What are the Beach Boys?

[jpgray]

I myself see them as somewhere in between--in the same category as the Beatles, just much less consistent. Pet Sounds is the direction everyone will point out to you, but I think their whole catalogue of albums from '65 to '71 has a wealth of interesting pop music. The Beach Boys are lesser artists than the Beatles, but not by as much as some imagine. When they're on, they're on in a way that recalls the best of the Fab Four, something only very few bands could accomplish. As Bob Dylan said after seeing them in '71: "They're fucking good, man."

[R3dD0g]

1. Music is not like the Highlander.

There can be many more than one god like genius.

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Saying the Beach Boys were great doesn't lessen the Beatles or CCR or any of a huge group of bands.

[jpgray]

4. Well, in my view, even one god-like genius doesn't exist in popular music.

But maybe I'm overly critical. :) Certainly a few come close, but even in such a limited library as the Beatles', there are some clunkers. Apropos to this poll, "She's Leaving Home" sounds to me like a poor man's Beach Boys ca. 1966.

[Bertha Venation]

2. Two "others"

1. The Beach Boys, whether deservedly or not, became the sound of a portion of '60s nostalgia. AFAIC, that their sound has carried on to be, for some, a "soundtrack" for surfing is a damnable tragedy. The only soundtrack surfing needs is its own sound.

2. The beach boys are my nephews, Chris and Tory, of Huntington Beach, CA. Surf City USA.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

3. extraordinary genius and unremitting shite.

[ProfessorGAC]

5. Somewhere In Between

It's a little more than boy band pap. I still loathe their entire collection.

Dylan played with The Band, and he says that? He must have been loaded.
The Professor

[Enraged_Ape]

6. Beach Boys rule; even the Beatles had crappy experiments

I'm sorry, but the White Album is NOT all that and a bag of chips. And I won't go into Paul and John's post-Beatles solo work (anyone for Two Virgins?).

Pet Sounds, and the parts of Smile that actually made it to production, were incredibly experimental for their time, and they still sound good today as they did then. It's just damn good music competently played and produced by the band's own weirded-out and tripping front man.

This doesn't take away anything from the Beatles' legacy. They were great too. But I'm sick of the undeserved Beach Boys bashing.

[absyntheNsugar]

8. Smile and Pet Sounds

And even some of their latter albums like Sunflower and Holland were great albums in their own right.

Yes, they did a lot of pap, but Brian Wilson was a genius - a sad, misunderstood, abused genius.

I dare anyone to listen to 'Surf's Up' without getting chills down their spine during the final vocals...

[jpgray]

9. Sunflower's great!

Phil Spector would have killed his own mother with a shotgun for the sound in "All I Wanna Do".

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

10. One of those albums is on my playlist every week

or Brian's solo stuff too..

[mac56]

7. Somewhere in between.

Thank god for a musical environment and creative climate that allowed Wilson, Lennon, McCartney, et.al. to experiment. We sure don't have that now.

[moz4prez]

11. Neither genius nor schlock.

They were just nuts.

I mean, what the hell is SMILE about? the lyrics are so shitty it's MINDBOGGLING!