It's About Time: Beach Boys Poll Results

add some music to your day was on my shortlist. A bit schmaltzy but I listened to it over and over again as part of a self-made GV CD3-esque loop a few years back.

Aren't You Glad is kind of cool, but I keep waiting for "wah wah, ho wah" to come in. I don't know, it just sounds like they took Water and made it more conventional and less interesting.

2004 version vastly superior imo

that's just baffling to me

huh. i like it precisely b/c it takes on that pop song trajectory. tbh sometimes get bored with the smile-era workouts that anticipate stereolab's career

yeah, I could just get lost in Smile bootlegs forever. I love all of the half-formed ideas, different arrangements, sudden radical shifts, etc.

in fact, I think Smiley Smile is way better than 2004 Smile for that reason. It's probably my favorite album of theirs taken as a whole, although not many tracks from it made my ballot (and I didn't do an album ballot). I kind of wish Wilson would have just taken all of his various demos and ideas and bits and pieces and edited them together into a sprawling mess of a double album in '67. I don't think it's nearly as interesting in its "finished" form.

i love sunflower but add some music and cool cool water are ones i usually skip

The finished Smile is somewhere around 52 minutes, though, right? I don't think it leaves much out.

xp

you skip cool cool water??!! i don't even know, man.

i like that youtube version posted above which is from warmth of the sun as compared to the sunflower version

The finished Smile is somewhere around 52 minutes, though, right? I don't think it leaves much out.

he may not have left anything out, but he cleaned it all up, and smoothed over the rough edges to the point where he removed everything that was interesting about it. the two wind chimes versions posted above are a great example. Or compare a bootleg version of the original Mrs. O'Leary's Cow to the re-recorded version.

i like that youtube version posted above which is from warmth of the sun as compared to the sunflower version

couldn't agree with you more!

wk offtm

it's slower and spacier, i should download that

Yeah, wk, can't agree with that at all. I think most of the 2004 Smile was remarkably true to the original arrangements.

(The original Smile arrangements, that is. Obviously the Smiley Smile versions of "Vege-Tables," "Wind Chimes," etc. were much different.)

cool cool water is such a gas

#57

Country Air - Wild Honey
84 points, 5 votes

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

ahhh, about time another one of mine shows up

country air is great, maybe my fave from wild honey? of course i didn't vote for it. too many great songs!

#56

Please Let Me Wonder - Today!
88 points, 4 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc4jR7ajbpw

can you imagine any other poll where a song this good gets #56

oh man what a tune. have always wanted to sing that w/ a quartet

such an amazing song. The one potential negative is its combination of directness and weirdness - who would ever say "please forgive my shaking" - but the chorus is about as good as it gets in the BBs catalog. And obviously the arrangement and sentiment are so operatic and over the top that it's better considered as a song the narrator is thinking to himself, not singing to someone else.

Such diversity of sound and situation so far in the countdown.

#55

Wild Honey - Wild Honey
90 points, 4 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmOE92ACzZY

Wild Honey is being well represented so far, hope that means Darlin' will make it.

#52 (3-way tie)

Then I Kissed Her - Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)
92 points, 4 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwnTzl9HPJM

^^first cover to appear...?

I voted for Country Air, love to play that song on the organ

Wild Honey is being well represented so far, hope that means Darlin' will make it.
--Kitchen Person

It's one thing for a record to sound like it came from a later time, but I think Wild Honey is an extraordinary example. Just the fact that it was recorded in 1967...I mean, I know John Wesley Harding and The Notorious Byrd Brothers came out around the same time, but "Wild Honey" and "Darlin'" sound like early '70s AM radio. In 1967.

I was hoping for some of these Wild Honey megaclassics to place a little higher. Aren't You Glad and the title track should both be in the top twenty.

David Cassidy version of "Darlin'" (produced by Bruce Johnston, Flo and Eddie on background vocals?) is really good, too.

Why, by the way, did I never know that Johnston wrote "I Write the Songs" (also on that Cassidy album, later covered by Barry Manilow)?

Darlin' might be the crowning achievement of post-Brian meltdown Beach Boys. Just a perfect little track. We'll have time to discuss it later though.

and now I learn it's a rewrite of a track Brian wrote in 1964. Never mind.

Always thought it interesting that "Then I Kissed Her" not only flips the gender but also the perspective. He wants to be the kisser, not the kissee.

"Please Let Me Wonder" was in my top 5, and is one of the first songs I play for any nonbeliever friends.

it's pretty clear Brian knew he had something special with Darlin' given its multiple permutations that have been released over the years (a re-write of it also appears on American Spring's 1972 album) and the number of times it was covered

#52 (3-way tie)

Kiss Me Baby - Today!
92 points, 3 votes, 1 first place vote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoJ-yulhF8o

war of the !:

today! vs summer days (and summer nights!!)

Bgd vox to this are incredible.

wikipedia sez:

"After Pet Sounds, the album is arguably the most acclaimed album of the Beach Boys' career. The album includes the original version of the classic hit, "Help Me, Rhonda" (titled on this album as "Help Me, Ronda")."

really? I don't think there is a clear critic's #2. maybe I'll go look at that acclaimed music site.

pet sounds -> surf's up -> today! -> sunflower -> all summer long -> smiley smile

by the acclaimed music aggregated critic measure

best album cover imo

yeah, i don't know if it gets discussed much, but i think they always had pretty great artwork, at least on their major studio efforts

recall an entertaining ilx thread in which ppl are trying to figure out the origin of painting on surf's up

#52 (3-way tie)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7a/Beach_Boys_-_I_Can_Hear_Music.jpg/220px-Beach_Boys_-_I_Can_Hear_Music.jpg

I Can Hear Music - 20/20
92 points, 5 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlH3bZt9ooU

lol, speaking of great artwork...

yeah I'd never seen that one! pretty trippy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTY9BRCg-Ec

hilarious stage setup! carl and dennis both sound fantastic on those songs imo

hoping at least I'm So Young places much higher than the two from side 2 of Today that already made the list. i reckon you didn't get my ballot but that album side was pretty much my top 5 along w/ darlin'