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Author Topic: How radio turned their back on them  (Read 8209 times)
MaryUSA
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« Reply #25 on: April 18, 2014, 09:09:43 AM »

Hi all,

Not going to Monterey did hurt.  Saying The Beach Boys aren't cool is making a judgement.  WEBO and Cool 100 are FM oldies stations in Broome Couny, NY.  I always thought that liking a band one wants to like while respecting the likes and dislikes of others was cool.  I know that as time goes on tastes do change.  I have been a BW/BB fans since I was 15.  I also like a lot of the curent singers.  I suggest looking for an FM oldies station. 
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Emdeeh
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« Reply #26 on: April 18, 2014, 10:34:23 AM »

As someone who lived through the era, I think the shift from AM to FM was a major factor in how American music tastes changed. The loose-format FM station in Memphis (FM100) exposed me to a lot of different artists and formats. They did play my Beach Boys requests (from WH thru SU). and I know those got enough airplay that other people called up for them too. FM100 even played Surf's Up as a featured album when it was released.

I think the move from independent-owned radio stations to corporate-owned ones was a huge factor in what got airplay as the '70s moved on. More and more stations, especially AM, were being programmed by someone at corporate headquarters. There was less and less room for deejays to play their own finds and less opportunity for local bands to break through than in the '60s. Eventually most of the independent FM stations (college excepted) fell under the same corporate airplay restrictions.

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Cabinessenceking
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« Reply #27 on: April 18, 2014, 11:37:29 AM »

"Do It Again' is a classic that went to no. 1 in the UK, but only hit no.20 in the US. There's little doubt that AM top 40 turned against the band 67/68 -- but why?

So, the Beach Boys were no longer "cool". But does that explain why such uncool acts as the 1910 Fruitgum Company, the Ohio Express, and Gary Lewis and the Playboys had big hits in 1968? Something else was going on, but I've never heard an explanation as to what went on.

GV was not followed up properly and H&V + Smiley and WH did nothing to save the decline, quite understandably. They are fan favourites, but they could never be mainstream. If they had been full blown productions then perhaps they would've had a better chance, but the new sound was offputting and so the group was quietly forgotten in the dramatic music scene following the summer of 67 (where they failed to deliver anything relevant).

Smile was the only chance they had to latch onto the new trend. Big production a la Wouldn't It Be Nice and California Girls were they way to go.  Smile might not be a smash of an album, but it would certainly be considered cool and then stuff like a well produced WH thing could succeed more, but then we get back into that endless discussion.
We're talking about two things here -- counterculture music and what was called "teeny-bopper" music. We all know why the Beach Boys didn't cross over to the counterculture crowd.

But what I'm asking is why commercial, top 40 AM radio seemingly rejected the Beach Boys. It had nothing to do with SMiLE, WH, or Smiley Smile, or with lps in general. AM played singles. And it wasn't only the BBs  -- AM radio also turned its back on the Dave Clark 5 and Herman's Hermits, for instance, who continued to make hit UK singles. Some popular groups made the post '67 cut -- Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Rascals, the Grassroots (not even getting into the Beatles or the Stones) -- and some didn't (the Beach Boys).

It wasn't "coolness", because lots of AM top 40 singles were as uncool as you can get (e.g. Bobby Goldsboro). And it wasn't the boy band cuteness factor, either -- some of the biggest hits of the post-67 era were made by faceless studio bands.

The reasons why the Beach Boys were rejected by the hippies 1967-1970 have been gone over upteen times. My question is, why did US commercial radio reject them? This is what I haven't seen explained.

'Do It Again' is as commercial as it gets, and yet it was a relative flop, compared to what it deserved. The quirkiness of 'Smiley Smile' or 'Wild Honey' doesn't explain that failure.

WH, Darlin, Do It Again, I Can Hear Music all made top 40 though. They didn't make top 10, which was where the boys usually were.
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Watch a Cave
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« Reply #28 on: April 18, 2014, 07:28:47 PM »

I think a big part of the problem was a lack of Brian vocals.  The dominant part of their sound..  the mind blowing falsetto had completely disappeared.  They didn't sound like the Beach boys.


The last single to have the falsetto.. Do It Again.. was a hit.  And then in '85 Getcha Back rekindled that magic.

But in the 70s?  Nowhere to be found.
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« Reply #29 on: April 18, 2014, 07:33:30 PM »

In high school in the early spring of 1966 (before the release of Pet Sounds) I did a project for my history class where I brought in the Surfin' USA album and sang different humorous lyrics (about Walter Lippmann, an American writer and political commentator) to the tune of Noble Surfer.  

Any chance you can recall those lyrics and share them with us?

Posted only because of the above request ...

The premise for my Walter Lippmann school project done to the tune of Noble Surfer was based on our teacher, Mr. Brosio, having us read some of Lippmann's writings and explaining that Lippmann had caused many of his readers to examine and then question the veracity of some of their long held beliefs.

Now, 47 years later, I only recall a few lines:

"Walter (no kiddin') Lippmann (no kiddin') ya shook me up man! (yeah man)"

"And then one day I made the scene to Brosio's class, expecting to sleep so peacefully
Brosio said we'd investigate a book of Lippy's, written around nineteen twenty three"

"I've really got my doubts now, man I don't know who or what to believe any more
And yesterday I found out my well respected priest was married to a two-bit whore"

"Walter (no kiddin') Lippmann (no kiddin') ya shook me up man! (yeah man)"


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Lonely Summer
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« Reply #30 on: April 18, 2014, 11:05:08 PM »

I'm sure not going to Monterrey didn't help.  Cry
Then the Fab Four should've been consigned to the dust bin of oldiedom, too - no John, Paul, George and Ringo at Monterey. No Dylan, either.
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Alan Smith
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« Reply #31 on: April 20, 2014, 10:13:02 PM »

In high school in the early spring of 1966 (before the release of Pet Sounds) I did a project for my history class where I brought in the Surfin' USA album and sang different humorous lyrics (about Walter Lippmann, an American writer and political commentator) to the tune of Noble Surfer.  

Any chance you can recall those lyrics and share them with us?

Posted only because of the above request ...

The premise for my Walter Lippmann school project done to the tune of Noble Surfer was based on our teacher, Mr. Brosio, having us read some of Lippmann's writings and explaining that Lippmann had caused many of his readers to examine and then question the veracity of some of their long held beliefs.

Now, 47 years later, I only recall a few lines:

"Walter (no kiddin') Lippmann (no kiddin') ya shook me up man! (yeah man)"

"And then one day I made the scene to Brosio's class, expecting to sleep so peacefully
Brosio said we'd investigate a book of Lippy's, written around nineteen twenty three"

"I've really got my doubts now, man I don't know who or what to believe any more
And yesterday I found out my well respected priest was married to a two-bit whore"

"Walter (no kiddin') Lippmann (no kiddin') ya shook me up man! (yeah man)"


 LOL Bravo! and no doubt the 2nd last line attracted some volatile public opinion from yer teacher
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Gabo
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« Reply #32 on: April 21, 2014, 12:52:30 AM »

Part of the reason of course is there singles in this era just weren't as good. Songs like God Only Knows became hits for a reason.
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Custom Machine
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« Reply #33 on: April 21, 2014, 02:01:16 AM »

In high school in the early spring of 1966 (before the release of Pet Sounds) I did a project for my history class where I brought in the Surfin' USA album and sang different humorous lyrics (about Walter Lippmann, an American writer and political commentator) to the tune of Noble Surfer.  

Any chance you can recall those lyrics and share them with us?

Posted only because of the above request ...

The premise for my Walter Lippmann school project done to the tune of Noble Surfer was based on our teacher, Mr. Brosio, having us read some of Lippmann's writings and explaining that Lippmann had caused many of his readers to examine and then question the veracity of some of their long held beliefs.

Now, 47 years later, I only recall a few lines:

"Walter (no kiddin') Lippmann (no kiddin') ya shook me up man! (yeah man)"

"And then one day I made the scene to Brosio's class, expecting to sleep so peacefully
Brosio said we'd investigate a book of Lippy's, written around nineteen twenty three"

"I've really got my doubts now, man I don't know who or what to believe any more
And yesterday I found out my well respected priest was married to a two-bit whore"

"Walter (no kiddin') Lippmann (no kiddin') ya shook me up man! (yeah man)"


 LOL Bravo! and no doubt the 2nd last line attracted some volatile public opinion from yer teacher

Well, it got a huge laugh from the class, as well as the teacher, which is one reason I recall the project so well.  But I figured I could get away with those lyrics in Mr. Brosio's class, as he was relatively young and had a large bulletin board of political and other cartoons from newspapers and various magazines, including Playboy.  But those Playboy cartoons were the milder ones from that era, nothing overly sexual as I recall.  I do remember that on the day of Open House, when our parents would be visiting the classroom that evening, all the Playboy jokes had disappeared, replaced with tamer ones from The New Yorker, etc.  One day Mr. Brosio also brought in a centerfold from a recent issue of Playboy and invited interested students (which I think turned out to be just about everyone in class) to come to a table to compare the "overtly sexualized appeal" of the centerfold to the "more appropriate refined classical celebration of the female body" found in a renaissance era painting.  His class was very intellectually stimulating, and he was easily my favorite teacher, but a number of years later I ran into another of my high school teachers who told me that Mr. Brosio had been forced to resign after failing to heed warnings not to discuss or bring to class items of a sexual nature.  He then became a university prof, where his classroom discussions were not encumbered by the constraints of public high school education.

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drbeachboy
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« Reply #34 on: April 21, 2014, 03:07:38 PM »

Part of the reason of course is there singles in this era just weren't as good. Songs like God Only Knows became hits for a reason.
God Only Knows barely cracked the Top 40 in the U.S.. So, not the same excuse that you are putting forth.
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On Stage As It Is In Studio,
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And Forgive Us Our Bootlegs,
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And Lead Us Not Into Kokomo,
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Cam Mott
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« Reply #35 on: April 22, 2014, 03:49:28 AM »

They didn't make music that radio audiences wanted to buy or hear.
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« Reply #36 on: April 22, 2014, 08:57:24 AM »

They didn't make music that radio audiences wanted to buy or hear.

Then explain why many of those singles became hits overseas?
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« Reply #37 on: April 22, 2014, 09:37:35 AM »

They didn't make music that radio audiences wanted to buy or hear.

Then explain why many of those singles became hits overseas?

Sure. Radio audiences there wanted to buy or hear them.
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monicker
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« Reply #38 on: April 22, 2014, 12:53:02 PM »

The reason, to me, has always seemed a lot simpler than people make it out to be: after Smile collapsed and they moved things to the home studio, the music they started making, stylistically and lyrically, fell in between the cracks, into a lonely place that has no place to call home in our culture of binaries and easily identified genres/scenes/movements. Their fall from grace happened because they couldn't or didn't want to transition over to the counterculture, yet they simultaneously started making music that was too eccentric and singular for mainstream audiences/Top 40. They turned inward, became so insular and out of touch with everyone, that they were like a remote island. Radio and the hippies were equally disinterested because the music they were making didn't serve either ones' needs. So where does one in that position go?
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« Reply #39 on: April 22, 2014, 02:12:47 PM »

A key event in the band's rehabilitation is one that I've never seen mentioned : the Feb 1971 release of Carole King's Tapestry.

Carole -- a Brill Building "hack", even a contributor to the detested Monkees --  had been on the wrong side of the ideological divide that had opened up in '67. With 'Tapestry', there was some healing of the breach. Some of the early-mid sixties top 40 brigade were allowed to cross over into the new AOR mainstream, the counter culture having won the pop music war.


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« Reply #40 on: April 23, 2014, 05:09:53 AM »

I think a big part of the problem was a lack of Brian vocals.  The dominant part of their sound..  the mind blowing falsetto had completely disappeared.  They didn't sound like the Beach boys.


The last single to have the falsetto.. Do It Again.. was a hit.  And then in '85 Getcha Back rekindled that magic.

But in the 70s?  Nowhere to be found.


...I so much agree with you!
Why this isn't mentioned more  as the reason is a puzzle to me.
Brian's falsetto made the Beach Boys distinctive against most other groups.
I remember playing albums that where made after 1966 to many friends at the time, and many simply stating "what's happened to the high voice"?
That loss; and the change in musical direction, was in my opinion  a HUGE part of their lack of commercial success after 1966.
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« Reply #41 on: April 23, 2014, 06:34:05 AM »

I think a big part of the problem was a lack of Brian vocals.  The dominant part of their sound..  the mind blowing falsetto had completely disappeared.  They didn't sound like the Beach boys.


The last single to have the falsetto.. Do It Again.. was a hit.  And then in '85 Getcha Back rekindled that magic.

But in the 70s?  Nowhere to be found.


...I so much agree with you!
Why this isn't mentioned more  as the reason is a puzzle to me.
Brian's falsetto made the Beach Boys distinctive against most other groups.
I remember playing albums that where made after 1966 to many friends at the time, and many simply stating "what's happened to the high voice"?
That loss; and the change in musical direction, was in my opinion  a HUGE part of their lack of commercial success after 1966.
The 4 Seasons went through the same type of thing in the late 60's and they didn't lose their lead falsetto. A simple answer is this; times were changing. Rock is for the young. It is always changing and morphing into whatever the next generation of fans move towards. Older fans either moved on to something different or like some I know, did not like the direction that the Boys' moved on to. I fall into that younger group of fans and I know that my friends thought of them as square or unhip. As the 70's dawned, most had no idea what kind of music they were even doing. That is, until I started introducing them to Surf's Up, Carl and the Passions "So Tough" and Holland. Even then, they still did not like their music as much as bands like Yes, ELO, Chicago, Alice Cooper who were the top acts of that time.
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The Brianista Prayer

Oh Brian
Thou Art In Hawthorne,
Harmonied Be Thy name
Your Kingdom Come,
Your Steak Well Done,
On Stage As It Is In Studio,
Give Us This Day, Our Shortenin' Bread
And Forgive Us Our Bootlegs,
As We Also Have Forgiven Our Wife And Managers,
And Lead Us Not Into Kokomo,
But Deliver Us From Mike Love.
Amen.  ---hypehat
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« Reply #42 on: April 23, 2014, 07:59:58 AM »

The reason, to me, has always seemed a lot simpler than people make it out to be: after Smile collapsed and they moved things to the home studio, the music they started making, stylistically and lyrically, fell in between the cracks, into a lonely place that has no place to call home in our culture of binaries and easily identified genres/scenes/movements. Their fall from grace happened because they couldn't or didn't want to transition over to the counterculture, yet they simultaneously started making music that was too eccentric and singular for mainstream audiences/Top 40. They turned inward, became so insular and out of touch with everyone, that they were like a remote island. Radio and the hippies were equally disinterested because the music they were making didn't serve either ones' needs. So where does one in that position go?

Nice post.  And to answer your final question...Europe.
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« Reply #43 on: April 23, 2014, 09:04:39 AM »

They didn't make music that radio audiences wanted to buy or hear.

Then explain why many of those singles became hits overseas?

Sure. Radio audiences there wanted to buy or hear them.


But there were acts that had success in the US AND overseas at the same time. It doesn't make sense that they would lose their appeal in one region but not another.  Do It Again hit number 1 in the UK but as far as I know, the UK had hippies,  protests and the counterculture too. None of that stopped the BB records from being hits there.
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« Reply #44 on: April 23, 2014, 09:34:41 AM »

But there were acts that had success in the US AND overseas at the same time. It doesn't make sense that they would lose their appeal in one region but not another.  Do It Again hit number 1 in the UK but as far as I know, the UK had hippies,  protests and the counterculture too. None of that stopped the BB records from being hits there.

Image has a lot to do with it though. The band didn't hit Europe basically at all until 1964, so that audience didn't really experience the surf phase of their career. That old image is part of what held them back in the US through the culture shift of the late sixties, they had a hard time breaking that association. Since that association never existed to most of the European audience, they had less to overcome when presenting their changing sound.
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« Reply #45 on: April 23, 2014, 09:46:07 AM »

They didn't make music that radio audiences wanted to buy or hear.

Then explain why many of those singles became hits overseas?

Sure. Radio audiences there wanted to buy or hear them.


But there were acts that had success in the US AND overseas at the same time. It doesn't make sense that they would lose their appeal in one region but not another.  Do It Again hit number 1 in the UK but as far as I know, the UK had hippies,  protests and the counterculture too. None of that stopped the BB records from being hits there.

I'm not arguing with that but still in the US "we" collectively did not buy what they were selling.
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« Reply #46 on: April 23, 2014, 11:20:26 AM »

But there were acts that had success in the US AND overseas at the same time. It doesn't make sense that they would lose their appeal in one region but not another.  Do It Again hit number 1 in the UK but as far as I know, the UK had hippies,  protests and the counterculture too. None of that stopped the BB records from being hits there.

Image has a lot to do with it though. The band didn't hit Europe basically at all until 1964, so that audience didn't really experience the surf phase of their career. That old image is part of what held them back in the US through the culture shift of the late sixties, they had a hard time breaking that association. Since that association never existed to most of the European audience, they had less to overcome when presenting their changing sound.

A very good point! Never considered that one.
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