Discover Top Posts Tagged with #vocal surf

Today's compilation:

Billboard Top Rock'n'Roll Hits - 1963 1993 Pop / Vocal Surf

The early 60s themselves may not have been the most impressive years for the American pop chart in general, but '63 in particular still saw two pretty momentous things occur: the Beach Boys' patented brand of the vocal California surf sound topped the charts for the first time in the form of Jan & Dean’s "Surf City," and a group out of the northwest called The Kingsmen inadvertently coined the art of garage rock with their slapdash recording of "Louie Louie"—a phenomenon deemed so strange that it actually invited an investigation from J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. So, with pop and rock further congealing into one massively corny blob for the most part and catchy girl group hits like The Angels' "My Boyfriend's Back" killing it in the schoolyards, we now had some more sonic diversity in the American pop music palette too, with this mythical, perpetually sunshining California beach sound going national, and a cornerstone planted for garage rock to rapidly build on with "Louie Louie."

#pop #classic pop #vocal surf #surf #surf music #oldies #music #60s #60s music #60's #60's music

Today's compilation:

The Best of 60s Surf 1987 Surf Rock / Vocal Surf / Rock & Roll / Instrumental Rock

Well, I guess credit where it's due to Priority Records here for not releasing the same album twice when they very well could have? This Best of 60s Surf comp, which collects some of the biggest hits of both the Beach Boys-patented vocal surf harmony sound and the Dick Dale-patented 'wet' guitar sound, is pretty similar to Priority's own prior 1985 release, Beach Blow-Out, with about half a dozen of the same tracks serving as the backbone for both.

And in my post last month about Beach Blow-Out, I mentioned how remarkable it was that seemingly every single retrospective, surface-scratching 60s surf comp that's ever been made has employed the same basic formula: one or two Beach Boys hits, Jan & Dean's "Surf City"—which casual observers have probably thought all along was a Beach Boys song anyway—and The Surfaris' "Wipe Out." And wouldn't ya know it, this Best of 60s Surf comp does exactly what all the other ones do too!

But both this and Beach Blow-Out have another thing in common as well, and it's that in addition to having Beach Boys hits, they also feature a cover of a Beach Boys song too. For Beach Blow-Out, it's David Lee Roth's embarrassing mid-80s rendition of "California Girls," but on The Best of 60s Surf, it's The Hondells' copycat cover of "Little Honda," which actually managed a top-ten placement on the Billboard Hot 100, while The Beach Boys' original version only got up to #65. And you can find the Beach Boys' original on Beach Blow-Out too, by the way.

So, like I said in my Beach Blow-Out post, you can't really go wrong with this one to get your standard dose of the idyllic 60s Southern California myth of endless summer beach blonde surf, but at the same time, you really can't ever go wrong with any of these sorts of comps, because they're all essentially the same thing anyway.

And it's a shame too, because both the distinct vocal and instrumental surf sounds are probably my two favorite unique things to come out of the 60s pop landscape as a whole, and I hate to see it repackaged over and over like this with such cold and soulless effort when there's obviously so much more to 60s surf music than just a handful of these hits. But at the end of the day, big labels are a business first and foremost, and if they think that putting out the same albums over and over is more profitable than riskily striving to be qualitatively different than the rest, then they're gonna go with the former, easier option each and every single time rather than another one.

Highlights:

The Beach Boys - "Surfin' U.S.A." Jan & Dean - "Surf City" Surfaris - "Wipe Out" Chantays - "Pipeline" Trashmen - "Surfin' Bird" The Ventures - "Hawaii Five-O" Dick Dale - "Let's Go Trippin'" Jan & Dean - "Ride the Wild Surf" The Beach Boys - "Fun, Fun, Fun" Ronny & The Daytonas - "G.T.O." The Hondells - "Little Honda" The Rivieras - "California Sun" The Sun Rays - "I Live for the Sun"

#surf rock #vocal surf #surf #rock #rock & roll #rock and roll #instrumental rock #classic rock #oldies #music #60s #60s music #60's #60's music

Today's compilation:

Beach Blow-Out 1985 Surf Rock / Vocal Surf / Instrumental Rock / Garage Rock / Pop-Rock / Surf Pop

That whole surf-rock-and-pop phenomenon that combined the forces of the instrumental 'wet' guitar sound of Dick Dale with the multi-part vocal harmony sound of the Beach Boys, which then ended up yielding a mythically youthful vision of southern coastal California life where idyllic beach-blonde summers never ended, really just might be my favorite branch of 60s music altogether. But I cannot tell you folks how many of these comps that fondly look back on this whole vibe are nearly identical to one another. It feels like almost every time I put one of these things on, I'm guaranteed to get at least one Beach Boys song, Jan and Dean's "Surf City," and The Surfaris' "Wipe Out."

And, like, I know that all of those are classic standards, and that if you're trying to present an authentic comp of surf rock classics, you *have* to include them, but at the same time, it's still a bit uncanny and also a little tiresome that all of these comps end up being basically the same thing over and over, regardless of the label that puts them out. Outside of seemingly every single Halloween comp which has "The Monster Mash," I've never once come across a specific type or era of music where the selection is as fixed-in as it is with surf. And it would feel like some sort of grand conspiracy if I could ever figure out what the actual nefarious point of it all was.

So, if you don't know anything about 60s surf music, you can't really go wrong with this set, but at the same time, you really can't go wrong with any set, either. There are, of course, smaller labels that do a better job of specializing and digging deeper into the more obscure and ephemeral aspects of this whole scene, but for the most part, the bigger labels, like Priority Records here, just do what all of their peers do, and that is scratch the surface with pure, effortless and repetitive ease. This music's uniquely great, but would it have really killed any one of these behemoth businesses to stand out from the rest when it came to putting their 60s surf comps together?

Highlights:

Trashmen - "Surfin' Bird" Jan & Dean - "Ride the Wild Surf" The Ventures - "Walk, Don't Run" The Beach Boys - "Little Honda" The Surfaris - "Wipe Out" Jan & Dean - "Surf City" The Ventures - "Hawaii Five-O" The Beach Boys - "Surfin' Safari" Chantays - "Pipeline" Chris Montez - "Let's Dance"