re: Teach me about The Beach Boys

Go grab a copy of either Made in USA (which was the album they put out to celebrate the band's 25th anniversary), or Endless Summer (1974 release of their biggest Capitol hits from '62 to '65).

Both have the major songs - Surfin Safari, Surfin USA, California Girls, Fun Fun Fun, I Get Around, Be True to Your School, Surfer Girl, Help Me Rhonda and Don't Worry Baby.

Endless Summer includes Shut Down, Catch a Wave and Little Deuce Coupe. Made in USA has 409, Barbara Ann, Good Vibrations, Wouldn't It Be Nice and a few other songs from the post '65 recordings.

In my room
Do you wanna dance
Catch a wave

quote:

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Feel Flows.

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One of my favorites, but I just said to listen to the entire Surf's Up album instead.

I Get Around, In My Room, Good Vibrations, Wouldn’t it Be Nice…

Their best song is Sail On Sailor, a real bluesey departure for them. All of the rest is one big sixties beach movie with Eric Von Zipper.

You really need to listen to the whole Smile album from start to finish. It is one of the best albums of all time and it really works as a unified piece of art. Pet Sounds is the same way. As for lesser known singles that i like, i would recommend Sail on Sailor and Feel Flows.

Hell of a bump.

I’m a Beach Boys nerd as well.

I look at them as two different bands. There’s the pre-Pet Sounds era when they were writing about surfing, cars, and girls. That’s where the bulk of their familiar songs are from. Then there’s the post Pet Sounds/Smile era where they transitioned into more blues, funk, a bit of prof rock mixed in.

The “surfing” era has more catchy tunes that are easy to sing along with but I prefer the post Pet Sounds/Smile era. Some real, real interesting and inventive stuff going on then.

I strongly recommend listening to Andrew Hickey’s podcast on the history of rock music in 500 songs. It’s a great listen from episode one on but if you don’t want to invest that much time up front just start with the episodes on The Beach Boys and listen to those in succession. Episodes that feature a band link through to one another nicely especially once he gets into the 1960’s. The same can be done for The Rolling Stones, Beatles, or any other group that has multiple songs featured.