I would love to hear a Brian Wilson who was broke and fameless recording Smiley Smile in his room on a 4 track.
Instead we got a lunatic with a bottomless recording budget and the pressure to record hit songs in order to keep a large number of people happy who depended on him.
He could have been Daniel Johnston, Skip Spence and Bobb Trimble rolled in to one.
Instead he was like a retarded Brill Building savant who can't deal with reality.
What the Beach Boys were is over rated.
What they could/should have been is under-rated.
This is entirely possible, but we'll never know.
Of course that's more a defense of Wilson than of the whole group.
Brian was the reason they were "soft".....the rest of those dudes were life sized puppets.
I would love to hear a Brian Wilson who was broke and fameless recording Smiley Smile in his room on a 4 track.
Instead we got a lunatic with a bottomless recording budget and the pressure to record hit songs in order to keep a large number of people happy who depended on him.
He could have been Daniel Johnston, Skip Spence and Bobb Trimble rolled in to one.
Instead he was like a retarded Brill Building savant who can't deal with reality.
What the Beach Boys were is over rated.
What they could/should have been is under-rated.
This is entirely possible, but we'll never know.
Of course that's more a defense of Wilson than of the whole group.
Brian was the reason they were "soft".....the rest of those dudes were life sized puppets.
Mike Love sang on a bunch of the early hits including "Be True To Your School." And he's the vomitmeister behind "Kokomo," which I think they did after Wilson was long gone. I think I hate "Kokomo" even more than "Be True."
I would love to hear a Brian Wilson who was broke and fameless recording Smiley Smile in his room on a 4 track.
Instead we got a lunatic with a bottomless recording budget and the pressure to record hit songs in order to keep a large number of people happy who depended on him.
He could have been Daniel Johnston, Skip Spence and Bobb Trimble rolled in to one.
Instead he was like a retarded Brill Building savant who can't deal with reality.
What the Beach Boys were is over rated.
What they could/should have been is under-rated.
This is entirely possible, but we'll never know.
Of course that's more a defense of Wilson than of the whole group.
Brian was the reason they were "soft".....the rest of those dudes were life sized puppets.
Mike Love sang on a bunch of the early hits including "Be True To Your School." And he's the vomitmeister behind "Kokomo," which I think they did after Wilson was long gone. I think I hate "Kokomo" even more than "Be True."
Name a puppet with less musical talent than Mike Love.
The consensus at Waxidermy was Kraftwerk. After months of discussion they were the only band that didn't have at least one person poo pooing their oeuvre.
Musta been before I got there, or I didn't participate in the thread, 'cause I can't stand 'em.
I wouldn't say they were overrated or underrated - they deserve all the "rates" they can get, for what they do.
Every true musical genius is a lunatic on some level.
Brian Wilson fits that bill.
But due to a one-in-a-million perfect storm of capitalist/Capitolist greed in combo with an evil stage father, he was plugged in to this pop hit making machine of mediocrity.
The music of the Beach Boys (especially the hits of the early to mid '60s that they are most famous for) is anything but mediocre.
Rockadelic said:
The early Beach Boys stuff is kiddie level pop that found a decent size audience and still thrills the Hot Rod/Surf nostalgia crowd.
Sorry, but it is not just the Hot Rod/Surf nostalgia crowd that loves this music. I neither drive a Hot Rod (I drive a 2008 Chevy Impala) nor do I surf (nor was I kid or teenager in the '60s), but I love the music of the Beach Boys. It is not kiddie level pop, it is master level pop that has and will continue to stand the test of time.
Rockadelic said:
I would love to hear a Brian Wilson who was broke and fameless recording Smiley Smile in his room on a 4 track.
Just out of curiosity, are you sure you are not talking about "Smile" as opposed to Smiley Smile? (just checkin')
Smiley Smile for sure is one of the most (perhaps the most) truly bizarre, unsettling, musically skeletal, murky sounding and outright uncommercial records (despite the inclusion, against Brian's wishes, of 'Good Vibrations') ever released by a major label.
For the record, the "broke and fameless" small label analogue to Smiley Smile would be The Egg Store Ilk by Richard Earl (of Swell Maps "fame.")
Rockadelic said:
What the Beach Boys were is over rated.
The Beach Boys are not overrated. They are the single most important American band of the second half of the 20th century. They truly are America's Band.
The Beach Boys are not overrated. They are the single most important American band of the second half of the 20th century. They truly are America's Band.
The Beach Boys are not overrated. They are the single most important American band of the second half of the 20th century. They truly are America's Band.
Talk about OVERRATING.
The Beach Boys are not overrated and their importance and influence in the course of the history of rock and popular music can not be overstated.
The Beach Boys are not overrated. They are the single most important American band of the second half of the 20th century. They truly are America's Band.
Talk about OVERRATING.
The Beach Boys are not overrated and their importance and influence in the course of the history of rock and popular music can not be overstated.
important yes, "MOST IMPORTANT"........... :oh_my:
The Beach Boys are not overrated. They are the single most important American band of the second half of the 20th century. They truly are America's Band.
Talk about OVERRATING.
The Beach Boys are not overrated and their importance and influence in the course of the history of rock and popular music can not be overstated.
important yes, "THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT"........... :oh_my:
The Beach Boys are not overrated. They are the single most important American band of the second half of the 20th century. They truly are America's Band.
Why do you hate America?
The Bitch Boys aren't fit to lick the sweat off the Ramones' leather jackets.
The Bitch Boys are the preferred band of bedwetters and agoraphobes.
Okay, so your mom told you that Mike Love was your real dad or something. That's no reason to embarrass yourself by shilling for some limpazoids in public.
Here's the answer to the musical question, "What if the Beatles had been castrated at birth and airdropped into the US?":
Filling up a stat sheet doesn't always bring rings, my man. You know this.
How many of the NBA 50 Greatest Players DONT have a RING?
Plus, with 2Pac, I'd say that his hold on the true core audience for rap, which didn't come from him being a technician but an enigmatic leader, trumps any other rapper ever by long miles. Big and Jay-Z are probably the closest, but those dudes were far too me-me to even hold a candle to 2Pacs' us-us.
Three of the most over rated rappers of all time in my book.
The Beach Boys are not overrated. They are the single most important American band of the second half of the 20th century. They truly are America's Band.
Why do you hate America?
I love America (as did Johnny Ramone, much to your consternation, I know.) To love The Beach Boys is to love America (and vice versa.)
PelvicDust said:
The Bitch Boys aren't fit to lick the sweat off the Ramones' leather jackets.
Look, I know that the history of rock music is not your forte, even though you are, ostensibly, a fan of this form of popular music in its myriad offshoots and configurations, but to make such a statement regarding The Beach Boys vis-a-vis The Ramones is laughable in its sheer ludicrousness. The Ramones (a seminal and awesome band in their own right... at least for the time when Tommy was manning the drum stool, plus a few occasional moments of brilliance scattered here and there pell-mell across the remainder of their post-Tommy discography) loved the upbeat all American pop perfection that is the (pre-Pet Sounds era) music of The Beach Boys, covered their songs and modelled the architecture of their own song structures on that which The Beach Boys perfected a decade earlier. The Ramones are The Beach Boys in overdrive, minus the perfected vocal harmonies of the boys from Hawthorne, but listen to the background vocals on 'I Don't Want To Walk Around With You' for an object lesson in The Ramones' blatant Beach Boys-ophilia (take a listen to the equally awesome Dictators and their quintessential track '(I Live For) Cars And Girls' for another lesson (pay attention, Moe!) in the importance of the music and the legacy of The Beach Boys.)
As far as the Beach Boys, Brian Wilson was a very gifted arranger...Pet Sounds is mostly 30 minutes of " what is making that sound?" Combining different instruments playing simultaneously to make sounds that are at once familiar but unrecognizable is a talent BUT Phil Spector did it better. Thus ends my praising of anything Beach Boy.
"single most important band" whatever. Buddy Holly and the Crickets made more of an impact in the couple dozen months they were around than the couple dozen years the BB were around.
The first 3 Velvet Underground LPs made more of an impact on the next 3 decades after their release than the Beach Boy's influence. Beach Boys are a nice little band, but "single most important"? Nope
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Craig said:
HarveyCanal said:
batmon said:
HarveyCanal said:
Filling up a stat sheet doesn't always bring rings, my man. You know this.
How many of the NBA 50 Greatest Players DONT have a RING?
Plus, with 2Pac, I'd say that his hold on the true core audience for rap, which didn't come from him being a technician but an enigmatic leader, trumps any other rapper ever by long miles. Big and Jay-Z are probably the closest, but those dudes were far too me-me to even hold a candle to 2Pacs' us-us.
Three of the most over rated rappers of all time in my book.
:talib:
I'd be scared to know who you rate higher than those 3.
While the Beach Boys certainly have their fans and supporters, the real question is whether the next generation of music listeners will give a shit. Try convincing a 16-year-old of Brian Wilson's "genius." You can post the same question to the same teen regarding a group like Kraftwerk or even Jay-Z and the answer will be quite different. The key to longevity is the uncanny ability to connect with future generations and their changing aesthetics. I don't think the Beach Boys have that power and we'll watch as they slowly become marginalized as the decades roll on, only to be reminded of their "influence" by aging critics and nostalgia hounds with limited perspective.
While the Beach Boys certainly have their fans and supporters, the real question is whether the next generation of music listeners will give a shit. Try convincing a 16-year-old of Brian Wilson's "genius." You can post the same question to the same teen regarding a group like Kraftwerk or even Jay-Z and the answer will be quite different. .
It's funny you bring this up. My nephews are 14 and 16 and I'm astonished at what they love and listen to. They worship groups like the psych-era Beatles, Beach Boys, Floyd, Hendrix, Zeppelin... and they detest today's music (or atleast the commercial stuff that uses over production and auto-tune). This is the same music I listened to 20 years a go. The music is timeless. I can't really explain why this music is so timeless, but it's something about the approach in the 60s and 70s that will never be replicated.
This is not at all a comment on the worthiness of their music--which I like a lot, and which is important to a lot of white people (like me), and maybe other people, too, I don't know--but one unfortunate aspect of the Beach Boys' legacy is that they're pretty much Patient Zero for these last several generations of music nerds who, flush with the promise of flag-planting and/or martyrdom, will seize on some plop of popular, slight-seeming musical output, meticulously dissect it upon a sturdy slab of theory and rhetoric, and then ultimately hold forth, for all to see, the work's Overlooked Genius--the superficial duckling become intellectually validated swan.
A key part of this transaction--the reason it works with the Beach Boys but not the Beatles, or with Michael Jackson but not Prince, or with Madonna but not Lady Gaga, or with Biggie but not with Tupac, or with Dipset but not Anti-Pop Consortium, or with that one band that only you know about but not that other band that only you know about--is that the artist in question must not themselves make any real, accepted claim to profundity; that part must always be left to the music nerd. Whenever an artist openly says, "Hey, this is some serious shit we're working on here," it effectively casts the music nerd out of one of their key roles, that of evangelist/seer of The Truth, forcing them to either adapt (traditionally not the strong suit of the music nerd), or find another, darker corner to illuminate.
I mean, lord knows I'm a pretty frequent perpetrator myself, but I still have a real distaste for that particular strain of musical critique, and I see the last couple decades' critical reappraisal of the Beach Boys as something close to the root of it.
Again, I like them a lot--I'm just saying.
And America's most important band is The Beatles. Get off the bullshit.
While the Beach Boys certainly have their fans and supporters, the real question is whether the next generation of music listeners will give a shit. Try convincing a 16-year-old of Brian Wilson's "genius." You can post the same question to the same teen regarding a group like Kraftwerk or even Jay-Z and the answer will be quite different. The key to longevity is the uncanny ability to connect with future generations and their changing aesthetics. I don't think the Beach Boys have that power and we'll watch as they slowly become marginalized as the decades roll on, only to be reminded of their "influence" by aging critics and nostalgia hounds with limited perspective.
Whatutalkinabout?? There are a ton of bands around now that are aping that Beach Boys / Soft Psych sound. It's all very hip daddy-o.
Filling up a stat sheet doesn't always bring rings, my man. You know this.
How many of the NBA 50 Greatest Players DONT have a RING?
Plus, with 2Pac, I'd say that his hold on the true core audience for rap, which didn't come from him being a technician but an enigmatic leader, trumps any other rapper ever by long miles. Big and Jay-Z are probably the closest, but those dudes were far too me-me to even hold a candle to 2Pacs' us-us.
Three of the most over rated rappers of all time in my book.
:talib:
I'd be scared to know who you rate higher than those 3.
Don't think you would like to know (Euro man related).
To be honest Biggie is a decent enough all round MC, I'm personally not too keen on him so thats just taste, but I think he's defiantly well over rated.
a ton of bands around now that are aping that Beach Boys / Soft Psych sound. It's all very hip daddy-o.
DCarfagna said:
nostalgia hounds with limited perspective.
I think I know where you're coming from, DCarf, but, I mean, the question is never "Will there be nostalgia?" but rather "What kind of nostalgia will there be?" Devotees of Kraftwerk and of Jay-Z are chasing their own brand of nostalgia, please believe.
I think the thing that problematizes the Beach Boys for a lot of folks is that they are so very, very white. Connecting them to any sort of black music/aesthetic--which is easily the #1 go-to legitimization for modern aesthetes of all colors--requires some pretty impossible gymnastics of logic.
Comments
Brian was the reason they were "soft".....the rest of those dudes were life sized puppets.
Mike Love sang on a bunch of the early hits including "Be True To Your School." And he's the vomitmeister behind "Kokomo," which I think they did after Wilson was long gone. I think I hate "Kokomo" even more than "Be True."
Name a puppet with less musical talent than Mike Love.
I dare you.
But this is my point. You were supposed to be defending the band.
I know it's not easy. It's like defending herpes.
Musta been before I got there, or I didn't participate in the thread, 'cause I can't stand 'em.
I wouldn't say they were overrated or underrated - they deserve all the "rates" they can get, for what they do.
The music of the Beach Boys (especially the hits of the early to mid '60s that they are most famous for) is anything but mediocre.
Sorry, but it is not just the Hot Rod/Surf nostalgia crowd that loves this music. I neither drive a Hot Rod (I drive a 2008 Chevy Impala) nor do I surf (nor was I kid or teenager in the '60s), but I love the music of the Beach Boys. It is not kiddie level pop, it is master level pop that has and will continue to stand the test of time.
Just out of curiosity, are you sure you are not talking about "Smile" as opposed to Smiley Smile? (just checkin')
Smiley Smile for sure is one of the most (perhaps the most) truly bizarre, unsettling, musically skeletal, murky sounding and outright uncommercial records (despite the inclusion, against Brian's wishes, of 'Good Vibrations') ever released by a major label.
For the record, the "broke and fameless" small label analogue to Smiley Smile would be The Egg Store Ilk by Richard Earl (of Swell Maps "fame.")
The Beach Boys are not overrated. They are the single most important American band of the second half of the 20th century. They truly are America's Band.
Talk about OVERRATING.
The Beach Boys are not overrated and their importance and influence in the course of the history of rock and popular music can not be overstated.
important yes, "MOST IMPORTANT"........... :oh_my:
Why do you hate America?
The Bitch Boys aren't fit to lick the sweat off the Ramones' leather jackets.
The Bitch Boys are the preferred band of bedwetters and agoraphobes.
Okay, so your mom told you that Mike Love was your real dad or something. That's no reason to embarrass yourself by shilling for some limpazoids in public.
Here's the answer to the musical question, "What if the Beatles had been castrated at birth and airdropped into the US?":
You are correct, sir!
Three of the most over rated rappers of all time in my book.
:talib:
I love America (as did Johnny Ramone, much to your consternation, I know.) To love The Beach Boys is to love America (and vice versa.)
Look, I know that the history of rock music is not your forte, even though you are, ostensibly, a fan of this form of popular music in its myriad offshoots and configurations, but to make such a statement regarding The Beach Boys vis-a-vis The Ramones is laughable in its sheer ludicrousness. The Ramones (a seminal and awesome band in their own right... at least for the time when Tommy was manning the drum stool, plus a few occasional moments of brilliance scattered here and there pell-mell across the remainder of their post-Tommy discography) loved the upbeat all American pop perfection that is the (pre-Pet Sounds era) music of The Beach Boys, covered their songs and modelled the architecture of their own song structures on that which The Beach Boys perfected a decade earlier. The Ramones are The Beach Boys in overdrive, minus the perfected vocal harmonies of the boys from Hawthorne, but listen to the background vocals on 'I Don't Want To Walk Around With You' for an object lesson in The Ramones' blatant Beach Boys-ophilia (take a listen to the equally awesome Dictators and their quintessential track '(I Live For) Cars And Girls' for another lesson (pay attention, Moe!) in the importance of the music and the legacy of The Beach Boys.)
"single most important band" whatever. Buddy Holly and the Crickets made more of an impact in the couple dozen months they were around than the couple dozen years the BB were around.
The first 3 Velvet Underground LPs made more of an impact on the next 3 decades after their release than the Beach Boy's influence. Beach Boys are a nice little band, but "single most important"? Nope
I'd be scared to know who you rate higher than those 3.
It's funny you bring this up. My nephews are 14 and 16 and I'm astonished at what they love and listen to. They worship groups like the psych-era Beatles, Beach Boys, Floyd, Hendrix, Zeppelin... and they detest today's music (or atleast the commercial stuff that uses over production and auto-tune). This is the same music I listened to 20 years a go. The music is timeless. I can't really explain why this music is so timeless, but it's something about the approach in the 60s and 70s that will never be replicated.
A key part of this transaction--the reason it works with the Beach Boys but not the Beatles, or with Michael Jackson but not Prince, or with Madonna but not Lady Gaga, or with Biggie but not with Tupac, or with Dipset but not Anti-Pop Consortium, or with that one band that only you know about but not that other band that only you know about--is that the artist in question must not themselves make any real, accepted claim to profundity; that part must always be left to the music nerd. Whenever an artist openly says, "Hey, this is some serious shit we're working on here," it effectively casts the music nerd out of one of their key roles, that of evangelist/seer of The Truth, forcing them to either adapt (traditionally not the strong suit of the music nerd), or find another, darker corner to illuminate.
I mean, lord knows I'm a pretty frequent perpetrator myself, but I still have a real distaste for that particular strain of musical critique, and I see the last couple decades' critical reappraisal of the Beach Boys as something close to the root of it.
Again, I like them a lot--I'm just saying.
And America's most important band is The Beatles. Get off the bullshit.
Whatutalkinabout?? There are a ton of bands around now that are aping that Beach Boys / Soft Psych sound. It's all very hip daddy-o.
Don't think you would like to know (Euro man related).
To be honest Biggie is a decent enough all round MC, I'm personally not too keen on him so thats just taste, but I think he's defiantly well over rated.
Jay - Z on the other hand is just plain terrible.
I think I know where you're coming from, DCarf, but, I mean, the question is never "Will there be nostalgia?" but rather "What kind of nostalgia will there be?" Devotees of Kraftwerk and of Jay-Z are chasing their own brand of nostalgia, please believe.
I think the thing that problematizes the Beach Boys for a lot of folks is that they are so very, very white. Connecting them to any sort of black music/aesthetic--which is easily the #1 go-to legitimization for modern aesthetes of all colors--requires some pretty impossible gymnastics of logic.