It's About Time: Beach Boys Poll Results

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

it's a double-entendre

If "A Day in the Life" could get substantial radio play, I don't see any reason why "Surf's Up" couldn't have been a successful followup single.

Yeah, "A Day in the Life" never got substantial radio play, it was way to long, and besides it was banned because of the 'drug reference'. Also "ADITL" is an awesome ensemble performance and "Surf's Up" is pretty much a solo spot. Really too minimal to be a pop single.

love Carl's Big Chance.

Despite my comment about liking the 10-minute versions of H&V I didn't vote for it - Good Vibrations, Surf's Up and Cabinessence are a better summary of that period with better ideas and tighter execution. There's a kernel of greatness in H&V but the best explanation for why that session spun out of control may be that the hooks just aren't that good.

xp Shakey Mo - with dog latin in that I thought they were trying to have it both ways.

alright so I have 18 albums ballots that I still need to tally

if anyone wants to send me one asap they can still be included

still have no idea what the best way to distribute points would be

Mannnnnn, do I wish I'd been reading this thread day by day, LOVE all the discussion here about the individual songs and the Spotify playlist is blowing my mind. Great stuff, y'all.

Lee547, are you new to ILX? I don't recall seeing your name around before but I've been enjoying your posts on this thread!

I really, really like "Heroes and Villains," one of the strongest lyrics of that period IMO and a really catchy melody. And the strange, haunted-Western vibe rubs up against the beachy vocals of the verses so interestingly. I mean, this is some sort of ghost story, right? And also a meditation on growing up... or something? I wish it were more "finished" - the abrupt transitions don't work as well as they could, they seem like mistakes rather than intentionally crafted surprises. And there's just something muddy/dirty about the sound of some sections - if it punched harder it'd be quite a monster. But boy is it cool.

5/4/3/2/1 seems a bit extreme ratio-wise, otoh is pretty straight-forward

if it punched harder it'd be quite a monster
actually some of the live versions might do the trick for you -- i've heard a few where they really lean into the song. i think it became a bit of a crowd pleaser as time went on.

Did A Day in the Life not get played on the radio? I was under the impression that quite a few album tracks from Pepper were staples on AM radio. That could easily be wrong though.

RE "Cabinessence" (I'm late commenting as usual):

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

― iatee, Friday, August 19, 2011 8:17 AM (51 minutes ago) Bookmark

^^This. I voted for "Cabinessence," but until I heard the finished "SMiLE" in 2004 I enjoyed it more as a curiosity than as a great song. It's one of the highlights of the record, but it doesn't hit you anywhere near the same way out of context. Which is why the following comments are also OTM:

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

― Why'd You Wanna Tweet Me So Bad? (dog latin), Friday, August 19, 2011 8:25 AM (43 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it really is a train wreck of sequencing.

― skip, Friday, August 19, 2011 8:29 AM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark

I've never liked 20/20 anywhere near as much as Friends, even though the songs on 20/20 are by and large stronger. They just don't fit together at all the way they're presented on the record. Including two of the worst pieces of shit Bruce Johnston ever inflicted on the group wasn't the wisest move, either.

haha otm

Does "Passing By" count as an instrumental? It doesn't have lyrics, but it certainly has vocals

The sad thing about those early albums is that by combining any two consecutive albums and picking only the best tracks, you could have made one strong artistic statement that holds together as an album. They were trying to release like 3 albums a year which is ridiculous. Yeah you might sell a few more albums at the time, but over time strong albums gain good reputations and sell better, and you could still have had a new album every 9 months.

I dunno, somehow 20/20 flows despite the wildly different sources and styles - Bluebirds is on the other side of the album as Cabinessence, so I don't find it jarring. "Bluebirds" sounds fine after "I Can Hear Music" and feeds into "Be With Me" just fine. OK, having a Manson song feed into "Our Prayer" just ain't right...

I never saw much continuity between Cabinessence (or H&V) and Vegetables either.

I've been here a year or two. Changed the number once or twice. glad to know someone enjoyed my posts. And that I turned someone on to "Girls on the Beach"....

I think I was the only voter for passing by

here's a good live heroes and villains
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQGzRNYcKuY

"Heroes and Villains" benefits tremendously from its proper context on SMiLE, too.

also otm

haha I'm finding so much good stuff on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFeMd3HRtTg

you guys I'm holding the last results hostage until someone helps me figure out the album voting

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

― brownie, Friday, August 19, 2011 9:26 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

Definitely not OTM, dude.

I have always enjoyed Brian Wilson's characterization of the chorus in "Cabinessence" as "the most rockin' waltz ever"

oh yeah love that Same Song clip - the expression on Brian's face is so great

20/20's sound is all over the board - psych symphonies next to country-rock and it just doesn't work.

But is that what bothers you, or is it more just knowing that they were from different times and places and never intended to be presented together? I'm asking because there are plenty of great albums with divergent styles placed next to each other that somehow work. Sometimes that's part of the appeal, the all-over-the-map ethos (White Album anyone?)

That live version! Okay! Yeah. Get that level of energy and momentum into the percussion on record (while still keeping the lushness of the overall thing) and you could have had at least a moderate hit I think. Another thing the big beat does is massage those transitions - the wordless "la la la" parts operate more like a guitar solo does in a traditional rock song that way. It's a great song either way.

Incidentally, not so much on that one, but a lot of the stuff upthread (especially the live "Trader") sounds overwhelmingly like Phish to me. Like, if you had slipped it into the Phish-Widespread-String Cheese-etc. playlist of the dudes down the hall in the dorm from me that I played Tony Hawk with in 2001 I wouldn't have batted an eye.

20/20's sound is all over the board - psych symphonies next to country-rock and it just doesn't work.
But is that what bothers you, or is it more just knowing that they were from different times and places and never intended to be presented together? I'm asking because there are plenty of great albums with divergent styles placed next to each other that somehow work. Sometimes that's part of the appeal, the all-over-the-map ethos (White Album anyone?)

― Lee547 (Lee626), Friday, 19 August 2011 16:47 (42 seconds ago) Bookmark

The former, probably, since I'm a huge White Album fan. But yeah, it's badly sequenced as well.

wait you think the White Album is badly sequenced?!

I was under the impression that quite a few album tracks from Pepper were staples on AM radio

Ok the only thing I could find is a few message boards where people said AM stations played the whole album over and over again. They also said there were singles released from the album, yet the singles they named weren't released until the late 70s.

Sort of think it's impossible to find out radio play statistics for the 60s.

yeah I didn't think there were any singles released from Sgt. Pepper

FTR White Album is not badly sequenced - I meant 20/20

Eventually, the title track was a single in the UK.

Meaning Sgt Pepper..

Ok the only thing I could find is a few message boards where people said AM stations played the whole album over and over again. They also said there were singles released from the album, yet the singles they named weren't released until the late 70s.

Sort of think it's impossible to find out radio play statistics for the 60s.

― Telephoneface (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 19 August 2011 16:53 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

My Dad taped the whole of the White Album off the radio.

agree about 20/20 being a weird record, tho I guess to me, apart from having some insanely good songs on it, it's notable for being the intro to the Beach Boys mk.70s, with rock production and sort of a first step unto updating the overall sound to match what was popular (continuing w/Sunflower thru, say, Holland)

If it had been released in early '67, maybe Smile would have kicked off AOR instead of Sgt. Pepper. Then again, the Beatles were probably the only band that ever got big enough to (repeatedly) force the market to adapt to their creative whims rather than the other way around. Either way, Smile likely would have been a big if not quite Beatles-sized success if it had followed hot on the heels of the "Good Vibrations" single like Capitol hoped it would.

yeah there's def a big shift in mood between Friends and 20/20. 20/20 felt like a sort of hiatus, whereas previously the Boys had ostensibly been making albums on their own terms, that record felt more like a record company hotchpotch. It's incredible they actually recovered and made two albums as good as Sunflower/Surf's Up after that.

alright I figured out the albums NO THANKS TO ANYONE HERE

I think the Head community would really have embraced Smile, if it was released in any form close to the release we've gotten from Brian Wilson recently.

Maybe 20/20 would have worked if the Beach Boys had dragged out Surf's Up and adapted it with the other Smile leftovers, "Can't Wait Too Long" and something else into a mini-suite on Side 2 (beating the Beatles to the punch in the process). Obviously that wasn't going to happen at the time, but it could work, eh?

"Cabinessence" was the song I used to play as a blindfold test for people in college to help them see that "The Beach Boys" weren't who they thought they were. it worked on about 85-90% of the folks who heard it. But it wasn't on my list for the same reason -- it's more of an album song than a piece unto itself.

Btw, I'm on vacation w my kids the only CD in the car is Pet Sounds. The only song my four year-old wants to hear is "Sloop John B" -- which I've now heard about fifty times bc she loves it and is belting it out in her carseat as we go to and from the beach (with mangled lyrics like "Hoist up the joll-EE!"). For the "lite" song amongst Pet Sounds' teenage angst, it's a surprisingly hard song to tire of. The way Brian and Mike alternate leads is subtly masterful -- and the island fisticuffs and food theft make for a hilarious narrative. Also, it really helps break up the heaviosity of the record. Wishing that I placed this now.

We're running out of songs. I'm having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that Beach Boys Love You has zero representation.

20/20 is a pretty funny name for a record that unfocused.

^^My last post - Remove "Bluebirds Over the Mountain," "The Nearest Faraway Place," and "All I Want to Do" from Side 1 in the process.

We're running out of songs. I'm having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that Beach Boys Love You has zero representation.