defend the indefensible: "kokomo" by the beach boys

cue some contrarian asshole saying "b-b-but it is!"

a pop song that goes well with a rum & coke

But to paraphrase what many have sung, some things go better with coke...like approx. 100,000 pop songs (and actually quite a few of those teen symphonies to God).

Actually, I just heard it again and the chorus features a more agreeable chug than I remember. But the rest of the song doesn't. I don't hear how the accordion makes it special at all. And it's still a song abut repressed homosexuality. No gay guys like it. I know - I asked them.

abut = Freudian slip

I give in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckQCvTqswUw

I guess the divide here is whether or not you had to withstand the song nonstop in 1988? I was 0 yrs old so back then all I ever heard was the Muppets version a couple of times

for me the dividing line is I have always found Brian Wilson insufferable and his acolytes more so, so this song has the dual benefits of 1) not being a B.W. song and 2) trolling B.W. fanboys

i find the beach boys pretty annoying in general, but this is like all the worst qualities of typical beach boys shit amped up to 11 with a dose of fresh hell in the mix

oops. sorry for posting it on the 1p3 list.

dude that list is full of all kinds of crap, don't worry about it! haw

mikin' love out of nothin' at all

Tonight I celebrate mike love for you

watching.. waiting.. for you to justify mike love

Terry Melcher

"do it again" (a late '60s BBs hit that i'm pretty sure has minimal BW involvement) is a pop song that goes well with a rum and coke. "kokomo" is a fuckin' piece of shit. raise yr contrarian standards, etc etc.

raise yr contrarian standards
^^this

Agree with whomever lists Carl Wilson as "Kokomo"'s sole saving grace - It's one of the last times he recorded with the band IIRC.

And attn J0hn: there are many non-BW BBs recordings that are enjoyable without the accompanying baggage. Sunflower and Surf's Up alone proved that.

Landylocked
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f185/PappaWheelie/bbbbbbst-62042-main.jpg

I'm not being contrarian when I hate Brian Wilson & most old BBs records, the first time I heard classic Beach Boys I was a young kid living in southern California and I said (paraphrasing here) "ick what the fuck is this garbage that sounds like ass, get this shit out of here" it was only years later I learned some people thought all that horrible squalling sound was somehow good.

"do it again" is ok though I'll give you that one. would still rather listen to "kokomo" though

"This Song Wants To Sleep With You Tonight" - funny title.

i want to kiss them for their wonderful music.
-- ethan, Friday, November 9, 2001 5:00 PM (6 years ago)
: D

I guess there were worse stuff in the charts at the time, but stood beside their classic 63-73 output, this is downright indefensible.

"Kokomo" was sure-as-fuck better than the movie that introduced it.

brian was involved in do it again you know

...and it ain't 'til I die nor sail on sailor.

yeah I'm aware dude it's not like I mindlessly hate him in a "if he's on it, I hate it" style - there are a few exceptions and "do it again" is one of them

it was in response to

"do it again" (a late '60s BBs hit that i'm pretty sure has minimal BW involvement) is a pop song that goes well with a rum and coke.

brian wrote and produced the track, having stated pride in that drum sound eternally since (and sampled by air)

would much rather listen to jimmy buffett than this shit

yeah i totally wouldve figured if j0hn hated the beach boys his except for song would be 'sail on sailor', seems right up his alley. also really really cant figure out how someone could prefer 'kokomo' to 'wipeout'.

not sure what this means, but van dyke parks contributed to both good vibrations and sail on sailor

as for wipeout, i wonder if polydor A&R was like, hey, Run-DMC crossed over with aerosmith -- so we've talked to the beach boys' mike love about something similar...and fatties were like wtf?!

I can't figure out what's particularly exceptional about "Do It Again" that sets it apart from vast swathes of the BBs catalog. Song about girls and surfing and w/dense vocal arrangement over a standard r&b chord structure = over half of all BBs songs (at least!)

I mean sure nice odd drum effect but come on

b-b-b-but it came out in 68!

i'm a friends kinda guy though

well then of course they got chubby checker on 'the twist' and i'm sure at the very least phonecalls were made for 'baby you're a rich man'.

around this time?
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f185/PappaWheelie/mackdaddy.jpg

and by around this time, i mean really AROUND this time

*rimshot*

hey I dig "Let's Do It Again" (and "Friends") a lot - my point is that making an exception of hatred for that one particular song solely because of its drum effect/sample history is a little uhhhhh waht

i think you're combining thoughts of different posters shakey

clearly, i'm too much of a fan to discount nearly anything by them. kokomo is just about the only thing i don't like. hell, i fucking stop my life just to see what carnie is up to.

the other dudes on this thread be hatin' "everything but..."

I'm convinced that Full House killed the Beach Boys' reputation for good. It doesn't matter how much acclaim rock critics pile on Smile or Pet Sounds. It doesn't even matter if Brian's right there onstage performing Smile or Pet Sounds. To generations, the Beach Boys will always be Uncle Jesse's favorite band.

http://www.peterbrown.tv/dukedenver.JPG

^^^argh beaten to the punch

Cockomo?

Believe me, if I could remember the lyrics, I would dutifully transcribe them here.

would much rather listen to jimmy buffett than this shit

bold, but entirely true.

Which one of these sounds more like your weekend?

Squalls out on the gulf stream
Big storm's comin' soon
I passed out in my hammock
And God I slept 'til way past noon
Stood up and tried to focus
I hoped I wouldn't have to look far
I knew I could use a Bloody Mary
So I stumbled next door to the bar

vs.

Bodies in the sand
Tropical drink melting in your hand
Well be falling in love
To the rhythm of a steel drum band
Down in kokomo

hey I dig "Let's Do It Again" (and "Friends") a lot - my point is that making an exception of hatred for that one particular song solely because of its drum effect/sample history is a little uhhhhh waht

yeah it's totally subjective, it's not like I sat down and said "I will make an exception for one song, and that one will be 'do it again'" - most of the other beach boys shit just inspires a visceral ick-ick-get-it-out-of-here response in me whereas that one just seems to chug pleasantly along - if I was hating the Beach Boys on some principle or something, then I'd hate that song, too, but I'm not: I just experience most of their music as an unpleasant sound to be avoided, but that song I can kinda dig. I also have "s'allright" love for "Help Me Rhonda."

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"

For some reason I want to cut and paste this John Cage thing right now:

When I was growing up in California there were
two things that everyone assumed were good for you.
There were, of course, others
— spinach and oatmeal, for instance —
but right now I’m thinking of
sunshine and orange juice. When we
lived at Ocean Park, I was sent out every
morning to the beach where I spent the day
building rolly-coasters in the sand,
complicated downhill tracks with tunnels and
inclines upon which I rolled a small hard
rubber ball. Every day toward noon
I fainted because the sun was too much
for me. When I fainted I didn’t
fall down, but I couldn’t see;
there were flocks of black spots
wherever I looked. I soon learned
to find my way in that blindness to a
hamburger stand where I’d ask for something
to eat. Sitting in the shade,
I’d come to. It took me
much longer, about thirty-five years
in fact, to learn that orange
juice was not good for me either.

-http://www.lcdf.org/indeterminacy/

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"

Stop it J0hn, you are shaking the very foundations of my worldview. Srsly.

the bridge to "Wouldn't It Be Nice,"

You have no soul.

Stop it J0hn, you are shaking the very foundations of my worldview. Srsly.

-- St3ve Go1db3rg, Tuesday, April 22, 2008 3:26 AM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

^^ self-parody or... ?

Why would that be self-parody?

P.S. ian, I promise I won't be sad if you stop taking such an intense interest in my comments.

The only really indefensible thing in this song is this lyric,

Everybody knows
a little place like kokomo.

Everybody? A little place? You imagine the singer as a smug 80s asshole so deep in his Reagonomic bubble that he assumes that literally everybody is living his same globe-trotting cocktail-swilling high life. It really ends the song on a shitty note.

But, eh...the chorus is pretty solid (sounds a lot thinner than I remember though) - hooks aside, I think I'd rather take Roger Miller's "England Swings" as far as the narrow genre of songs that give you vacation-planning advice. As for songs on hit Beach Boys comeback extravaganza Still Cruisin' it's all about the title track, "In My Car," and "Somewhere Near Japan."

(I know there's an ILX thread where someone complains about "England Swings" - I have very distinct memories of it - but fucked if I can find it now...)

steve, ian picks on you because you talk about stuff he doesn't understand like how to actually play music.

Really though - 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!" Pop doesn't usually track so clearly the disintegration of youthful possibility into crass, compromised consumption. The threat posed by "Kokomo" is that it will ruin all those other, less commodified beaches of yesteryear.

Does this song have any marimbas on it? Gotta have marimbas