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Author Topic: It’s OK  (Read 12658 times)
BananaLouie
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« on: November 28, 2020, 01:41:56 PM »

Been revisiting this Lost Classic and it’s really a shame that “It’s Ok” wasn’t a bigger hit despite the commercial success of “15 Big Ones”. Having followed the top 5 hit “Rock and Roll Music” this radio friendly number should’ve been an even bigger Billboard success.

It makes you wonder what could have made the difference, was the single perhaps too short?  Maybe the lack of awareness of the title (only mentioned once, Should've been called Find a Ride or Get With It?) It certainly didn’t help that it was released too late in the Summer, there certainly could have been a lack of promotion as well.

It’s too bad, I think “It’s OK” is one of their best post 60’s Summer themed pop creations and miles above Kokomo.
« Last Edit: November 28, 2020, 01:48:47 PM by BananaLouie » Logged

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RubberSoul13
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« Reply #1 on: November 28, 2020, 02:00:56 PM »

It's OK is indeed, just that.  LOL

In addition to all the flaws in marketing you mentioned, the song is missing a signature Mike Love lyrical hook. There is no chorus. Just a hand full of verses, then like this pre-chorus type thing with "gotta go to it...YEAH" and then it never really goes to a chorus. The "find a ride" line from Dennis is more of a tag than anything.

It was a recipe for success, but it's missing one of the key ingredients. Just one of many missed opportunities by Mike Love.
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BeachBoysCovers
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« Reply #2 on: November 28, 2020, 02:06:33 PM »

Isn't that like saying Do It Again doesn't have a chorus, they just go dit dit dit a bit
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« Reply #3 on: November 28, 2020, 02:31:00 PM »

And because so many get it wrong:

"Good or bad, glad or sad, it's all gonna pass away, so hey, let's all play and enjoy while it lasts."
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« Reply #4 on: November 28, 2020, 02:38:35 PM »

I've neglected most late 70s and beyond Beach Boys releases, but I find this song pretty fun.
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BananaLouie
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« Reply #5 on: November 28, 2020, 02:56:39 PM »

It's OK is indeed, just that.  LOL

I can see that, I guess it’s the standout track among more mediocre songs on the album, except maybe for Had To Phone Ya. I think a song as commercial and catchy as “It’s OK” for that time in their career was proof that indeed Brian was Back!
« Last Edit: November 29, 2020, 06:46:46 AM by BananaLouie » Logged

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« Reply #6 on: November 28, 2020, 08:10:20 PM »

I agree - one of the better "hit" attempts after the 60s.

Should have been the lead single, rather than following a cover song.

Reminds me of It's A Beautiful Day - which is also a great song, if not for the very specific references to stupid things linked to that John Ritter movie, the name of which escapes me right now. A re-write with sensible lyrics, and that one, too, could've been a hit in the same style.
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RubberSoul13
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« Reply #7 on: November 28, 2020, 08:17:55 PM »

Isn't that like saying Do It Again doesn't have a chorus, they just go dit dit dit a bit

I'd stress more the lack of a "hook" than a formal chorus section of the musical form. "Do it Again" has that hook in several variants throughout the ends of phrases "let's get back together and do it again" etc. But if you really want to get right down to it, "Do it Again" is just a slightly better "It's OK", right? The function of both tunes is to be derivative of their own past and beginnings.
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Mitchell
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« Reply #8 on: November 28, 2020, 09:52:08 PM »

I agree - one of the better "hit" attempts after the 60s.

Should have been the lead single, rather than following a cover song.

Yes, I wonder to what extent Rock and Roll Music's success was derived from it being the first single since the Endless Harmony comeback. I also wonder to what extent any future singles' lack of success was based on the public deciding that, actually, we don't need new covers of old songs from old artists (then again, Come Go With Me somehow managed to be a hit well after its original release... Who the heck knows how these things work!?). With the benefit of hindsight, I wish It's OK had been released first to at least get them an original hit. By the time It's OK was released, it seems like the moment had passed. At least they had Kokomo years later.

I quite enjoy the song, for what it's worth.
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« Reply #9 on: November 28, 2020, 11:16:38 PM »

Probably Brian's last real attempt at producing a hit single for the band? Love the vocal arrangements and that bass riff is pretty spectacular too. Definitely one of my favorite BB songs from the 70s; the single version sounds like the synth bass was mixed a little more up front, which is great. They should have completed this song and put it out as a single on the heels of Endless Summer in 1974 or '75. Could have been a bigger hit this way I guess but it's always hard to say with these guys.
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« Reply #10 on: November 29, 2020, 05:26:44 AM »

Probably Brian's last real attempt at producing a hit single for the band? Love the vocal arrangements and that bass riff is pretty spectacular too. Definitely one of my favorite BB songs from the 70s; the single version sounds like the synth bass was mixed a little more up front, which is great. They should have completed this song and put it out as a single on the heels of Endless Summer in 1974 or '75. Could have been a bigger hit this way I guess but it's always hard to say with these guys.

Could the seemingly louder synth bass in the single version be the result not of a remix, but the fact that the track was sped up by 2%?

I agree that "It's OK" should have been a much bigger hit, at least Top 10. And I often think that "Keepin' The Summer Alive" could have been a hit single, had it been recorded and released five years earlier than when it was...another "summertime smash"-sounding tune, but with a more contemporary feel - exactly what their audience would've hoped for in the summer of '75.
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BananaLouie
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« Reply #11 on: November 29, 2020, 06:39:44 AM »

They should have completed this song and put it out as a single on the heels of Endless Summer in 1974 or '75. Could have been a bigger hit this way I guess but it's always hard to say with these guys.

Another missed opportunity not unlike the Christmas single “Child Of Winter” released too late in December 1974 to really make an impact.

There’s been several times they didn’t strike while the iron was hot. There’s numerous Beach Boys songs from the late Sixties through the Eighties that with the right timing and marketing could’ve been hits or even bigger hits. Heroes and Villains, Darlin, Wild Honey, Do It Again, I Can Hear Music, Slip On Through, This Whole World, California, Sail On Sailor, Good Timin, Keepin The Summer Alive, Goin On and Getcha Back are all good examples.

At least The Medley, Wipeout and Kokomo charted well.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2020, 06:43:21 AM by BananaLouie » Logged

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« Reply #12 on: November 29, 2020, 08:41:12 AM »

Since It's OK originated from the Caribou Sessions, imagine if the Beach Boys released a comeback Double A-Side with It's OK and Good Timin'? I know this hypothetical has been brought up before here and elsewhere, but what a wasted opportunity. Other than Rock and Roll Music (and Come Go with Me if you count it, since it came out on LPin 78 but charted as a single in 81 with the Ten Years of Harmony comp), those two songs were their only top 40 hits of the 70s.
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Gerry
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« Reply #13 on: November 29, 2020, 08:41:25 AM »

Timing..... it seems like so much of the Beach Boys career after 1966 had to do with timing. I agree that It's OK should've been there first release after three years of almost no new material.  I thought then and now that RNRM was just weak: a song about rock and roll that didn't rock or roll. I thought It's OK was a great '70's BB's summer single. As someone mentioned, putting it out in '74, the summer that Endless Summer came out might've been a great idea. I think what might've happened to the song was that in between RNRM and It's OK the reviews of the album came out, which as I recall were mixed after a lot of anticipation.
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Gerry
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« Reply #14 on: November 29, 2020, 08:48:37 AM »

I think that c-man is correct about KTSA, the song ,it could've been a smash if released in the summer of "75-'76. So many missed opportunities by these boneheads.
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« Reply #15 on: November 29, 2020, 11:14:47 AM »

In all fairness to rock and roll music the single mix is far superior to album version
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« Reply #16 on: November 29, 2020, 01:05:54 PM »

In all fairness to rock and roll music the single mix is far superior to album version
I've never played both side by side, what's the difference?
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« Reply #17 on: November 29, 2020, 01:13:11 PM »

The single mix is punchier and there’s different back ups.
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« Reply #18 on: November 29, 2020, 05:47:53 PM »

It’s Ok I feel like did as well as I would expect it. KTSS could have been a hit in 1980 with a single version that resembles the live version they did that summer . It smoked.
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« Reply #19 on: November 29, 2020, 11:43:00 PM »

To me, KTSA always sounded a little too wooden and forced to be a hit. The songwriting isn't particularly strong, worlds apart from Do It Again and It's OK. Brian was the only one in the band who ever came up with convincing good-time summer songs, with the exception of Alan's California, which of course is partly based on Brian's material. Most other attempts to come up with Brian-like material were pretty awful, like Kona Coast, so at least KTSA wasn't like that, but still...
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« Reply #20 on: November 30, 2020, 01:56:21 AM »

In all fairness to rock and roll music the single mix is far superior to album version
I've never played both side by side, what's the difference?


I think we had that a while back:

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,27098.msg660840.html#msg660840


IMO the "Rock and Roll Music" single for it's rawness fits very well into that time when people were turning to such a sound. Wasn't this the time when Punk music began it's way? I remember reading reviews that criticized the single for being so unpolished, analogies like forgetting what they achieved with "Pet Sounds" for going back to "Surfin' Safari" come to mind. But I disagree with that. The early surf-rock records are just as much a part of the Boys greatness as Pet Sounds.



Oh and re: "It's ok, I like that song very much. Again I prefer the single version. Certainly better lyrics could've been written, but the ones used work and are not what the main focus is on. So, yeah, should've been a bigger hit imo. I never heard a live version though, that lived up to the recording.
« Last Edit: November 30, 2020, 01:59:25 AM by Rocker » Logged

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« Reply #21 on: November 30, 2020, 05:16:18 AM »

.
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« Reply #22 on: November 30, 2020, 06:55:42 AM »


IMO the "Rock and Roll Music" single for it's rawness fits very well into that time when people were turning to such a sound. Wasn't this the time when Punk music began it's way? I remember reading reviews that criticized the single for being so unpolished, analogies like forgetting what they achieved with "Pet Sounds" for going back to "Surfin' Safari" come to mind. But I disagree with that. The early surf-rock records are just as much a part of the Boys greatness as Pet Sounds.


Almost nobody in the U.S.A. was aware of punk music yet in the first half of 1976, aside from some very hip people in N.Y.C., L.A., and maybe Detroit. The vast, vast majority of the AM radio-listening and record-buying American public were either into the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, ELO, and the Doobies, or into sounds even more polished and softer-sounding still. So if the BBs wanted big radio hits, those are the sounds they were competing with.   
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« Reply #23 on: November 30, 2020, 09:18:12 AM »

Don't forget the huge hit that was Endless Summer in '74. People wanted the BB's to sound good. I was working a landscaping job in 1976, outside , summertime, RNRM comes on the radio. I think it was the dry mix and a guy hears Mike and says " that guy really sings flat". I couldn't really argue with him.
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« Reply #24 on: November 30, 2020, 09:23:21 AM »


IMO the "Rock and Roll Music" single for it's rawness fits very well into that time when people were turning to such a sound. Wasn't this the time when Punk music began it's way? I remember reading reviews that criticized the single for being so unpolished, analogies like forgetting what they achieved with "Pet Sounds" for going back to "Surfin' Safari" come to mind. But I disagree with that. The early surf-rock records are just as much a part of the Boys greatness as Pet Sounds.


Almost nobody in the U.S.A. was aware of punk music yet in the first half of 1976, aside from some very hip people in N.Y.C., L.A., and maybe Detroit. The vast, vast majority of the AM radio-listening and record-buying American public were either into the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, ELO, and the Doobies, or into sounds even more polished and softer-sounding still. So if the BBs wanted big radio hits, those are the sounds they were competing with.   


Ah, thank you!
But I guess one could say that an audience for that sound was there even if it wasn't mainstream yet. Anyway, I personally like this bare-to-the-bones BBs sound
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To sum it up, they blew it, they blew it consistently, they continue to blow it, it is tragic and this pathological problem caused The Beach Boys' greatest music to be so underrated by the general public.

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