r/thebeachboys

Has anyone ever sat down and listed out all of the little ways that little parts of SMiLE snuck into other songs throughout the band’s history?
I don’t mean whole tracks necessarily - an example would be how the “crying baby” shows up in Little Bird

My understanding of The Beach Boys' production history (although I could be wrong about this) is that all the albums up to and including Friends were largely produced by Brian, although some of them were credited to the band as a whole. Tragically, following a lot of issues in his personal life, Brian was no longer able to be involved to the same extent he had been up to that point following Friends, and Carl really stepped up and became the band's producer for the next few albums.

My question is how did Carl learn how to be a producer so quickly, and also do such a good job? Did Brian teach him? Did he just sit and observe Brian when he was younger? Did Stephen Desper (their main engineer during those years) teach Carl the basics? Was it just something kind of innate gift that Carl had much like Brian did? I don't really know much about how music production worked in those days (or really in any period of history), but I have to imagine it was something that took a lot of patience and expertise, especially in those days where everything was on tape.

Music YouTuber Mic the Snare recently did a long video on The Beach Boys’ discography. At the end of it, he laments that the band was never able to find success without also playing to people’s image and idea of them.

I think about how their name, “The Beach Boys,” carried a fun-and-sun connotation befitting of their early surf rock stuff, but how Brian’s psychedelic experiments and everything beyond also had to be released under this name. I wonder: would The Beach Boys have found more success while also following their creative impulses if they had just gone by a different name?

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We're so fortunate to still have Al on the road keeping it clean at 83.

Perhaps the biggest thing I struggle to wrap my head around with the whole Manson saga is how in the world Dennis didn't immediately say "you're a psychopath, so leave now, or I am calling the cops". If you've seen any of the prison interviews, you will see a man who was obviously (I'm not a doctor, but this is my own take) antisocial and about as narcissistic as a person can get, claiming to be God's inventor and best friend and simultaneously absolving himself of his crimes and gleefully talking about how he wishes he could have done more.

So what gives? Did Manson just have a really good "mask" hiding his true nature, which he felt no more reason to use after he was imprisoned forever? Was he like he was in the interviews around Dennis as well, but to Dennis this was considered "cool". Did he think his potential in music (I believe I read that Stephen Desper said he personally believed Manson had a lot of potential before his crimes) outweighed his personality? I just struggle to understand is how anyone could spend more than five minutes with this guy and not call the police, run from their house screaming, or both.

I can't stop listening to this song lately, I think maybe it's because me and my gf have a bunch of concerts planned and it's got me feeling like when I was young going to shows all the time.

But it's just so fucking great, like the opening drum beat, the rock and roll energy to it and all the harmonies and background vocals as well as his use of including studio talk into it.

And the hand claps!!!! They add so much to it, and the Brian style switch ups from upbeat rock and roll to slower style.

And I think putting the I Wanna Be Around noises at the end is fucking genius.

If you had to pick between SMiLE and adult/child which one would it be? Both in terms of commercial success and which you think is overall better.

IMO even tho I prefer SMiLE I think adult/child would have done much better commercially

God bless Illinois Roy for the amazing stuff he posts.