DON'T FUCK WITH THE (EXCEL) FORMULA: THE BEACH BOYS POLL (DEADLINE AUG-11)

http://i.imgur.com/F9uuT.jpg

this is gonna be great I swear

the top 2 songs are basically preordained (Amusement Parks USA, California Saga: The Beaks of Eagles - only question is which one will be #1) other than that, I hope the results will be interesting and weird. DO YOUR PART.

notes:

solo included. anything listed here is game:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Beach_Boys_songs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_by_Brian_Wilson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_by_Dennis_Wilson

if you have some weird desire to include a carl wilson or mike love solo joint, go for it
"all I wanna do" = / = "all I want to do"

normal scoring: 1:40, 2:36, 3:33, 4:30, 5:28, 6:26, 7:25, 8:24, 9:23, 10:22, 11:21, 12:20, 13:19, 14:18, 15:17, 16:16, 17:15, 18:14, 19:13, 20:12.

ranked list w/ just the song-title and your ilx sn

TOTALLY OPTIONAL BONUS ROUND:

also doing an optional top 5 album beach boys ballot which you can include w/ your other ballot. haven't figured out what the best math for that would be. suggestions? results will be posted simultaneously

ranked list, again, solo-albums allowed again

to e - e - e - t - a - i - at - g - m - a - i - l dotcom

ps u2 poll still voting til tomorrow, go vote in that. just wasn't sure when else I'd have time to post this.

I don't think so, but I'll ask anyway: would votes for Spring's "Sweet Mountain" or Glen Campbell's "Guess I'm Dumb" be allowed, like in the Prince/PSB polls?

mmm I guess if you want? but if that's the case I might go ahead and allow unreleased songs too. can't imagine either will be a big factor in the end.

Would "Caroline No" count? It's on Pet Sounds but was actually released as a Brian Wilson solo single.

oh shit i just read the guidelines up top - my bad, got it.

I'll be voting for Guess I'm Dumb, clemenza, so that's two of us at least. A perfect song.

You can count me three on Guess I'm Dumb. But I've only heard the Glen Campbell version...? Is there an official Brian/Boys version too?

psyched for this - the Beach Boys are probably my favourite all-time band, if I had to choose one.

Are we allowed to rep on this thread?

yes!

In that case, the psychedelic version of Big Sur is a cool song.

on my ballot (counting both versions as one tho)

would like to remind you all that 'can't wait too long' is the best beach boys song

"I miss you so HARD" lyric grates on me a bit, otherwise an amazing track

I haven't done one of these but I'm tempted to do this one - except I have no clue how you go about it

can't wait too long - that's a great one.

iatee - i wanted to thank you for that compilation of rarities you posted a wee while ago.

The long version of Til I Die with the instrumental lead-in is one of my favourite pieces of music. First version I heard so the regular version, which is undeniably fantastic, always feels truncated to me.

np! xp

I think I still have it somewhere if anyone else wants a copy

any ideas for album scoring?

I would love a copy of the rarities comp!

I think there might be a live dl link on the rarities thread? can someone bump it, I'm on a phone

In that case, the psychedelic version of Big Sur is a cool song.

― Why'd You Wanna Tweet Me So Bad? (dog latin), Thursday, August 4, 2011 6:21 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

DL knows the score!

YESSSSS

excited about this

lol misread the Guess I'm Dumb talk upthread as Guess I'm Drunk

^ the great lost Brian Wilson track

This is the thread where we talk about great Beach Boys+BW unreleased/demo/semi-released songs

(rarities dl link)

rarities comp is a goldmine, iatee is a prince among men

these poll results are going to be ridiculous aren't they? with people repping for a bunch of challopsy 70s shit

I dunno repping 70s beach boys isn't challopsy in 2011, 'sunflower' is as canon as fun, fun, fun

honestly have no idea how to approach this ballot but I'm pretty sure most of my choices will not be canonical apart from maybe the top couple spots. otoh maybe I should take it for granted that God Only Knows and Heroes and Villains will be top 10 and just go for a super-obscuro ballot

(Denny's Drums at #1)

Thanks for the link to the rarities, iatee.

Sunflower is a solid album with occasional flashes of brilliance. It's one of those formely-underrated now-overrated albums that are increasingly common as rock history cannibalizes itself. It could do with a little more Brian - the fact that it took numerous revisions and rejected by Warner Bros. to see release may be the only reason it's as good as it is.

surf's up, otoh

idk the beach boys discography is pretty unrepresentative of what they were capable of

I sorta agree that sunflower is overrated

but my dreamworld sunflower, as mentioned on the other thread, damn, so good:

Sunflower

1. Slip on Through
2. Add Some Music to Your Day
3. Lady
4. Forever
5. Celebrate the News
6. All I Wanna Do
7. Break Away
8. This Whole World
9. Cool, Cool Water
10. It's About Time
11. Soulful Old Man Sunshine

thread title 4 all time

I dunno repping 70s beach boys isn't challopsy in 2011, 'sunflower' is as canon as fun, fun, fun

Well, not challopsy in 2011 in the sense that a bunch of people got into the BBs over the past decade, started with Pet Sounds and worked forwards rather than backwards, and don't actually get what was great about the Beach Boys. But anyone who thinks they did a song post Smile that belongs anywhere near a top 10 list is insane.

I mean sure, the reputation of the '70s stuff has been revised from totally ignorable to "a few of these things are pretty good" but the sheer volume of classic early material still dwarves the later stuff by a ridiculous amount.

Bit of an overstatement, that. And the late sixties/early seventies records - Smiley Smile through Surf's Up - are as consistent if not as plainly, well, "classic" as what came before. Surf's Up, by the way, was well-received by the US music press when it came out, just as Sunflower had been hailed as a return to form by the UK critics a year before. So this isn't totally revisionist history.

But anyone who thinks they did a song post Smile that belongs anywhere near a top 10 list is insane.

― lizard tails, a self-regenerating food source for survival (wk), Friday, 5 August 2011 04:07 (20 minutes ago)

fighting challops with challops

well for the record I consider Smiley Smile to be a part of Smile.

It's not a question of album format consistency, though. It's a question of how you compare things to "Surfer Girl" and "In My Room" and "Help Me Rhonda" and "The Warmth of the Sun" and on and on.

yeah, this is a song poll, not an album poll, right?

"sail on sailor" will be in my top 10

There's "'Til I Die," for one. I fuck with that.

But anyone who thinks they did a song post Smile that belongs anywhere near a top 10 list is insane

I don't understand this at all, sorry

it's not like from Smiley Smile on they just re-trod the same erritory with ever diminishing results - their sound and style changed radically (several times) and to say that everything pre-Smiley Smile is better is just priveleging one particular style over another in a rather arbitrary manner, the implication being that, say, surf-rock and psychedelia are inherently superior to country-rock or synthpop. which I just can't get with.

I don't think anyone can seriously argue that their compositional or performing skills seriously diminished until the late 70s, there is plenty of stuff in their later catalog that's as complex and arresting as their earlier stuff.

Match Point of Our Love has to be one of the all time lowlights in the BBs catalog.

It's been a long, long while
Since we've been strung out on love
And there's no mask of a smile
That can hide what we're thinkin' of
From your heart I hear
Only distant echoes of empty love
I guess this must be the matchpoint of our love

Early in the game when you broke me
Just like a serve (matchpoint matchpoint)
We shoulda walked off the court
But we both didn't have the nerve (matchpoint matchpoint)
So we volleyed a while with small talk
And a smile and as push comes to shove
I'd say this must be the matchpoint of our love

No one ever held me the way you did
No one could ever love me the way you did
How could love slip away from me?

In life's lonely game love too often
Can let you down (matchpoint matchpoint)
And tho' no one's to blame
Love is stil the only game in town (matchpoint matchpoint)
When it's love's last play you can only say by the stars above That this
Must be the match point of our love

(matchpoint matchpoint)

Ugh.

does everyone see that they are using tennis as a metaphor for relationships

GET OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i always liked these lyrics too, so boneheaded that they kind of become cosmic

Love is a woman
So treat her tenderly tonight
Love makes a woman
So give her all your love tonight

A woman is love
And if you're smart
You'll tease her, please her tonight
So take my advice, you just treat her nice
And you'll find that woman is love

Love is a woman
So tell her she smells good tonight
Love is a woman
So make her feel that way tonight

A woman is love
And if you're smart
You'll tease her, please her tonight
So take my advice, you just treat her nice
And you'll find a woman in love

1, 2, 3 (2, 3 ahhh) She's fallin' in love with me
4, 5, 6 (5, 6 ahhh) She fell for all my tricks
7, 8, 9 (8, 9 ahhh) She makes me feel so fine

Love is a woman
So treat her tenderly tonight
Love is (makes) a woman
So give her all your love tonight

Love is a woman (dip dip dip)
Love is a woman (dip dip dip Just treat her nice)
Love is a woman (dip dip dip Take my advice)
(dip dip dip And just treat her nice)

dip dip dip?

I didn't hear many non-boneheaded lyrics after, er, 1967, but I'm not much of a lyrics guy anyway. The ones I did hear on Love You were pretty lol, the one about touching a baby's butt being the most so.

hee, i voted for i wanna pick you up. pretty classic.

yeah I dug it but still

The second half is good mope after the madness of "Here Comes The Night".

yeh dude, side 2 is key in the world of la (light album) appreciation

that being said, <3 here comes the night, and kinda wish the beach boys had recorded an entire disco record

it's not too late?

i seriously unironically love mike love's vocals on that track and every beach boys thing ever. such a brilliant counterpoint to carl/bri

holy shit, directly after posting that, iatee's rarities thing just came up on my itunes. even god wants me to appreciate this band

yeah i think it's a pretty classic disco track. isn't there a whole album of beach boys disco covers? not by the beach boys, but ...

I MISS YOU DARLING, I MISS YOU SO HARD

[followed immediately by jaunty instrumental interlude and pre-stereolab doo-doo-duh-duh's into infinity]

if there is i need to know

maybe not a whole album? there's this: http://soapism.com/products-page/genre/disco/the-good-vibrations-i-get-around/
it's pretty tight. i remember someone playing it late at night on some college radio station when I was a kid and being very confused.

i guess luther vandross is involved somehow
http://luthervandrossearlyyears.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/r-2590435-1292762718.jpg

okay, so the one thing that i remember from look listen vibrate smile, and that i'm gonna re-visit before i put it in the mail, is some article about how brian wilson strived to create an "american soul" music, and according to the premise of the piece, it was doomed b/c of white settlers' sins against american indians~~

as wack as that entire premise might be, it's interesting food for thought imo. like who is that most "american band"? in some ways perversely i feel like rolling stones or led zeppelin or fuck, even ac/dc were more "american"

yeah when someone posted a link here with a comment that the Beach Boys were the most American band, I thought c'mon, no band with Brian fucking Wilson can be "normal" for the USA.

haha

like obv beach boys are quintessential west coast music. who else is in the running? byrds? doors? love?

but middle america, east coast, etc.

beach boys are america. just ask james watt

like Iggy's reaction to hanging with Brian seems way more normal to me. maybe the Stooges are the most American band?

please tell me someone has that disco album uploaded somewhere. I love the retake on "Here Comes the Night."

the mayor of denver said you can't get any more american than the beach boys. in other words, america is craaaaazy.

i'm searching for that disco album but can't find a download. internet, i am disappointed.

If Mike Love's never-ending, money-grubbing, pathetic, joyous tour of the heartland doesn't scream America in all its aging, faded glory then I don't know what does.

I'm guessing here, but could it be because it's really more a Rick Henn/Brian Wilson collaboration than a Beach Boys track? According to Henn, he produced and arranged it with no help from Brian. Beach Boys did the vocals of course.

well, sheesh, btwn that and dw's "constant companion" and that chicago song and some other stuff, makes me think they should have brought in guest writers to exploit their talent way more often

also, harmonica solo on santa ana winds is sooo good. just sayin. also "in your eyes/ i surmised/ yr life is changing fast". yes. quintessential beach boys-y track that of course never saw proper release

should I give Keepin' The Summer Alive a chance? I'm onto the end of my relistening now, into disk 4 of the GV box (& you all know where that ends).

it's got "santa ana winds" . so yeah do a tax write-off or whatever if you need to

The way they sing the chorus on "Santa Ana Winds" is so horrible and nasal. I'll never understand how or why the same people who provided vocals incredible enough for an entire album of a cappella (Pet Sounds Sessions) morphed into THAT. That said the title track is awesome, I voted for it in this poll.

aw, the mike love/al jardine sound positively makes latter-day beach boys for me

also, the version that's on the rarities comp that iatee directed us to is soooooo superior and different and better lyrically and vocally, etc.

like who is that most "american band"?

um HELLO

http://rockhall.com/media/assets/inductees/default/creedence-clearwater-revival.jpg

no band from California can be the most American band

gauntlet thrown

http://starling.rinet.ru/music/sleeves/zap_gfr.jpg

DAMN

also, why is mark farner smirking at me so ?

distracted by the bong-rattling bass work of Don Brewer

ilx confession : i genuinely hate ccr

Me too. I thought I'd like them, then I got a second hand "best of" 2LP, and realised I didn't.

skip have you heard the bootleg version of 'santa ana winds'? the vocals are rad

hating ccr is the most unamerican thing you can possibly do, you red bastards.
listening to LA right now -- this album is totally unembarrassing! for the most part.

I'll take LA over Smiley Smile

lady lynda is embarrassing

can you repost a link to your rarities collection?

This is the thread where we talk about great Beach Boys+BW unreleased/demo/semi-released songs

the difference between the two versions is enormous

lady lynda kinda sounds good. Jardine, Joy of Man's Desiring.

I don't like the released version but the bootleg version has such an awesome vocal imo

I don't like the released version but the bootleg version has such an awesome vocal imo

exac!

ty so much iatee. i've combed through no end of rarities comps but for that track alone, that one is so rewarding!

np! ps

It's About Time: Beach Boys Poll Results