Hello! My nephew is turning 16 and he loves records. Any ideas on what’s the best album to get him into The Beach Boys? I know I’ll get him Pet Sounds… any other ideas? I’m thinking Sunflower too maybe?

So, I stumbled upon the recording of Brian's first solo show of his latter day touring career. The show was in March, 1999, in Ann Arbor, Michigan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om9Xc29SsQs

I'm grateful that this recording exists, although the sound quality is certainly lacking at times. Does anyone know of a higher-quality recording of this show?

ESQ editor-in-chief David Beard, is joined by co-hosts Ron Vaccaro and Amanda Metzger for a special live holiday show with special surprise guests! Join on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/share/15PRPVqymx/

Facebook told me that two years ago I conducted this reasonably well done interview with Ron Altbach. I believe this is most likely the final interview he ever did before his unfortunate death.

May he continue to rest in power!

https://youtu.be/OJsPnUSE4Uo?si=4ZS03VNEcutVx155

I've seen this turn around a couple times, and of course it doesn't really fit in the sense that it's a studio produced album. But it is kind of interesting perspective, especially considering the mental illness aspect of it. I guess i've never heard anything else like, it that's for sure.

Body

I genuinely have no idea, and its bugging me to no end. The coda sounds like shit to me, idek why. However, I see everyone here and on YT and r/fantanoforever praising it to high heaven and deeming it better than the original. Please help me understand: what the fuck am I missing??? It's so damn annoying; what are y'all hearing that I'm not???

Just to be clear, it's not an aversion to Dae Lims himself; I love his rendition of almost every other SMiLE song (except Vega-Tables; the coda sounds weirdly mixed), but Surf's Up is just weird. I love the orchestra and the instrumentation he added to all other sections, but that coda... it just sounds so shit, so fake, so... un-Beach Boys, ya know what I mean? I think it's a me problem, cuz so many people seem to like it so much. Please help a brotha out.

OK so... in broad terms, Brian is the hero, Mike is the villain... but which band member doesn't get enough credit, and worked hard over years to keep the band together and productive?

I saw the thumbnail and assumed I was going to post to make fun of it, but it's actually pretty cool. https://youtu.be/eBXcg_O7c3g?si=6tPNdWpsBUna1MfT

So I'm digging into the Beach Boys Love You outtakes and in a few different places I've found stuff referencing transgender rights. Near as I can tell the original recordings had some transphobic stuff on them? I'm confused and was wondering if anyone had any more in-depth information.

It might be worth noting that I am in no way homophobic or transphobic.

just a couple of the things that prompted this question below.

EDIT: OK So I was told that originally the stuff was uploaded to youtube with transphobic stuff so now when it's shared it's with trans rights stuff. I also saw something about something Mike Love was saying before Surfer Girl?

https://preview.redd.it/k5ljii2m5y6e1.png?width=524&format=png&auto=webp&s=2fda8771ad72b213bceb3ef81b86983461c4ea22

https://preview.redd.it/z0odqbqr5y6e1.png?width=1182&format=png&auto=webp&s=a952a7eb4e695ef7a10a2eac6a1ac68593b8f03c

I’ve seen some posts about hearing lesser known songs while out in public. Tonight I went out to eat at a Christmas pop-up bar, and there was live music.

While I was leaving, the two guys on stage who had been covering Christmas songs all night, started performing “Winter Symphony”. It took me a second to recognize the song, but once I did, I was very impressed with such a deep track. Can anyone beat that?

I cannot help but think that "wind chimes" is a metaphor for something. Perhaps childhood memories? ("Now and then, a tear rolls off my cheek.")

And then the "whispering winds send my wind chimes a-tinklin'". What is the "whispering winds" supposed to be? Some sort of catalyst, I'm sure, but what?

I've been making my way through the Beach Boys' discography (16 albums in, admittedly with a big blindspot of most of their late 60s/early 70s stuff) and one of the things I've noticed is that all of their later songs are too long. I don't have a problem with song length inherently--I listen to Lana Del Rey, after all--but it seems like a lot of later Beach Boys songs stagnate early and overstay their welcome. My best example of this is Somewhere Near Japan: it starts out so strong but ends up not really developing or doing anything new once the basic melodies and production have been established. Because of this I rarely ever listen to the full 5 minutes.

Compare this to their early track Surfer Girl. It passes by so quickly, but to the song's benefit. It has a concept, it goes with it as far as it'll go, and it ends. I Get Around also is only a little over two minutes but does so much in that time, more than most of the stuff on Love You or 1985. I much prefer listening to a song over again rather than tapping out early.

I'm assuming a big component of this was songs becoming longer overall, but it's to the band's detriment. They have some songs that are long compared to their early stuff that still work (Surf's Up obviously, Disney Girls) and some early songs that don't justify their incredibly short length (Denny's Drums, Boogie Woodie), but on the whole the inverse seems to be the pattern. I still enjoy a lot of late period Beach Boys but this is a glaring issue for me.

This isn't something I see brought up often but surely I can't be alone on this.

I feel like the group started off as The Four Freshman meets Chuck Berry meets surf and SoCal, and that was obviously a hit formula.

But later into the 60s, you had Dylan changing the whole scene, for example with "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and "It's Alright Ma" in March '65.

So what I see, when it comes to Smile, is that Brian was trying to do like... Four Freshman meets Dylan meets Wall of Sound meets... who knows what. A pop symphony....

But Mike seems to get so hung up on the LYRICS, insisting on having Van Dyke Parks come to the studio and EXPLAIN what certain lyrics mean. Is Mike just square like that? Not a Dylan fan? Not a fan of poetry or the beats?

Or was it moreso just the famous phrase that he didn't want to "fuck with the formula"? Did he really think they could go on doing surf songs and car songs forever?

Even a greedy or money-focused musical artist would see that you have to change with the times...