The two Death songs move up. Paper Moon still the catchiest for a radio song. Lay Your Head may be second best radio song. Touch Me the most emotionally sung. Still good after all these years!
I agree with everything you have just said. It was honestly our first try at a real recording. I have written songs now that have blown those all out of the water. That is the next project.... Make a coherent full length that lives and breathes and sounds beautiful in the meantime. I have given up trying to fit things to Portland's given sound. Instead, I have realized I just need to keep doing what I do. Keep writing what I write, and stop worrying what people think about it. This town is so insular (musically) and completely saturated that I really need to stop caring about anyone and just writing songs ffor myself. Art for art's sake. prunetang
You used to view Portland as far across the state from where you were appearing. Now you talk about it as home ground. You moved to the big time, but maybe an even bigger scene would mix you with people with other ideas. You could experiment with a song that gives your voice a stronger presence in the foreground. You could write something 3-4 minutes long, a short song in which you speed the pace to fit it all in. You could extract the catchy riff from 3 of your songs and combine them into one song, as long as they are complementary. Just ideas. Here's a song my cousin wrote, sung by a guy from Eugene. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAzuqX8hQRg
i'm not sure i can put the beach boys as a top 5 band all time, maybe top 10 but they deserve to be in the discussion. saw them a couple times, or the few of them that are still touring together, and it was a pretty good show. as for ranking bands, instead of numbers (top 5, 10 etc) i prefer to think of it like bill simmons does the baseball hall of fame, more in pyramid form. in that repsect i would consider them a fringe tier one or top of tier two band.
They're in the discussion. I don't think any band can be said to be a definite top five, since there are a number of bands in the upper stratosphere of the music realm that are both very close in quality as well as very different in sound. Ranking them conclusively is impossible, IMO. That said, the Beach Boys are certainly one of those bands who could be ranked in the top five...they're among my favourite bands ever. Pet Sounds is obviously amazing, and SMiLE (which has both been leaked over time as well as produced after the fact in 2005 by Brian Wilson and a backing band) would have been incredible if released in the 1960s. I think one thing that hurts the Beach Boys in terms of overall recognition is that they didn't put together a lot of unassailable albums. They produced an incredible amount of fabulous songs, but they were spread out over a lot of albums, many of which had a lot of added filler and/or covers. But taking their top twenty or thirty or fifty songs, I think they stack up well with virtually anyone.
Yeah, I have to give a nod to Mistrel here. The Beach Boys have to be in the conversation. Pet Sounds came out in what? 1966? It was not my Fav, I was more into the Stones and Beatles, still rock was changing on all fronts at a frantic pace. And thank god it did. I have to admire Pet Sounds as being oe of the early theme or story album, like the Beatles, Sgt. Peppers..but I dont know if the fact that I had grown up listening to peter and the wolf on LP, that it was like i expected the music to evolve to that point. Fact of the matter is that I considered the Beach Boys to be "Rock light". Dylin going electric, Beatles going to drug induced fantasy cartoons..almost too far..The intergration of "black" music and drifting away from the safe, clean "white" sound. The influence of early blues, Hooker to Chuck Berry etc I think was far more of a big deal, and had a bigger impact. Bands like the Stones who embraced blues and made it acceptable, or rather marketable to the mainstream, there is where you will find your true top five.
The Beach Boys? Top 5 of any genre, ever? We're having this discussion? Brian Wilson was a genius, but the bubblegum crap is what they're remembered most for these days. I can name 10 rock bands off of the top of my head that make this a silly thread, in terms of memorable music. The Beatles The Doors The Yardbirds Led Zeppelin Black Sabbath Pink Floyd Queen The Rolling Stones U2 Metallica
I'm not sure I'd call Good Vibrations "bubblegum crap". (I was tempted to bring up an actual bubblegum crap song of theirs, but I'm not sure what that term means, so I went with their best known hit instead. And if that's what bubblegum crap is, then bubblegum crap is some pretty god damned good music.)
Yes, you oldtimers are going to cling to the idea that the Beach Boys are a Top 5 band of all time. I get it.
[video=youtube;flqdB8u9JXs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flqdB8u9JXs&feature=related[/video] [video=youtube;o-kid344Acg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-kid344Acg&feature=related[/video] [video=youtube;LVKCRpOewco]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVKCRpOewco[/video]
I don't consider them a top 5 band of all time. It's really hard to compare groups from the 60's or 70's to stuff now.
You want to hear some weirder tracks? Check these two out [video=youtube;ipyieEOjkVU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipyieEOjkVU[/video] and [video=youtube;eFGwLWZFzUY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFGwLWZFzUY[/video] the first one wasn't even sung by anyone in the group, but apparently their manager at the time. Might explain why it doesn't sound nasally.
Not really. I can listen to the Beatles, the Doors, Led Zeppelin, or Sabbath right now and be amazed. It takes an obscure 11th album from the Beach Boys even put them in the conversation.
Are you saying that it's an unknown album? I can't name one single Rolling Stones album, but I can name at least 2 Beach Boy Albums. Pet Sounds and Endless Summer. Although Endless Summer was just a best of, so I guess I can only name one. Still more than any RS albums. Or any of the Doors albums, or Sabbath.
Why? MM wasn't asking if a particular album was top 5 of all time (although it was listening criteria). I have listened to the album, and I have heard many of their songs (and i've heard many of the RS songs). So I believe I'm allowed to comment. I'm not saying their albums suck. I'm saying that calling an album obscure is funny considering I couldn't name any album from the groups you mentioned but I could mention Pet Sounds. Can't name you many songs (of any of the groups) but thats because I'm bad with names of songs.
I've heard Pet Sounds all the way through a few times back in college, but much like Rush, Guns & Roses and the Pixies, the Beach Boys were a well regarded band that never really did much for me. I'm a big music fan and they're enjoyable, but I'll easily list 50 bands I like more. Modest Mouse, Whiskeytown, The Ramones, Sublime, The Grateful Dead, Nirvana, Black Flag, Calexico, The Band, Iron & Wine, The Roots, ZZ Top, Jane's Addiction, Parliament/Funkadelic, The Black Keys, The Police, The Beatles, Pavement, The Stones, The Doors, The Wailers, Public Enemy, AC/DC, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Upsetters, Ween, Beastie Boys, Wu Tang Clan, Ike & Tina Turner, L7, The Neptunes, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Velvet Underground, The Sex Pistols, Uncle Tupelo, ELO, Eagles of Death Metal, The Skatalites, The Hives, Thievery Corporation, Old Crow Medicine Show, The Clash, Palace Brothers, Steely Dan, The Who, Queen, Van Halen, The White Stripes, and most of all the The Cherry Poppin' Daddies! I could probably list another 50 I've seen most of the bands that I listed but the some of the absolute best shows ever were Daddies shows. I've listened to & enjoyed that first album of their's as much as any other. Reaction to music/art isn't a matter of right or wrong or even ranking... it's personal. But I agree with the general sentiment that the BB's seem outside of the top echelon that would be in the conversation of top 5 as those bands are sort of unassailable types... who do they bounce of Beatles Stones Police Wailers Zeppelin? STOMP
Now let's examine Papa's Top Ten off the Tip of his Tongue. Hmmm. The Beatles great The Doors very good The Yardbirds very good Led Zeppelin crap Black Sabbath crap Pink Floyd crap Queen crap The Rolling Stones decent U2 crap Metallica crap I don't know what bubblegum means, but if it means fast and youthful songs, I'm all for them. Almost all nonreligious hit songs had always been bubblegum until radio rock and roll died in the late 70s. If you listen to oldies stations, you'll never hear most oldies that were hits, like this typical forgotten one. [video=youtube;jJR_KGZO4U0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJR_KGZO4U0&feature=list_related&playnext=1&list=AVGxdCwVVULXcGFFGQ-oedF4dlZRmLpgJ5[/video]
