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The Beach Boys are an American rock band that formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Distinguished for their vocal harmonies, adolescent-oriented themes, and musical ingenuity, they are one of the most influential acts of the rock era. They drew on the music of older pop vocal groups, 1950s rock and roll, and black R&B to create their unique sound, and under Brian's direction, often incorporated classical or jazz elements and unconventional recording techniques in innovative ways.
Smiley Smile is the 12th studio album by American rock band the Beach Boys, released on September 18, 1967. It reached number 9 on UK record charts, but sold poorly in the US, peaking at number 41—the band's lowest chart placement to that point. Critics and fans generally received the album and its lead single, "Heroes and Villains", with confusion and disappointment. "Good Vibrations" and "Gettin' Hungry" were also released as singles, but the former was issued a year earlier, while the latter was not credited to the band.
"California Girls" is a song by the American rock band the Beach Boys from their 1965 album Summer Days . Written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love, the lyrics describe an appreciation for the qualities of girls around the world and the narrator's wish that "they all could be" in his home state of California. It was released as a single, backed with "Let Him Run Wild", and reached number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was also a top 10 hit in several other countries, becoming one of the band's most successful songs globally.
The Beach Boys Today! is the eighth studio album by the American rock band the Beach Boys, released March 8, 1965 on Capitol Records. It signaled a departure from their previous records with its orchestral sound, intimate subject matter, and abandonment of car or surf songs. Side one features an uptempo sound, while side two consists mostly of introspective ballads. Supported by this thematic approach, the record became an early example of a rock concept album and established the group as album artists rather than just a singles band. It has since become regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time.
Friends is the fourteenth studio album by American rock band the Beach Boys, released on June 24, 1968, through Capitol Records. The album is characterized by its calm and peaceful atmosphere, which contrasted the prevailing music trends of the time, and for its brevity, with five of its 12 tracks running less than two minutes long. It sold poorly, peaking at number 126 on the US Billboard charts, the group's lowest US chart performance to date, although it reached number 13 in the UK. Fans generally came to regard the album as one of the band's finest.
20/20 is the 15th studio album by American rock band the Beach Boys, released February 10, 1969 on Capitol Records. The LP was named for being their 20th overall album release. Much of it consists of outtakes from earlier albums. It reached number 3 on UK record charts and number 68 in the US. Brian Wilson was absent during most of the album's recording after admitting himself into a psychiatric hospital, requiring brothers Carl and Dennis to retrieve several outtakes he had recorded years earlier. While Brian does not appear on the front cover, the inner gatefold of the original vinyl release features him alone, behind an eye examination chart.
The Beach Boys Love You is the 21st studio album by American rock band the Beach Boys, released April 11, 1977 on Brother/Reprise. Often called the band's "punk" album, Love You is distinguished for its pioneering use of synthesizers and its juxtaposition of adolescent-oriented lyrics with the middle-aged band members' rough vocals.
The Wrecking Crew was a loose collective of Los Angeles-based session musicians whose services were employed for thousands of studio recordings in the 1960s and 1970s, including several hundred Top 40 hits. The musicians were not publicly recognized in their era, but were viewed with reverence by industry insiders. They are now considered one of the most successful and prolific session recording units in music history.
"God Only Knows" is a song by American rock band the Beach Boys from their 1966 album Pet Sounds. Written by Brian Wilson and Tony Asher, it is a Baroque-style love song distinguished for its harmonic innovation and its subversion of typical pop music formula. It is often praised as one of the greatest songs ever written and as the Beach Boys' finest record.
Carol Kaye is an American musician. She is one of the most prolific recorded bass guitarists in rock and pop music, playing on an estimated 10,000 recordings in a career spanning over 50 years.
"Heroes and Villains" is a song by the American rock band the Beach Boys from their 1967 album Smiley Smile and their unfinished Smile project. Written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, Wilson envisioned the song as an Old West-themed musical comedy that would surpass the recording and artistic achievements of "Good Vibrations". The single was Brother Records' first release and failed to meet critical and commercial expectations, although it was a hit record, peaking at number 12 in the U.S. and number 8 in the UK.
Ricky Fataar is a South African multi-instrumentalist of Cape Malay descent, who has performed as both a drummer and a guitarist. He gained fame as an actor in The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash, a spoof on the actual history of the Beatles in which he also performed as a member of The Rutles. He is also known for his stint as a member of The Beach Boys between 1971 and 1974. Fataar is also recognized for his contributions as a record producer, and has worked on projects scoring music to film and television.
"Wouldn't It Be Nice" is a song by the American rock band the Beach Boys and the opening track from their 1966 album Pet Sounds. Written by Brian Wilson, Tony Asher, and Mike Love, it is distinguished for its sophisticated Wall of Sound-style arrangement and refined vocal performances, and is regarded among the band's finest songs. With its juxtaposition of joyous-sounding music and melancholic lyrics, it is considered a formative work of power pop, and with respect to musical innovation, progressive pop.
"Surfin' Safari" is a song by American rock band the Beach Boys, written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love. Released as a single with "409" in June 1962, it peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song also appeared on the 1962 album of the same name.
"Wonderful" is a song by the American rock band the Beach Boys from their 1967 album Smiley Smile and their unfinished Smile project. Written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, the song tells the story of a young girl's sexual awakening and its disruption of her devotion to God and her parents. It was the only "boy-girl" song they wrote for Smile.
"The Little Girl I Once Knew" is a song by the American rock band the Beach Boys that was released as a standalone single in November 1965. It was written by Brian Wilson and recorded during the early sessions for the band's 1966 album Pet Sounds.
Don't Back Down is the sixth studio album by the American punk rock band the Queers, released in August 1996 by Lookout! Records. The band and Lookout! president Larry Livermore, who served as executive producer, sought to balance the sounds of the Ramones and the Beach Boys, and enlisted the help of former Queers guitarist JJ Rassler and Cub singer Lisa Marr. The album's title track is a cover version of the Beach Boys song of the same name; it also features covers of the Hondells' "Little Sidewalk Surfer Girl" and Hawaiian punk band the Catalogs' "Another Girl". The album produced the band's first music videos, for "Punk Rock Girls" and "Don't Back Down".
Smile is an unfinished album by the American rock band the Beach Boys that was planned to follow their 11th studio album Pet Sounds (1966). It was to be a 12-track LP that drew from over 50 hours of interchangeable sound fragments, similar to the group's 1966 single "Good Vibrations". Instead, after a year of recording, the album was shelved and the group released a downscaled version, Smiley Smile, in September 1967. Over the next four decades, few of the original Smile tracks were officially released, and the project came to be regarded as the most "legendary" unreleased album in popular music history.
Adult/Child is an unreleased studio album by the American rock band the Beach Boys that was produced in early 1977. Similar to their then-latest release, The Beach Boys Love You, the album was essentially a solo effort by the band's chief songwriter and producer, Brian Wilson, who sang most of it in a cigarette-damaged voice. It consists of seven new songs, four of which feature orchestral arrangements by Dick Reynolds, along with five older tracks that had been unreleased by the band.
Many recordings and performances by the Beach Boys have attained some level of public circulation without being available as a legal release. Many albums by the band were fully assembled or near completion before being shelved, rejected, or revised as an entirely new project. In recent years, new rarities compilations and reissues of studio albums have been released with studio outtakes included as bonus tracks.
References
- ↑ "Problem Child". AllMusic.
- ↑ Phipps, Keith (November 30, 2009). ""Give me some root beer!": 17 particularly peculiar Beach Boys songs".
- ↑ The Gavin Report, August 24, 1990. Page 24
