defend the indefensible: "kokomo" by the beach boys

Good record for playing at the wrong speed.

I have good memories driving down to Lafayette to see the Beach Boys w/ America at the Cajun Dome with my Dad. We played the Beach Boys Greatest Hits cassette that finished with some Fat Boys track and Kokomo. That was a good road trip.

Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama
Key Largo, Montego
baby why don't we go

not surprising John Phillips wrote this

The only piece you'll ever need to read on it

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2012/06/beach_boys_kokomo_worst_song.php

"Kokomo" is not even on a list of the Top 20 Worst Beach Boys Songs. (Anyone who prefers to hear "Salt Lake City" to "Kokomo"? Anyone?)

And when you dare take them out, what you're left with is the far-superior drum pattern from "Just Like Honey," . . .

Uhhhhhhhhhh.

A friend just now on FB:

Kokomo is Jimmy Buffett calling out his hos in different area codes. Ahead of it's time.

"Kokomo" is not even on a list of the Top 20 Worst Beach Boys Songs. (Anyone who prefers to hear "Salt Lake City" to "Kokomo"? Anyone?)

(raises hand)

"Salt Lake City" at least has great production going for it (the overall richness, the understated single bell-like vibe notes that start the instrumental bridge, the a capella closing section), whereas "Kokomo" couldn't be any more anodyne. And unlike any place name-dropped in "Kokomo", I can at least afford to go to SLC if I wanted to.

In 2006, Beach Boys member Mike Love recorded a critically panned Christmas remake of the song, titled "Santa's Going to Kokomo".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6U2ubpBd28

GREAT FUN FROM THE MASTER

SURF5UP 5 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-x_FHj9yLo

^ worst

we'll get there fast and then we'll take it slow

i have no beef with this song

"Kokomo" is awesome, but then i sort of grew up with it alongside the other classics.

I liked this song better when I thought the line was, "we'll get there faster if we take it slow." way too subtle and zen-like for a yacht rock era Beach Boys lyric, but I want to believe that's how it goes.

i think people get too hung up on this being a "beach boys" song. as a random-ass mike love/john phillips '80s soundtrack collabo featuring carl and john stamos it's a shocking success

though, tbf, while i like the beach boys a lot more than i used to, i'm not too reverent about the whole wall-of-thumbsuckers gestalt

Does the new BB album have anything as catchy as this?

To Martinique, that Monserrat mystique

I just realized that I've been mishearing "Monserrat mystique" as "mounds of rotting steak"

if that was the real line, it's about the only thing that could make me like this song more than I already DON'T

This song taught me about places in the Caribbean

I liked this song better when I thought the line was, "we'll get there faster if we take it slow." way too subtle and zen-like for a yacht rock era Beach Boys lyric, but I want to believe that's how it goes.

― starfish succulents (unregistered), Friday, 22 June 2012 19:48 (34 minutes ago) Permalink

wtf is this not the lyric

it makes me wonder what it would be like if Mike Love and Sammy Hagar wrote a song together

ah fuck it isnt

"Mom, how can someone get there faster if they take it slow?"
"I don't know sweetie but that dance you're doing looks really stupid please stop"

xxp
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lq14yhsnlq1qjhphb.jpg

never forget:

Beach Boys songs off their Greatest Hits that sound worse to me that a crying baby on an airplane: "God Only Knows," "In My Room," their massacre of "Sloop John B.," the bridge to "Wouldn't It Be Nice," "I Get Around"

― J0hn D., Tuesday, April 22, 2008 2:39 AM (4 years ago)

I think this was the thread where I realized me and aero have certain irreconcilable differences

oh dear

and here I was thinking aero would forever remain on his pedestal

;_;

also that cartoon is fantastic

there's like a half dozen of those, they're all pretty funny

as a random-ass mike love/john phillips '80s soundtrack collabo featuring carl and john stamos it's a shocking success

this is why I play the game.

That piece on Kokomo reminded me SO MUCH of my own childhood. Wow.

Perfect until it demanded execution, anyway, which happened at Tween Hell, viz., a quilt exhibition. No—a quilt exhibition on a perfect summer day, and to be trapped in such, as a child, feels identical to what being slowly digested by a transparent worm must. Hours of cicada hum, stifling church air, polite yet impenetrable conversation; if I'd known state secrets, or what those were, I'd have begged to trade for clemency.

so otm, quilt shows are a godless void

kokomo as a code word is amazing

How about as a safe word?

ooh I wanna take ya

safeword is always one of the locations listen in the song, so if you forget the safe word just hum a few bars

^^It's all you can do when Mike Love's shoved a ball cap in your mouth.

let's not give Q. Tarantino any free scene ideas.

I am from Kokomo.

(Indiana. USA. Auto town.)

Thus, I have heard this song more than everyone else in this thread. Combined.

Alas. Now it is playing in my head again.

actually WORSE than Kokomo! i don't know how they did it, but they did it. the worst band on the planet just keeps getting worser.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuoIvNFUY7I

huh. dancing baby aside, that's not bad. i always mean to check those guys out more, understand they're considered quite the big deal.

yeah i think they were...in 2007.

wrong thread guys

port au prince
i wanna catch a glimpse

i stand by my earlier "kokomo" comments more or less - it's catchy and harmless despite a really metallic and inorganic choice of sounds for a band whose themes are very material (sun, sand, surf) or very heartfelt, and the real problem is that one must now imagine their "beach" as someplace you reach via cruise ship rather than by thumbing a ride (or turning on in your bedroom).

"wrong thread guys"

soooooooo the right thread. there is no way i'm going on an animal collective thread.

Good god, I've avoided any new Animal Collective this whole album cycle until you advertised that as worse than 'Kokomo' Scott. It did not disappoint.

Here I was thinking that they couldn't possibly name it something as stupid as 'Floridada' and make the mistake of actually saying the word in the song. Spoiler: not only they do it say it, they say it a lot.

Whoo boy, that was bad.

Thanks?

*not only do they say it

Jeez, it seems to have triggered a seizure that it warned me about and caused me to type nonsense.

Good god, I mean are they serious? It sounds like something Weird Al would do to make fun of them.

I mean, I'm astounded. Impressively bad.

port au prince
i wanna catch a glimpse
*epic sax*

i keep on listening to "floridada," at least once every couple days. i guess it's time i bought an animal collective record, huh.

this song is like when the bad guys win in a movie

Hmm, "New Yorkork"

Let's do that..