It's About Time: Beach Boys Poll Results

The version on the bootleg, i.e. the orchestral backing track followed by the solo piano demo..

.. sounds perfect as it is. The vocal doesn't need adding to the first part. Think of it as a long intro.

xp (or I meant "most likely to have been a big hit. Can't imagine it being a hit single at all in 2011.

The Beach Boys vs. Lady Gaga vs. Katy Perry, who knows....)

I read something somewhere about Brian's vocal on the first section of the piano recording being appended to the orchestral backing (overlaying it using digital whateveritis) of the first section as a track on the 2011 (2012?) Smile release, probably just to have something that existing Smile boots don't have.

of course, "Surf's Up" would then have had to be followed by something new and different - Surf's Up, those old times are over now - and maybe this whole song and dance would have happened all over again and the Beach Boys would have been left behind by popular culture in 1968 instead of 1967.

Surf's Up and God Only Knows will place top two - they kind of have to don't they?

There's no way we'll ever know what would have happened next had Smile been finished and released in 1967, whether Brian's mental state would have been better (that's really the whole inference of the "Smile completed in 1967 would have changed everything" argument, isn't it?), and whether something more forward-thinking or elaborate that somehow improved on Pet Sounds and Smile would have followed. I'm glad we have the late-'60s BB albums we do, though.

Re: popularity - actually it's become very difficult to tell what music really is the most popular in 2011 - the days when radio airplay and record-store sales told the whole story are obviously long gone.

Who's on top in music? It's gotten hard to say

Well, hits and flops, fit mental state or not, both the Beatles and the Beach Boys switched to a more rudimentary approach post Smile/Peppers what with Wild Honey and the White Album. Once thigns go beyond the Smile/Peppers model it basically becomes King Crimson/Moody Blues/ELO territory anyway - and those guys were only moderately successful hit-wise in the early 70s.

#10

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/2c939612942d92be3544473a05dbd450/3523634.jpg

Cabinessence - 20/20
346 points, 14 votes, one #1 vote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbAWMc-E5P4

(single cover art's from 2004)

i had no idea singles were released from Smile. Cabinessence is great and that, but I left it off. Mostly because it just doesn't match Surf's Up, but it is a cool collage song and the closest they came to realising Brian's Smile vision of 12 pocket symphonies or whatever.

xp I was just about to point out the same thing re: the White Album - it's very back-to-a-straight=rock-band guitar/bass/drums on alot of songs, without the elaborate productions of the 1967 recordings. Elaborately (sp.?) produced music isn't necessarily better music, although I tend to like rich, lush production, which is not to be confused with glossy or gimmicky production. I also don't think more elaborately-produced music would have had to lead to '70s prog sounding Yes/King Crimson/ELP type stuff either. You can have rich production and tight song structure in the same song, not the 12-minute-long noodlings that ramble on aimlessly etc.

for some reason i didn't vote for cabin essence, but what a great song...

the music truly is evocative of the time and place wilson and van dykes were going for

As more of a sound collage than a song, Cabinessence is one of the few tracks where VDP's lyrics really work. They aren't distracting, they are evocative of the American west on a gut level and the sounds are perfect for both the vocal lines and backing track.

You can imagine Mike Love wanting to strangle Brian every time he was asked to sing "Who ran the iron horse". Maybe I'm just making it up, but the bitterness is oozing from that line.

I think it's the song that benefits most from the context of the 'complete' smile

he just needs to pretend that iron horse is a sportscar

"The Iron Horse" - I'm sure I read a book where there was a ficitonal paper called this. Was it the Illuminatus Trilogy?

I often forget, that during Pet Sounds/Smile-era recordings that anyone other than Brian and Carl actually did any lead vocals.

20/20 Is such a shame of an album - so many great songs rubbing up against each other in such a horrible way.

it really is a train wreck of sequencing.

I don't get what you mean by that?

Yeah I know it's sort of a mish-mash from alot of sources (recent singles, some new album cuts, a Friends outtake, two Smile tracks, and, er, a couple of Dennis songs) but it works for me as an album anyway (especially with the CD bonuses at the end, which is the only way I've ever heard it).

How else would you have sequenced it?

Nothing on 20/20 is as jarring to me as ending Friends with "Transcendental Meditation"

YEah that's such a WTF - I'm thinking of just swapping TM with I Went To Sleep on my HD. But really, Cabinessence on the same album as Bluebirds Over The Mountain is JUST WRONG!

The Nearest Faraway Place is by Bruce Johnston - weird!

"I Went To Sleep on my HD"

For a second, I thought that was the title of the song.

Maybe there's no proper sequence. Never Learn Not to Love to Our Prayer is pretty bad.

> I'm thinking of just swapping TM with I Went To Sleep on my HD

Exactly what I did. (well not on HD)

"The Nearest Faraway Place" is actually one of my favorite BB instrumentals. The piano intro is a bit too shmaltzy, but once the song gets going it's excellent stuff that's up to Brian's level. The section from about 40 seconds in through 1:40 is amazing - reminds me alot of the middle section of "Summer Means New Love" from SD(&SN), but may be even better. Bruce's first songwriting on a BB record.

I went to sleep was a friends outtake anyway iirc?

but yeah in my ideal world that's the friends tracklist

I REALLY LOVE Summer Means New Love for the record, although I don't know if I cut it from my ballot at last min.

> I went to sleep was a friends outtake anyway iirc?

correct.... which is why it's a popular swap. It feels like the perfect album closer for it.

I decided early on to allot once space on my ballot for one of their oft-overlooked instrumentals, and picked "Summer Means New Love" over my other contenders - "Let's Go Away For Awhile", "The Nearest Faraway Place", or a one of the Smile instrumentals.

one space

this is worth tracking down
http://991.com/newGallery/Beach-Boys-Beach-Boys-Instru-479141.jpg
or you could compile it yourself if you've got all the records, i suppose.

#9

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/b3555773ec14254f8911bd8a1593cce1/118152.jpg

Heroes and Villains - Smiley Smile
374 points, 16 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lkk8Cku4p8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RNuoJw0PsM

Anyone else vote for Vegetables in any significance? It was my 5th

not my favorite track but suchhhh a dope single cover

oh and also "Diamond Head" which is pretty cool - so Hawaiian sounding, it's like my mind drifts off to the island just from hearing it.

i would love a beach boys' instrumentals album. I wonder what the tracklisting is?

i voted for Diamond Head - fantastic mixtape fodder.

I'm not too mad about Heroes & Villains. Don't like the descending vocal line at all. I do like the "under arrest/in the canteena" bit on one of the versions though.

Which version of "VegeTables" was Paul McCartney on? And is that celery or carrots?

I like it but not top 20

1. Moon Dawg
2. Misirlou
3. Stoked
4. Honky Tonk
5. Surf Jam
6. Let's Go Trippin'
7. The Roking Surfer
8. Boogie Woodie
9. After The Game
10. Shut Down, Part II
11. Denny's Drums
12. Carl's Big Chance
13. Let's Go Trippin (Live)
14. Summer Means New Love
15. Let's Go Away For Awhile
16. Pet Sounds
17. Fall Breaks Adn Back To Winter (Woody Woodpeckers Symphany)
18. Passing By
19. Diamond Head
20. The Nearest Faraway Place

the rocking surfer rules

yeah, i actually really like all those early surf rock things.

This run:

14. Summer Means New Love
15. Let's Go Away For Awhile
16. Pet Sounds
17. Fall Breaks And Back To Winter (Woody Woodpeckers Symphony)
18. Passing By
19. Diamond Head
20. The Nearest Faraway Place

is all time! Might make this comp and splice in a few Stack-O-Tracks too. You must hear Here Today and Let Him Run Wild in instrumental form if you haven't already...

every time that dadblamed HEEEEROES AND VIIIILLAINS theme comes up on one of the Smile tracks it sorta bugs me.

Cabinessence on the same album as Bluebirds Over The Mountain is JUST WRONG!

"Let Him Run Wild" on the same album as "Amusement Parks U.S.A." is even wronger!

(even if they were recorded around the same time....)

Actually "'Cassius' Love vs. 'Sonny' Wilson" leading into "The Warmth of the Sun" is the worst sequencing WTF ever on a Beach Boys record

i always thought the sequencing on Endless Summer was terrible - upbeat song/ballad/upbeat song/ballad etc.

xpost Yeah, but I can parse those for some reason. I dunno - early Beach Boys stuff, this was before albums had come to represent artistic statements as opposed to just a jumble of songs. 20/20's sound is all over the board - psych symphonies next to country-rock and it just doesn't work.

20/20 sounds like a rarities album

Surf's Up, those old times are over now

this seems to come up a lot for some reason but uh, that is not what the term "surf's up" connotes. Surf's up means "time to go surfing, the waves have reached a good size"

just FYI