Good Vibrations & I Am Brian Wilson reviewed in New York Review Of Books site

[rn57]

http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/10/26/looking-for-the-beach-boys-fifty-years-later/

Reviewer is Ben Ratliff, longtime pop/jazz critic for the New York Times.

[JK]

Fascinating! And food for thought. Thanks, rn57.

[thorgil]

Well, it's not awful but far from a good review. I'll let go that the author obviously does not like the BBs. That's his privilege.
No, the problem is that the review is 90% intro and 10% review. And that's my own privilege to point out.
4/10

[HeyJude]

That seems more like a think piece than a book review. The books are barely mentioned, especially Mike's.

Did the reviewer like the books? I'm not even sure I know.

What I do know is that he has apparently pored over the band's 1980 "Good Morning America" clip more than just about anyone ever.

Comparing Dennis's shoulder shrug to the tone of Brian's book was an interesting insight.

And yeah, it appears the reviewer kind of has a rather backhanded approach to actually rating or like the Beach Boys in general. The writer is correct that a lot of especially earlier-era BB music indeed comes from a place of middle-class west coast privilege and all of that. But my question to the writer is, do you like it? It's okay to disclose whether you like something in a review, really! 

[DonnyL]

I found this "review" interesting, but annoying in the sense that this writer does what a lot of writers do when talking about the Beach Boys: focuses on the lyrics as the primary vehicle for the group. Now I get this from a journalistic or conceptual standpoint, but the Beach Boys are about the sounds and feels in the MUSIC. The backing tracks and the harmonies are what set them apart from ANYONE else. Though I did think the "Good Morning America" analysis was pretty interesting.

If we're going to apply the lense of privilege to the Beach Boys' story, it would also be relevant to look at how those concerns intersect with issues of mental health, child abuse, substance abuse, and even homelessness. You'd think the author would be aware of this, having read both Brian and Mike's books.

[guitarfool2002]

I found this "review" interesting, but annoying in the sense that this writer does what a lot of writers do when talking about the Beach Boys: focuses on the lyrics as the primary vehicle for the group. Now I get this from a journalistic or conceptual standpoint, but the Beach Boys are about the sounds and feels in the MUSIC. The backing tracks and the harmonies are what set them apart from ANYONE else. Though I did think the "Good Morning America" analysis was pretty interesting.

If we're going to apply the lense of privilege to the Beach Boys' story, it would also be relevant to look at how those concerns intersect with issues of mental health, child abuse, substance abuse, and even homelessness. You'd think the author would be aware of this, having read both Brian and Mike's books.

Great post, Donny. I agree especially on the music. Those records Brian was cutting in his early 20's sounded like no other, and they still hold up because of that. Sound, feel, groove - To borrow an old radio term, the sounds jump out of the speakers.

What I find mildly disturbing are these recent attempts to contextualize the music into whatever bag these writers seem to place them, be it sociopolitical or historical, and seemingly ignore the reasons why this music was created and how it was created in favor of trying to shoehorn the band into some sociological box.

What a reader would get from both Mike's and Brian's books would be the background of their respective families, going back several generations and specifically up to Brian's dad and Mike's dad. We know well the faults and the flaws of these men, but the sense that they did actually work their asses off to give their families a good life comes through loud and clear. To go from migrating westward and living on a beach and other less than ideal conditions to working up to the point of owning and operating successful businesses which provided for their families, then ultimately to both families developing into household names as one of the most successful bands of their generation...that's a pretty amazing journey. I think both books, both Brian and Mike, acknowledge this fact.

When both Brian's and Mike's dads were working on production lines and whatever else to work up and make a life for their sons, I'd like to hear what they would say if a writer would suggest a privileged existence. Same with the Love family who was living on the beach. Privilege, opportunity, and hard work mixed with sacrifice are different things - I hope the history of the Beach Boys isn't as myopic as some recent dissertations have suggested it will become in future tellings of the story.

[Bill Ed]

Is it clear that the reviewer read either book?

[Kid Presentable]

Thorgil, what makes you think that the author doesn't like the BBs?  IMHO anyone with that amount of understanding of them (for example, smart enough to recognize Dennis' death as a huge shift in their essence; reading and citing Peter Ames Carlin's book) is probably a really big fan.

Sometimes this review loses me because of the overuse of present-day academic buzzwords and concepts that really don't apply well.  But that seems to be his professional background so it is sort of understandable.  A lot of it was a good and interesting read- unique comparisons, good critiques that even superfans will find interesting.  I love his equating Brian's confusion (in PAC's book) of peoples' reception of Smile to Dennis' prolonged shrug on Good Morning America.

Guitarfool2002's post is great- the idea that in many ways they were shoehorned into a box, and now in present day people are viewing them as that box, is a great counterpoint. 

Their legacy is such an interesting subject,  in my opinion nearly everybody screws it up (and they have since probably 1968 or so) and nobody's really gotten it right yet but often slowly inch towards getting it right. 

[Da Doo Ron Ron]

Here is an article criticizing Ben Ratliff's article.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441761/new-york-review-of-books-beach-boys

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Thank you for posting that. "Beach Privilege" may just be the dumbest thing I'd read in many a year.

[CenturyDeprived]

Thank you for posting that. "Beach Privilege" may just be the dumbest thing I'd read in many a year.

It's ridiculous. Very 2016 clickbaity.

What about Brian's lyric "We are all connected, the whole human race" on Make a Wish? Or Mike's attempts to tackle social issues in Student Demonstration Time and Summer in Paradise? And the fact that the band broke down some barriers of the lineup being a bunch of white guys in the early '70s?  

Not that the band *had* to go out of their way to lyrically sing about social issues; they often sang about simple, basic elements like love and teenage desires. I think it's preposterous to "retcon" some shoehorned modern agenda into their catalog. Just as it's ridiculous to try and say that any modern band NEEDS to sing about any particular issue, and absent such song topics, they are worthy of criticism for being privileged. Just as much as it's nobody's business to try and insinuate that someone non-white and from a non-privileged social background NEEDS to be singing about any particular topic. The era we live in has gotten preposterous.

Why doesn't someone write an article about how ALL American bands are privileged to not be recording music in a third-world country without electricity, and thus it needs to be discussed how the majority of American bands' lyrics aren't about genocide, finding a clean water supply, and other such problems that many people unfortunately sometimes encounter in very poor nations? Let's just keep complaining until everyone except the poorest poor person on the planet is in need of being called privileged, and thus the merits of their work in need of being "reassessed".  Seriously, where will it end?

I've always been a liberal democrat, but I can understand - to a small degree - how Trumpism has arisen, I imagine in no small part due to repeated ridiculous notions like this being propagated, where it's insinuated that artists like The BBs are to in some way be shamed for having grown up in So Cal, and their work reflecting such. Not really actually "shamed", but that I believe their contributions are being diminished, even if indirectly, by making it a problem, or something in need of what comes off as finger-wagging discussion by getting into "privileged" talk. Yes, they are lucky, that is inarguable. White guys in Southern Cali. Why it's particularly necessary to get into what seems like a judgmental, scholarly discussion in an actual article is a bit beyond my wheelhouse. It becomes a very pointless road to be going down, in my opinion. I agree the band comes off as lily-white to some people, but I don't see what the endgame is of articles like this.

I'm just sick of people finding reasons to sh*t on my favorite music in the world - even if that's not the intention - and I think that some online authors have some bizarre, misguided overly-PC-rooted desire to knock the band's music down a few notches simply because they were white and didn't often get too political. The band's music is largely escapism and simply music to get lost in. But it's often rich and deep, and that's why it's beloved. Yet I feel like the author *wants* people to be a tad embarrassed to listen to the band.

Curious to know what others think...

[Don Malcolm]

I think this is the unfortunate after-effect of the fracture of old-school liberalism into a million "identity issues" competing for attention and resources. Music critics emerging in the 60s have hung on long enough to impose what is now an infinitely telescoping set of sociological parameters that actually get in the way of the original purpose of their job, which was to analyze music. As a latter-day member of that cadre, Ratliff is slavishly guided by those principles and knee-jerks all of that into what he writes. It's as if he turns on a blender and out comes this pseudo-postmodern meta-ironic sludgy soft-serve stuff that oozes over everything.

What makes the BBs great is that ongoing tension between art and commerce, yang and yin, etc., etc. The die was cast early on when Brian had to make choices about his family as opposed to his own creative genius. As it turned out the Wilsons were all really talented but traumatized and vulnarable to excess, while Mike was the personification of the Puritan work ethic filtered through the cheesecloth of TM (as one of David Leaf's interviewees famously stated. "Imagine if he never meditated..."). This volatility created enduring interesting and unresolvable tension, and that radiates throughout the surface and the understructure of the music.

Ratliff examined only the symptoms, whereas the folks who really "get it" (strewn across several chat groups because the residual tension in the band and its music even fractures its fans) know that the music is a most intoxicating disease, a beautiful malady, an unfolding map of a great, grand, glorious (and more than occasionally absurd) musical struggle filled with Olympian heights and low comedy, brilliant music and bad politics, a fun-fun-funhouse reflection of the hope and despair, the ecstasy and agony of America in the late 20th century (and, apparently on into the 21st as well).

We need old-school liberalism back in charge, that happens to coincide with the BBs greatest success and Brian's original growth into "Mozart in Hawthorne." We need "a mess of help" to make that happen, but if we can do it for twenty years without flipflopping back into the retrograde hatred and policies that either coerce folks to vote against their own interests or try to destroy any and all functions of government, all of us can have a solid foundation "to stand alone."

End of soapbox. Feel free to bury me head-first in the sandbox, Billy! 

[thorgil]

Nah, Don. Fantastic post, actually an extremely well-written mini-essay, and VERY on-topic!