Best Beach Boys Single (A-sides only)

feels wrong to not have Kokomo and Problem Child on here, among others but what could I do

Wouldn't it be nice

I assume there will be several protest votes for Honkin' Down the Highway

yeah, "wouldn't it be nice" is my first choice.
then "California Girls" or "I Get around" for more iconic classic surfing era.

"I Get Around" vs. "Wouldn't It Be Nice" vs. "Good Vibrations" in the elite tier, with a really strong second string of amazing recordings just behind ("Help Me Rhonda," "Fun Fun Fun," "California Girls," "Sloop John B"), and "Heroes and Villains" sort of off to the side as its own thing. Lots of others that I like quite a lot - "Sail On Sailor," e.g.

Was going to say this would be just about impossible if we were talking both sides - suddenly "Surfer Girl" comes armed with "Little Deuce Coupe" -- but things break down very similarly: "I Get Around" + "Don't Worry Baby" vs. "Wouldn't It Be Nice" + "God Only Knows." Damn, dude. The big loser is "Good Vibrations," with "Let's Go Away For Awhile" tacked on, even if the A-side has enough ideas to fill an album practically.

"I Get Around" is just so rich and energetic and propulsive and joyous, great stops and starts - and all in two minutes, twelve seconds! But I sorta feel like I have to honor the teenager in me who once really felt something in "Wouldn't It Be Nice." It's been a really, really long time and now I almost can't even hear the song but wow, there is some ache in there, some yearning.

there is no single by anyone anywhere, including "good vibrations," that wouldn't be improved by having the great "let's go away for awhile" tacked on to it.

i like the internally conversations going on in some of these basically double-A-side singles:

"don't worry baby: i get around"
"wouldn't it be nice? god only knows"
"help me rhonda: kiss me, baby"

internal. not internally.

"Let's Go Away For Awhile" is nice and all, but an instrumental album track from a previous album just doesn't scream "essential" the way many of their b-sides do. I would have assumed things like "Shut Down" were A-sides! Could be another poll in itself really.

LOVE "Honkin' Down the Highway". So clueless and bizarre but with a amazing winding melody. Very "Pinkerton".

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

The drummer in me wants to play along w this SOOOOOOO bad.

my shortlist:

Surfin' USA
Fun Fun Fun
I Get Around
Help Me Rhonda
California Girls
Good Vibrations

then "California Girls" or "I Get around" for more iconic classic surfing era.

I lump "California Girls" in w/psychedelic era Beach Boys in my mind because Brian Wilson conceived it during his first acid trip. and it sounds like it!

still seems weird to me that they decided to make Sloop John B the lead off single for Pet Sounds. guess maybe "folk rock" seemed happening that week. (and i love sloop john b, don't get me wrong)

well they couldn't put the song with "God" in the title out as the single, even if it was the best song Brian would ever write

I'm a total Sloop John B stan. Probably if I was in charge I would have missed its commercial potential too ("So... some guys are on a boat? I don't smell a hit here!") but it's just catchy as hell in their arrangement, and I do think the Home, let me go home! and the arrangement generally (that glockenspiel!) fits perfectly into the album. It's not as much of a sore thumb to me today as it was whenever I first encountered the record.

Also, given the impending shift to multi-month diffused recording techniques, this (from Wiki) is wild - - - Al Jardine, after explaining how he pitched the song, with modifications, to Brian: "The very next day, I got a phone call to come down to the studio. Brian played the song for me, and I was blown away. The idea stage to the completed track took less than 24 hours."

Sloop John B rules

yeah i love it -- that opening! the flute! the breakdown! it's just an outlier in an album that is mainly about the joys/disappointments of young love, innocence etc. unless there's some subtext i'm missing.

Went with "I Get Around." The crunchiest they (or whoever the fuck from the Wrecking Crew) ever got.

unless there's some subtext i'm missing.

loss of corn = loss of innocence

obviously

oh i forgot to include "Surfin Safari" on my shortlist that song is the shit

I don't think there's a hi-hat in any of these after "Surfin' USA." I know Brian Wilson thinks they sound goofy. They augment the locomotive Chuck Berry edge nicely in the David Marks era though.

voting "Fun Fun Fun" for the perfect rock'n'roll storyline + organ solo + killer outro

haha yeah it's funny how when Brian goes "stripped down" (say on Smiley Smile or Love You) there are zero cymbals+hi hats. Barely any snares too.

xp

zero cymbals+hi hats

well when you pretty much devote your life to trying to re-create "be my baby," it seems like that would be the way to go.

Voted for Break Away. It strikes me as being the archetypal Beach Boys song, somehow encompassing most of their evolutionary stages and lyrical themes and I think it's awesome. (has hi-hats too btw).

It's a bit of a shame that The Beach Boys in most people's minds is the early stuff up until 'Good Vibrations' - it seems that only the hardcore fans and "music geeks" (for want of a better term) are familiar with the great work they did from the collapse of the Smile project onwards. For me, they continued to be great up until at least Holland (I kinda consider stuff like 15 Big Ones and Love You to be strictly hardcore fan territory)

It's like, imagine an alternate universe in which The Beatles most known stuff was from 'Love Me Do' up until Rubber Soul, and everything else was stuff that only the dedicated hardcore fans gave a shit about... that's how the perception of The Beach Boys catalogue looks to me.

And yeah, I know 'Kokomo' was a big hit, but who really gives a shit about it apart from Mike Love?

these guys

http://media.giphy.com/media/5xtDarmC8FHPT2gvon6/giphy.gif

went with "i get around," which never really gets old for me -- it's such a profoundly weird song, impossible to use as background noise; i've probably listened to it more than 200 times and it still kinda startles me every time i hear it.

"rock and roll music" definitely the worst one. i actually kinda dig "kokomo" despite its awfulness.

remembering "god only knows" isn't a single really threw me for a loop. obviously the objective answer would be somehwere in the neighborhood of "california girls" through "villains," but i went with my heart and gave "friends" a vote. such a beautiful lil' ditty and probably the most immediately heartwarming (and listenable) of the lot for me

@everything have you heard the isolated bg vocal track from the end of "break away?" it was so beautiful bootleggers were circulating it as a proto-ambient SMiLE fragment for years before someone realized it's literally just a piece of scenery from a much later single

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX_cjYr3yl0

so a '68 recording w/ a '69 release date isn't "much" later, but still funny (/beautiful and i have slept to it many times)

It is beautiful, thanks !
As for "California girls" belonging to the psychedelic era, it's clearly in between since it still has the rock n roll kind of bass riff (there must be a more appropriate description...shuffle rhythm ?) and the basic lyrics (girls !) but the arrangements and production are already fantastic and sophisticated (that intro!).
What a joyful shiny track !

voted Wouldn't It Be Nice. the bridge is one of the most gorgeous moments of pop music in recorded history.

Chord progression of California Girls so cool and weird.

I love the Beach Boys but I also have a special love for Blondie Chaplin-era Beach Boys that makes me want to judge them on completely separate terms. So my gut is saying "Sail On Sailor" even though it's barely representative of anything I love about non-Blondie Beach Boys.

Good Vibrations, over Wouldn't It Be Nice and Wild Honey.

Favorite songs not on the list: Aren't You Glad and Girl Don't Tell Me

"God only knows" was a double A but I can imagine it would run away with this..

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I think I forgot to vote in the end, but I never did really decide between "I Get Around" and "Wouldn't It Be Nice," so the tie there is cool with me.

Missed the poll, but would have happily voted for "Help Me Rhonda." Team Jardine!

"friends" and "darlin" tying "california girls," "breakaway" beating them all – did not see that one coming.

"Breaak Away" is great and deserves its high showing, but thought "Surf's Up" was the ILM fave

I did vote "Breakaway" but "Do it again" would have been my 2nd place.

Remember getting into an argument with my older brother many years ago when he was talking about what a great Beach Boys song "Rock and Roll Music" was. "You idiot," I sneered. "It's the BEATLES!"