Song or album that turned you onto The Beach Boys

[BiNNS]

In college i took media fundamentals. Part of the course was producing your own one hour radio show in which you could play whatever you liked (within reason).  Everyday I'd play a tape of 'i get around', that someone from the previous semester left behind in the radio booth. Well one day i walked into the booth while my friend was doing her show. Over the speakers i could hear someone sing "and god only knows what i'd be without you".  I was blown away with what i was hearing. It was the most beautiful thing my 19 year old ears had ever heard. Admittingly, i didn't know who was singing this song, until after it finished, my friend said "oh, brian wilson".  Since that moment i've been hooked.

[melissalynn]

I always knew 'the hits', but I didn't really think much of them, honestly. The song that really got me into them was 'Til I Die'. I fell in love with it. Still one of my favorites. Ran out and bought 'Surf's Up' the day I heard it.

[the captain]

No question, it was Pet Sounds. My parents had the Endless Summer album around when I was growing up, but it was just one of many records I'd listen to of theirs. Then in the mid 90s I got Pet Sounds and almost simultaneously saw one of the TV docs--I assume it was Biography or something--and heard a bit of Surf's Up. The combination of those things got me really interested.

[smile-holland]

Well.... for me my curiosity started with, ehhhmmmm, sorry, can't help it, Kokomo...   
Heard it on a compilation tape with 80-ies hits of one of my brothers during a short holiday in Belgium and liked it. Then my father told me it was probably the same group that had some hits in the 60-ies, I got hold of 2 "Best Of"-albums. Liked that as well, but not that I was addicted to it yet.

After that I got to listen to several albums. The 85 album and Brian's 88 solo album (from the library), but that didn't really do it. Found a 70-ies comp. with several artists on it, including a track called Surf's Up, thought it would be another surf-song, but wasn't like that at all, and decided not to like it (yet) either... got hold of a vinyl 2-fer: Sunflower, Surf's Up..... and surprise surprise, didn't get it either (nowadays both are favorites of mine)...

And then I finally bought Pet Sounds.... and liked it a lot immediately. Read something about SMiLE, decided to buy the then recently released 2-fer Smiley Smile / Wild Honey.... and strangely enough I loved it!! From then on, I was hooked for life...

[Vega-Table Man]

It was not a single song or album, but a trio of LPs ... My folks had three Beach Boys albums in their collection when I was a kid: Shut Down Volume 2, Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!), and Pet Sounds. It was a combination of all three of these ... "Don't Worry Baby" and "Wouldn't It Be Nice" have been HUGE songs for me for as long as I can remember.

I didn't know of any records that sounded quite like them. And I still don't.

[phirnis]

Pet Sounds got me intrigued. The Smile myth and 'Til I Die furthered my interest in all things Brian Wilson to an almost obsessive level. Then came Friends, which has been my favourite album ever since I first got to discover it in 2001 or 2002. I came to appreciate the early hits just a bit later on. Today I love them all.

[oldsurferdude]

Bought the first two albums when they were released and thoroughly enjoyed them. But Surfer Girl was the one that seemed to find a special place in my soul-the harmonies nd Brian's soaring vocals, and the writing was everything anyone could ask from music. Bought it in the local "record store"-one side of the shop had mono releases and the other side was stereo releases. Not having a stereo back then, I bought the mono. I bought it again when I finally got a stereo-it was like hearing a different album.

[Jonas]

my father use to always play me the hits record when we drove around (he was soooo cool)

but one day I heard "the trader", being the musical snob that I was I thought..now THATS a fucking record...and here I am.

[Beach Boy]

My father and my sister always watched the An American Band VHS, and my brother and my elder sister loved it then too but I found it boring, I always had in my mind some weird guys with beards singing about surfing and I always felt asleep during AAB, but I loved the hits like Surfin' USA and I Get Around. One day I wanted to buy a Rocky 3 soundtrack CD but I bought a Beach Boys best of for my sister and I borrowed it very often and loved all the songs and couldn't get enough of it. I got the Platinum Collection and since then I called me as a fan. It was the hits that I really liked like Kokomo, Be True To Your School and Surfin' and something like that. The only LP my father had, besides a late 60ies comp, was Still Cruisin', which is still one of my favourite albums. I really digged the title song first and of course Kokomo, now I love more Island Girl and Somewhere Near Japan. Anyway, when I first watched the Knebworth concert (Good Timin' was the song I couldn't get enough of it) I was soooooo impressed that I wanted to know more about the guys. I watched the EH docu, An American Family and bought some DVDs. Within 2 months I got all albums. And in the following months/years I learned to love all of them. But it's the hits that bring me back to that wonderful summer of 2005.     The song that really brought me to  the Beach Boys was I Get Around. 

[TimeToGetAlone]

Hmm, well I can say I didn't really love them the way I do now at first.  I have a few long anecdotes here so I'll break it down. Well it all started in elementary.  Our music teacher had to sing all these different kinds of songs.  One of them was this song apparently by the Beatles but which I have never found any existence of elsewhere.  Interestingly enough I still have the tune.  But anyways, this same teacher had us sing two Beach Boys songs: Surfin' Safari and Surfin' USA.  The real surfing related songs of the beginning aren't my thing even now, so while it was pleasant in the same way I could find some other just as a pleasant, it didn't encourage to look further into the catalogue.

Now when about 9 or so I started getting into the rock/pop music of the 60's and 70's.  Before that I wasn't too into anything.  The Beatles came first and then the Stones.  After a while of broadening my tastes a bit, my dad made a custom CD (just to put into perspective my generation).  There were a few of them, and 4 or 5 more Beach Boys songs ended up on there.  Surfin' USA was there and though it was interesting to hear the real version of it, it still didn't stand out from any of the other songs.  Little Deuce Coupe and Fun, Fun, Fun were also on the CD.  They were again pleasant and bouncy, though at the same time it was nothing more than that to me.  Those particular songs for me now I consider decent but nowhere near what I would later discover.  Another CD was compiled.  Kokomo and Sloop John B were the Beach Boys song selections.  I was a little more impressed with these actually.  Kokomo reminded of the previous songs but with a more modern sound.  While I don't generally think modern sounds are better, especially now, the melody did work for me.  At the time I assumed Carl's parts were the same high voice from the older songs though lol.  Sloop John B instantly became my favorite song I knew of theirs, and it kind of gave me a glimpse into a less formulaic style.  I usually need an obsession to spur me on to the artist's back catalogue, so I still wasn't hooked.

I didn't really expand my knowledge of the songs for a while.  I overheard my dad discuss Brian Wilson's life issues through the ages, so that was kind of interesting.  He also showed admiration for Pet Sounds, though at the time I intertwined it with his talk about Kokomo being the first new thing he'd heard from them in ages.  I somehow ended up thinking Pet Sounds was an early 90's "comeback" (I'm aware Kokomo was late 80's, but that was in my head at the time) for the band (new issues aside).  I also heard from here and the radio of the Wilson brothers, and that they were all members of the band.  They played Surfin' Safari on the radio once with this family backstory so that was a bit of deja vu.

Pop culture was the next stop for me.  I heard All Summer Long on a Simpsons episode (spoofing American Graffiti), and Wouldn't It Be Nice both on a commercial and 50 First Dates (so you can tell this is getting recent).  Those both impressed me fairly well, but in the same way I knew Daydream Believer by the Monkees and Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks.  They were good songs but it just didn't convince to explore.  The two BB songs I just mentioned are great songs for me.  Now that I've listened to in the right mindset (before I'm totally into a group I don't listen so attentively), this is true especially today.

I was on a day trip one day and I wasn't back at some of our family CDs.  On this same trip I took a Led Zeppelin album which is another band I wasn't totally into yet, so that's kind of interesting.  Anyways, the Beach Boys CD was Pet Sounds.  At this point I knew Wouldn't It Be Nice and Sloop John B, so though songs resonated with me upon listening.  Going back to what I said about the listening mindset, this still didn't clinch my interest.  Granted I thought it was fairly nice but not knowing most of the material did bore me a bit at first to be completely honest.  I don't feel the same today, but just to put how differently I felt God Only Knows didn't stand out to me until repeated listens.  These repeated listens would come together along with the next steps, to reach the opinion I think of the album now.  It was not responsible for my obsession however.

Sorry this is so long, but we're getting there. As my interest in classic rock music continued to grow, one day I decided I would look up a top classic rock songs list and listen to them all through Youtube.  I took one with 100 songs, two of which were Beach Boys songs.  They were California Girls and Good Vibrations.  CG I recognized but to this day I can't remember where.  I didn't really associate it with the band too much but I was aware of the song.  I liked the chorus.  Good Vibrations I actually found a bit different at first with the theremin emphasized in this particular live performance.  It definitely was interesting, but most of the songs on the list were.  The Beach Boys still didn't stand out, even though especially the latter is a huge song for me now.  That goes back again to listening mindset.

Now I'm approaching the real deal.  I came across an episode of Full House once upon a time with the Beach Boys on it.  I didn't think much of it, but in the end credits they did play a couple live songs.  Barbara Ann and Kokomo I believe.  Later in the series of that show a version of Forever was played.  I know some people hate the version but the melody really reminded of a Beatles ballad at the time (now I consider it better, especially having heard the original version).  So I actually looked up where the song fit in their catalogue, because it was unlike what I still had though of the Beach Boys.  I noticed it appeared both on Sunflower and Summer In Paradise, but I figured the older one would be interesting to hear.  But I didn't hear it yet.  Nevertheless an idea was set.

I came across that episode of Full House again with the live performance.  At the time I thought it would have been a 70's song of theirs for some reason (my perception of the BBs music in comparison to their career was off).  The live version sounded more modern to me, and I had no clue what the studio sounded like.  My opinion of Barbara Ann has lessened considerably since then, probably to the level of the first songs I heard of the Beach Boys.  But it did do something significant.  I had no clue as to the name, and really did want to hear it.  I went to Amazon in hopes to hear a sample of it, and figured it'd be on their first greatest hits album I see.  That ended up being Sounds of Summer, which did have it, but I still didn't know the name.  That forced me to randomly pick out a song here or there.  I went to the third quarter of the album with my odd presumption into its period in their career.  The track sequencing had me in luck, but not before having heard I Can Hear Music, Do You Wanna Dance, and Darlin'.  I was adventurous to listen to others.  I heard the ones I knew again (Surfin' Safari, Surfin' USA, Little Deuce Coupe, Fun Fun Fun, California Girls, Wouldn't It Be Nice, Sloop John B, and Good Vibrations).  I also listened to a couple other random ones (which I believe were Wild Honey and I Get Around).  This was pretty impressive, but Darlin' especially REALLY jumped out at me.  That song just really caught my ear. That's probably the answer to this thread finally.

A little after this time I got an I-pod, which Darlin' promptly found its place on, as well as Wild Honey, Do You Wanna Dance, and I Can Hear Music.  I was just trying to get down some I'd heard that one day.  Carl Wilson's voice was dominant on three of these four songs, and this really got me interested.  I would go through the catalogue looking for songs with his vocals in it.  It proved well as next I found This Whole World, Friends, and Long Promised Road.  After that I starting grouping some of the interesting ones of the past (including the original Forever) and it just spiralled from there.  I'll spare you of anymore for today.

[SG7]

Song: When I Grow Up (To Be A Man)

Album(s): Endless Summer, Sounds of Summer, Pet Sounds


The rest is history and have not looked back since memorial day 2004...

[wiggbuggie]

well im a fan of oldies and classic rock and i knew the early beach boys hits with there stripped tee shirts. I was thinking of buying an album from them or a best then i decided on pet sounds hearing how great that album is so I went to a store and they they had pet sounds with the dvd brought it listened to it and was blown away then the rest is history

[Daniel S.]

CATCH A WAVE

Being American and listening to oldies radio as a child I was always aware of the Beach Boys music. One day when I was a bit older, I heard 'Catch A Wave' on the radio and was really blown away by it, the production and especially Brian's falsetto on the song. It took me places music had never taken me before.

[Summer_Days]

The song was 'Wouldn't It Be Nice', now my favorite song, and it was the album it belongs to. I first heard the 1990 Pet Sounds CD remaster in April-May 1999, changing me forever. Very soon after that I bought Endless Summer on CD to get a feeling of what came before. So that's why I'm here.

[Malc]

Mid-73 - or maybe '74 - and I raided my elder sisters record collection and came across this cool picture of a surfer (albeit not a real photo but a drawing) so out of sheer curiosity I put the album on the family turntable. A cheap EMI re-issue of the "All Summer Long" album and 'POW', that did it for me ...
Sadly lost the original copy years ago (don't think I ever did give it back to my sister) but have since replaced it in my now vast collection with a signed edition ... 

[XY]

As a kid, I bought the Still Cruisin' cassette, because I new "Surfin' USA" from the radio and thought that's a cool song and wanted to have it. The person in the record shop told me it's on that cassette, of course it wasn't. But I wasn't disappointed and played SC over and over again. That's probably why I still love it. So much for the BB, I became a Beatles fan and didn't care anymore.
Years later, someone at school had internet and even a CD burner and sold MP3-sourced Audio CD's. You told him what songs you wanted and you got them the next day. He must have made millions. I always loved "Sloop John B" and that had to be part of the CD - "What, you like that?", the rest of the CD was cool stuff.
After that, Santa Claus had to bring me a Best of Comp and then things started to become really interesting. I knew half of the songs anyway, but songs like "The Little Girl I Once Knew", "You're So Good To Me" or "You Still Believe In Me" were new to me and sounded so different and special. From Paul McCartney's praise I knew that Pet Sounds had to be something special, so that was the next step and from then on, nothing could stop the BB journey. At the same time, there was a TV doc "Die BB und der Satan" on TV with a long SMiLE segment ("Fire" with firestation film, "Surf's Up" and all that stuff), I was fascinated. We got internet and I spent hours downloading the SMiLE stuff (hours with a 56 K modem, a lot of patience for a little music). There were tons of SMiLE sites around in 1999. After that I got the GV boxset, PS boxset and all the twofers over the next year. See, illegal MP3 download can have a promotional aspect! 

[lance]

I think it's awesome that some of you got turned on by things like Full House and Still Cruisin'. That means even the cheese serves a higher purpose!

I used to hate them, I guess in retrospect I didn't give them a chance because of things like Full House and Still cruisin'. I remember ridiculing someone for likign them once. Man, what a snob I was! I couldn't imagine doing that now about anybody, but ten years ago. You betcha.

 I often played Wouldn't It Be Nice to students to teach a certain lesson and after a while I started thinking that the song was(surprise, surprise) pretty cool.

I saw God Only Knows at the end of some Cheesey romantic comedy and it made me cry--the music, nto the movie.

Last December(about a week later), I bought Sounds of Summer on a whim at a mall record store while my girlfriend was taking her sweet time buying clothes.

The kids reallyloved I Get Around, playing the intro over and over and over again which was the second song on it and I just started listening to it a lot.

I checked them out on You Tube and her some smile stuff(that I can't find there anymore!) and the TV special Surf's Up and was blown away.. My girlfriend bought me The three disc Sounds of Summer Platinum Collection for my birthday. And that was all she wrote. I knew I would have to have all (or almost all) of their albums. I still don't have them all, but I've managed to accumulate an awful lot in the last few months.

I guess then:
God Only Knows/Wouldn't It Be Nice
Sounds of Summer
Smile fragments/Surf's Up
Sound of Summer Platinum Collection--a great collection

[mikeyj]

Well strangely enough the thing that got me interested initially was the Beach Boys TV movie An American Family. I saw my dad watching it once but wasn't really interested but one day (sometime in late 2005) I just sat down and watched it through. Hearing songs like Add Some Music To Your Day, Wouldn't It Be Nice, Surfer Girl, God Only Knows etc.. totally amazed me. But the two songs that really blew me away were In My Room (especially at the end of the song) and Forever. I went and got my dads copy of the Sunflower/Surf's Up twofer and listened to Forever and was totally blown away. I listened to the song over and over. I then heard Tears In The Morning, and although it's nowhere near my favourite song now, I thought at the time "gee, this is pretty good and I've never even heard of it before so maybe there are a lot more songs that are really good that I've never even heard before". I then listened to that CD several times. I remember the first time I heard Surf's Up and I couldn't comprehend what I was hearing. It was just such a strange song (at the time). But that has always been a favourite of mine since. I think I then heard a cheap greatest hits compilation. I must say I wasn't blown away (although I have since come to love and appreciate most of the hits). I then went through the rest of the band's catalogue (slowly) beginning with Pet Sounds and was totally amazed at what I heard.

[Loaf]

"Heroes & Villains"

My parents had a BB hits vol.1 LP that they played when i was young, but it never really registered.

I got into 60s music and psychedelia in my teens, around when the Beatles Anthology series came out. I used to listen to Terry Wogan on BBC Radio 2 in the mornings on the way to school. He played Heroes and Villains and i was stunned that music could be so complex and beautiful and just plain bizarre. i rushed out to buy a second hand 20 Golden Greats with the song on it for £1 and never looked back.

I remember great days out hunting through second hand shops and record fairs for the out-of-print BB LPs (long before the 70s albums were reissued on CD). I was so excited to find LA (Light Album) or, the holy grail, Surf's Up, on holiday in Canada. I paid CA $15 and stared at the sleeve for hours before flying home and being able to listen to it. Those were the days.

[Quincy]

Surfin USA..it was the first 45 I bought

[dsl]

The first time I heard The Beach Boys had to be in '95 when I was 6. That was when the first of those three volume Greatest Hits came out, with the wierd covers and all. It was also the version with the error, so I grew up thinking that there was no cheerleaders on "Be True To Your School" and "Help Me, Rhonda" always had a harmonica! Then, in '99, we got the single disc issue of Pet Sounds and I think I was officially taken after that. With the Beatles, my parents turned me into die-hards, but with the BBs, it's been the opposite. We're a Massachusetts family, with no connection to California or anything, so it was understandable why I couldn't find any BB albums in thier vinyl collection, among all the British Invasion, Folk and Monkee ( ) LPs. For years it was just the "Greatest Hits," but then I was like, we gotta get more and they couldn't understand it. My dad (who is nowhere near a music fan of anything) couldn't understand why me, a kid who could never surf, would want this stuff. I've had them listen to everything, and I think they understand now.   I dragged them into Boston to see Brian in '06 and they said it was the best concert they'd ever been to. So the tables have certainly turned...

[49ersphil]

First was "Barbara Ann" which I heard on the radio when I was about 5.
Sounds corny but I liked the name "Beach Boys" because I liked the beach and the sunshine and the song was catchy.

Later on I heard such as "Breakaway" and "Cottonfields" and loved those.
GV was always on the radio as a DJ's choice of oldie (they got to choose them back then) and I was delighted to hear that the band would occasionally hit the UK charts with such as "Sail On Sailor", "Rock and Roll Music" and "Lady Lynda".

I had a UK hits compilation and got into the surf songs through that.

My interest stepped up a few years ago when I started collecting the 2-fers and started acquiring the Unsurpassed Masters series.

I'm now totally hooked and the boys have surpassed The Beatles as my musical obsession. You can never get tired of the boys and Brian as there's so much great stuff there. Some rubbish too but I'll forgive them that 

I've caught the wave and I'm sitting on top of the world.

[punkinhead]

my dad's 8-track copy of the Best of the beach boys

[Zander]

I'd always liked the Beach Boys, and there was no one particular song that turned me on as such. One of my earliest memories (I must've been 3 or 4) is being in Blackpool on a sunny day with my parents and hearing Surfin' USA from a radio in a chip shop and another memory is moving house and I Get Around being on the radio in the removal van! Strange isn't it how you remember things like that...

We'd always had the Greatest Hits at my house but it wasn't until I saw the Endless Harmony documentary that I was blown away by the diverse material. I met Alan Boyd at the Denny Bash in Lutterworth in 2004 and thanked him for that documentary - heh heh! Being a die-hard Beatles fan first, most books on them always mention the Beach Boys as an influence so there was always and intrigue from that point of view.

Also, I remember I found Vincent Bugliosi's "Helter Skelter" book when I was ten and my Mum mentioned that (in her own words) that "Charles Manson was friend's with the Beach Boys". That creeped me out! 

Key Track: I Get Around
Key Album: Summer Days (and Summer Nights!)

[SloopJohnB]

It all started when I was 9 or 10 (that would be around 1998), with the "Made In U.S.A." compilation. I especially liked "I Get Around", "California Girls", "Good Vibrations", 'Heroes And Villains", "Sloop John B." and "Caroline, No".

I remember that I used to stop playing the album just after "Caroline, No" because, to my 9-year-old self, the next songs didn't have the same "feel": "Come Go With Me", "Getcha Back"... When, a few years later, I heard about what had happened around 1966/1967, I was amazed at how my 9-year-old self had managed to hear the difference between the earlier tracks and the later ones. But now I love all of them!

...And if you're talking about my first-ever encounter with the Beach Boys, it's actually one of the few memories I have from my early childhood. In France, around 1991, there was a TV ad for the Chrysler Voyager (it was sold by Chrysler, as neither Plymouth nor Dodge cars were sold in France at the time)... And the soundtrack was "Good Vibrations". I remember it even today! I guess you could say I was hooked for life when I was just 3