It's About Time: Beach Boys Poll Results

I was just about to write something about Dance x3!

great track, lots of weird Four Freshmen chord changes that border on easy listening. I rank this ahead of Surfer Girl for not aping Disney.

My #1 pick.

Music this gorgeous simply hasn't been made either before or since.

Love this song, but the extra percussion on the third verse seems a bit out of place to me.

They abandoned them because they stopped making great songs.

eh this is demonstrably untrue imho

What's an example of a post 67 single that you think should have been a big hit?

seeing as how these songs are on the same album and the album STILL BOMBED I think you are missing some caveats. they were hamstrung by their previous image and made an abrupt shift that was too alarming/too random, I think we can agree on that much...?

no, I don't think so. as skip pointed out, it was an album without a real single.

I do kind of think that if Smile had actually been completed and released, it still would have bombed.

I don't think so. If they had held back Good Vibrations and released it along with the album, I think it would have been a big hit.

yeah but it did well in the uk, i think the image thing is key, "rock" culture had started in the US and the beach boys were not part of that

please kip mike love

Hate to blow the UK's trumpet but they also made "Forever Changes" a Top 30 album, maybe they had just had good taste? I also suspect Brian Wilson was much more respected and taken more seriously in the UK.

Incidentally, how awesome is your band when "The Warmth Of The Sun", "Don't Worry Baby", or "God Only Knows" have to be relegated to the B sides of your singles?

yeah but it did well in the uk, i think the image thing is key, "rock" culture had started in the US and the beach boys were not part of that

and they were a part of the uk's rock culture? I don't know, I don't think this "uncool, not a part of rock culture anymore" theory quite holds up. The top selling album of '67 in the US was the Monkees! Who I guess were cooler and more rock and roll in a way, but still.

What's an example of a post 67 single that you think should have been a big hit?

"Add Some Music to Your Day"
"This Whole World"
"Cabinessence"
"Break Away"
"Long Promised Road"
"Feel Flows"
"Surf's Up"
"Sail On, Sailor"

I'll say it: this song is overrated

lotta what ifs for the beach boys in the smile era -- what if they had played monterey?
(answer: they probably would've come across as kind of lame?)

Don't know, how did the Association go down?

the uk had a much more pop as opposed to rock orientation (and i'm using rock as the heavier, self-serious culture that came from rock n roll). the monkees fans were kids and teens. the kids and teens who grew up with the beach boys were listening to heavier stuff and left the beach boys behind by the time of smiley smile (and yes it was also way too weird to ever be much of a pop smash)

association did not go down too well

The Beach Boys would never have rocked hard enough to stay with the times in 68-70. So it was going to happen at some point. Even at its 40-minute, coherent, primped best, Smile would still be a bit lame compared to say Jimi Hendrix. In the end, maybe it's not surprising that "Good Vibrations" ended up a one-off, 3-minute slice of overworked genius, not a basis for some larger and more important movement that would ripple through the culture.

association! kinda proto Devo here. kinda.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOtHPCcH7cc

Love that band

#13

I Just Wasn't Made For These Times - Pet Sounds
274 points, 11 votes, One #1 vote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX4py6AdIYQ

prob my favorite from pet sounds

think this was my highest pet sounds tune? (kind of forgetting what i actually voted for now)
but anyway! so good. the bass line, the percussion, the "sometimes i feel very sad" part, the theremin! perfection.

first use of a theremin on a pop record

Since Wouldn't It Be Nice, Caroline No and God Only Knows are pretty much locks for the top ten, it appears that the only song from Pet Sounds not to chart is Pet Sounds.

the top 12 is looking pretty amazing. With a couple quibbles with too-low-ranked surf tunes, saving the best for last.

so iatee, just to take the first example from your list, "Add Some Music to Your Day", was released the same week that Bridge Over Troubled Water, two Sly and the Family Stone and two Creedence songs were all in the top 10. And they're all frankly better songs and more obvious pop hits. I mean which of these lyrical hooks sound like a hit to you? Everybody is a star, thank you for letting me be myself again, who'll stop the rain, hey there lonely girl? Or add some music, add some, add some. wtf does that even mean?

And the first time we hear the refrain "add some music to your day" it's sung in a way that makes it impossible to sing along with. The song doesn't have a particularly memorable melody or any kind of instrumental hook either. The phrase "add some music to your day" doesn't strike me as something that tapped into the zeitgeist in any way. It's just really hard for me to believe that anyone would argue that the song is objectively an equally well written and constructed pop song as say Good Vibrations. Regardless of how you personally feel about the two songs, certainly you can see why one was a number one hit and the other wasn't, can't you?

They abandoned them because they stopped making great songs.

eh this is demonstrably untrue imho

What's an example of a post 67 single that you think should have been a big hit?

sorry went to get lunch but I thought it would be self-evident that "great song" /= "big hit".

"Or add some music, add some, add some."

Brutal!

And the first time we hear the refrain "add some music to your day" it's sung in a way that makes it impossible to sing along with.

don't get this at all

also ugh the "zeitgeist", most worthless concept ever

don't get this at all

you think the part at 0:30 is something you would hear on the radio and immediately start singing along with, or you don't think the quality of being able to sing along with the lyrical hook is an important factor in a pop song's success?

also ugh the "zeitgeist", most worthless concept ever

Really? You honestly don't think that "I'm picking up good vibrations" tapped into something in the air in 1966 in a way that "Add some music to your day" didn't in 1970?

> Since Wouldn't It Be Nice, Caroline No and God Only Knows are pretty much locks for the top ten, it appears that the only song from Pet Sounds not to chart is Pet Sounds.

"Here Today" hasn't appeared yet. And I voted for it!

I have no problem singing along with that song and find engaging in hypotheticals about abstractions like the "zeitgeist" largely pointless in terms of evaluating a piece of music's formal qualities

xp

"Here Today" hasn't appeared yet. And I voted for it!

Ugh. I'm going to have to fire my researcher.

obviously a song's artistic quality is often disconnected from the prevailing culture. But I don't hear you making, and yet to come across, a convincing argument that any of the Beach Boys' 67-70 tracks even approaches Pet Sounds/Good Vibrations in artistic quality.

you think the part at 0:30 is something you would hear on the radio and immediately start singing along with

laughed hard at this. Imagining a football crowd chanting it now

lol, I can just see somebody dividing them into sections first

Prediction time: Where in the top 10 is Santa's Got an Airplane going to place?

a convincing argument that any of the Beach Boys' 67-70 tracks even approaches Pet Sounds/Good Vibrations in artistic quality.

well, what barometers are we going by here? the complexity of the arrangements? the emotional impact of the lyrics? the catchiness of the melodies? These are all fairly subjective in one way or another (for what it's worth I definitely think something like 'Til I Die or Our Prayer is in the same league compositionally as the earlier "peak" material, for example)

xp

artistic quality

haha

8.5

and find engaging in hypotheticals about abstractions like the "zeitgeist" largely pointless in terms of evaluating a piece of music's formal qualities

if you want to talk formal qualities then go ahead. I think that it's pretty obvious that Add Some Music is not anywhere near as sophisticated, melodically, harmonically, or in terms of its arrangement as Good Vibrations.

There's an argument for Surf's Up/Til I Die as being on par with Pet Sounds but obviously Surf's Up is a Smile retread (and to be pedantic, 'Til I Die was in 1971). Our Prayer and Cabinessence, which I assume will be top 10, also came from the Smile sessions. I love Wild Honey but it and other enjoyable post-Smile music like Cotton Fields, I Can Hear Music, Darlin, Add Some Music, Friends, Breakaway, Do It Again and This Whole World are working on a lower level.

you said they "stopped writing great songs". This was the comment I disputed. I, and apparently others here, think "Add Some Music to Your Day" is a great song. Granted, "Good Vibrations" is better. These are not mutually exclusive positions.

Although for what it's worth, bearing in mind that complexity is NOT the only or even most important barometer of "artistic quality", if you wanna talk compositional complexity, the chords for these two songs are as follows. Judge for yourself which is more "complicated".

Add Some Music To Your Day:
Intro: |D Dsus4| X2
(Verse)
D Dsus4 D Dsus4 D Dsus4
G D
Cadd9 D
Cadd9 D

G A7Sus4 D Dsus4

(chorus)
D5
G D
Cadd9 D
Cadd9 D
G A7Sus4 D
(bridge)
Bm F#m
B7
Em
F#7 B7 E7 A

Dmaj7 Amaj7

Dmaj7 Amaj7
Bm A E7 Asus4
(repeat verse)
(coda)
D5

Good Vibrations

(verse 1)
Dm C
Bb A7
Dm C
Bb A7 C7

Chorus 1:

F Cm7 F Cm7
F Cm7 F Cm7
F Cm7 F Cm7
F Cm7 F Cm7

G C/G G7 C/G G C/G G7 C/G
A D/A A7 D/A A D/A A7 D/A

(repeat verse)

(repeat chorus)

Break:
A D/A A7 D/A
A D/A A7 D/A (x3)
A D/A A7 D/A
A D/A A7 D/A
D G/D D7 G/D
D G/D D7 G/D (A)
A D/A A7 D/A A
D/A A7 D/A

Bridge 1 (Slower Tempo):

E, F#m B7
E F#m B7
E F#m B7
E F#m B7 E F#m B7
E D/E

Chorus 3

A D/A A7 D/A A D/A A7 D/A
G C/G G7 C/G G C/G G7 C/G, F Bb/F F7 Bb/F

Breakdown:

F G
A G

Coda:

G C/G, G7 C/G

Geir would probably argue that the prevalence of major 7th, additional 9ths, and suspended 4th chords in Add Some Music Make it "more complex" (although from a strictly musical standpoint he would be wrong). Certainly the chords in Good Vibrations are physically "easier" to play.

I'm not sure why you're putting "complicated" in quotes since I never used that word.

"stopped writing great songs" was an exaggeration of sorts, but I think it's true within the context of massive pop hits, and the discussion we were having about why their audience abandoned them. I'm saying that the audience didn't abandon them because they changed bandwagons too many times or they were too uncool but that they simply weren't writing massive pop hits anymore. Which you seem to have finally conceded by saying "Granted, "Good Vibrations" is better."

One could argue that the vocal melodies, production and arrangements are what elevate GV to it's status - the chord changes are just the foundation. Also, the vocal melody on ICHM is pretty static and same-y by comparison.

I'm saying that the audience didn't abandon them because they changed bandwagons too many times or they were too uncool but that they simply weren't writing massive pop hits anymore

how is writing a massive pop hit separable from the interest/perceptions of the audience wtf dude

I don't think anyone here would agree that writing a song with an involved chord progression is necessarily more complex than conceiving and creating a track like Good Vibrations, so I'm having trouble figuring out the point of spelling out the two tracks' chord progressions.

I think that it's pretty obvious that Add Some Music is not anywhere near as sophisticated, melodically, harmonically, or in terms of its arrangement as Good Vibrations.

this is what I was responding to. I think this is "debatable" not "pretty obvious"

how is writing a massive pop hit separable from the interest/perceptions of the audience wtf dude

I suppose that depends on whether you think pop hits are just arbitrary lists of stuff that people happen to like at a given moment, or if there are objectively observable qualities that lead to some songs being more popular than others.

I'm having trouble figuring out the point of spelling out the two tracks' chord progressions.

I think it's because I said GV was more sophisticated harmonically. but of course there's more to that than simply the chord changes.