#271 - The Beach Boys - The Beach Boys Today! (1965)
MUSIC HISTORY COMPILED BY ADAM BERNARD:
BACKGROUND – THE BEACH BOYS
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 by their vocal harmonies, adolescent-themed lyrics, 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 R&B to create their unique sound. Under Brian's direction, they often incorporated classical or jazz elements and unconventional recording techniques in innovative ways.
The Wilson Brothers watched their father Murry Wilson play piano, and had listened intently to the harmonies of vocal groups such as the Four Freshmen. After dissecting songs such as "Ivory Tower" and "Good News" as a teen, Brian would teach family members how to sing the background harmonies. For his birthday that year, Brian received a reel-to-reel tape recorder. He learned how to overdub, using his vocals and those of Carl and their mother. Brian also learned how to play piano, while Carl and their neighbor played guitars they got for Christmas. Soon Brian and Carl were avidly listening to Johnny Otis' KFOX radio show, and were inspired by the simple structure and vocals of the rhythm and blues songs they heard. Family gatherings brought the Wilsons in contact with cousin Mike Love. Brian taught Love's sister Maureen and a friend harmonies. Brian also knew Al Jardine, a high school classmate, and suggested to Jardine that they team up with his cousin and brother Carl. Love gave the fledgling band its name: "The Pendletones", a pun on "Pendleton", a style of woolen shirt popular at the time.
Dennis was the only avid surfer in the group, and he suggested that the group write songs that celebrated the sport and the lifestyle that it had inspired in Southern California. Brian finished the song, titled "Surfin'", and with Mike Love, wrote "Surfin' Safari". Murry arranged for the Pendletones to meet his publisher, and they recorded the song almost immediately in September 1961. By December, they were singed to a record label, and the single was released a few weeks later. The band would soon go through another name change. The original plan was to name them "the Surfers" until Russ Regan, a young promoter with Era Records, noted that there already existed a group by that name. He suggested calling them the Beach Boys. "Surfin'" was a regional success for the West Coast, and reached number 75 on the national Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Cultural historian Kevin Starr explains that the group first connected with young Americans specifically for their lyrical interpretation of a mythologized landscape: "Cars and the beach, surfing, the California Girl: Here was a way of life, an iconography, already half-released into the chords and multiple tracks of a new sound. The group's "California sound" grew to national prominence through the success of their 1963 album Surfin' U.S.A., which helped turn the surfing subculture into a mainstream youth-targeted advertising image widely exploited by the film, television, and food industry. The group's surf music was not entirely of their own invention, being preceded by artists such as Dick Dale, however, previous surf musicians did not project a world view as the Beach Boys did. The band's earlier surf music helped raise the profile of the state of California, creating its first major regional style with national significance, and establishing a musical identity for Southern California, as opposed to Hollywood. California ultimately supplanted New York as the center of popular music thanks to the success of Brian's productions.
Fast Forward to 1964, following the success of their chart-topping "I Get Around" single, the Beach Boys' touring schedule became considerably more busy. From June to August, the group toured in support of their newest LP, All Summer Long. By the end of the year, they had released four albums in 12 months and additionally recorded the singles "When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)" and "Dance, Dance, Dance". In November, they toured the UK and mainland Europe for the first time. During the European tour, frontman and lyricist Mike Love said that he and the band wished to move on from surf music and avoid resting on the band's laurels. By this point, principal songwriter Brian Wilson had become overwhelmed by the increasing pressures of his career and personal life. He later explained, "I used to be Mr Everything ... I was run down mentally and emotionally because I was running around, jumping on jets from one city to another on one-night stands, also producing, writing, arranging, singing, planning, teaching – to the point where I had no peace of mind and no chance to actually sit down and think or even rest." It was also around this time that Brian Wilson was introduced to marijuana. Over the next month, the group returned to studio sessions and finished the tracks that formed today's album.
In 1966, the Pet Sounds album and "Good Vibrations" single raised the group's prestige as rock innovators. After scrapping the Smile album in 1967, Brian gradually ceded control of the group to his bandmates. In the late 1960s, the group's commercial momentum faltered in the US, and despite efforts to maintain an experimental sound, they were widely dismissed by the early rock music press. After Carl took over as musical leader, the band made records that would later enjoy a cult following among fans. In the mid-1970s, as their concerts drew larger audiences, the band transitioned into an oldies act. Dennis drowned in 1983, and Brian soon became estranged from the group. Following Carl's death from lung cancer in 1998, the band granted Mike Love legal rights to tour under the group's name. In the early 2010s, the original members briefly reunited for the band's50th anniversary. As of 2022, Brian and Al Jardine do not perform with Love's edition of the Beach Boys, but remain official members of the band.
The Beach Boys are one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful bandsof all time, selling over 100 million records worldwide. They helped legitimize popular musicas a recognized art form and influenced the development of music genres and movements such as psychedelia, power pop, progressive rock, punk, alternative, and lo-fi. Between the 1960s and 2020s, the group had 37 songs reach the US Top 40(the most by an American band), with four topping the Billboard Hot 100. The founding members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Famein 1988.
ALBUM BACKGROUND – THE BEACH BOYS TODAY!
The Beach Boys Today! is the eighth studio album by the iconic American rock band, and was released on March 8, 1965. 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. Influences on this album were drawn from Phil Spector and Burt Bacharach.
Many of Wilson's songs began to be written under the influence of marijuana around this time. In his 2016 memoir he suggested, "smoking a little bit of pot ... changed the way I heard arrangements." Further on the subject, he commented in an interview, "It opened some doors for me, and I got a little more committed to music than I had done before, more committed to the making of music for people on a spiritual level."[37] Journalist David Howard argued that Wilson's use of marijuana had an "immediate effect" on his writing and production style, influencing the slower tempos, "more expansive" arrangements, introspective lyrics, as well as his "thinking in regard to the recording process ... his productions became denser and richer."
Lyrically, Wilson developed a more personalized, semi-autobiographical approach, with his songs written from the perspective of vulnerable, neurotic, and insecure narrators. All of the songs are expressed from a first-person perspective, and none of them involve themes related to cars or surfing. Instead, they offer a matured take on romantic relationships, as well as being more introspective, relating to such themes as growing up. Virtually every song expresses anticipation or apprehensiveness about the future, and the album is consistent with the Beach Boys' past records by remaining largely concerned with teenage experiences.
Today! reached number four in the US during a 50-week chart stay and yielded three top 20 singles: "When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)" (number 9), "Dance, Dance, Dance" (number 8), and "Do You Wanna Dance?" (number 12).
This is the second of three times we're talking about The Beach Boys on T500. "The Smile Sessions" came in at #381 (Daniel Van Kirk was the guest) and after today it'll be over 5 years before we talk about them again - Pet Sounds came in at #2 (behind Sgt Peppers).