It's About Time: Beach Boys Poll Results

omg the interview too

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...

I've been making a spotify playlist with all of the instrumental backing tracks I can find on there. It's like a master class in arrangement.

mike love was already an annoying hippie at that point it seems

"who determines, brian, where you will go next?"
"well i guess i do [laughs]; i write the songs and produce them so i have a lot to say about it"

Meanwhile, my hope of finding "Somewhere Near Japan" somewhere near this countdown is gradually diminishing...

I really should have voted in this poll. I would have given that song some love...

I've read that Dean Torrence tried to convince Brian that nobody cares who's playing the instruments on their records, that people listen to the Beach Boys for the vocals and the songs.

speaking of Dean, anyone hear that "Save for a Rainy Day" record he did? Some good songs on there but it needed mad vocal harmonies. Jan was recovering from the car accident so it's solo.

I wonder how many people voted for any tracks from 1980 or later. I had 2.

I rep for the first side of "Still Cruisin'," but only because we had the cassette around growing up, for weekends spent paddling around eating weenies and drinking cream soda. "Somewhere Near Japan" is pretty solid though.

I almost put in a vote for "Cry" off of Imagination. 1990 or later! Like that song. But ultimately decided to vote mostly for stuff that might stand at least a sliver of a chance to make the top 69.

getcha back is catchy

It's a fuck of a lot better than "Kokomo," too.

'love and mercy' also totally voteable

I heard a bootleg of the Andy Paley seesions from the mid-'90s (sorry can't remember exact dates) and thought a few of the songs, esp. "Gettin' In Over My Head" were pretty good. That project was shelved, the slickly-produced Imagination substituted with new songs. GIOMH (much) later a title track for a BW solo album in either a remixed or rerecorded version, but this is one time where the simple production (as I heard on the boot) worked better.

Yeah, Love & Mercy that was his closing song at the live show I saw (Smile tour)

Despite the synthesized everything typical of mid-80s pop, I think "Getcha Back" is more of a dead-on Spector rip than many of Brian's mid-60s BB productions. Not to say it's as good.

paley sessions have some great stuff. soul searchin and you're still a mystery esp.

a cool 1990s era brian wilson track (w/the beach boys too!) is "still a mystery" from the andy paley sessions. in fact, that whole group of tracks is pretty strong, at least as good as most of BW's solo stuff, and also kinda cool for the retro/lo-fi production.

xp!!

yeah they brushed off some of the tunes for one of his recent solo albums, but they didn't use 'you're still a mystery' for some reason. astounds me cause it's such a solid song.

it's in the rarities comp I made btw

and even received a vote in the poll

I like a lot of stuff from that first BW solo album and think Rio Grande almost made my list...? can't remember. that song is an amazing Smile-style suite though.

I didn't think Getcha Back was all that bad, not all that different in concept from "Do It Again" although the vocals were much better on DIA. Beach Boys '85 last BB album that wasn't a total waste.

Still LOL out loud at the flimsy rationale for including a few golden oldies on Still Cruisin' - they were used in some long-forgotten movies from 1988-89. I'm pretty sure hearing "California Girls" reminds them of the scene from Soul Man

yeah I like "Baby Let Your Hair Grow Long" too xp

OTM about Rio Grande - very Smilesque. (I just made that word up)

I'll admit (or should I brag?) that I've never heard anything (except the hit) from Still Cruisin', Summer in Paradise, or Stars and Stripes. Or most of Keepin' the Summer Alive.

Well I often associate "I Get Around" with the opening scene to "Look Who's Talking". Though it's inclusion on Still Cruisin' says its because of "Good Morning Vietnam", since "Look Who's Talking" came out a few months after "Still Cruisin".

I heard the Beach Boys cover of "California Dreamin'" made circa '87 IIRC once and recall it sounded pretty decent

any beach boys fan needs to hear Summer in Paradise at least once. Total train wreck, the distillation of the Mike Love aesthetic into creepy beach sex tracks, late 80s production touches and some grungy guitars. The "Surfin" cover is almost sacrilegious.

Spotify lists that cover of "California Dreamin'" as their 5th most popular song. wtf

Oh no there's a "Surfin'" cover on it!!!! yikes

At least Good Morning Vietnam isn't a crap movie, but I don't think most of us think of "I Get Around" as that song from Good Morning Vietnam in the manner that, say, "Mrs. Robinson" evokes The Graduate

xp lol really? i can see some clueless people being like "i love the beach boys! california dreamin'!"

so this next one is #4 in the alternate list (w/ 3 ballots added) and only fell to #5 late in the game

#5

Til I Die - Surf's Up
569 points, 20 votes, 2 #1 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYPFROyCQ9Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGXhpRNTBxw

oh God, this California Dreamin cover is terrible.

(original mix) is actually (engineer fucking around, not at all original mix) but it's the version most people like more

can't fuck with 'Til I Die, one of the Beach Boys songs that converted my wife to a fan, oddly

That alternate mix is boring, why would anyone prefer that to the album version?

oh man you're in for it

I don't want an engineer fucking around for 3 minutes as an intro when the released version is so beautifully packaged and eerie. The production is amazing.

Yeah, the vocals aren't mixed nearly as well on that alternate version

i can see the desire to make til i die into an "epic" kinda thing --but the thing is, it's already epic, even though the album version 2 1/2 minutes!

from Wikipedia:

Summer in Paradise is The Beach Boys' twenty-seventh studio album, their first release of the 1990s and the band's last full album of new, original material. It was released in the United States in 1992 on Brother Records (through an independent distributor, Navarre) and in the United Kingdom in 1993 on EMI. It has been reported that Navarre went bankrupt after distributing the album.[1] The album was left out of Capitol's Beach Boys re-issue campaign in 2000 and 2001 and thus was left to remain out of print.

There's a rare "CHR Mix" of "Forever" (yes, remake of Dennis' song) sent to radio stations, even though none of them played it

CDs evidently sell for about USD$25 on eBay due to rarity, UK version worth almost twice as much

"'Til I Die" maybe their best from the '70s

I bought the US version for around that price a couple years ago. It's actually a very cool package, a weird cardboard digipak one-off thing with a poster inside.

Yeah I didn't like that alt version either - remind me where it was from pls? only heard it once or twice

well, it seems pretty obvious what the top 4 should be at this point

1. Kokomo
2. When I Grow Up
3. Dance Dance Dance
4. Little Saint Nick

love this:
Jardine had been "suspended" from the band prior to the album's recording (apparently due to Love taking issue with his attitude) and for a while into it, and so he only sings the chorus on two songs.

There's a Wikipedia entry about the impending Smile sessions box too

WHERE, PRAY TELL, IS "BE TRUE TO YOUR SCHOOL"!?!?!?

Yeah I didn't like that alt version either - remind me where it was from pls? only heard it once or twice

officially released on the endless harmony soundtrack, had been floating around as a bootleg before that

poor crüt