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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Apr 18, 2019 13:26:18 GMT
Do you remember Jack Rieley's infamous quote, "To sum it up, they blew it, they blew it consistently, they continue to blow it. It is tragic and this pathological problem caused The Beach Boys' greatest music to be so underrated by the general public."
I have to admit that old Jack mighta had a point there. Not many (any?) groups lasted 60 years to begin with, so that provided an abundance of opportunities to...blow it. And, The Beach Boys certainly did their part taking advantage of every opportunity to blow it consistently. Do they continue to blow it? As recently as 2012 they did.
To me, the Big 3 Blown Opportunities are these:
1967 - "Good Vibrations" was recently No. 1, the band was coming off a few years of hit singles and hit albums, and they were recently voted on a major poll as the No. 1 band in the world. So what did they do? Release three short, relatively non-Beach Boys' like albums which contributed heavily to the group being dropped by their record company, legal problems, possible bankruptcy, and the group never really recovering career-wise.
1976 - Despite not releasing a new studio album, The Beach Boys were everywhere. The one-two punch of Endless Summer/Spirit Of America propelled the group to a new level of popularity. The country's bicentennial was perfect timing. The band's concerts were huge and sold out. Brian Wilson was back in the fold. Despite looking much older, the guys were still relatively young. So how did they respond? With five seriously flawed albums, rampant drug and alcohol abuse, divorce, more financial problems, and the group splintering into solo projects.
2012 - Another golden opportunity, the Golden Anniversary of The Beach Boys. Olive branches were offered, fences were mended, and all was good again with the group. This re-configured lineup of Beach Boys did what few thought they could/would do - record a good studio album and put on great live concerts. All was right with the world again. The Beach Boys were back! And before you could blink, they were gone again. The fans were wondering what happened? They still are actually. There would be no follow up album, no more concerts, no more good will. Back to the solo projects...
What do you think is The Beach Boys' biggest blown opportunity?
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Post by kds on Apr 18, 2019 13:36:11 GMT
I think you summed up the biggest ones perfectly, but I'll add one.
1988 - The Beach Boys have their first #1 hit in over 20 years with Kokomo. The trop pop song tears up the charts, and exposes The Beach Boys to a new generation of fans. Couple that with the exposure from a guest appearance on Full House, and The Beach Boys are one of the hottest bands out there. They were already drawing big concert crowds on the basis of their 1960s hits for much of the 1980s, but now, they have a legit hit in the charts. But, ultimately, they failed to truly capitalize on that success. The label slapped together the Still Cruisin album. Then, after three years, the band releases the lackluster SIP, failing the strike while the iron was hot. They even tried another Full House tie in to no avail.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Apr 18, 2019 13:48:19 GMT
I think you summed up the biggest ones perfectly, but I'll add one. 1988 - The Beach Boys have their first #1 hit in over 20 years with Kokomo. The trop pop song tears up the charts, and exposes The Beach Boys to a new generation of fans. Couple that with the exposure from a guest appearance on Full House, and The Beach Boys are one of the hottest bands out there. They were already drawing big concert crowds on the basis of their 1960s hits for much of the 1980s, but now, they have a legit hit in the charts. But, ultimately, they failed to truly capitalize on that success. The label slapped together the Still Cruisin album. Then, after three years, the band releases the lackluster SIP, failing the strike while the iron was hot. They even tried another Full House tie in to no avail. Good one! You're exactly right. Even though the shit was starting to hit the fan with Brian and Landy, Brian was still a Beach Boy. The group was recently elected to the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. There was syndicated TV series in the works. The Beach Boys recently were awarded an American Music Award for Lifetime Achievement. You mentioned the Full House TV appearance. There was a lot of momentum. It's hard to believe, much like 15 Big Ones, that the group couldn't release an entirely new studio album of new material. And, again, with six songwriters in the group...A No. 1 hit and the best they can follow that up with is...drum roll...the Still Cruisin' album!!!!!
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Post by kds on Apr 18, 2019 14:20:51 GMT
I think you summed up the biggest ones perfectly, but I'll add one. 1988 - The Beach Boys have their first #1 hit in over 20 years with Kokomo. The trop pop song tears up the charts, and exposes The Beach Boys to a new generation of fans. Couple that with the exposure from a guest appearance on Full House, and The Beach Boys are one of the hottest bands out there. They were already drawing big concert crowds on the basis of their 1960s hits for much of the 1980s, but now, they have a legit hit in the charts. But, ultimately, they failed to truly capitalize on that success. The label slapped together the Still Cruisin album. Then, after three years, the band releases the lackluster SIP, failing the strike while the iron was hot. They even tried another Full House tie in to no avail. Good one! You're exactly right. Even though the shit was starting to hit the fan with Brian and Landy, Brian was still a Beach Boy. The group was recently elected to the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. There was syndicated TV series in the works. The Beach Boys recently were awarded an American Music Award for Lifetime Achievement. You mentioned the Full House TV appearance. There was a lot of momentum. It's hard to believe, much like 15 Big Ones, that the group couldn't release an entirely new studio album of new material. And, again, with six songwriters in the group...A No. 1 hit and the best they can follow that up with is...drum roll...the Still Cruisin' album!!!!! I can't think of any band that is so quick to slam the door shut when opportunity opens it.
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 18, 2019 14:49:16 GMT
Good question, SJS. I like some of these topics that hinge on specific points of view and questions, but aren’t just “What are your top five songs?” or “Don’t you just love/hate Brian/Mike!?” And while yes, they are or draw out impossible counterfactuals (as many a previous board member would incessantly whine), they are both thought-provoking and fun. I’m going to list four, with two that basically match SJS and one corresponds to kds. 1967 – Identity Crisis pt I It’s less what was released—though I think that’s part of it—than the internal tension and identity crisis that led to those albums (and the one big non-album release … or album non-release … or whatever Smile was[n’t]). I love the Smile music and think it would have been well received had it come out in the first half of 1967. But I don’t think that was the only path, either. I think a more Wild Honey sound or a more Friends sound could have also done just fine and kept the band chugging along: one brought them back (but still moving forward, incorporating more of a Motown feel) into the rock and roll sound they started with, while the other is something like a progression after Pet Sounds. Both legitimate, exciting directions. Instead they seemed to try to go in every direction at once: full-on, weird psychedelia; RnB; and chamber pop, released in three brief documents, all within a year. 1973 – Identity Crisis pt II Whooooo are you? Ooh ooh? Oooh ooh? Whereas the 1967-68 band seemed to go in every direction at once, the 1973-76 band seems to have been paralyzed, not going any direction at once. I suppose you could say they chose to present an oldies-band image, releasing the two greatest hits albums in the post-Holland years. But they were still touring, still playing newer music, and still writing and recording new music—music that for the most part didn’t really correspond to the greatest hits image, but continued to some degree the direction of an active, current band. This appears to have been a moment to define the band for the 70s, but instead they took the opportunity to muddy the waters by waiting 3.5 years to put out an album of new material. If they were going to split, this would have been a good time to split. If they were going to go full American Graffiti and become a jukebox act, this was the time for that. And if they were going to stick together and chart a new path, this was the time for that, too. They split the baby. So I see 1976 not as the relevant moment here, but the result of the inaction of the relevant moment. 1988 – Dropping the Ball pt I With a chart smash and another era of nostalgia in full swing, the band failed miserably (again). They should have done whatever it took to reincorporate Brian into the band and get everyone working together on a strong album. It’s a shame the timing wasn’t slightly different, in that “Kokomo” and Brian Wilson were both released in July ’88. Had “Kokomo” been released earlier, it would have allowed a little time for a last-minute negotiation to bring Brian Wilson to the band and vice versa. The best half dozen or so of those songs plus the best of what the band had at the time would have meant a strong late 80s Beach Boys album. Even as it was, with “Kokomo” peaking at #1 in fall ’88, it should have driven them to get their act together for a much better album than Still Cruisin’. This was an era when a lot of legacy artists were having comebacks: Jeff Lynne especially was singlehandedly trying to revive a generation (with some commercial success). Boomers were buying music and watching TV (the new Leave It To Beaver, the new Monkees, etc.) that brought them back to their youth. The table was set. The Beach Boys dropped the plates on the way to the table, slipped on the mess, cut their feet on shards of glass, and bled all over the place. 2012 – Dropping the Ball pt II They were doing everything right! Very good album, great tour. It could have continued or it could have ended gracefully. In typical Beach Boys fashion, it did neither.
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Post by kds on Apr 18, 2019 15:11:25 GMT
On a much smaller scale, there was....
2018 - The Beach Boys have their own temporary XM Sirius channel, and some renewed interest thanks to the success of the RPO album. They even managed a reunion for an XM Sirius summit with Brian, Mike, Bruce, Al, and David. Considering both Brian and the Mike and Bruce shows seems to be spinning their wheels a little, that seemed like the perfect time to discuss a reunion. Nothing really happened, and both camps had "competing" Christmas tours at the end of the calendar year.
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Post by B.E. on Apr 18, 2019 15:33:36 GMT
Do you remember Jack Rieley's infamous quote, "To sum it up, they blew it, they blew it consistently, they continue to blow it. It is tragic and this pathological problem caused The Beach Boys' greatest music to be so underrated by the general public."
Sorry, but this quote irks me. The Beach Boys greatest music isn't underrated by the general public. It has sustained them for over 50 years.
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Post by kds on Apr 18, 2019 15:36:45 GMT
Do you remember Jack Rieley's infamous quote, "To sum it up, they blew it, they blew it consistently, they continue to blow it. It is tragic and this pathological problem caused The Beach Boys' greatest music to be so underrated by the general public."
Sorry, but this quote irks me. The Beach Boys greatest music isn't underrated by the general public. It has sustained them for over 50 years. That's partly true, but I don't know how much of the general public is really aware of the great stuff released from 1967-73.
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 18, 2019 15:42:56 GMT
It depends on what a person considers their greatest music. Presumably Jack thought Smile + his era...
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Post by B.E. on Apr 18, 2019 15:50:39 GMT
It depends on what a person considers their greatest music. Presumably Jack thought Smile + his era... That's exactly what I think Jack was referring to. I don't think he was including the entirety of the 1967-1973 era. Edit: Kapitan I'd like to clarify. What irks me most is that on one hand Jack is supposedly 100% behind the Wilson brothers but on the other hand seems to dismiss most of the music Brian had ever written. Music that is beloved to this day. It's not that he claims that his era is the greatest or that I claim 1963-1966 is the greatest, it's that he seems so dismissive (of the earlier material) and fixated (on his era) by comparison.
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Post by kds on Apr 18, 2019 15:51:57 GMT
I think even the 1962-1966 tends to get a little underrated, especially compared to other artists that came out around that time.
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 18, 2019 15:59:26 GMT
It’s always tough to say what “the public thinks,” partly because we’re so engrossed that our perspectives are skewed and partly because there isn’t a single view of “the public.”
That said, I think Joe Public knows and likes the 62-66 hits, and rates them as classics. Joe Rocker—the younger Boomers and older Xers—who maybe was more often into the “serious” idea of rock as sold by Rolling Stone, etc, probably does underrate that “lightweight surf and car” music.
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Post by kds on Apr 18, 2019 17:35:27 GMT
1993 - The Good Vibrations box set goes beyond the usual hits comps, and shows The Beach Boys perhaps in a better "artistic" light than the Kokomo / Full House late 80s resurgence. The Boys do shows highlighting their full catalog, and the time was right for a brand new BB album featuring Brian Wilson. Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones had just had massive hits with brand new albums. The end result - Stars and Stripes Vol 1.
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 18, 2019 18:12:35 GMT
Here is one that I won’t actually get behind, but I’ll toss it out there as a thought: the period between August 1971 and May 1972. In August 1971, the Beach Boys released Surf’s Up, which is widely regarded as one of the best albums of their post-“Good Vibrations” era (the entirety of which is mostly unknown to non-fans). It did not do particularly well compared to their most successful work, but it peaked at #29 in the US and #15 in the UK (both well above the performance of Sunflower a year before). Nine months later, the band puts out another album. It features two new band members, and I do mean features: one-quarter of its songs were written and sung by the new members, songs that certainly did not easily fit with the band’s legacy or contemporaneous material. What’s worse, with such a short album, there wasn’t a lot else there. And what’s still worse, it was paired with Pet Sounds, more or less an admission that they recognized you weren’t going to want this album to begin with unless it came with a “free toy inside.” We know there was plenty of material around at this time: the Sunflower and Surf’s Up sessions have since been a great source for previously unreleased material. No, it didn’t necessarily fit the new Carl & the Passions: So Tough sound … but did “Good Time” fit Love You? Did “When Girls Get Together” fit Keepin the Summer Alive? What’s more, if you appended C&TP with four of those other songs kicking around, they would have fit in better simply by taking up a substantial part of the newly extended track list. I’m not even arguing which songs belonged. “Good Time,” “Susie Cincinnati,” “Loop de loop,” “Soulful Old Man Sunshine,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice (to Live Again),” “4th of July,” “San Miguel,” “HELP is on the way,” “I Just Got My Pay,” “Back Home,” “Games Two Can Play,” “We’re Together Again,” “Out in the Country, “I’m Going Your Way/California Slide,” “Seasons in the Sun” … the list of candidates is long. The premise, though, is debatable: more continuity and a more familiar sound—even familiar in the then-current terms of early 1970s Beach Boys music—would have helped the band had it not forged such a dramatically new path in 1972 with C&TP. You could just as easily argue that the kick in the pants that Blondie and Ricky added was a plus, not a minus. You could argue their fresh perspective, edgier sound, and immense talent (and versatility) kept things from getting worse. I don’t know. I’m just raising the question. But I can say that C&TP performed worse on the charts than did Surf’s Up, at #50 in the US and #25 in the UK.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Apr 18, 2019 18:31:51 GMT
Do you remember Jack Rieley's infamous quote, "To sum it up, they blew it, they blew it consistently, they continue to blow it. It is tragic and this pathological problem caused The Beach Boys' greatest music to be so underrated by the general public."
Sorry, but this quote irks me. The Beach Boys greatest music isn't underrated by the general public. It has sustained them for over 50 years. Two things on this...
First, it's funny but when I read Rieley's quote, I rarely if ever focus on the "greatest music to be so underrated" part. I just focus on his main point, which is, I think, about the group blowing it, blowing it consistently, and continuing to blow it. I couldn't agree more. Isn't that one of the most frustrating parts of being a BB fan - seeing and living through all of the...wrong...moves they have made, and continue to make?
And second, back to the " greatest music to be so underrated" part of the quote...I'm not entirely sure what Rieley considered that to be and I really don't care. But if you take the Beach Boys' musical catalogue as a whole, with the possible exception of Pet Sounds, again, don't we Beach Boys' fans feel, sometimes passionately, that the group or the group's music didn't receive the credit they deserved? I mean, on message boards anyway, we devote numerous threads to "proving" they were as good or better than The Beatles. We highlight or uncover hidden gems that were ignored. We can't figure out why this single bombed or that album stiffed. As fans, at least as diehards, in many ways the Beach Boys are overlooked and in some ways underdogs! Am I seeing this wrong?
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