The legacy of "Be True to Your School"

[HeyJude]

By the way-I’d say McCartney is a similar one for me and a segment of people I meet. Obviously those of us who listen to the great Fabcast know that Howie is a major fan-but I’d argue Paul’s solo career divides Beatles fans. Most of them feel that he rarely made a misstep as a Beatle but that his twee side hinted at in the Fab Four really came out in the 70s. So I meet lots of Beatles fans who only own one or two Macca albums but have everything by the Beatles ever put out!

This, weirdly, is true for a certain subset of "Beatles fans." This has been discussed as well on Fabcast.

I really find it supremely odd, especially when we're talking about the first few years after the break-up. And it's even weirder that it extends to today. There are fans who collect every burp and cough from the "Get Back" sessions, every mono matrix pressing variation of every Beatles album, who have no time for "All Things Must Pass" or "Ram" or "Band on the Run" or "Imagine" or "Plastic Ono Band." It's like, you have more Beatles albums there! Wtf?

Having known people who lived through that era, those who *got it*, absolutely understood that "Back Seat of My Car" was Beatles, that "Crackerbox Palace" was Beatles, etc.

Yes, it eventually deteriorated to varying degrees. I haven't even bought the last 3 or 4 Ringo albums. I still get the McCartney stuff, but it's a struggle.

But like, just like I'd find it very strange to buy the Beach Boys '85 album but have no time for the Brian Wilson '88 album, Beatles fans had TONS of music after the Beatles broke up that was still that thing. Sure, it often reinforced that they were better together, how Paul could fill in gaps on John's songs, how John could add his acerbic nature or downbeat thing to Paul's stuff, how despite George's at least partially understandable animus, Paul was a *key* component to many of George's best songs, and so on.

And really, a similar thing happens with the Beach Boys. Imagine Al and Carl singing on BW '88. Imagine the best stuff on "No Pier Pressure", and the Paley stuff, FILLED with Beach Boys vocals.

But individually, to varying degrees at various points in time, they still were the thing they had been when they were together.

[JakeH]

By the way-I’d say McCartney is a similar one for me and a segment of people I meet. Obviously those of us who listen to the great Fabcast know that Howie is a major fan-but I’d argue Paul’s solo career divides Beatles fans. Most of them feel that he rarely made a misstep as a Beatle but that his twee side hinted at in the Fab Four really came out in the 70s. So I meet lots of Beatles fans who only own one or two Macca albums but have everything by the Beatles ever put out!

This, weirdly, is true for a certain subset of "Beatles fans." This has been discussed as well on Fabcast.

I really find it supremely odd, especially when we're talking about the first few years after the break-up. And it's even weirder that it extends to today. There are fans who collect every burp and cough from the "Get Back" sessions, every mono matrix pressing variation of every Beatles album, who have no time for "All Things Must Pass" or "Ram" or "Band on the Run" or "Imagine" or "Plastic Ono Band." It's like, you have more Beatles albums there! Wtf?

Having known people who lived through that era, those who *got it*, absolutely understood that "Back Seat of My Car" was Beatles, that "Crackerbox Palace" was Beatles, etc.

Yes, it eventually deteriorated to varying degrees. I haven't even bought the last 3 or 4 Ringo albums. I still get the McCartney stuff, but it's a struggle.

But like, just like I'd find it very strange to buy the Beach Boys '85 album but have no time for the Brian Wilson '88 album, Beatles fans had TONS of music after the Beatles broke up that was still that thing. Sure, it often reinforced that they were better together, how Paul could fill in gaps on John's songs, how John could add his acerbic nature or downbeat thing to Paul's stuff, how despite George's at least partially understandable animus, Paul was a *key* component to many of George's best songs, and so on.

And really, a similar thing happens with the Beach Boys. Imagine Al and Carl singing on BW '88. Imagine the best stuff on "No Pier Pressure", and the Paley stuff, FILLED with Beach Boys vocals.

But individually, to varying degrees at various points in time, they still were the thing they had been when they were together.

I have to respectfully disagree with the premise here, and how it relates to Brian Wilson's problems.  The basic disagreement is on the idea that the Beatles' solo music is, in substance indistinguishable from Beatles' group music.  To me, there is a difference.  Perhaps in terms of songwriting technique and method, the solo stuff is the same - I can't comment on that sort of thing. But those albums - All Things Must Pass, Ram, Plastic Ono Band - could never have existed if the Beatles had stayed together. Of course, if the Beatles stay together, there can never be All Things Must Pass, because George never had that kind of standing in the group. Paul McCartney could never take over an entire album and fill it with his sensibility and kind of music, and basically just take over the whole record-making process, if he had stayed in the Beatles. This was a problem weighing on the group in the late 1960s; obviously it's there in the recent movie. With Ram, and others, Paul is now free to be himself - lots of good stuff, and also mush like "Another Day" about which you wonder if the the other Beatles would allow him to get away with. And as far as John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band simply cannot exist if John remains in a Beatle-situation. You could go so far as to say that this album encapsulates, more than any other single work, why the Beatles had to break up.  The leader of the Beatles (yes, he was) explaining why his life as a Beatle, and as a person, had become intolerable. And this leads us back to Brian Wilson.

Plastic Ono Band was John Lennon's Pet Sounds. It doesn't sound like it, but it was - in the sense that it was the album that couldn't have been made in a band situation.  It's also the album on which John is expressing his humanity - "I am a human being" which is what Brian is doing on Pet Sounds.  John can only do it after the Beatles "cease to exist."  Brian is trying to do the same thing long before Lennon did it, but Brian is trying to do this  while remaining a Beach Boy.  Brian is making a solo album in form and substance, but unlike John Lennon, he is trying to have his cake and eat it too. Not going to work, not in the Beach Boys, or most groups.  (Pete Townshend sort of got away with doing this when he steered his group into Tommy, but he allotted important roles for the other members, and also the weirdness of Tommy couldn't be seen as threatening an accrued commercial success; the Who had nothing to lose, basically)

The Beatles did everything right, it seems. Not only while they were together, but they even "fought" in the right way by breaking up when it was time to break up.  (In my view, had they stayed together, their music wouldn't have been even as good as the good solo albums were , and also the public wouldn't hold their classic music in as high regard as it does today)  They had become individuals with different personalities forming and different interests, and different lives. Time to break up.  This is what would happen in the Beach Boys, at least with respect to one member: Brian Wilson. He is becoming an individual person in the mid-60s, yet at the same time, there is a part of him, a voice inside him saying "you are a Beach Boy, not Brian." (there are, of course external voices surrounding him telling him the same thing) So, it quickly gets to the point where there is a conflict between "Be True to Your School" and "Surf's Up." We can say today that it's all "Beach Boys" but it's not.  And during the relevant time in the 1960s, something had to give, something had to give way, just as something had to give for the Beatles ca. 1969-70. For the Beach Boys it's either break up or stay together. If the former is impossible to conceive of, then fine - you stay together.  But then you have a stark choice: drop the "Surf's Up" approach (bury it, memory-hole it) or instead purposefully kill off "Be True to Your School" and its conceptual stance, and music of that ilk. And if you decide to kill it off, you have to be merciless and violent about it. Kill it, and salt the earth.  This was impossible, Brian knew it was impossible, and he tried to do it in his subtle way, with subtle music, and etc. etc.

And this summons the story of the third Big Shot of the Sixties (along with Lennon-McCartney and Brian Wilson): Bob Dylan. What Bob is doing in 1965-66, with the electric music and especially the '65-'66 tour is violently killing off his protest-folk persona, and with hard rock and volume, ramming it down the audience's throat to make sure everyone understands who is in charge of Bob's career trajectory; who is calling the shots. What's Brian Wilson gonna do? First he would have to leave the group. Or, at a minimum, he has to be willing and able to perform live. And even if he can do that, what's he going to do? Go out on stage and sing "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" to a bunch of teenagers? Brian was way ahead of his time, out of his time. But only Brian was the outsider, not the Beach Boys.

[Ian]

I was relating it to the original thread-BBs fans who hate the whole idea of Be True To Your School and Barbara Ann-and Beatles fans that don't want to know about their hero singing Bip Bop or Mary Had a Little Lamb or Broad Street

[Wirestone]

The Beach Boys are not and were not the Beatles. The levels of self awareness — and support from those around them — were totally different. Comparing the two groups simply created problems.

[JakeH]

More long-winded pontificating from me, as inspired by my lifelong antipathy toward "Be True to Your School." To follow up on your responses...

I was relating it to the original thread-BBs fans who hate the whole idea of Be True To Your School and Barbara Ann-and Beatles fans that don't want to know about their hero singing Bip Bop or Mary Had a Little Lamb or Broad Street

I see what you're saying, but the difference is that Paul is not Beatles. That's the position. If Paul solo = Beatles, then the comparison is more on point.  I think a better analogy/comparison would be if Paul and the Beatles started their career, and achieved initial popularity with Bip Bop and had a No. 6 hit with Mary Had a Little Lamb, while working under the name "Beatles." And then fans (and the Beatles themselves) were later on confronted with both "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Strawberry Fields" and were expected to make sense of that dichotomy.  That is sort of like what the Beach Boys actually did, with "Be True to Your School" epitomizing the worst of that stuff.  I do think it's interesting and telling that in the 1974 interview Brian is asked about all kinds of songs, but he singles out one record - "Be True to Your School" - as the one that "blew their career." Maybe I'm reading too much into that comment though. (but I'm not)

The Beach Boys are not and we’re not the Beatles. The levels of self awareness — and support from those around them — were totally different. Comparing the two groups simply created problems.

I agree to the extent that the Beach Boys should not be judged against the Beatles in terms of quality, style and sound. The Beach Boys should be judged against the Beach Boys. Is the band/group achieving what they are capable of achieving, leading with their strengths, and sidelining, or covering their weak points etc. This is a complicated question, in the end I would say that the Boys, as a collective group/business/organization/family ended up presenting their worst musical selves to the public, while many great musical moments - whole albums and individual tracks - were buried, suppressed, unfinished, outright unreleased as inconvenient musical facts.  By the 1980s at the latest, the Beach Boys were a joke in the mind of the public - in my admittedly subjective opinion, they were closer to the Village People than the Beatles.  There were people who knew about the group's quality, but as the likes of David Leaf, Domenic Priore, Darian, et. al have explained, nobody was into the good stuff. If you were a true fan and respected Brian's work, you were a member of a small cult.   A legitimate working musician like Steve Van Zandt apparently wasn't aware.  How and why that happened is the ever-present controversy that gets people riled up.

Comparing the Beach Boys to the Beatles in terms of their different career paths, approaches to music, personal relationships, level or artistry, etc. etc.  is a useful thing to do, in order to help understand what went wrong (for Brian Wilson - who constitutes the "Beatles" element in the Beach Boys) And for what it's worth, maybe you could say that Brian "compared" (for lack of a better word) himself to the Beatles starting probably in the middle of 1965. Then, at the end of the year, they're doing Rubber Soul, he's doing Party and "Hully Gully." We know what Brian did next.

[Ian]

Yeah well as has been said, in the coolness stakes the Beatles were always cooler-they had a sense of style as early as 1960 and, while they did some kind of hokey songs like Til There was You to appeal to grannies, they would never have done a song like Be True To Your School-they were too rock and roll for that. Dennis had the most rock and roll sensibility in the BBs. As Van zant said the rock and roll attitude was to cut school to smoke cigarettes and cruise the neighborhood-not to be the quarterback of the football team and sing around the piano with mom and dad.  However-as Elvis Costello said once-part of the appeal for Europeans of the BBs is how American they were-the way they wore sweaters and had their combed neatly like for a school photo and the things they sang about fascinated people in England who didn’t really have the traditions of malt shops and cheerleaders and cruising. Mick Jagger did an interview in 65 where he mentions that he liked Brian but hated the other guys because they seemed too jocky to him. He also talked about how their lyrics about school and having Fun were subjects he’d never ever write about.  The Beach Boys were never “cool” and that was a problem for them but in recent years you could say that the definition of cool has changed and the BBs are now considered cool in retrospect

[HeyJude]

I have to respectfully disagree with the premise here, and how it relates to Brian Wilson's problems.  The basic disagreement is on the idea that the Beatles' solo music is, in substance indistinguishable from Beatles' group music.  To me, there is a difference.  Perhaps in terms of songwriting technique and method, the solo stuff is the same - I can't comment on that sort of thing. But those albums - All Things Must Pass, Ram, Plastic Ono Band - could never have existed if the Beatles had stayed together. Of course, if the Beatles stay together, there can never be All Things Must Pass, because George never had that kind of standing in the group. Paul McCartney could never take over an entire album and fill it with his sensibility and kind of music, and basically just take over the whole record-making process, if he had stayed in the Beatles. This was a problem weighing on the group in the late 1960s; obviously it's there in the recent movie. With Ram, and others, Paul is now free to be himself - lots of good stuff, and also mush like "Another Day" about which you wonder if the the other Beatles would allow him to get away with. And as far as John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band simply cannot exist if John remains in a Beatle-situation. You could go so far as to say that this album encapsulates, more than any other single work, why the Beatles had to break up.  The leader of the Beatles (yes, he was) explaining why his life as a Beatle, and as a person, had become intolerable. And this leads us back to Brian Wilson. 

Yeah, I think this is just a misunderstanding of my premise. By saying “X is Beatles”, e.g. “The Back Seat of My Car is Beatles”, I’m not speaking to whether a given track would have been released, or would have sounded the same, had the Beatles stayed together. If that’s how one chooses to define “Beatles”, then the definition is easy. Same with using what’s on the label to set that definition. Little if any of the stuff released on their solo albums would have sounded the same had the Beatles stayed together, and certainly some of it would not have come out at all unless the Beatles started releasing 3 or 4 albums per year every year. 

What I’m talking about is what the music gives you, what it does for you. From the listener’s point of view, the fan point of view, the “receiver” of the music. What I’m saying is that there’s a lot of “solo Beatles” stuff (not all of it obviously), especially in the 70s, that *is* Beatles in that it does the same thing for you. For me, anyway. And many others. It’s of that same quality, and has that same magic that Beatles stuff did. This is really just a parlance, a frame of mind, that one either gets or doesn’t get. But what I’ll say is that myself, others, and, for instance, the guys on the Fabcast podcast, all arrived at that sort of terminology completely independent of each other.

And what I was specifically referring to in bringing this up was the bewildering phenomenon of “Beatles fans”, whose lives are deeply entrenched in Beatles fandom, who have ZERO time for like “All Things Must Pass” or “Ram” or “Imagine”, etc. And I’m here to tell folks, by ANY measure I can think of, “Isn’t it a Pity” or “The Back Seat of My Car” or “Gimme Some Truth” will do more for you than “Yes It Is (Take 7 – False Start)” or ten minutes of guitar tuning and drink ordering on a “Get Back” session reel. It will do more for you specifically as it relates to what the Beatles do for you. In my opinion of course. I was speaking out regarding some fans who take *such* an analytical approach to this stuff that it becomes like robot data processing, or just collecting items. The fans who shut off the moment it didn’t say “Beatles” on the label.

Basically, I was talking about the part of the “definition” of the Beatles that comes from external sources, rather than the specific intent involved in a given recording or album, etc. 

And this carries over to the Beach Boys as well, although perhaps a better analogy would be that Solo Beatles is to Beatles as 1970s Beach Boys is to 1960s Beach Boys. This is obviously an imperfect analogy, and Wirestone is right that it’s somewhat folly to deeply compare or contrast the two bands. But there are some points of comparison and reference that can be used. Some “fans” have a very narrow, somewhat conservative view of what they feel is “legitimate”, and what they choose to listen to or regard.

Plastic Ono Band was John Lennon's Pet Sounds. It doesn't sound like it, but it was - in the sense that it was the album that couldn't have been made in a band situation.  It's also the album on which John is expressing his humanity - "I am a human being" which is what Brian is doing on Pet Sounds.  John can only do it after the Beatles "cease to exist."  Brian is trying to do the same thing long before Lennon did it, but Brian is trying to do this  while remaining a Beach Boy.  Brian is making a solo album in form and substance, but unlike John Lennon, he is trying to have his cake and eat it too. Not going to work, not in the Beach Boys, or most groups.  (Pete Townshend sort of got away with doing this when he steered his group into Tommy, but he allotted important roles for the other members, and also the weirdness of Tommy couldn't be seen as threatening an accrued commercial success; the Who had nothing to lose, basically)

Plastic Ono Band is an interesting comparison to Pet Sounds. I’m not sure I agree they are so deeply alike in reference to their respective creators/groups. I’d argue in some ways they are kind of an inverse of each other. “Plastic Ono Band” is sparse not only because John chose to go sparse, but because the guys (and mainly Paul) that filled his stuff in were not there. Paul McCartney was the de facto producer of the band by the last few years, and he was often filling out all three of the other guys’ stuff. With “Pet Sounds”, Brian created music that he knew he would be seeking “the other guys” to come in and fill out vocally. And, it was created with no desire to break away from them. But removed from the context of the group vs. solo dynamic, there are certainly some thematic/stylistic points of comparison. 

[guitarfool2002]

What a great discussion! A lot to unpack and discuss for sure.

I'd just like to add something I've told many people since watching the Get Back documentary. In a film filled with revelations over the 7-8 hour runtime, the moment that stood out to me the most is how the rooftop concert actually happened. The lead-up to that performance was not shown as multifaceted in the original Let It Be film, and obviously after adding hours of conversation and film to the story, we got to see how it actually played out. The band was meandering musically and personally, and the rehearsals and practice sessions where they tried to pull together the material play out on the film as if they couldn't get it to the finish line. They looked at times like they were putting off the main goal of the project, and instead jamming, joking around, or trying to build and rebuild songs that weren't going anywhere in a lot of cases. It was too loose, too casual, and a lot of it seemed unfocused. You'd see and hear some glimpses of solid material, some great segments being thrown around, but overall they didn't seem to pull it together to get to the finish line, or as some say they couldn't "put the ball in the cup".

Then the climax of the Get Back documentary, the concert on the roof, happened. It was full of mistakes, some sloppy performances, but overall this was THE BEATLES playing a set on that roof. It was as if they flicked a switch, and the self-termed "four headed monster" pulled itself together and delivered that magic which they could summon when necessary.

It was electric to watch them play on that roof, warts and all, mistakes and all, and after seeing a lot more of the backstory filled in which even the hours of Nagra audio reels that had leaked decades before could not contextualize as well as Jackson's editing was able to do. When they got on that roof, and played TOGETHER for a purpose and a goal, there was the magic that was there since they originally found their formula.

And they even did a song, One After 909, which I'd argue was in the band's timeline of development as songwriters was roughly equivalent to "Surfin" and "Luau" in the early development of the Beach Boys' sound and writing style. It somehow didn't sound as out of place on that rooftop as, say, Luau would have sounded if the BB's  had done it on stage in 1969.

Sometimes there is just a magic combination, and X-Factor, that elevates things beyond face value. I think the Beatles had that at their best - not saying other great bands don't as well - but seeing a bunch of musicians almost mailing it in or meandering at times for several weeks and then turning in a now-legendary performance is a palpable example of that X-Factor. When they got their heads together and created music when it counted, they were untouchable.

It was the four of them together which made it special. Whether some had a greater role than others is of course a factor in some cases, but that rooftop climax in the Get Back documentary showed exactly what made that group who they were.

I just mention that because as great as some of their individual solo albums were, it was not The Beatles, and as much as fans got to appreciate each member's talents and creative vision in those albums, it wasn't the same. It could never be, it would never be.

And to tie together some of that rambling with some of the other comments, I don't know if the Beach Boys ever had that strong of a group identity apart from when the full original band was together harmonizing on the vocals. I think that's why some of the Hawaii '67 tapes are so damn heartbreaking and almost soul-crushing and reaffirming at the same time. When they harmonized Surfer Girl as the original self-contained unit around Brian's Baldwin organ on that stage, that was the magic of the group. Right there. For the last time as a self-contained group. That was the rooftop for them. The records had a magic too...but for me that was more Brian's production and arranging which gave those records a sparkle, a sheen, an X Factor of its own which no one could touch.

And that's why even a song like Be True To Your School - single version - has a touch of that magic. The production is pretty cool, and the jazz chords and arrangement Brian weaved into a sort of bizarre school cheer song with hokey lyrics made it at least sonically interesting. What other top-10 singles were using a marching band complete with drum corps snare rolls and Sousa piccolos? All the cheese aside, that was pretty cool for a 60's production. Again, hokey lyrics aside.

But yes, there was an electricity when certain groups pulled it together when it counted or simply pulled it together period, and that's why they are who they are. It's impossible to live up to that magic when you can't even codify or define what it was beyond saying things like when these people got together and sang and played, it was there and it worked.

[guitarfool2002]

I'd also add that the Beach Boys, Brian specifically, was at least a year or two ahead of where The Beatles were going with the original plans for Brother Records. One of the original concepts as we all know was to set up a company which would allow individual members to branch out and work on their own projects separate from the Beach Boys entity, while having the clout and resources of the Beach Boys name and company to support and promote it. Brian wanted the other guys to start doing their own projects, from production to artist development to even recording and releasing other artists' music under the Brother name. It was Apple Records before Apple was on the table.

I mention that because where The Beatles and Apple were in 68-69 was pretty close to where The Beach Boys and Brother was supposed to go in 67-68. The Beatles' work with outside artists of course was more commercially successful than Brother, which stalled on several accounts, but they shared the issue of needing to come together (no pun) as The Beatles or The Beach Boys, while the outside projects were influencing the individual members in such a way that the main project of the core bands were sometimes negatively influenced as a result. Once there was an outlet for the band members to go outside the main focus and core group, they often saw more freedom, respect, and greener creative pastures than they had available in the core group which made it all possible. When George Harrison said to McCartney "I don't have to listen to you", it was a direct result of him working and playing with other artists in 1968 who listened to his ideas and respected him. I get the same feeling with Brian in the latter half of 1967, specifically with Redwood. "I don't need to listen to you or the criticisms"...instead he could produce a band the way he wanted to create music at the time who was receptive to his ideas, and continue to create without having to validate his ideas to other group members. And it's a shame Brother didn't develop in the time frame it was originally designed to operate.

Of course "All Things Must Pass", "Plastic Ono Band", and "McCartney" were the results of that same kind of freedom where they could release music and not have to validate it with other group members. You can hear it on those albums, and they're still loved for the most part 50+ years later. It's like the door to another world had been opened for them to record on their terms. The Beach Boys members could have potentially done similar things, but the pull of the group and the "family" dynamic the group had created won over at a similarly critical time, and it wasn't until 1977 that fans could hear a taste of what these guys could do as individuals apart from the band. Imagine if the Beach Boys followed a similar path and we had a solo effort years prior without the obligation of being Beach Boys.

[JakeH]

The Beach Boys were never “cool” and that was a problem for them but in recent years you could say that the definition of cool has changed and the BBs are now considered cool in retrospect

Right... as long as the word "cool" is seen as shorthand for something that's harder to pin down. "Cool" itself is hard, if not impossible to define. It seems to me that what is "cool" is entirely dependent on how one is perceived by others.  So the Beach Boys aren't cool when people don't like them, and they are cool when people like and accept them.  In that sense, the Beach Boys were very, very "cool" in 1963.  Most of that material (surfing, beach, cars) was extremely trendy, and therefore, "cool" by the standards of the time. The Beach Boys, as people, were cool too in those days because they were writing and performing cool, trendy music that made a lot of money.   The cool concept and the ephemeral, fashion element of rock 'n' roll culture would come back to bite the Beach Boys very hard, but I'm sure they were all just fine with  popularity and coolness in that year of 1963, when they were the coolest thing in American music. 

I'm not sure it's as simple, or as cut-and-dried as a cool vs. uncool dichotomy.  Brian eventually, and haltingly, with stops and starts, made his way (dragging the band along with him) from the likes of "Be True to Your School" to the Pet Sounds era.  Does that effort signify his effort to be cool? I would say not. Rather, he was simply trying to be sincere and honest in the music; to write songs that he himself could believe, and that the listener can believe.  Same with Smile, which among many other things is an intensification of the Pet Sounds approach to music.   Jules Siegel did a great disservice to Brian and to an understanding of Beach Boys history by inventing the idea that "Brian Wilson wanted to be hip" during the mid-'60s. (Mike Love repeated the accusation in his autobiography, with, as with Siegel, absolutely no evidence to back up the claim.)  Brian wanted to be "hip" or "cool" only to the extent that hip and cool can be equated with good, sincere music.  Otherwise cool doesn't come into it.  Pet Sounds most certainly wasn't cool - it was less cool in 1966 than "Be True to Your School" was in 1963.  If this is correct, then Brian's actions suggest that in his mind, the Beach Boys' problem wasn't lack of coolness, it was lack of sincerity and honesty, and he tried to remedy that the only way he knew how.  Brian being sincere is not cool - never was, never will be.

As Van zant said the rock and roll attitude was to cut school to smoke cigarettes and cruise the neighborhood-not to be the quarterback of the football team and sing around the piano with mom and dad. 

Right. This is basically a "JD" (juvenile delinquenrt) stance of true '50s rock-and-roll.  Those rebels and greasers aren't going to like the Beach Boys. But that shouldn't mean that all the people who ended up rejecting the Beach Boys were rebels who wanted to burn down their schools. I suspect that, even in 1963, there were well-behaved high school athletes who heard the song and didn't like it.  Just as there had been legitimate sufers in Southern California who actively disliked the Beach Boys and their surf songs. Why? Because the surfers could hear the tunes and know that they were b.s. And this brings us to what you've told us about Costello's comment:

However-as Elvis Costello said once-part of the appeal for Europeans of the BBs is how American they were-the way they wore sweaters and had their combed neatly like for a school photo and the things they sang about fascinated people in England who didn’t really have the traditions of malt shops and cheerleaders and cruising.

I've always suspected that the Beach Boys' popularity overseas had something to do with the fact that the Europeans actually believed the songs.  Beach Boys beach and surf and sunshine worked well as a product for export - it plays better and better the further you get from Southern Califiornia. So the real Southern California surfers heard these kinds of tunes in a certain way, while someone far away in a cold climate hears something that sounds exotic and authentic.  Americans were probably more sensitive overall to the fakery and commercialism in the songs, right from the beginning. It was a fad, even Beach Boys' young fans understood it as a fad on some level, and it wasn't to be taken seriously.  In 1964, Capitol's Teen Set is telling its readers outright that the Beach Boys write about fads, and hey kids, isn't that great?  It was diversionary fun and great, until, as Brian knew at the time, something more fun comes along. And something more fun did eventually come along: adulthood, and the Boomer fans dismissed the Beach Boys - they never forgave the Beach Boys for pandering to them when they were kids.  Again, this is what Brian is getting at in the 1974 interview. 

"Be True to Your School" aside, so much of the surf-and-car era is great; the musical quality is very good. Which was itself a double-edged sword. Because it was so good, the Beach Boys had great commerical success. That's the good part. The bad part is that their outstanding quality was in service of falseness.  Because it was so good, people believed the falseness.  What Brian tried to do with the Beach Boys is channel that excellence toward truth.
 

[Wirestone]

The Beatles, all of them, understood what they were and what they could accomplish. That affected their decisions as a band and as individuals. You know, each one of them has said in the years after “we were pretty darn good,” or some variant of that. They were tuned into the magic that made the group work. You don’t do something like Abbey Road and “The End” without comprehending that you’re likely the greatest band of all time.

The Beach Boys never had that. Never. There was never a particularly shared vision, either of the material or the performances or the albums. The members never particularly valued their work, with a few exceptions. They not only didn’t know they were great, they couldn’t agree on what was even good.

Unlike even The Rolling Stones, who have had a few eras but orbit around the Jagger-Richards collaboration, The Beach Boys never even had a constant center of creative gravity. Brian wrote with people outside the had from the start. Various members helmed albums in the 70s and 80s. Outside musicians — even members — came in and out. The entire band and its history is best understood as some sort of loose collective, one that encompasses the Flame and the Honeys and the Wondermints and Billy Hinsche and friends.

This makes for fascinating music to explore and a unique kind of variegated fandom. But consistent or capable of making good or even rational decisions it is not.

[guitarfool2002]

As Van zant said the rock and roll attitude was to cut school to smoke cigarettes and cruise the neighborhood-not to be the quarterback of the football team and sing around the piano with mom and dad. 

Right. This is basically a "JD" (juvenile delinquenrt) stance of true '50s rock-and-roll.  Those rebels and greasers aren't going to like the Beach Boys. But that shouldn't mean that all the people who ended up rejecting the Beach Boys were rebels who wanted to burn down their schools. I suspect that, even in 1963, there were well-behaved high school athletes who heard the song and didn't like it.  Just as there had been legitimate sufers in Southern California who actively disliked the Beach Boys and their surf songs. Why? Because the surfers could hear the tunes and know that they were b.s. And this brings us to what you've told us about Costello's comment:

However-as Elvis Costello said once-part of the appeal for Europeans of the BBs is how American they were-the way they wore sweaters and had their combed neatly like for a school photo and the things they sang about fascinated people in England who didn’t really have the traditions of malt shops and cheerleaders and cruising.

It would be interesting to weigh Steven Van Zandt's comments about the Beach Boys with what he's said many times about the Dave Clark Five. Steven champions the DC5 as one of the best rock and roll groups of the 60's, and has been involved in numerous documentaries about them as well as fighting to get them into the R&R Hall of Fame. And look at any photos and videos of the DC5: They're clean cut, well groomed, neatly cut hair, and often matching suits. If the term "square" would apply to a band's look, check out the DC5 and see what you think their image is.

And if it's about judging the groups solely on the records, and Van Zandt was actually challenged by an interviewer on his promotion of the group as real rock and roll and some of the best and told the interviewer that the proof is in the records, it kind of goes against the stance of rock and roll being about cutting class and smoking and juvenile delinquency when you look at the fact one of the bands he promoted most heavily would be considered squares in matching outfits and short haircuts.

So yes the answer is in the records, of course, but it's interesting what he said about real rock and roll and all that and then to see one of the groups he promotes as real rock and roll were a group of square guys with prep school looks. Then he says it doesn't matter because it's in the records...well so was the music of the Beach Boys no matter what they looked like. And some of the DC5 songs were similarly about summer and young love and school dance romance and all that, just like the BB's had some cheese in their lyrics. But they were good records.

Don't get me wrong, I dig the DC5 and their music and don't care what bands looked like, but the contradiction between what he thought of the BB's versus the DC5 is pretty obvious.

[SMiLE Brian]

The BBs had long hair by 1964.

[JakeH]

With “Pet Sounds”, Brian created music that he knew he would be seeking “the other guys” to come in and fill out vocally. And, it was created with no desire to break away from them.

Unfortunately for all involved (except music fans) I think Pet Sounds was created with this desire, albeit an unexpressed or unacknowledged desire. A wish on the part of Brian that he seems to know can never be fulfilled. "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" is pretty straightforward about Brian's state of mind - "I wish I could find other people to work with, so I can make music of the kind that you are now listening to on this album." It's also a wish for a different kind of audience, a different culture, in which his kind of music can be accepted.

The Beach Boys never had that. Never. There was never a particularly shared vision, either of the material or the performances or the albums. The members never particularly valued their work, with a few exceptions. They not only didn’t know they were great, they couldn’t agree on what was even good.

They must have known how good they were vocally, and that their tunes were not easy to execute either live or in the studio.  In later years, they had to have known about having once been great. During the 1960s, did they see themselves as great? Hopefully not - they were young, working hard and moving from one thing to another; not enough time to step outside of yourself to admire your own work. Brian might accept people referring to him as a "genius" today, but at the time, it would have been, as he once said, "I thought I had talent, but I didn't think I was a genius."

Unlike even The Rolling Stones, who have had a few eras but orbit around the Jagger-Richards collaboration, The Beach Boys never even had a constant center of creative gravity. Brian wrote with people outside the had from the start. Various members helmed albums in the 70s and 80s. Outside musicians — even members — came in and out. The entire band and its history is best understood as some sort of loose collective, one that encompasses the Flame and the Honeys and the Wondermints and Billy Hinsche and friends.

I'd say that Brian was, and is, the center of gravity - to such a degree that he exerted tremendous influence over the band even when absent; the void he left.  The reason other members got creative or at least tried to be creative is a function of Brian's absence.  George Harrison wrote tunes because he "had something to say" - he wanted to write songs, even during a time when John and Paul were at their peak. It wasn't as if George started writing because John and Paul were tapped out. This is what happened here.  Dennis might be the exception.

Right. This is basically a "JD" (juvenile delinquenrt) stance of true '50s rock-and-roll.  Those rebels and greasers aren't going to like the Beach Boys. But that shouldn't mean that all the people who ended up rejecting the Beach Boys were rebels who wanted to burn down their schools. I suspect that, even in 1963, there were well-behaved high school athletes who heard the song and didn't like it.

It would be interesting to weigh Steven Van Zandt's comments about the Beach Boys with what he's said many times about the Dave Clark Five. Steven champions the DC5 as one of the best rock and roll groups of the 60's, and has been involved in numerous documentaries about them as well as fighting to get them into the R&R Hall of Fame. And look at any photos and videos of the DC5: They're clean cut, well groomed, neatly cut hair, and often matching suits. If the term "square" would apply to a band's look, check out the DC5 and see what you think their image is.

And if it's about judging the groups solely on the records, and Van Zandt was actually challenged by an interviewer on his promotion of the group as real rock and roll and some of the best and told the interviewer that the proof is in the records, it kind of goes against the stance of rock and roll being about cutting class and smoking and juvenile delinquency when you look at the fact one of the bands he promoted most heavily would be considered squares in matching outfits and short haircuts.

So yes the answer is in the records, of course, but it's interesting what he said about real rock and roll and all that and then to see one of the groups he promotes as real rock and roll were a group of square guys with prep school looks. Then he says it doesn't matter because it's in the records...well so was the music of the Beach Boys no matter what they looked like. And some of the DC5 songs were similarly about summer and young love and school dance romance and all that, just like the BB's had some cheese in their lyrics. But they were good records.

Don't get me wrong, I dig the DC5 and their music and don't care what bands looked like, but the contradiction between what he thought of the BB's versus the DC5 is pretty obvious.

I was watching a film not long ago - I think it was something called Festival Express (famous hippies boozing it up on a train) which features Woodstock-ish, "dirty hippie" scenes and rock musicians like the Grateful Dead playing to a counterculture audience around 1970 or so (the crowd is unruly, and angry, and Jerry Garcia assumes the role of responsible adult and tries to talk them down from the stage.) And in this film, the group "Sha Na Na" pops up - Bronx-style greaser doo-wop - and the hippies are digging it. So why is Sha Na Na okay, while the Beach Boys, who excel at that kind of thing, are not accepted? Is it because of the "Be True to Your School" thing?  I throw up my hands at this point
 

[MyDrKnowsItKeepsMeCalm]

I was watching a film not long ago - I think it was something called Festival Express (famous hippies boozing it up on a train) which features Woodstock-ish, "dirty hippie" scenes and rock musicians like the Grateful Dead playing to a counterculture audience around 1970 or so (the crowd is unruly, and angry, and Jerry Garcia assumes the role of responsible adult and tries to talk them down from the stage.) And in this film, the group "Sha Na Na" pops up - Bronx-style greaser doo-wop - and the hippies are digging it. So why is Sha Na Na okay, while the Beach Boys, who excel at that kind of thing, are not accepted? Is it because of the "Be True to Your School" thing?  I throw up my hands at this point

Festival Express was a train ride through Canada, so those are Canadian audiences you're seeing -- kind of apples and oranges when comparing to how American audiences received the BBs circa 1970.

Echoing your great point about the BBs above, the Sha Na Na shtick might have landed better to an audience situated further away from its source.

[MyDrKnowsItKeepsMeCalm]

... Hmm, a spin on Wiki tells me Sha Na Na was a huge hit at Woodstock too. So I dunno.

[guitarfool2002]

I was watching a film not long ago - I think it was something called Festival Express (famous hippies boozing it up on a train) which features Woodstock-ish, "dirty hippie" scenes and rock musicians like the Grateful Dead playing to a counterculture audience around 1970 or so (the crowd is unruly, and angry, and Jerry Garcia assumes the role of responsible adult and tries to talk them down from the stage.) And in this film, the group "Sha Na Na" pops up - Bronx-style greaser doo-wop - and the hippies are digging it. So why is Sha Na Na okay, while the Beach Boys, who excel at that kind of thing, are not accepted? Is it because of the "Be True to Your School" thing?  I throw up my hands at this point

Festival Express was a train ride through Canada, so those are Canadian audiences you're seeing -- kind of apples and oranges when comparing to how American audiences received the BBs circa 1970.

Echoing your great point about the BBs above, the Sha Na Na shtick might have landed better to an audience situated further away from its source.

... Hmm, a spin on Wiki tells me Sha Na Na was a huge hit at Woodstock too. So I dunno.

There was a difference.

First, I'd encourage everyone to do at least a cursory deep-dive into the story of Sha-Na-Na, including articles and what is available on YouTube. It is a fascinating story and history, and you'll be surprised at what some of the former members ended up doing after leaving the music business. And there were some top-flight musicians in that band through the years, including one who became known as a session player who played two of the greatest guitar solos of the 70's on Steely Dan records. Please check it out, it's a very fun musical and sociological dive.

Just to sum it up, as I have done a lot of research on these guys and I grew up watching them on their own syndicated TV show back in the day, they started out as Columbia students getting together and doing what amounted to a doo-wop revue stage performance act, full of both a love of the music, high on the parody and theatrics, and at times very high camp. And again more than a few members were accomplished and skilled musicians who had the chops to pull a full stage revue together and make it musically valid rather than a slipshod comedy bit with hack musicians.

The cool backstory is that Sha-Na-Na owes their wider popularity and the golden ticket Woodstock appearance almost entirely to Jimi Hendrix.  Jimi had seen the revue in New York and loved it, and demanded they be booked on the Woodstock stage as pretty much a completely unknown act. Jimi was one of the marquee bookings at the festival, and his clout allowed him to convince the promoters to include Sha-Na-Na...more like demand with consequences if they didn't put them on the bill. So they did, and the audience who was at first confused and shocked by the incongruity of the act and the music eventually came to love them and the applause was very loud by the time the set was over. If you watch the outtakes of the Woodstock movie, you'll catch a glimpse of Jimi watching their set from the side of the stage. He loved them.

That Woodstock appearance, especially after the film, made them a more well known and in demand act and probably led to more festival bookings like the Canadian one mentioned above (not sure on the date but it would line up).

But they were not the act who would eventually be the lovable comedy group with their own syndicated show in the later 70's, in those early 70's concert tours and bookings. When I saw some live performance videos, including one full performance from either the Fillmore or some other known venue (shot on the classic Sony Porta-Pak B&W video stock), they were profane, insulting at times, confrontational, and funny as all hell. They would bring guys and (mostly) girls from the audience up on stage and use them as the butt of their jokes and skits, and the crowd ate it up. There was a lot of high camp humor too, and their shows played out like a musical revue...which is what it was. They were playing out stereotypes of greasers, dreamboat 50's crooners, teenagers that could have come from central casting in a 50's teen B-movie, and everything was played up to the Nth degree. And it was an awesome, subversive take on 50's nostalgia before Happy Days and American Graffitti which played the nostalgia more sweet and innocent. It was really a product of its era which had not yet hit the mainstream, and where the Woodstock type of audience members didn't even know they had a fondness for that 50's experience yet. But having a group parody it with skill and with love and a big dose of sarcasm and some scathing humor hit them the right way.

So when 50's nostalgia did hit the mainstream, Sha-Na-Na had already been doing this since the late 60's, so they REALLY cleaned up their act, made it more family friendly and geared more toward the sweet side of nostalgia rather than the acerbic and profane, and they got a syndicated TV show where they featured music, guest artists, comedy numbers, and became well known in the mainstream as the nostalgic 50's band. They were actually famous. Bowser, the bass singer, became something of an icon at the time and he kept up his career making public appearances, selling oldies music on TV ads, and becoming a personality. And that's how I knew him...until finding out that his Bowser character was the one most likely to be insulting and confronting the audiences as part of the act before they became mainstream. His character was the asshole of the group who later became the beloved greaser bass singer with a big heart who wore Chucks. I would never had known that without digging deeper into the story.

So sorry for the ramble, but I love this stuff, and became a bigger fan of Sha-Na-Na after digging deeper and being able to watch those vintage early 70's videos which showed the original nature of the group.

To tie it in, does any of that sound like The Beach Boys? One group was writing their own material, the other was a cover/tribute/parody band. One was earnest in what they wrote and sang about, the other was sending it up while having a love and appreciation for it. The Beach Boys would never sing "Teen Angel" and camp it up as Sha-Na-Na did, and if they were to do Teen Angel on stage, I'm sure Mike or whoever would be 100% sincere with no sense of irony in delivering the vocal and wouldn't do it in character.

So there's perhaps the difference. Sha-Na-Na were doing parody, The Beach Boys were 100% sincere.

[Ian]

But sha-na-na had a hand in the 50s-early 60s nostalgia that led to American Graffiti, which led to Endless Summer and the BB return to the big money

[guitarfool2002]

But sha-na-na had a hand in the 50s-early 60s nostalgia that led to American Graffiti, which led to Endless Summer and the BB return to the big money

But the differences between the two acts, and the nature of the nostalgia itself, made them totally different entities. Sha-Na-Na cleaned up their act after the 50's nostalgia craze had taken hold and put it more in line with the Happy Days and George Lucas branding of it. They almost became a parody of the parody, and it was all streamlined for mainstream consumption after all the mainstream success of 50's nostalgia. And they were damn good in both of their incarnations. The Beach Boys were not doing parody, they were 100% earnest in singing the songs they sang.

Just another quick tidbit and Beach Boys connection: at Woodstock, Henry Gross was playing guitar with the group, and Henry would later have his mega-hit "Shannon" which was an ode to Carl Wilson's dog. So there's that too.
 

[MyDrKnowsItKeepsMeCalm]

The Beach Boys never had that. Never. There was never a particularly shared vision, either of the material or the performances or the albums. The members never particularly valued their work, with a few exceptions. They not only didn’t know they were great, they couldn’t agree on what was even good.

Unlike even The Rolling Stones, who have had a few eras but orbit around the Jagger-Richards collaboration, The Beach Boys never even had a constant center of creative gravity. Brian wrote with people outside the had from the start. Various members helmed albums in the 70s and 80s. Outside musicians — even members — came in and out. The entire band and its history is best understood as some sort of loose collective, one that encompasses the Flame and the Honeys and the Wondermints and Billy Hinsche and friends.

This makes for fascinating music to explore and a unique kind of variegated fandom. But consistent or capable of making good or even rational decisions it is not.

Yes to all this, well said. This framing (loose collective, lack of center) goes a long way towards explaining the setlist of any random Mike&Bruce BBs show over the last 25 years... on the one hand, it's a crowd-pleasin'/all-the-greatest-hits set, and on the other it's a somewhat bloated, shapeless set that absorbs and offers up anything remotely related... songs from other groups the BBs came in contact with, Mike solo songs, other random beach-themed songs etc etc. Even Mike's decision to play more 1967-1973 songs for a few years... arguably some of the best music they ever made!... was a market-based decision (the competition, in this case Brian's band, trotted out this material and it was well-received) rather than any kind of organic artistic statement.

[JakeH]

To tie it in, does any of that sound like The Beach Boys? One group was writing their own material, the other was a cover/tribute/parody band. One was earnest in what they wrote and sang about, the other was sending it up while having a love and appreciation for it. The Beach Boys would never sing "Teen Angel" and camp it up as Sha-Na-Na did, and if they were to do Teen Angel on stage, I'm sure Mike or whoever would be 100% sincere with no sense of irony in delivering the vocal and wouldn't do it in character.

So there's perhaps the difference. Sha-Na-Na were doing parody, The Beach Boys were 100% sincere.

Thanks for the information. It makes sense. Yet here at the end, the issue of contrasting Sha Na Na's humor and parody with the Beach Boys sincerity doesn't sound right.  I'm basing this mainly on Jann Wenner's critique of the Beach Boys from a very early issue of Rolling Stone, Nov. or Dec. 1967. In his article, Wenner, among various other things, specifically says that the Beach Boys are not serious. To him, this is not a good thing.  Specifically, he says that when they play concerts, they are making fun of their own songs.  I wasn't around then, but this always sounded right to me, because for those of us who were around later on, the Beach Boys were not serious in their presentation (again, "Village People" - fun and enjoyable at best, but still a clown-show).  

Wenner's viewpoint is, for Beach Boys historical purposes, very important; not because millions of people read that little one page article in a new underground magazine, but because it was written by somebody who would eventually wield a lot of influence over what qualified as good rock 'n' roll and what wasn't; what was good vs. what wasn't serious, and therefore, not as good. 

Maybe then the difference (a difference at least) is that Sha Na Na are making fun of an era, a time-and-place, having fun pointing back to childhood, etc (and, as you say, doing it well), while the Beach Boys - if Wenner is to be believed - are making fun of themselves.  (And doing so at a time when another member of the group is at home trying to make serious music)

[HeyJude]

With “Pet Sounds”, Brian created music that he knew he would be seeking “the other guys” to come in and fill out vocally. And, it was created with no desire to break away from them.

Unfortunately for all involved (except music fans) I think Pet Sounds was created with this desire, albeit an unexpressed or unacknowledged desire. A wish on the part of Brian that he seems to know can never be fulfilled. "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" is pretty straightforward about Brian's state of mind - "I wish I could find other people to work with, so I can make music of the kind that you are now listening to on this album." It's also a wish for a different kind of audience, a different culture, in which his kind of music can be accepted. 

Brian’s attitude towards the rest of the band, and his place within the band, and the band’s place in the world, is obviously a fascinating topic. I don’t feel like Brian ever wanted to actually *not* be with the band. I think he wanted them as a tool, albeit a very important tool, probably *the most* important tool, to actually get down on tape what he wanted to do. Yes, he stacked his own voice sometimes, and yes sometimes it was just Bruce and Brian, or Terry, or whomever. But he wanted and needed those voices, so I don’t think he would have been happy without them. He wasn’t always happy with them either, which is obviously a big crux of what was going on with the band at the time.

Also, Brian, certainly up until Landy-Mark-II, coveted and valued being a Beach Boy. Same with Dennis. There’s obviously some potentially deep psychology to wade through there. But even in 1966/1967, Brian wanted to be a Beach Boy, and wanted the band to exist. He wanted them to exist both as a vehicle for what he wrote, and also to be successful and famous and bring money in.

While Brian was obviously in a different place on many levels by the early 80s, I’ve always felt one of the most poignant things I’ve heard from someone regarding Brian’s feelings about being a Beach Boy was that Jerry Schilling interview in, I think, the A&E Biography from the late 90s. Schilling is discussing the ruse/plan of “firing” Brian in late 1982 in order to get him into detox. Schilling describes giving Brian the letter literally saying that he’s being fired and is no longer a Beach Boy, and Brian’s heart just breaks, and he asks “I’m not a Beach Boy anymore?”

I think, even without as severe of a mental health or substance abuse issue hanging over Brian in 1966, when he was most independent and agile and would have been most able to actually go out on his own, he absolutely on some level wanted and needed to be a Beach Boy. Even before he *literally* needed them to actually finish stuff and release stuff, and even going farther back before he also literally needed them to do public appearances.

[guitarfool2002]

To tie it in, does any of that sound like The Beach Boys? One group was writing their own material, the other was a cover/tribute/parody band. One was earnest in what they wrote and sang about, the other was sending it up while having a love and appreciation for it. The Beach Boys would never sing "Teen Angel" and camp it up as Sha-Na-Na did, and if they were to do Teen Angel on stage, I'm sure Mike or whoever would be 100% sincere with no sense of irony in delivering the vocal and wouldn't do it in character.

So there's perhaps the difference. Sha-Na-Na were doing parody, The Beach Boys were 100% sincere.

Thanks for the information. It makes sense. Yet here at the end, the issue of contrasting Sha Na Na's humor and parody with the Beach Boys sincerity doesn't sound right.  I'm basing this mainly on Jann Wenner's critique of the Beach Boys from a very early issue of Rolling Stone, Nov. or Dec. 1967. In his article, Wenner, among various other things, specifically says that the Beach Boys are not serious. To him, this is not a good thing.  Specifically, he says that when they play concerts, they are making fun of their own songs.  I wasn't around then, but this always sounded right to me, because for those of us who were around later on, the Beach Boys were not serious in their presentation (again, "Village People" - fun and enjoyable at best, but still a clown-show).  

Wenner's viewpoint is, for Beach Boys historical purposes, very important; not because millions of people read that little one page article in a new underground magazine, but because it was written by somebody who would eventually wield a lot of influence over what qualified as good rock 'n' roll and what wasn't; what was good vs. what wasn't serious, and therefore, not as good. 

Maybe then the difference (a difference at least) is that Sha Na Na are making fun of an era, a time-and-place, having fun pointing back to childhood, etc (and, as you say, doing it well), while the Beach Boys - if Wenner is to be believed - are making fun of themselves.  (And doing so at a time when another member of the group is at home trying to make serious music)

I have to disagree about Wenner and his comments for two main reasons. First, Wenner must have been at the height of his arrogance to make such a definitive claim about a band playing their music when he was not a member of that band, nor did he to the best of my knowledge ever interview band members prior to that scorched-earth article basically sucker punching Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys as a promotional shuck. I call bullshit on Wenner. If he as a journalist and editor had actually been with the band or toured with and recorded music with any band, I'd give him a little more slack. But it was as easy to be a keyboard warrior behind an IBM Selectric typewriter as it is a keyboard and mouse in the internet era. His opinion is fine, but when he states it as fact and readers are taking it as fact, that's irresponsible or ego-driven hubris at its worst.

I'd like to see, if Wenner had the balls, him approach Carl Wilson at any point when Carl was leading the live band and tell Carl his band and live show wasn't serious, and they were making fun of their music.

Second, Wenner seemed to have an axe to grind against The Beach Boys or Brian in particular. He wrote with a bias against the band and Brian in that article, I know that piece too, which seemed more like click bait would look today. Pick a fight, get more readers and your advertisers are happy. I saw no reason in the context of that piece when it ran in RS to level such a base attack against the group except if Wenner were trying to be provocative and pick a fight to get more readers for his then-new magazine. It wouldn't be the only fight Wenner would pick, look at what he did with Chicago and how a band member's comment to him caused Wenner to try to keep them out of the R&R Hall Of Fame all these years. Add other bands to that list too, Wenner's hit list.

At that time, in '67-'68, The Beach Boys as a band in general had been making music for roughly 5 years. 5 years! Unless Wenner had a serious axe to grind with them beyond the norm, I still don't understand where that vitriol came from.

But who got the last laugh? I still have the issue of RS where this appeared: When the GV box set came out in '93, Rolling Stone gave it 5 stars, and lavishly praised the box, the music, and Brian's "genius" which their founder in '67 had openly called a promotional gimmick. I wonder what kind of wine Wenner served when he had to eat that crow.

(and an aside, the Rolling Stone critics actually praised the BB's albums that were released in the wake of Wenner's diatribe, Friends, 20/20, and especially Sunflower. I have all those reviews, and it runs counter to the image that RS overall were not fans of the BB's after the Wenner piece, and the actual music reviewers and writers had very complimentary things to say about the actual music on those records.)

I think every artist has some self-deprecating humor in their blood, often as a defense mechanism, but to suggest a working band like The Beach Boys was making fun of themselves and their music is taking the critic-as-arbiter ego trip a bit too far.

[William Bowe]

You can read RS's reviews of Friends and Sunflower in volume 12 of Contemporary Literary Criticism (along with a whole bunch of contemporary reviews/critiques of the BBs, Beatles, Dylan, Led Zep, Stevie Wonder and Joni Mitchell -- unfortunately, CLC's interest in popular culture was not maintained in later volumes), which is available at archive.org (search under "Books"). But I don't believe I've ever seen its review of 20/20. Guitarfool2002 -- is it available online anywhere you're aware of?

[William Bowe]

To answer my own question: Rolling Stone's 1969 review of 20/20 can be found here, if you're deft enough to evade the paywall.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/20-20-187920/