# Was there any way for The Beach Boys to remain relevant past 1966? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 27, 2017, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523 "2017-05-27T03:07:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Reddy\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@Reddy\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reddy_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523/22 "2017-05-27T19:26:03Z")
By relevent, I mean relevant with the teen/young adult record buying market of the late 1960s and early 1970s. IE the “Hippies” for lack of a better catch-all. The 18-24 year olds in the period say from 1967 to 1971. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523/23 "2017-05-27T19:31:07Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > Also does anyone know that the Beach Boys have always been influential with rock and alternative musicians just about forever? How would this be called “irrelevant”? The Beach Boys’ (old) music was, and remains, relevant, but that’s not the same thing as saying they’re continuing to make (new) relevant music, which I think is what the OP was talking about. When was the last time that those rock and alternative musicians would have said “We’re influenced by what the Beach Boys are doing now” (as was true with _Pet Sounds_)? Then again, it’s hard for _any_ artist to stay at the cutting edge year after year after year. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523/24 "2017-05-27T19:46:09Z")
> [@jaycat](#): > > Were they ever considered “hip?” They never had any relevance to me. I was listening to Wilson Pickett, Bob Dylan and the Stones. “Little Surfer Girl,” I mean, really?? I can’t speak for then, but certainly now. Besides Pet Sounds being a perennial top 10 albums of all time favorite for rock critics and contemporary musicians (and is on my list, too), their post-Pet Sounds albums Sunflower and Surf’s Up also make top 100 albums of all time lists. To be honest, until about two months ago, I didn’t listen past Pet Sounds. I was missing out. There is some fantastic stuff on the following three albums:20/20, Sunflower, And Surf’s Up. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523/25 "2017-05-27T20:05:40Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Then again, it’s hard for _any_ artist to stay at the cutting edge year after year after year. A point that’s so obvious that many people miss it. The cutting edge is not the ideal place for the long term steadiness. Good artists may stay good but will go through hot and cold spells like any other human, and on top of that depend on audiences whose tastes will vary as time goes on. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523/26 "2017-05-27T20:07:55Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Did they ever try dropping acid? Of course, that might have really mind-fucked Brian, but that’s where music was headed in 1966. Yes, Brian took LSD, probably the worst possible drug for someone in his condition to have taken. > [@blindboyard](#): > > They could have released all that Manson music. They did release one of Chuck’s masterpieces, in 1968. “Cease To Exist”, retitled by Dennis to “Never Learn Not To Love.” ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523/27 "2017-05-27T21:27:33Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > The Beach Boys’ (old) music was, and remains, relevant, but that’s not the same thing as saying they’re continuing to make (new) relevant music, which I think is what the OP was talking about. When was the last time that those rock and alternative musicians would have said “We’re influenced by what the Beach Boys are doing now” (as was true with _Pet Sounds_)? > > Then again, it’s hard for _any_ artist to stay at the cutting edge year after year after year. Many artists have cited Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys as influences sometimes slavishly recreating the sounds, even up to the current day. In this century anyway, Sean Lennon would be one. The High Llamas are another. The OP is about what was hip in 1967 is my impression. There isn’t anyone from 50 years ago who is making music right now that is influential to young bands. Is that what you meant? I can’t even think of anyone close. Maybe Robyn Hitchcock. Still relevant, still an inspiration, began recording in the mid 70s I think. Nobody stays at the cutting edge for that long. ---
**Author:** ![SuperNelson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@SuperNelson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuperNelson)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523/28 "2017-05-28T01:27:20Z")
> [@Section\_Maker\_Jupe](#): > > …well, I did get tickets for the last show of his Pet Sounds Tour here in Santa Barbara, tomorrow night. Never thought I would do that, but the GF talked me into it!! :)I’ll report back. > As a lifelong member of the “beach” community, the Beach Boys have always sort of been part of the soundscape, commercials, wafting from peoples houses…parties, that sort of thing…at least at the coast. > I’ve always preferred the surf instrumental sounds, but have some Beach Boys songs cued up in my truck for early morning surf drives to the beach. Fun tunes… > You want to get a party rockin…(ha well, baby boomers I quess) put the song Surfing USA on full volume. works every time.😃 We saw it earlier in the tour - be prepared to have your socks blown off. Brian is astonishingly frail - they had a La-Z-Boy set up offstage so he could put his feet up - but once he got to the piano, he transformed into the performer you’re there to see. Al Jardine doesn’t look old enough to have been born when Pet Sounds was released, and Blondie Chaplin has to be seen in person to be believed. The program guide has interviews and quotes from artists ranging from Eric Clapton to Carol King, to Billy Idol, to George Martin, all talking about how Brian Wilson, and Pet Sounds in particular, influenced them as musicians. I get what the OP is asking, but it’s hard not to consider their work as seminal. When you get to the show, look around the crowd - particularly those in their 20’s and 30’s. If it’s anything like the crowd I was in, an awful lot of them will be musicians. ---
**Author:** ![john\_b\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@john\_b\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/john_b_2)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523/29 "2017-05-28T08:44:27Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > You couldn’t have been around in 1968 if you’re saying this. “Crimson & Clover” was regarded as a superhip psychedelic song. “Mrs. Robinson” came from the hippest movie of the sixties, _The Graduate_. What felt hip at the time isn’t necessarily the same stuff that we look back at 50 years later. Nothing was hipper than The Beatles’ White Album in 1968, yet what can you point to today that seems so forward-looking or psychedelic or in tune with with the times? > > As for The Beach Boys - in my top few favorite acts at the time - I agree that nothing could have saved them once Brian stopped touring and had his breakdown. He was trying to do all by himself what John, Paul, and George Martin were doing as a magnificent team. You need an alternate universe to produce a different Brian. And a different set of musicians to play a totally different sort of music. How long did the Mamas and Papas last after 1968? Yet they were West Coast hip royalty. > > Wendell Wagner: Brain didn’t usually write lyrics. Mike Love wrote the inanities for “Good Vibrations” to try to bring it down to record buyers level. Brian was working with Van Dyke Parks on lyrics in 1967 and he is responsible for tripe like “Heroes and Villains.” > > John Mace: Brian did drop acid. He’s said since that it “fucked him up.” I most assuredly _was_ around in 1968, and I grew up one town over from Cambridge, Massachusetts,–widely regarded as Berkeley, East back then–and I remember when Bob Dylan was an obscure, culty folk act and played the Club 47 in Harvard Square. _Crimson & Clover_ was widely regarded as pleasantly middle of the road; and Tommy and his Shondells borderline bubblegum, but I don’t want to get into a fight over this, just sayin’. That’s me and My Perception. **The Graduate** was an enormous success but it was also MOR in the extreme. Simon & Garfunkel, whose songs were featured in the movie, had their fans, were an upscale urban, east coast singing duo who had their time in the sun. Hip isn’t the first word that comes to mind when I think of them. Country Joe & The Fish, yes. Janis Joplin, fuh sure. Agree totally on the White Album. 🙂 As to what’s hip and/or relevant today, I’d say that relevant is whatever the mass media conglomerates say it is. Pop culture is now borderline authoritarian IMHO; and no, I’m neither a radical nor a Sixties person. This is just a fact of life. We can point our fingers at MTV or whatever, this or that media mogul. This was probably inevitable. Hip has gone from meaning anti-Establishment, individualistic, intuitive, understanding, subtle, sometimes wry and humorous, at other times serious but never solemn or stuffy to, essentially, nothing at all. It’s all monkey see, monkey do these days. The Boomers perverted the word hip as they approached middle age, while for younger people,–Millennials?, whatever–it’s whatever is happening. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523/30 "2017-05-28T15:43:34Z")
It’s hard to appreciate how radically culture can change over a year’s time. A year ago Jimmy Fallon was the king of late night for creating viral videos of people dancing while Stephen Colbert was being written off as a failure unable to duplicate his character’s success as a real boy. Today Fallon is snarked at for being an irrelevant buffoon and loses to the triumphantly anti-Trump Colbert. The sixties lurched from the sunny British Invasion in 1964 to Summer of Love in 1967 to the killing fields of 1968 to fin de siecle sadness in 1969. Each measured hip differently. _The Graduate_ was released late in 1967 and perfectly caught the schism between what the parents’ generation expected and represented and what the younger generation saw. It was the definition of hip. Calling the music AOR is anachronistic: AOR didn’t yet exist. It wasn’t guitar-laden; it certainly was hip. Simon & Garfunkel had just played Monterey, after all. But I should have qualified my statement by saying _The Graduate_ was the hippest movie of the sixties\* up until then\*. In 1969 we got the totally different look at society called [Easy Rider and its soundtrack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easy_Rider_(soundtrack)). Hip? Yes. Tonally distinct? Yes. Head-banging? No. Steppenwolf provided harder-edged music than S&G but the bulk is far from metal, even proto-metal. What different parts of the country considered hip also varied, as you note. Still, the sixties had a common culture in ways impossible for today’s kids to imagine. ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523/31 "2017-05-28T18:36:09Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > Many artists have cited Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys as influences sometimes slavishly recreating the sounds, even up to the current day. In this century anyway, Sean Lennon would be one. The High Llamas are another. > > The OP is about what was hip in 1967 is my impression. > > There isn’t anyone from 50 years ago who is making music right now that is influential to young bands. Is that what you meant? I can’t even think of anyone close. Black Sabbath put out an album in 2013, it hit #1 in the U.S. and U.K., sold out a world tour this year and is basically cited by every metal band ever as an inspiration. Slee ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523/32 "2017-05-28T19:34:20Z")
> [@sleestak](#): > > Black Sabbath put out an album in 2013, it hit #1 in the U.S. and U.K., sold out a world tour this year and is basically cited by every metal band ever as an inspiration. > > Slee OK fair enough. I don’t use charts to measure things anymore though, even though it does sound impressive. The business is wobbly. Hard to say how influential something like that is. Neil Young is a huge inspiration, who tours and makes LP. I haven’t listened to his current stuff in a long long time. I might check out the sabbath thing. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523/33 "2017-05-28T21:05:38Z")
> [@sleestak](#): > > Black Sabbath put out an album in 2013, it hit #1 in the U.S. and U.K., sold out a world tour this year and is basically cited by every metal band ever as an inspiration. Lots of oldies’ names have had recent success. Bob Dylan had a number one album in the U.S. and U.K. in 2006 and several top ten albums since. Bruce Springsteen has had four straight such albums from 2007 to 2014. Paul McCartney’s last album, from 2013, went to number 3 in both countries. That’s all irrelevant to the question of current relevance. Being a nostalgia act is good business in the 2010s. But not so much in between. It had been 30 years in the U.K. and 40 years in the U.S. since Black Sabbath last had even a top ten album before _13_. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523/34 "2017-05-28T23:44:15Z")
Yeah, the important thing isn’t initial chart position but length of stay. Debuting high and dropping like a rock indicates a solid core of support but not a real breadth of appeal. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523/35 "2017-05-29T00:08:53Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Yeah, the important thing isn’t initial chart position but length of stay. Debuting high and dropping like a rock indicates a solid core of support but not a real breadth of appeal. Also doesn’t say these tunes have legs. We’ll have to wait some years to know. For now all we know is that there is a baby boomer and nostalgia legacy market for rockers. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523/36 "2017-05-29T01:23:50Z")
Brian Wilson’s illness pretty much ended the Beach Boys. ---
**Author:** ![Jamesaz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecd19e/32.png) [@Jamesaz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamesaz)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523/37 "2017-05-29T02:52:24Z")
Rock and roll is a young mans game. The necessary anger tends to lessen with kids and mortgages. Dylan, Springsteen, Van Morrison maybe a few others, Neil Young, Bowie, can (could) make interesting music still but they never were about anger anyway. “Tryin’ to Keep the Summer Alive” on “Surf’s Up” with Carl on lead vocals is both a really great B.B. song and a metaphor for the bands demise. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523/38 "2017-05-29T03:45:21Z")
Spring Break has never died down, they should have tied themselves to that and evolved into 80s night club songs, and maybe even 90s rave culture. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523/39 "2017-05-29T04:23:29Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Brian Wilson’s illness pretty much ended the Beach Boys. Cabinessence, Busy doin nothin, til I die, wonderful, time to get alone, sail on sailor, funky pretty, and dozens of others disprove this thesis. Plus: Disney Girls, feel flows, be with me, little bird, trader, california saga, and many others, all were written by other Beach Boys. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523/40 "2017-05-29T04:25:27Z")
> [@Jamesaz](#): > > Rock and roll is a young mans game. The necessary anger tends to lessen with kids and mortgages. > Dylan, Springsteen, Van Morrison maybe a few others, Neil Young, Bowie, can (could) make interesting music still but they never were about anger anyway. > “Tryin’ to Keep the Summer Alive” on “Surf’s Up” with Carl on lead vocals is both a really great B.B. song and a metaphor for the bands demise. > Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk You’re about 9 years off with that LP cite. > **[Keepin' the Summer Alive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keepin%27_the_Summer_Alive)** > > Keepin' the Summer Alive is the 24th studio album by American rock band the Beach Boys, released March 24, 1980, on Brother, Caribou and CBS Records. Produced by Bruce Johnston, the album peaked at number 75 in the US, during a chart stay of 6 weeks, and number 54 in the UK. It is the group's last album recorded with Dennis Wilson, who drowned in 1983, although he only appears on one song. > The album included new material alongside several older songs that had not been released up until that poin... ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523/41 "2017-05-29T16:02:59Z")
The Beach Boys are going to play at the NYS Fair this year - one of the FREE concerts. I have every expectation every baby boomer within 100 miles is going to show up. We plan to be at the fair at opening, 10 a.m. to beat the gridlock traffic that is surely going to happen. We pensioners love the Beach Boys. And I HATE ‘hip’. Who determines what’s ‘hip’, some drug addicts? Meh. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-any-way-for-the-beach-boys-to-remain-relevant-past-1966/787523.md?page=3)