The Beach Boys 70s Albums Are UNDERRATED
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- čas přidán 22. 07. 2024
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Well here it is folks. As we close in on 1,000 Subscribers I knew I just had to do a follow up to my (at the current moment) most popular video, The Beach Boys are Better than the Beatles: The Story of Smile. And in this follow up we will be looking at some of the world changing yet still basically unknown albums the Beach Boys made throughout the 1970s. The albums n this period including the Chillwave precursor Sunflower, the mournful middle age Synth Pop album Love You (yes that's right I saiid Synth pop, eat your heart out Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra) to the Roots rock of Holland and the retroactive indie classic of "Surf's Up" We take a look at how, in many ways the Beach Boys defined the 70s more than any other band. While they didn't have immediate influence of bands such as Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Rolling Stones or Black Sabbath, they're approach to pop and rock songwriting ended up having much more influence in the long run consistently compared to those bands (listen to any indie music today and their DNA is in there) And if you don't believe me just ask Patti Smith, David Byrne, Lester Bangs and numerous others in thee 70s who declared the Beach Boys among the most important of the decade. Beach Boys forever (and they're still better than the Beatles btw)
00:00 - 01:07 Intro
01:07 - 04:38 Tumultuous Beginnings
04:38 - 06:18 Wild Honey & Friends
06:18 - 07:30 Disaster Detour #1: Maharishi
07:30 - 09:34 Disaster Detour #2: Charles Manson
09:34 - 10:52 Inventing Chillwave on Sunflower
10:52 - 12:07 Surf's Up's Retroactive Indie Pop
12:07 - 12:50 New Lineup + Intermediary Albums
12:50 - 14:58 Love You, The Greatest 70s Album
14:58 - 16:08 The Show is Over, Bring on the Nostalgia - Hudba
At 3:16 I misspeak and say "Columbia Records". The Beach Boys were never signed to Columbia Records, and were Capitol artists through and through. Apologies for just correcting now after 11 months, as it was just brought to my attention. Don't know what happened when reading script, but it must have just been a brain glitch. Pinning this for clarification.
They were signed to Caribou Records in the early ‘80s, which was distributed by CBS Records.
The beach boys were signed to the columbia label in march of 1977.When the beach boys publicaly announced the deal the executives at warners retaliated by not promoting Love You.
SIR ! YOU ARE INCORRECT. The Beach Boys have had 3 labels : Capitol----------Warner / Reprise / & CBS Caribou. Capitol in late '61----------Reprise in '70, & CBS in late '77. --------------MJL, 76 y/o
Thats what I said@@michaellazzeri2069
The Beach Boys were signed to the Columbia Caraboo lable in 1977.
Til I die is so haunting, I love the fact the brian wrote the chords for it based purely on which shapes looked cool when he put his fingers on the keys
I absolutely love the 1967-1973 era. Smiley Smile to Holland are in heavy rotation on vinyl here lately. Especially Smiley and Friends.
My favourite from that era are Sunflower, Wild Honey and Surf's up
Yep. Everything from Surfin Safari thru Holland & also Love you & even M.i.u....but Friends is weak, not a strong l.p not an essential, & I love 20/20 but not a proper l.p, same w/ Lil Deuce coupe, great songs but Not a real album. 💯
i referred to it as the bearded banditos era!
Same here. It's something that grew on me over time because I came to them via their surfing music. Holland and Sunflower are fantastic
Seconded. Smiley Smile to Holland inclusive is by far their most interesting period.
I consider “Sunflower” second to best album by The Beach Boys. I love “Sunflower” and the songs with it like “All I Wanna Do” and “Slip On Through”. 10/10 Album.
RIGHT ON!!!!!!!!!!!
So what is your favorite Beach Boys album ?
Sunflower Holland.
Re SUNFLOWER, totally agree. Actually might be best total Beach Boys album, with PET SOUNDS being more of a solo Brian album. But SUNFLOWER is really a total band album. And maybe the best one.
I listen to their 1967-1974 work the most honestly. So many gems in there.
I’ve never understood why the BB in the 70’s didn’t have the critical and commercial success of the Stones, Zep, Floyd etc? They were innovating musically and pushing boundaries artistically. But, at the same time, they still kept producing killer hooks and great pop melodies. Plus, they had a back catalogue that was the equal to any band from the sixties. I know it’s not a 100 yard dash with winners and losers, and the music has stood the test of time, but the Boys deserved so much more recognition. They still do… 🤩
Exactly. They seemed to be the only exception among their peers to no be given their due. Hoping to change that with this video!
@@NAETEMUSIC I’m really digging Holland at the moment. Such a good album and it barely has any contribution from Brian Wilson! Could any other band, of any era, make such a strong record without their creative driving force? …🤯 This might be a topic for another video but why do you think they didn’t have the success their music in this period deserved??
@@NAETEMUSIC Actually, I know why the Beach Boys didn’t have the success, of their peers, in the seventies. It was Mike Love’s fault! EVERYTHING is Mike Love’s fault… 😉
I think Brian Wilson have a downturn mentally had a LOT to do with it. There are so many songs on the 70's albums that would have been better if he had been more present
@@gctlewis,I agree with you as well. But Mike love ruined that band by saying stick to the formular. Brian Wilson wanted take chances, I loved the 1967-1973 area of the beachboys.
Beach Boys became "musician's musicians", Tom Petty's Hung UP & Overdue sounds like it would fit right in on Surf's Up.
Excellent piece. For BB aficionados, trying to convince the non-initiated that there’s so much more to the BB than sun, surf and car songs is always a challenge.
Ikr? It's crazy how important they are and people don't even realize.
For me this is The Beach Boys, truly and honestly. Everyone is contributing to the writing process and you can really see how creative and talented every one is, even Mike. They were never a surf group really, they always forced that sound in their earlier stuff.
Dennis Wilson's solo album, Pacific Ocean Blue needs a video, he left the dysfunctional beach boys and produced one of the greatest albums of the 70s despite being seen as the less talented one. Turned out all 3 Wilson brothers were musical pioneers
Not sure that Crosby, Stills and Nash even existed when the FRIENDS album was released?
They didn’t exist yet. They formed a year later at Woodstock.
Their Brother Records era was yet another stunning part of their legacy, along with Pet Sounds and SMiLE.
The '67-'77 era of the Beach Boys was so ahead of it's time, I'm surprised you didn't mention their obvious influence on Weezer. Just listen to "Don't go near the water" or "I wanna pick you up". A style of music that took the world in the form of another band, decades later.
I like 70's beach boys a lot. I agree, they are very underrated.
Beach Boys Today! to Surf’s Up is one of the best album runs any band could ever have. Holland and Love You are also fantastic.
yeah I think the run of Sunflower, Surf's Up, So Tough, and Holland is arguably their most consistent period
One of the real masterpieces within this timeframe is Dennis Wilson’s Pacific Ocean Blue. If my comment results in people checking this album out, my day is made!
I absolutely love their 70s and early 80s stuff, from holland to Carl and the passions through 15 big ones. Love you and keeping the summer alive.
EDIT: awesome video!
20/20 was their last album for Capitol Records under their original contract.
Omitted mention was that two Smile songs made their first appearance, Our Prayer, and Cabinessence.
Sunflower (original titled "Add Some Music") was well received in Britain. It was regarded as equal to "Pet Sounds".
Many regard "Love You" as a Brian Wilson solo album with later contributions by the other Beach Boy members. Trivia, The review in "Crawdaddy" magazine was written by Van Dyke Parks.
Thank you for another thoughtful look at the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson's career. They produced so much amazing music after the Smile sessions and you show why they (especially Brian) are so beloved by other musicians and their long term profound influence.
Howecer hope ok to make some observations -
1. Surf's up and Holland did achieve a degree of both critical and commercial success at the time .
2. The impact of the release and enormous success of the 'Endless summer' compilation and 1976's 'Brian's back ' campaign would prove fateful to the long term direction of the band
3. 'Adult Child' the album that Brian worked on for the band as a follow up to 'Love you' remains one of Brian's many great lost projects with its lounge music influence. Certainly some of the tracks that have surfaced both on legal releases and bootlegs especially 'Its over now' and 'Still I dream of it' are personal favourites
Everybody knows that Pet Sounds is an all-time great album, but I consider Sunflower to be as good as Pet SOunds. It is a different style, though. Pet Sounds has a distinct instrumental style to it, a style Brian had been building to over the few previous albums (check out side two of Today), and in many ways it can be considered a Brian album which the band sings on. Sunflower was a total band effort. The songs are more diverse, and almost all of them are bangers. My favorites from the album are This Whole World (should have been the 1st single), Got To Know The Woman, and Slip On Through. The songs are written by every member of the band, and in most cases, the composer sings lead on their own creations.
All I Wanna do remains one of my favorite beach boys songs of all time. It reminds me of listening to neon Indian in high school
I wholeheartedly agree. These are the Beach Boys I grew up on, and multitudes of songs are undervalued.
I love that album Sunflower, I will never Understand why it wasn't a success.
to mention that wild honey and friends are failures blows my mind!! ….. because well, they’re brilliant pieces.
Imagine if the Beatles and the beach boys were still competing in the 70s
The Beach Boys are quickly moving up my favourites list, and it's in no small part due to your videos. All I Wanna Do is sooo Tame Impala.
I concur my friend, and one of my missions, it turns out on this channel, is to wake up people up to how important the Beach Boys are, considering mostly people still think The Beatles/Led Zeppelin are more influential, when, in my opinion, their influence over mass popular culture mostly faded out by the mid 90s, which is around the same time the Beach Boys influence began packing up steam and nowadays everyone from Clairo to Tame Impala owe more to The Beach Boys than those other two imo
@@NAETEMUSIC Honestly, I can hear all 3 in Tame Impala, especially the early stuff.🤗
Nice video, disappointed you didn’t talk about adult/child! I would argue it’s a more powerful and important musical statement than even love you.
Happy I got recommended this. The Beach Boys Love You, specifically its second half, rivals Pet Sounds imo. I think every song, from Solar System to Love is a Woman, is perfectly sequenced and written. I love it. I will say as well, what makes the Beach Boys so good too is that their records are short most of the time. So, binge listening to these records is super easy.
I forget who said it but, "Love You is Pet Sounds in crayon"
@Sargon Of ACAB That's a great description. Primitive yet innovative. I remember learning about this record's existence and being intrigued by it. So, I listened to it recently, and I love it a lot. It's crazy to think that, without likely knowing what Bowie, Suicide, or Kraftwerk were doing, Brian Wilson made a record contemporary to their sounds.
Love you is brilliant.
Part of the problem is that the BBs didn't release their best stuff. Imagine "Surf's Up" with Fourth of July and Wouldn't It Be Nice (To Live Again) on it. The good version of Shortenin' Bread (to say nothing of "Rolling Into Heaven") never saw the light of day along with Life is For the Living, Still I Dream Of It, It's Over Now, and Diane from the unreleased Adult Child album.
Is there a different mix of My Diane from Adult/Child ?
@@yoblol yes, one is on M.I.U and then another is recorded by Brian about a year or 2 earlier after finishing Love You... it wasn't used or released and Dennis did vocals instead for the album cut
There are many underrated bits on the albums not mentioned , 15 Big One's has plenty of synth based songs highlights for me being It's Ok and the cover of Just Once In My Life. Further My Diane from MIU is great and Adult Child has plenty of great tracks including the most definitive Shortnin Bread. I do have little love for LA Light and Keeping the Summer Alive but the outtakes of Santa Ana Winds, Looking Down The Coast, the 2nd take at My Solution/Shortnin Bread instrumental and We Gotta Groove are great tracks that didn't really get realised. The Brian led version of Oh Darlin is great too.
Good video! There are some great Dennis, Carl and Al songs on LA Light Album too, and some great outtakes from the 70s too, such as:
Santa Ana Winds
River Song
California Feeling
Fourth Of July
Wouldn’t It Be Nice To Live Again
A retrospective of The Beach Boys 70s work AND an NRBQ reference? You sir just earned a sub ✌️
Sunflower its awesome, my top five, pet sounds, smile, sunflower, today, summer days and nights, bonus christmast album
Even the middling, not-great tracks from the latter 70s have a world weary beauty to them that I really appreciate. I've listened to M.I.U and L.A. much more than I probably should, but it captures a particular autumn mood I can't quite describe. Maybe it's because I can totally relate to giving it my all and putting myself out there creatively, not getting the reception I hoped for, and then quietly sinking back into the shadows.
I totally know the vibe you are talking about. its a quietly sad nostalgic vibe and I love it too.
I think you are one of the best content creators on CZcams keep it up man!
Great video!
Massive respect for the NRBQ mention. I don't often hear them brought up in videos essays like this one.
"The Night Was so Young" is up there of great Beach Boys songs. Sad so few know that album.
great video!
I think the 70s Beach Boys albums are some of the most bizarre, touching, brilliant and occasionally awful albums I’ve ever heard. It’s a total Wild West zone of music that I don’t really think has ever happened to any other bands. It’s like you can hear them fighting and struggling for control on each record. Obviously everything from Sunflower to Holland is top tier but then you get to 15 Big Ones and things start getting really bizarre and unusual. Disregarding Love You which is clearly just Brian going ham, stuff like 15 Big Ones, MIU, LA are such odd ball albums, not because they’re weird but because they’re so messy and all over the place. There’s equal parts genius (Just Once in My Life, My Diane, Good Timin’) as there is utter drivel (Hey Little Tomboy, Belles of Paris, Everyone’s In Love With You) and equal parts insane shit (all of Love You, TM Song, Matchpoint of Our Love, Disco Here Comes the Night, the hard rock cover of Shortenin’ Bread). Not all of them are good albums and some of them are pretty heinous but I can’t really hate them because there’s this sense of ‘we’re trying our best’ that makes them very endearing, even if the results are pretty out of control
Great video, hope this sheds light on this period of The Beach Boys for those who don’t know about it
EXACTLY. So many indie artists of today that young Gen Z'ers love are directly influenced (whether they know it or not) from this 70s period of The Beach Boys!
@@NAETEMUSIC yeah, if you’d want you could post this video on The Beach Boys sub Reddit, I’m sure the people there will provide more engagement on this video
Im a long time beach boys fan with the Pet Sounds / Sunflower /2020 / late 60s as my fav period and I'm also quite fond of the LA (light album) and how on hearing it I thought oh , the beach boys are back .Good Timen , Full Sail , Lady Linda ,Love Surrounds Me and Baby Blue are the stand out tracks for me .Also love the song Wind's Of Change from the MIU album which would have fitted perfectly on the latter album
I just got into Love You. It’s a masterpiece ❤
Wild Honey did always remind me of the "back to roots" Beatle records, Let It Be, and The Beatles
love ur videos man
Thank you so much man that means a lot to hear!!!
wow definitely will listen to these soon
Please do 🥰🥰🥰
from Sunflower to Surf's Up to Holland to Carl & The Passions.....Mind Blowing. Amazing. Underrated beyond belief.
They aren’t underrated. They’re brilliant
💯💯💯
Sunflower is my favourite Beach Boys band album, Pet Sounds is my all time favourite but it's all Brian Wilson and with Sunflower every band member was involved and at his best. This Whole World, Forever and All I Wanna Do are top 10 Beach Boys songs for me. Just read that Brian thought All I Wanna Do was boring and wasn't done right, i'm shocked!
Mike Love ☠️☠️
"Aren't you glad" from Wild Honey. Hidden gem
I agree the stuff they did in the 70's was great!
Something that does not get talked about is exactly what you mentioned... In pursuing the "lofi" "back to basics" style, the 1967-1969 Beach Boys were absolutely ahead of the curve. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones didn't do it until 1969.. believe it or not, they were actually contemporaneous with Bob Dylan doing it.
I'm a pretty big history buff and the son of Latino baby boomers from the inner cities. I could not imagine what kind of ripples and consequences would've come for the group had Smile arrived in 67. Could you imagine a song like fire being out there during the Detroit Rebellion? Also Surf Up's would've been far more prophetic hinting at the flower children's early demise in a changing landscape that was increasingly violent and would remain so until the early to mid 70's. Ironically, it might've been more of what they needed to hear at the time. Brian even if unintentionally was expressing how most of America was really feeling, especially in the inner cities. The madness element in some of Smile drops me right into a riot while still sounding very playful and childlike, Heroes and Villains starts with a Mexican woman being shot dead. It was a perspective that I think the counterculture was missing, they knew racism was wrong, I don't think they understood the true urgency or psychological damage racism had done until the long hot summer. Ironically enough pain is pain and race isn't real, Brian could've broken some doors down just through the music.
How can Friends be influenced by Crosby,Stills and Nash when it was released 11 months before the Crosby,Stills and Nash lp?
From 73 to 80 The Boys tours were still packing arenas. Spectrum, M.S.G., LA Forum etc. I was there I know.
Agree with a lot of your points, but you missed 3 other albums from the 70's. ( 15 Big Ones, M.I.U. & LA Light Album) Not nearly as good as the ones you mentioned but of you're going to cover their 1970s period, having no any mention of these leaves this documentary of the period incomplete.
The first Beach Boys' 70s album " Sunflower " is not even mentioned until well into the second half of the video ( at 9:39 ).
I'll take Sunflower & Surf's Up over Pet Sounds any day of the week.
beach boys today! is my all time favorite album by anyone ever. the beach boys love you is my favorite album of the 70's. surfin usa is a vast improvement over surfin safari. starting with the surfer girl album i consider all of their 60's studio albums through 20/20 to be classic. i like most of sunflower and much of surf's up. i appreciate so tough and holland actually more than i enjoy them. there are gems on those albums for sure, but not to the level of smiley smile, wild honey, friends and 20/20. of course i love the smile sessions. 15 bigs ones ... well, carl said it best; it should have been called 15 little ones. even as a kid i didn't like 15 big ones as much as what came before it or love you after it. love you is their last great, classic, innovative album. after that they no longer released 'albums', but rather collections of songs often recorded at vastly different times. love you was the last time the band moved forward; after that they were looking back and trying to recapture their early hit making era.
He skipped over 15 Big Ones haha. I don’t blame him, I don’t think that was a very good album and it doesn’t go with his narrative. Same with the albums after Love You. Those albums were mixed bags but had some great hits.
There was no Mike Love war raged against SMILE. This has been debunked exhaustively.
No mention of Thump Wilson, sad!
@ 3:16 CAPITOL RECORDS !!! NOT "Columbia Records" - PLEASE CORRECT !!!
Good catch, don't know wtf happened when I was reading the script there. Total absolute brain fart moment. Will pin comment correcting this.
Unlike a lot of people, I had an older brother who bought all of these when they came out....While I believe "Sunflower " probably would have made more headway if it was attached to another name, the rest of this is primarily dreck....And the recent reappraisal of "Love You"? Shame on all of you for mocking Brian's difficulties at this point.....Yeah, I know. You Really "LIKE IT"....I call bs, and I think you know what I'm saying ....While Brian did sufficiently recover to make much better records( and a special thanks to you Brian for finishing "Smile") "Love You" was what it appeared to be at the time: A man struggling with his own sanity......
I don't think their 70's albums are anything special. Might be because subconsciously I'm holding them to a higher standard of their peak years (1963-1966). However, If you make a 15 song compilation of their best 70's songs, it would make for a good listening.
You skipped 15 Big Ones :^)
I'm not even that knowledgeable about the Beach boys in a huge historic sense of my life but digging into them in the last 2 months I can tell a lot of things in this video are just wrong. A lot of people look at the albums from 67 to 1970 as great. I don't see any breakdown in The Beach boys like you're talkin about.
3:14 you mean Capitol records! They weren't on Columbia for another decade. Pet Sounds was NOT a flop it was a top10 album & Wild Honey was a top 30 album, Friends was weak, great harmonies but weak nonetheless & Sunflower was Dennis carrying all the weight; nix Bruces songs, @ my window & the extended cool water & replace em w/ Susie Cincinnati, breakaway & cottonfields & Sunflower would've been Huge! 💯
look at how transfixed he is 2:54
Love was very negative towards Brian's musical progression. Very sad.
The 70s aren't their latter days! There were the 80s and 90s and.... actually yeah let's just say the 70s are their latter days.
Lots of people with no place to go
Early 60s Beach Boys = Good fun
Mid to late 60s Beach Boys = Their career prime
70s Beach Boys = Crazy, underrated experimentation
80s Beach Boys = garbage.
Great video!
Lazy video titles that use the mindless and ignorant description of "underrated" are OVERRATED.
I prefer the Full House era.
The Beach Boys over the Beatles ANY DAY
2:34 wtf is Mike love doing. Never. Ever. Ever. Again.