The Worst Beach Boys Song Ever

thz for doin the add'l youtube diggin abanana.

wtf with that TM video

"Good Vibrations" ought to win this.

I can't vote, because somehow "Amusement Parks, USA" didn't make it on here

yeah that was edged out by Salt Lake City

voted deirdre. really, really can't stand that song.

SDT Duh!

I'm surprised the Mike Love Factor is only present in, at best, five or so of these songs.

^^^was thinking this myself. For all his horrible behavior, the other bandmembers were more than eager to muddy the waters with substandard product and their own poorly conceived failures... even so I'm still kinda leaning towards SDT, although Belles of Paris is really, really REALLY bad. It lacks the questionable politics, but its worse in its own way

can't find a youtube link for it unfortunately

here's the lyrics tho (for the uninitiated)

Bells are ringing, soul of France
Bells are singing of romance

C'est tres jolie en Paris in the spring
Watching all the lovers walk along the Seine
Pitch a penny in her like a wishing well
Feed the pigeons in the park near Tour-Eifelle

Bells are ringing, soul of France
Bells are singing of romance

There's a chapel "Sacre Coure" in quaint Montmarte
In the open air the painters show their art
In the restaurant sip a beaujolies
What a perfect way to spend a lovely day

Bells are ringing, soul of France
Bells are singing of romance

Sunday morning, hear the bells of Notre Dame
Watching belles jeunes filles and the handsome gendarmes
Near the Arc De Triomphe on the Champs-Elysees
Coffee and croissants in a sidewalk cafe

Some people go to see the races at Deauville
Or weekend by the racing tides of Mont San Michelle
Some take the tour of Chartres on an autobus
While the writers and the artists never leave Mont Parnasse

Those instrumentals and covers beat out a lot of the Mike's finest moments.

SDT is the obvious choice here but I may be swayed by either Deirdre or Belles.

the thing about the early covers/instrumentals is that - while they are indeed pretty poor - you can't really hold them against the band. They were young and inexperienced, they were putting out four albums a year (!), they didn't really know any better, etc. But by the time you get around to the 70s stuff, they really don't have any excuses for some of the crap that's nominated here - they were experienced musicians with big budgets and plenty of opportunities for quality control.

Yeah, I mostly didn't vote for the instrumentals in those polls for exactly that reason.

SDT is the obvious choice

Yes x 9999999999999999 .. voting for good vibrations just means you have no brain

Voted STD without looking at the rest of the thread. It's just one big lemon face. No no no no no.

"Good Vibrations" ought to win this.

This faction is in on some joke that I'm not, right? You can't be serious.

Um... SDT.

HA!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Why do people hate Deirdre? It's quite a sweet song with a nice brass break.

trombone break I should say.

I'm voting Belles of Paris. At least with SDT Mike Love is kinda trying - albeit in a misguided way - there's a certain level of effort involved, to be "relevant", to "rock", whatever. And the backing track isn't so terrible on its own, even if there isn't anything particularly creative about it. With Belles of Paris its just straight up horrible hacky laziness ("hey guys, let's write a song about PARIS!"), the music is horrible, the lyrics are tossed off drivel heavy on forced, groaner rhymes.

I went for Chapel Of Love - unforgiveable shit.

SDT above Belles because of context: it's on a record that includes Till I Die and Surf's Up. Belles is just one of many shit songs on an album most people won't bother with.

And the 'message' of the song is more crass than just hacky laziness.

SDT is terrible for the Beach Boys, because it's boring 70s rockplod, but if a boring 70s rockplod band had done it, it wouldn't be so offensive.

"Belles of Paris" and "Chapel of Love" are just fuggin' awful. But I'm voting for the "Fairy Tale", because it's offensively awful and, there's no other word that can be used, self-indulgent

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

lolz foregone conclusiosn

conclusions even

I'm still pissed off that Deirdre even made it in here. Listen to the fucking arrangements yeah?!

Although I've now enqueued all these songs into Winamp.

I'm still pissed off that Deirdre even made it in here. Listen to the fucking arrangements yeah?!

I'm glad yr mad about that and not the four votes (!) that Good Vibrations got

im pissed about Bluebirds Over the Mountain, that song is funn!

Good Vibrations, well I voted for it in the Smiley Smile one for reasons explained above, but no it's not their worst song of course.

There's like fifty Beach Boys songs worse than Student Demonstration Time!!

Four ILM members are nuts.

i assume those are lolvotes?

There's like fifty Beach Boys songs worse than Student Demonstration Time!!

hey, the voters have spoken (but I am curious what you think is worse and if any of them are on this list)

"How She Boogalooed It" is so awesome can't believe that's on here

There's like fifty Beach Boys songs worse than Student Demonstration Time!!

20+ polls have proved this wrong.

Anyone know where i can hear Stars & Stripes Vol 1 online? I have a very morbid curiosity to hear it.

God, I hate the fucking Beach Boys

'"Cassius" Love Vs. "Sonny" Wilson' should be on this list, unless it doesn't qualify as a song. But it makes it impossible to listen to what would have been an awesome first side of "Shut Down Vol. 2" straight through.

Why is a song about "Transcendental Meditation" so loud, dischordant, and dissonant? (I agree with the David Leaf liner notes that "I Went To Sleep", recorded during the Friends sessions, should have closed the album instead. OTOH, he disses "Good To My Baby" which I think is a great song.

"Dance, Dance, Dance" doesn't belong on this list at all. If there's any downer on 'Today', it's "Don't Hurt My Little Sister", or maybe their cover of "I'm So Young" - neither is bad, just not up to the brilliant level of the rest of the album.

"Good Vibrations" wouldn't have "belonged" on Smile, either, by the logic used here. It dates from the Pet Sounds sessions, but wasn't finished in time.

'"Cassius" Love Vs. "Sonny" Wilson' should be on this list, unless it doesn't qualify as a song. But it makes it impossible to listen to what would have been an awesome first side of "Shut Down Vol. 2" straight through.

Worst Beach Boys Song on Shut Down Vol 2 - Part 18 in an Ongoing Series

God, I hate the fucking Beach Boys

― If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Wednesday, 6 April 2011 20:22 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

SB

I'm So Young is amazing!

Cassius Love does break the album up a bit, but it brings the LOLs. Mickey Mouse with a sore throat.

haha so sad I missed this thread. For that ILM compilation series I claimed the Beach Boys and was planning on doing a best-of and worst-of but never got around to it. Bonus track: Mike Love, "Almost Summer."

You can email me through ILX mail if you really want to hear Stars & Stripes. It's a depressing listen - the Beach Boys reduced to backup singers for second-rate country hacks. One wonders what Volume 2 would have sounded like.

Tempted, but...

Shit no who am I kidding, I won't listen to it.

i sort of like willie nelson singing the warmth of the sun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_68IhghlCFc
but i like willie nelson singing almost anything. could do w/o the beach men on this one tbh.

with Dennis dead and Brian AWOL you can just assume nothing worthwhile was produced. I guess there's Carl but he had long since ceased being a serious creative force (is Carl even on that Stars and Stripes thing?)

wtf is Brian doing there

xp

making willie uncomfortable?

"Shut Down Vol. 2" has got to be one of the most uneven albums ever made....

I've read that their lifeless cover of "Louie Louie" sounds that way because it was recorded before they heard the now-definitive Kingsmen version, which was just starting its run up the charts when SDV2 was recorded. "Louie" was previously a minor hit, especially in California, by a group called the Wailers (no relation to Bob Marley's backup band) and Paul Revere and the Raiders, and their versions, like the Beach Boys', more closely mimic the 1957 Richard Berry original recording.

obviously I take back the second-rate country hacks comment for Willie Nelson. But look at the rest of the soloists:

Lorrie Morgan
James House
Junior Brown
Doug Supernaw
Sawyer Brown
Toby Keith
Ricky Van Shelton
T. Graham Brown
Collin Raye
Kathy Troccoli
Timothy B. Schmit

for fuck's sake, couldn't they have done better than that??

god only knows

what the answer to this is! teehee

I only recognize like 2 of those names

One could easily argue that "Heroes and Villains" doesn't "belong" on Smiley Smile any more than "Good Vibrations". It certainly doesn't sound anything like the rest of the album (except perhaps "GV") and at least part of it was recorded before Smile was abandoned.

the Good Vibrations votes are just challops

sad that deirdre and mount vernon are on this list

This song should've been nominated at least:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EeSuuCwaQ4

we didn't got past 1980 for a reason

Junior Brown's good.

Wtf was that video?

we really ought to have a "worst unreleased Beach Boys song ever" thread. it just doesn't seem fair that a song as excruciating as this was never even eligible for inclusion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puALrwbQ7DE

thanks skip, downloading now.