The Beatles and The Beach Boys: who produced the weirdest singles?

After having heard "Fire" off the Smile sessions it's impossible not to pick Beach boys (Mrs O'Leary's cow is kind of weird too).

I think the Beach Boys were better than the Beatles; in a year of great singles, "California Girls" is the best one I know. "Good Vibrations" is pretty weird; you can hear all the effort behind it even more than you can the work put into "Strawberry Fields." "Darlin'" is also quite strange in its apparent normality, as were the Beach Boys, which is why I cannot stomach the Beatles any more--and I like them fine, I just never listen to them if I can help it, apart from early stuff like "Not a Second Time," "It Won't Be Long," and most of "Hard Day's Night" and "For Sale." Their attempts at besting the Byrds just send me back to the Byrds, and by '66 Love was far more interesting. As a take on what was going on around them, things like "Rain" and what they seemed to think were Stax tributes ("Drive My Car") and Motown rips ("Got to Get You Into My Life") are cool but hardly up to the standards of their models, sorta Euro-Vision in my opinion. Not enough bottom to that music, way too shallow to someone like me who grew up internalizing Eddie Floyd or Booker T. But the Beach Boys are so sincerely confused about what they're doing, they're such honest rubes, such cheeseburgers in the great Elvis tradition, that I love them more all the time.

Also, the Beatles never did anything as interesting as "Johnny Carson," "Solar System" or any of the other tunes on their greatest work, "Love You."

The two seem virtually tied where singles are concerned (at least in the U.S.)-- "Good Vibrations" wasn't quite as weird as "Yellow Submarine", and "Strawberry Fields" wasn't quite as weird as "Heroes & Villains"-- though I'll contest that it's only because the Beatles didn't release any from Sgt Pepper's or The White Album.

strongly disagree: never had a pop song suffered such modulating key changes/time changes, the warped boogie-woogie jazz meets theremin squeal (previously only known in b-movie horror films), "the four freshmen go to mars" harmony charts, the cello used as a rhythm instrument.

"tomorrow never knows" (esp. the alt. version on anthology 2) with the tape loops/reverse guitar/bird calls is maybe not as unnerving as "fire"/"mrs. o'leary's cow" but qualifies in my book as experimental as "good vibrations" (and "revolution #9" in their own canon).

"weirdness" in terms of compositional experimentalism, i think brian wilson took more risks than lennon/mccartney... i'm always blown away at "this whole world" which shouldn't sound as catchy as bizarre it looks on music paper.

also, i think any of brian wilsons melodies could sock a lennon or mccartney melody till it smarts. all that sort of thing is subjective of course. and melody obviously wasnt a priority when it came to yellow submarine.

what a silly argument were getting into.

Surely Soulseek has them, Tom. Otherwise, they're pretty widely available on boot...

Anyway!!!! Singles!!!!! I thought the Beatles started off well, but The Beach Boys fought back pretty well with pretty ambitious singles for the time like "I Get Around", "When I Grow Up To Be A Man", "Let Her Run Wild", (Bizzare silence between verse and chorus!!!) "California Girls", (The intro has nothing to do with the actual song!!!!) "God Only Knows" (Back when people thought it was daring to put the word 'God' in a song!!!!), and then "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes & Villians pt 1"!!!!! Jimi Hendrix actually likened "Heroes & Villians" to a psychedelic barbershop quartet!!!! And it was only by this time that Beatles has gone from straight-ahead pop with the odd left field touch (eg feedback opening to "I Don't Care", Opening and fade-off of "Hard Days Night", reverb effects in "Paperback Writer"...) and actually did wierd pop singles like "Strawberry Fields" and "I am the Walrus"!!!!!! So both do pretty well, with the Beach Boys just edging out in the mid to late 60s, then Beatles taking over!!!!

Or do you know something even Mark Lewisohn has missed?

Ahem!!! Er, yes, you are of course right!!!! I must have been getting mixed up with that Transmission Vamp song!!!!