#surf pop

[hagenlastkiss]

The Beach Boys, Backstage Pass at the Hollywood Bowl

📷 Julian Wasser

[89amnesia]

ピンク・レディー / ♫ 波乗りパイレーツ ビーチ・ボーイズをフィーチャリング Pink Lady - Naminori Pirates featuring The Beach Boys

[randomvarious]

In deep agreement with this take. Pet Sounds and all the other progressive stuff is tremendous, but no one should forget that the Beach Boys were wholly integral to the foundation of the California myth itself. Like, I don't think anyone's ever devised a unique sound that went on to define the place where they lived quite like the Beach Boys did in their earlier surf pop years. The reason why you even envision 1960s southern California life as one of endless surf, sun, beach, cars, and blondes is because of the Beach Boys. Elements of what they sang about were real in some sense, but it wasn't an actually fully existing lifestyle like you might've been led to believe. And their soul-piercing, doo wop-rooted vocal harmonies made for glorious ways of painting that idyllic picture of the lifestyle they were trying to present.

Dick Dale is the undisputed father of surf rock itself, but his contribution was instrumental (in the musical sense, not in the synonymous-with-'integral' sense) and was distinctly different from the brand of surf pop that the Beach Boys pioneered, which to me, is probably the single-greatest form of pop that came out of the 1960s, period. There really was nothing else quite like it. Like, imagine living in 1963 and hearing some sanded-off, generic pop-rock snoozer & then something like "Surfin' U.S.A." directly afterwards? Legitimately astounding and not to be taken for granted.

[balleralbumcovers]

EPIC ALBUM COVER #192

The Beach Boys - Stack-o-Tracks

Released: 1968 (Capitol)

Pop rock, sunshine pop

[weaversweek]

"Good vibrations" - Beach Boys

1966 Music: Brian Wilson; lyric: Mike Love

Vibing into the top 15 of Let's Do It, my personal fifty favourite singles from 1954-76.

"Good vibrations" is all about the spark, the moment of connection. Not something you can define, or measure, but you damn well know when it's there. Brian Wilson's childhood dog had barked at some people: bad vibes.

Brian Wilson had sketched out the idea for "Good vibrations" for the 1966 Pet Sounds album, but hadn't been satisfied with the early recordings. Wilson knew what he wanted, and sweated bullets to get just the right bass sound, just the right organ note. Mike Melovin, who played the organ, later compared Wilson's work to composing a symphony - from a stack of tapes three and a half feet high. That's over a metre; that's half as tall as Richard Osman; that's a lot of tape.

Brian Wilson had made his masterwork. Layered sounds, spooky effects from an electro-Theramin, a 'cello somewhere in the mix, and those vocal harmonies! Carl Wilson, Mike Love, Brian Wilson hit the right notes together and apart; it took a zillion takes, they got there.

"Good vibrations" goes places; it perhaps foreshadows "Bohemian rhapsody" by showing lots of different styles in one single. The lyrics are suitably trippy, we're assured it's the product of cannabis not LSD. Tapes allowed Wilson to jump from the usual verse-chorus structure to an avant-garde musique concrete style we might remember from "Flying saucer". One particular splice is covered by the most thrilling moment of the song: the singer takes a deep breath - and everything stops.

"Good, good, good vibrations" as everything stars back up again. The song is a masterpiece, whether one appreciates it as sunshine pop in the dark winter of 1966, or as a technological advance.

[whitetrashsoul]

Ba-ba, ra-ra, cu-cu, da-da!!!

[sleepytouch]

[falsestuff]

Shannon and The Clams - King of the Sea (2011)