|
Post by Kapitan on Oct 7, 2022 15:31:40 GMT
I thought it might be interesting to discuss things that stand out as unique in the Beach Boys' (or their members') catalog. It could be an album, a song, an instrument, a riff, or a lyric--anything. It could be something you love or hate, something that was widely noticed or totally ignored. The only real criteria is that it not be something that people would hear and think, "yeah, that's so Beach Boys!"
My first submission, and the thing that crossed my mind to start the thread, is the electric guitars in "This Whole World." As joshilynhoisington wrote in a video on the subject, "guitarists Jerry Cole and David Cohen unleash a torrent of power chords and country hot licks."
The country licks are rare in the Beach Boys' catalog, but not totally unique. ("Cottonfields," at least, has some similar feels, though more on the pedal steel.) The power chords that open the song struck me when I first heard it and still to this day strike me as very unusual for the group, though. Power chords chugging away at an eighth note cadence? That is not classic Brian Wilson! (But I love it.)
|
|
|
Post by carllove on Oct 7, 2022 15:50:51 GMT
Well the first song that comes to mind for me is “Sail On, Sailor”. It’s bluesy, has a Blondie vocal and the casual fan would have no idea that it’s a Beach Boys song. I didn’t know it was a Beach Boys song until I listened to Disc 4 of the Good Vibrations box set.
|
|
|
Post by kds on Oct 7, 2022 15:52:06 GMT
Leaving This Town - The extended moog solo is very unique, not just the instrument itself, but the length of the instrumental break in a Beach Boys song in general.
|
|
|
Post by jk on Oct 11, 2022 21:57:13 GMT
Leaving This Town - The extended moog solo is very unique, not just the instrument itself, but the length of the instrumental break in a Beach Boys song in general. Yes. I believe there are only two BBs songs whose instrumental break is over a brief repeating pattern not heard anywhere else in the song. The other being "Feel Flows", another outlier. I love 'em both.
|
|
|
Post by kds on Oct 12, 2022 12:46:10 GMT
Leaving This Town - The extended moog solo is very unique, not just the instrument itself, but the length of the instrumental break in a Beach Boys song in general. Yes. I believe there are only two BBs songs whose instrumental break is over a brief repeating pattern not heard anywhere else in the song. The other being "Feel Flows", another outlier. I love 'em both. Feel Flows is another one.
|
|
|
Post by Kapitan on Oct 13, 2022 14:17:57 GMT
"Soulful Old Man Sunshine" has always struck me as something of an outlier in the catalog, too. It makes sense why, being as much a Rick Henn song or production as a Beach Boys one. But regardless, it has both that big band style arrangement that they didn't often do, and it has a sunny (ugh, no pun intended, but the word fits) kind of bounce to it. Even the background vocals almost feel in spots like a group scat-singing as opposed to their typical, tight arrangements.
Personally, I love it. I wish they'd done more along those lines. It feels to me like a way to have kept a sort of summer feel, a positivity, into the '70s that could have continued to ring true, as opposed to instead revisiting their approaches from 10 years earlier. To me, SOMS seems like an example of the kind of music (if not that song specifically) that could have been successful for them in the '70s/
|
|
Emdeeh
Pacific Coast Highway
Posts: 520
Likes: 532
|
Post by Emdeeh on Oct 13, 2022 18:57:01 GMT
I like SOMS a lot, but I don't think it would have done well in the '70s. Big band music was considered even a bigger dinosaur than '60s oldies then, at least for us boomers in the US.
|
|
|
Post by Kapitan on Oct 13, 2022 19:04:33 GMT
I don't mean it quite so much from a big band standpoint as just the fun, summery, bounce--the lightness of it. I look at this compilation album track list and think, why not the Beach Boys in there with something resembling SOMS (with or without the big band arrangements)? In a way, it's the opposite of what did happen under Rieley, with seriousness and bigger issues and such.
|
|