The Beach Boys

Music
22

Heard this as a kid. Nonsense but what tunes they had.

23

surfs up and sunflower i love 'em.

24

Dennis Wilson’s sole solo album Pacific Ocean Blue is amazing, good article about it here

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25

So, of the post-“classic” Beach Boys albums, Sunflower is probably the most consistently good, about 5 or 6 songs on that are just awesome - check out This Whole World, All I wanna Do, Forever, Cool Cool Water, and basically the whole album tbh. Has a couple of oddities (though I really like At My Window for the weird dissonant bit near the end.

As well as that, Dennis Wilson became a really good songwriter as Brian fell apart, so there’s Pacific Ocean Blue as @kiyonemakibi says. As well as that, he wrote a whole bunch of really good latter-day BB songs.

I made a Spotify playlist of his songs a while back, but the 5 below are my favourites today:

  1. Fourth of July, and
  2. Wouldn’t it be Nice to Live again - both considered for Surf’s Up, but eventually due to not fitting into the record so well - “Wouldn’t it be nice…” is almost as good as 'Til I Die, and Dennis apparently wanted to close the album but, y’know, Surf’s Up.
  3. Little Bird, which incorporates a small section of ‘Son is Father of the Man’ from Smile, and is all the better for it.
  4. Cuddle Up - on ‘Carl and the Passions - So Tough’, and just sounds unbearably intimate, then unfolds outwards, and has the weird chord progressions that he’s really good at putting in - always reminds me a bit of Gene Clark.
  5. Forever - as good as anything The Beach Boys did post-Pet Sounds, and just a really, really nice song, basically.

Fourth of July

Wouldn’t it be nice to live again

Little bird

Cuddle up

Forever

e: I had no plans for this evening, and it was either this or listen to The War on Drugs.

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26

Thanks, great work!

27

I think I Get Around is my favourite song by them. Absolutely love it

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29

oh my word:D

30

I cant stop watching this

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31

has this been posted?

32

Mike Love is a gem

33

no wonder that they went out of fashion in the 80s and 90s, is it? :smiley:

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35

*cunt

36

In many ways, he was the original Avalanches

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37

oh shit, SUmmer of Love was intended to be a duet with Bart Simpson!

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38

Just watching the beach boys good vibrations tour. God they had some stellar output. I was really obsessed with them as a teenager, had a box set with all the outtakes and everything.

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39

Mike Love, not war.

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40

Also the name of an EP by Aussie indie-pop merchants Smudge who I really like as did Evan Dando having borrower a few of their songs…Pet sounds is indeed well worthy of the classic status afforded to it…good vibrations is a bit of a false signpost for what is actually quite a melancholy and moving affair…Brian Wilson was still v good live at Primavera and the smiley smile gig…but hard not to feel for him with all he has been through

41

Goin’ South is a good Christmas song that isn’t a Christmas song.

42

Cuddle Up is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve heard

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43

Add Some Music to Your Day is the most pure Brian Wilson song of them all, guys. Just absolutely love it at the moment.

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