defend the indefensible: "kokomo" by the beach boys

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

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