defend the indefensible: "kokomo" by the beach boys

2. Did the song appear on a non-greatest hits BB album at the time? If so, which?

The album is called Still Cruisin' and it's extremely obscure

It is pretty much a greatest hits though: two new songs, one Brian offcut credited to Eugene Landy, the Fat Boys song which had been a single, three songs they'd done for recent film soundtracks, one of which had also been a single [ie Kokomo], and three non-re-recorded old hits.

I guess the divide here is whether or not you had to withstand the song nonstop in 1988?

YES ... nonstop, and on "Full House" ... I associate this song with Bon Jovi's "Bad Medicine" because they were both inescapable and always seemed to be played back-to-back on the radio. The difference is that I can imagine a time in the far-off future when I might want to hear "Bad Medicine" again.

It is pretty much a greatest hits though

Well, okay, but a really weird one that has five recent, emphatically non-hit songs. If Magical Mystery Tour counts as an LP surely this does?

I probably get Kokomo in my head inadvertently more often than anything else by The Beach Boys. I don't really get the deal about them. Good Vibrations is OK but I get the idea that Wilson was just a douchebag, creeping into his girlfriend's sister's room in the middle of the night and fucking her. Dirty man.

You can't write worse lyrics than that.

PAGING PAUL WESTERBERG

Huh!? xpost

fucking weirdo

This song was awesome on an 80 degree day walking through soho with a bunch of vice magazine types with it blasting distorted out of a solar powered radio on a banana seat bike

yah that sounds awesome :/

that sounds horrible! but kind of perfect for the song.

calling a woman you are attracted to "mamma" is just fucking weird.

just because people dress like idiots doesn't mean they're not nice.

calling a woman you are attracted to "mamma" is just fucking weird.

-- Tracer Hand, Wednesday, April 23, 2008 11:57 AM (22 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

That's racist

truth bomb-bitty

http://www.kathygarver.com/mlovet.jpg
"step off, mama"

(Q)- You co-wrote "Kokomo" along with the late "Papa" John Phillips. (In 1988, The Beach Boys had their largest sales hit single, titled "Kokomo." The song, "Kokomo" was a featured in the motion picture "Cocktail" and "Kokomo" really put The Beach Boys back into the international spotlight.
Mike Love- I did indeed. John Phillips came up with the concept for the song in the verse and then I came up with the chorus. (Mike Love begins singing "Kokomo".) That was my contribution. I changed two words in the first verse and I rewrote the second verse in a little less, half a verse. So it was a true collaboration between John Phillips, myself and Terry Melcher, who produced the song. "Kokomo" went to Number One in 1988. Now that song, really, we're talking had a multigenerational appeal. It really helped to rejuvenate The Beach Boys career.

I was listening to some tracks from his unreleased "Unleash the Love" recording from several years back. It's actually pretty good in parts. Plenty of the Kokomo-ish vibe, for those who are so inclined.

I really love this song.

Well, okay, but a really weird one that has five recent, emphatically non-hit songs. If Magical Mystery Tour counts as an LP surely this does?

Magical Mystery Tour is a compilation too! (if in LP form)

i'm pleasantly surprised that a thread that i started with at best a half-serious intent has generated this much passionate debate.

carry on ;_;

and everybody's right, it's not like it's a big deal, it's just kind of an infantile thing to do and makes the people doing it look like fuckin morons, so i thought one of 'em might wanna know

that song, really, we're talking had a multigenerational appeal
that song, really, we're talking had a multigenerational appeal
that song, really, we're talking had a multigenerational appeal

so does anybody know where I can score an a cappella of this track

right here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyei99D1Mq8

ilx: solutions

I wouldn't have expected any better from Mike Love, but it was kind of sad to see John Phillips sink this deep musically.

Best Concert Ever.

I think the objectionable thing about this entire endeavor is the transformation of the "Beach" in the Beach Boys' identity from a sort of plausibly "universal" (ie teenagered) conception of sun, surf, fun, and all that...through the wistful-but-still-adult-reconsideration-of-same ("All Summer Long," "Surf's Up" etc)....to this boomer retiree scenario of "I scored a great deal on a time-share!" [...] The threat posed by "Kokomo" is that it will ruin all those other, less commodified beaches of yesteryear.

I would add to the above that it also moves the Beach of the band's name from any beach, your favorite beach, the beach at Lake Lanier Water Park, whatever....to a private resort beach for couples on tropical getaways. Sort of implicit in the above, but the place-d-ness of this bugs me, perhaps even moreso than the decision to firmly re-establish the Beach Boys as a Hawaiian-shirted beach-themed novelty act instead of a band that could, in theory, sing about all manner of things.

And yet I can't bring myself to really hate this:

i can practically set my watch by how this thread revives at opportune moments in my life o_O

This is a bit of a banger, this one.

― Dom Passantino, Saturday, April 19, 2008 11:43 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark

you can't front on that

this song reminds me of my grandparents' garage

http://www.sporcle.com/games/kokomo.php

I know all of you will get the first six but the last three are for KOKOMO PROS only.

i got eight/nine but call foul because it didn't allow the florida keys. smh.

one of the first earworms I ever remember getting

ok, this is playing on oldies radio. i realize it's a band whose popularity peaked 20 years before i was born, but still hearing a song released within your own lifetime on an oldies station for the first time is depressing beyond belief :(

it's really not that bad a song

hot sax

saw this performed by faux-hawaiian girl ukelele duo last week

I don't have a problem with the song itself, per se, but hearing it inspires mental images of John Stamos and the rest of the Full House gang, which I'd prefer not to have.

― Pillbox, Sunday, April 20, 2008 2:57 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark

Yes! And then I want to smash those images in the face with a bat.

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