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Peter Brooke Turner's avatar

Superb essay - I’ll check out some of those obscure albums you recommend.

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Ross Barkan's avatar

Yes, their catalog is so deep

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Brad Barnett's avatar

This is such a great essay. Thanks!!

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David Snider's avatar

Thank you for making this essay available. So much history of my childhood years of which I knew virtually nothing until just now. The good thing about getting older is the chance to see, hear, think and feel in new ways, with more breadth and depth. Listening to Beach Boys songs I’ve been hearing all my life during the last 24 hours, I’m beginning to realize the layers of magic in them that has always been there, just out of reach. Much gratitude for the band, and for your willingness to bring them into focus in this beautiful way.

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Tardigrade_Sonata's avatar

Brian Wilson is the Marlon Brando or Orson Welles of pop music. I mean I’m of course glad he didn’t die at his peak (that’s silly) but I think The Beach Boys would be remembered differently if he had.Heroes and Villains” is one of the smartest, eeriest pop songs ever recorded, easily matching anything on Sgt. Pepper’s. Could we have Steely Dan without them? John Cale?

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Ross Barkan's avatar

Yes, I could see the Beach Boys being viewed differently if they dissolved in the late 60s. They would've been a lot poorer but more mystique may have been attached to them. I'm a big Heroes and Villains fan and I enjoy both the version released and the longer cut off Smile

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Barry Camson's avatar

This was an exhaustive, fascinating and excellent article. I find it difficult sometimes to be clear about all of the Beach Boy albums (like dealing with the k. listings of Mozart. Your article helped with this. It was a wonderful and complicated (seen in retrospect) period of time. You also captured this.

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steven manning's avatar

I saw Mike Love perform at Pyro Festival this summer.50 years of thinking Brian was the only Beachboy...down the tubes.

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Sep 21, 2022
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Ross Barkan's avatar

I should've noted more that Brian actually repudiated acid by Pet Sounds and "I Know There's an Answer" (once called "Hang on to your Ego" was supposed to be a song knocking the LSD crowd. I do believe it drove his psychosis further and triggered him in terrible ways. He was talented enough where he probably could've pulled off Pet Sounds anyway, having never dropped acid.

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