Student Demonstration Time: your favourite Beach Boys songs

[dontpaintyourteeth]

The Beach Boys. Funny old band, eh? Possibly only one indisputably great Rock Canon album but still one of the best to ever do it. I always quite liked how you had to dig around on compilations and boots and whatnot to hear some of the best stuff, though having to endure things like Transcendental Meditation and I'm Bugged at My Old Man might be too much like homework for some.

Anyway post songs you like or talk about how they're secretly completely toss or something. I don't know. I lost confidence before I posted this one.

[Cleveland Steamer]

Bit of an obvious choice, but Kokomo.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Lock this thread

[tolecnal]

Great, influential band I don't particularly enjoy listening to. They definitely led the way to music I do like a lot.

I'll go with something off Friends. Nice instrumental track... can't think of its name.  "Passing By"?

I've heard nearly all of their albums, numerous time. I rated them higher when I was younger. Lyrically they hit the edge of earnestness and cheese far too often. I prefer the compositions, especially when wordless.

[boki]

Without them, we couldn't have had this:

[spaghetamine]

this slightly baffling cover always gets me in the mood for extreme violence

[kalowski]

Sail on Sailor

[SteveDave]

It's a toss-up between "Feel Flows", "Long Promised Road", "It Takes A Mess Of Help To Stand Alone" and ""Trader" for me.

NO! "A Day In The Life Of A Tree"!

Hi!

I believe that Brian isn't all that and shouldn't be put on the same pedestal as Paul McCartney. Two years of greatness and then he couldn't handle his high. Fuck him.

[Eggy Mess]

Sail on Sailor

Holland is a groovy and odd little album. I like that 7" it comes with quite a lot.

Surf's Up (the song) is my choice for whatever this thread is about

[jobotic]

Can I go totally leftfield and pick little known obscurity God Only Knows?

[dontpaintyourteeth]

It's a toss-up between "Feel Flows", "Long Promised Road", "It Takes A Mess Of Help To Stand Alone" and ""Trader" for me.

Hi!

I believe that Brian isn't all that and shouldn't be put on the same pedestal as Paul McCartney. Two years of greatness and then he couldn't handle his high. Fuck him.

Tbh I think the lie that the Beach Boys are on the same level as the Beatles was mostly perpetuated by Americans, in an example of what I believe the kids these days call "cope"

[BlodwynPig]

Nearly as over-hyped as that other children's pop band, The Bettles.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

I'm not reading blodders reply but I'm assuming it's something about how they don't like the beatles

[gilbertharding]

Tbh I think the lie that the Beach Boys are on the same level as the Beatles was mostly perpetuated by Americans, in an example of what I believe the kids these days call "cope"

The fact (and it is a fact) that it took two American bands (the Byrds are the other ones) to measure up to the Beatles says it all for me Clive.

[DrGreggles]

Can I go totally leftfield and pick little known obscurity God Only Knows?

Probably mine too.
It's fucking beautiful.

[Pranet]

I'm very fond of Darlin'

[SteveDave]

I'm very fond of Darlin'

The remixed version on the "Sunshine Tomorrow" box is like seeing colours for the first time. The horns are brought right up and make it sound brand new.

[Kankurette]

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Nearly as over-hyped as that other children's pop band, The Bettles.

i too would prefer to listen to the theme from Mastermind played on a chapman stick

[BlodwynPig]

i too would prefer to listen to the theme from Mastermind played on a chapman stick

King Crimson's "Neal and Jack and Me" is as close to The Beach Boys in anything in my record collection.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Tbh I think the lie that the Beach Boys are on the same level as the Beatles was mostly perpetuated by Americans, in an example of what I believe the kids these days call "cope"

i agree with this, "smile would have blown away sgt peppers and the white album" is absolute cope... but at the same time i love them for what they are, as much the myth annoys me

they have a ton of great songs and brian is a weirdo. the annoyance of the mythology no longer influences my appreciation of their beautiful 60s material or the weirdo 70s pop

[Video Game Fan 2000]

King Crimson's "Neal and Jack and Me" is as close to The Beach Boys in anything in my record collection.

last minute of this track is glorious i have to be fair

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

i agree with this, "smile would have blown away sgt peppers and the white album" is absolute cope...

No one apart from boring men who post on the Steve Hoffman forums truly believes that.

I'm very fond of the various version of Smile we have, it's an occasionally inspired and brilliant sprawl of pretentious goofball insanity, but even if it had been released at the time, I reckon it would be regarded to this day as little more than an ambitious curio. A sort of masterpiece, but not a magnum opus.

Anyway, it's all moot. As you say, I'm glad the Beach Boys are what they are.

[kalowski]

I was playing this the other day. It's spellbinding.

[tom_exorcisto]

Cabinessence. Just love the banjo and the accordian stuff. "Who ran the iron horse" and "Over and over, the crow cries uncover the corn field" pop into my head all the time. Bloody love The Beach Boys though, my favourites list is long.

[Jim_MacLaine]

[daf]

Co-written by several terrible wrong-uns - Enjoy!

Released as a single in Canada in November 1989 - did not chart

In the summer of 1988, The Beach Boys unexpectedly claimed their first U.S. number one single in 22 years with "Kokomo". The single peaked at #25 in the UK, and had appeared in the movie Cocktail - which gave Mike Love a brilliant idea for The Beach Boys next album. Over to you, Mike  . . .

Mike Love : "The theme of that album was to have been songs that have been in movies."

Thanks Mike! As well as 'Kokomo', the album opener "Still Cruisin'" had appeared in a film - Lethal Weapon 2, as did "Make It Big" which was recorded for the timeless classic Troop Beverly Hills. Unfortunately none of the other new songs, including the recent Fat Boys single "Wipe Out", had appeared in any films. As a result, three whiskery old Beach Boys chestnuts (that had recently appeared in films) - "I Get Around" (Good Morning, Vietnam)  /  "Wouldn't It Be Nice"  (The Big Chill)   /  and "California Girls" (Soul Man) - were beaten about the private parts with rubber truncheons and herded on to the end of the album.



Mike Love : "It was basically a repackage. But then it got watered down with politics, meaning Brian's Dr. Landy forcing a song called "In My Car," which was never in a movie, and a song by Jardine, which ultimately ended up on the album, called "Island Girl," which was never in a movie either. So to me the concept was a little bit diluted there politically."

The highlight of the album, "Somewhere Near Japan", was a co-write between Bruce Johnston, terrible wrong-un Mike Love, Terry Melcher, and terrible wrong-un John Phillips. Phillips' daughter, Mackenzie, had a public battle with drug addiction, and the song is loosely based on when she and her husband had run out out of money and drugs while on their honeymoon. They frantically called John from their current location - which was "Somewhere Near Japan".

[Jim_MacLaine]

[cosmic-hearse]

The Beach Boys were originally called The Pendletones, which is such a vividly preppy name & I wish they'd kept it.

Don't know about favourite songs, but LP wise Pet Sounds through to Surf's Up is a solid run.

Love You is a decent later effort & has a greater hit to dud ratio than, say, McCartney II.

[lazyhour]

Love them. The two albums leading up to Pet Sounds are really underrated and contain flashes of the Spector-esque career high they were about to hit.

I'm also a big fan of the Sunflower and Friends LPs. Busy Doin Nothin is a low-key highlight, and the directions given in the song were apparently an accurate description of how to get to Brian's house at the time. They (wisely) didn't disclose the starting location.