It's About Time: Beach Boys Poll Results

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.

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.

yeah it's the former

so much for formal analysis then. I don't know how you could honestly claim to be interested in formal analysis of pop music and come to that conclusion.

there are of course fluke hits, and great overlooked shoulda-been-hits, but I think there are also clearly observable patterns.

eh the charts have always been total bullshit imho

I mean things become hits for so many different reasons, a huge number of which have absolutely nothing to do with a piece's formal qualities

iatee, rescue us!

so how do you know that audiences abandoned the Beach Boys then? maybe they didn't.
xp

the charts are just a barometer of what people like, they don't tell you anything about WHY people like them. but you can tell they were abandoned by their audience (at least in the US) because they sold less records.

so are the charts an accurate barometer of what people like or are they total bullshit?

they're both!

yeah although their singles got weirder & less immediate their albums could have sold much better if the rock crowd had embraced them since that was an album buying demo. the singles & albums still sold well in the UK which could come down to better taste but also probably because they didn't seem so "square" in that context.

they're both!

I don't think you can have it both ways

it's like this - the charts reflect what people like. people like things for all kinds of reasons, many of which are bullshit and have nothing to do with a piece of music's formal qualities.

like abe lincoln said, people are stupid some of the time, but they can't be stupid all of the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz0SnpN_O00