least a few others who rejected a lot of the post "SMiLE" material as being not worthy of consideration because well it wasn't the holy grail that they were promised back several years previous in the aftermath of "Good Vibrations", the "Inside Pop" piece and other forums.
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