Long Promised Road: The 1967-1971 Beach Boys

October 8, 2013 5:30 PM

"Isn't it an essential component to the Beach Boys myth that Brian Wilson retreated to a coma-like state after the Smile sessions?" Edwin C. Faust reviews Smiley Smile (1967), Wild Honey (1967), Friends (1968), 20/20 (1969), Sunflower (1970) and Surf's Up (1971).
posted by paleyellowwithorange (32 comments total)

I spent my last few months of high school obsessed with Smiley Smile and Friends, which one of my brother's had somehow discovered. I would play it at parties and my friends would not believe it was The Beach Boys (who were considered deeply uncool at the time).

It wasn't until much later that I learned about the mystique of Pet Sounds and Smile.

Gawd I love Smiley Smile and Friends.
posted by maggiemaggie at 5:47 PM on October 8, 2013

I'm ashamed that, despite hearing about the genius of Surf's Up for years, I didn't dig into it until hearing "Feel Flows" under the Almost Famous credits. I think it might now be my favorite Beach Boys tune.

My personal fave from Smiley Smile is "Fall Breaks and Back to Winter", which was also brilliantly used as a link between Canaxis and African Headcharge by author/composer David Toop on the companion soundtrack to his book Ocean of Sound.

I don't love the writing of this piece; he's rather overzealous with the semicolons; and I don't find his criticism interesting at all; but I won't dispute the genius of the music.
posted by mykescipark at 6:12 PM on October 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

My dad was a big Beach Boys fan, and I grew up listening to Pet Sounds and Smilely smile (didn't listen much to the coma years, but I guess I have some catching up to do. Thanks PYWO). Then, when I went to college, I made the mistake of telling a group of my new-found friends that I thought the Beach Boys were better than the Beatles.* For awhile there, I didn't think that anyone would respect my musical taste again. What's with the reputation? Did Full House and Uncle Jesse ruin everything?

* Please don't force me to relive this awful debate. I love the Beatles too! I swear!
posted by snarfles at 6:15 PM on October 8, 2013

It's still difficult to tell people that I really love the Beach Boys. I mean, it's not difficult to tell them, but it's difficult for them to understand who I'm talking about. People tend to have an image of striped shirts and simple surf/car songs.

What's with the reputation? Did Full House and Uncle Jesse ruin everything?

The Beach Boys were on the road to becoming a really interesting band in the early 70s, but then Mike Love had his way and they descended into becoming a Beach Boys cover band; this is the Beach Boys which has been reinforced into the general consciousness for over thirty years now.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 6:21 PM on October 8, 2013 [5 favorites]

a Beach Boys cover band

And by that I mean a surf/car songs cover band.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 6:27 PM on October 8, 2013

Qualifying Question #37, Application to Become a Friend to DirtyOldTown:

37) Pet Sounds is one of the very best pop records ever made. Right?

a) Yes! It is a wonder to behold!
b) No. I am dead inside.

Note: it is extremely difficult to get a passing grade on this test if you answer this question incorrectly.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:31 PM on October 8, 2013 [4 favorites]

I love Wild Honey so much, too, though. Thanks, PYWO.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:33 PM on October 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

PYWO - the folks over at pop culture happy hour unsurprisingly touched on the Beach Boys in their discussion of when a band stops being a band
posted by snarfles at 6:33 PM on October 8, 2013

Hm, interesting, thanks.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 6:35 PM on October 8, 2013

37) Pet Sounds is one of the very best pop records ever made. Right?

I enjoy Pet Sounds, and have and enjoy the Pet Sounds Sessions box set and all. But I'd rather listen to any of the 67-71 albums any day of the week, if I had to choose between any one of them and Pet Sounds.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 6:38 PM on October 8, 2013

Ooh! I just discovered there's a new Beach Boys box set just released, superseding 1993's Good Vibrations: Made in California. Lots of previously-unreleased stuff! New mixes! Oy oy!
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 6:48 PM on October 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

I love Wild Honey so much, too

Me to, too.
posted by Divine_Wino at 6:58 PM on October 8, 2013

Their best work was with the gang from Full House.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:59 PM on October 8, 2013

I came to appreciate the Beach Boys when I listened to them jam with the Grateful Dead at the Filmore East. (Music starts at the 3:59 mark. )

EastVillageRadio.com said about that session, The Beach Boys joined The Grateful Dead onstage at The Fillmore East and there must have been at least a few people worried they ate some bad acid....With the underrated Sunflower LP behind them and Surf’s Up still months away, the Brian Wilson-less Beach Boys joined Jerry and company on the Fillmore East’s stage on April 27th, 1971 and collaborated on the rhythm and blues number Riot In Cell Block #9 and Merle Haggard’s Okie From Muskogee. At one point The Dead left the stage and allowed The Beach Boys to jam the decidedly “un-hip in ‘71” songs Good Vibrations, I Get Around and Rhonda featuring Garcia adding some guitar licks toward the end of the song.

One of the more unlikely collaborations in the Dead’s long strange strip (well, until Bruce Hornsby stepped up as a temporary keyboardist)--the meeting of these two legendary Californian groups on a NYC stage is actually quite listenable and interesting for fans of either band.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:02 PM on October 8, 2013 [3 favorites]

From 1986-87, I lived in (then West) Germany as an exchange student. It was a very odd, intense year for me, full of a lot of personal discovery and cultural realizations. I started to sink into a pretty deep morass of depression about halfway through the year there. I was saved by the release of Made In U.S.A., a career-spanning chronological compilation of the Beach Boys most successful releases.

I'd honestly never paid that much attention to The Beach Boys before that. But that album was a tiny lifeline to something which was specifically very very American, and it helped me dig out of my downward spiral and get through the remainder of my time abroad with flying colors.

I've been a huge fan ever since, and have learned so much more about them after basically "discovering" them through that album (despite them having been a constant inescapable part of the soundtrack of existence since I was born)...

Thanks for this post. I haven't really listened to any BB albums end to end other than Pet Sounds and Smile. This will be fun to dig into.
posted by hippybear at 7:07 PM on October 8, 2013 [3 favorites]

I probably have eight or ten Beach Boys albums, and the only one that's not close to my heart is the The Beach Boys Christmas Album. It's not that it's bad, really. There are some great songs. The problem is, the damned thing is less than 30 minutes long, and starting in early November, my mom would put the tape into the car stereo and refuse to remove it until New Year's Day.

That kind of thing will make you wanna beat Frosty's snowy ass.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:11 PM on October 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Here's the antidote: The Beatles Christmas Album (downloadable mp3s of all the Beatles Christmas records).
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 7:15 PM on October 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Well, up until you get to the 6-minute-plus version of Christmas Time Is Here Again, which really isn't so much of a song as it is a chant... I do admit to liking Ringo's cover on his solo holiday album from a few years back, but really, that song... *shudder*
posted by hippybear at 7:20 PM on October 8, 2013

"O-U-T spells OUT!"

Why, Ringo?
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 7:22 PM on October 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

That's freaky...I was just listening to Surf's Up and Wild Honey this afternoon!
posted by spicynuts at 7:30 PM on October 8, 2013

I didn't dig into it until hearing "Feel Flows" under the Almost Famous credits. I think it might now be my favorite Beach Boys tune.

It's definitely right up there at the top for me. A must listen for anyone who considers themselves a Beach Boys hater, along with "Long Promised Road" from the same album.

Oh Hell, just listen to the entirety of Surf's Up already, you philistines!
posted by Atom Eyes at 7:48 PM on October 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm glad that people have come to respect the Pet Sounds/Good Vibrations and twilight era Beach Boys, but am somewhat dismayed that people continue to write off the earlier "car songs". Yeah, there's a lot of filler back there, but there's also some very finely crafted pop songs that people are missing out on. Little Deuce Coupe, for example, was praised and musically quoted by Frank Zappa. I'd say that--excluding stuff like Christmas albums--every album from All Summer Long until some of the 70s garbage (M.I.U/Light Album, etc.) is worth hearing.
posted by TrialByMedia at 7:49 PM on October 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Agreed. I have every Beach Boys album from Surfin' Safari (1962) to The Beach Boys Love You (1977), and there's gold throughout. I love them all. A dedicated Beach Boys habit is rewarding and rewarding and rewarding.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 7:57 PM on October 8, 2013

I played Barbara Ann on repeat for weeks straight. Can't get enough of that false start. I just looked it up and was surprised to learn that it was a cover. Wikipedia also says the following, and I kid you not: Due to the unclear vocalizations of the lyrics, many people, especially millennials, have to come to know the song as "Bob Baran", thus leading many to believe this was the first song about an openly gay relationship between the singer and a man named "Bob Baran".
posted by snarfles at 8:11 PM on October 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

There's a little moment I love in 'Barbara Ann'.

When you listen to the session immediately preceding the master take, they're discussing the order of the verbs and names in the verse after the instrumental break. Then, just as that verse is about to begin, you can hear Mike prompt the rest of the group, "Saw... tried...", and then they begin singing, and mess up the order immediately, and Brian and Dean just crack up laughing.

I always thought it was funny, and then, when I heard the session recordings, just thought it was even funnier. But, as Dean says, "It doesn't matter - we're at a party."
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 8:19 PM on October 8, 2013

Due to the unclear vocalizations of the lyrics, many people, especially millennials, have to come to know the song as "Bob Baran"

Where I grew up, there was a car dealer named Bob Moran who licensed the rights to the song for the creation of his own TV advertisement jingle: "Bob-bob-bob, Bob-bob Moran."

I still have trouble disassociating from that ad, 20 or more years later.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 8:41 PM on October 8, 2013

What's with the reputation?

It's because of this.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:25 AM on October 9, 2013

But I'd rather listen to any of the 67-71 albums any day of the week, if I had to choose between any one of them and Pet Sounds.

Point of order: one doesn't listen to Pet Sounds, one sets aside time to marvel at, and with, Pet Sounds.

Unless one is cleaning. Then one might "listen". And/or to sob joyfully during Caroline No
posted by petebest at 5:33 AM on October 9, 2013

I made the mistake of telling a group of my new-found friends that I thought the Beach Boys were better than the Beatles.* For awhile there, I didn't think that anyone would respect my musical taste again.

FWIW, the Beatles listened to and respected the Beach Boys.

The Beatles' "Here, There And Everywhere" was inspired by this song [God Only Knows]. John Lennon and Paul McCartney heard Pet Sounds at a party and went back to Lennon's house to write it. Paul McCartney once called "God Only Knows" "The greatest song ever written."

posted by Kirth Gerson at 7:40 AM on October 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

No talk of Sunflower yet?

Listen to the production on *this* !
posted by zbsachs at 10:45 AM on October 9, 2013

> What's with the reputation?

It's because of this.

I never understood all the hate for Kokomo. It's a beautiful song.

No talk of Sunflower yet?

Listen to the production on *this* !

Oh man, it's just pure bliss, right? That reverb-drenched vocal: "My love is burning brightly."

Recently it was a temperate evening, and I went outside and lay on my back, stargazing, with Sunflower on the headphones. "Late at night I think about the love of this whole world..." That album, there are moments when I'm transported to a very rapturous place.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 3:18 PM on October 9, 2013

I have come here to say this: I have always loved the Beach Boys. But man, Kokomo almost made a hater out of me.

And I thank the Internet for making SMiLe bootlegs available. It truly justified my love.
posted by tommasz at 5:37 AM on October 10, 2013