Hobby Drama

This is a repost. I am not the original author (see disclaimer at the bottom).

So, to my knowledge, no one has done a write-up on the batshit insane history of the Beach Boys and the various inter-politics of band-members that extends to their fanbase, which is why I'm doing this now. I don't really use Reddit so excuse any formatting errors, I'm not entirely sure how to use italics on this thing, but I feel this story is worth sharing anyways.

Okay, let's start with the basics, the Beach Boys are a classic rock band most famous for being pioneers of surf-rock. They didn't invent the genre but they were one of the earliest commercially successful surf-rock bands to have vocals, basically cementing the vocal-jazz/doo-wop sound vocal style that's all over the genre. The band was formed by the three Wilson brothers (Brian, Carl and Dennis), their cousin Mike Love and their childhood friend Al Jardine. Brian Wilson was the group's leader, writing all of their songs and eventually producing their records, with Mike Love functioning as the group's lyricist and arguably their lead vocalist (all of the members sung lead but Mike didn't play any instruments so he tended to sing lead a bit more often to give him shit to do on stage). This was how the group functioned from the early 60s until 1964.

Here's where the issue begins, for various reasons (largely due to having a panic attack on an airplane) Brian Wilson decides that touring and surf rock sucks complete ass, and that he'd rather innovate in the studio. A solution is agreed upon where Brian will write and record in Los Angeles for most of the year as the other Beach Boys tour, occasionally stopping back in Los Angeles to provide vocals on the instrumentals that Brian cooked up. Lyrics are to be provided by Brian, although he eventually elects to just hire other lyricists. To make up for his absence they recruit another musician named Bruce Johnston to tour with them, who eventually just joins the band.

So Brian gets more studio time, drifts away from surf-rock and eventually rock altogether, discovers psychedelics and records some of the greatest records of all time. "Pet Sounds", the Beach Boys fourth album to be recorded in these circumstances, is largely considered the band's masterpiece and consistently ranks near the top of most "Greatest Albums of All Time" charts (it's currently #2 on Rolling Stone's list, for example). It's really incredible psychedelic pop, genuinely a fantastic record and one absolutely worth listening to in full ("Wouldn't It Be Nice" was used in a Fallout advertisement a few years ago and got some attention because of it, "God Only Knows" was performed Bioshock Infinite by a barbershop quartet, I think Reddit likes these sort of things, they're also just very famous songs in general). There's some other material recorded around here that's also fantastic but is not necessary to understand this post.

These albums were weird, and they were critically acclaimed, but they weren't as successful as past Beach Boys albums (at least not in America, they sold fantastically in the UK). After one of them was cancelled near its completion ("SMiLE", an album with it's own insane fan history I may write-up later) the band became significantly less successful, Brian Wilson became reclusive and the power in the band generally shifted to the other members.

For the most part, this has been true since 1971. Brian has come back a few times, most notably in 1977 with "Love You" (a very weird but very good early synth-pop album), but a history of mental health issues prevented him from ever fully returning and the power in the band gradually shifted over to Mike Love. Here's the thing though, Mike Love is an asshole.

Mike Love's many faults are too long to list here, but to put it plainly he's a money-grubbing Reagan-Republican jackass who trampled Brian's creative vision to push the band back towards its surf-rock roots, in the process creating some of the worst records of all time. The Mike Love-helmed Beach Boys albums must be what the Beach Boys sound like to people who hate them, they're truly dreadful. In the mid-90s he somehow got the rights to tour under the Beach Boys' name, and has been doing so consistently since.

This is where the fans split. To those who consider themselves fans of the Beach Boys there are two general mindsets: one that considers Mike Love to be the antichrist and one that doesn't. Can you guess which side I'm on? To those who prefer the Beach Boys' experimental works, he's a greedy businessman ruining the band's legacy, but those who prefer their surf-rock tend to be more in favor of the guy. This split is largely across political lines too, Mike fans tend to be more right-wing and Brian fans tend to be more left-wing.

Many arguments are had over the merits of these two sides of the band. As Reddit leans younger, more tech-savvy and more left-wing, r/thebeachboys is mostly in favor of Brian, but on Facebook it seems way more violent. If you search for concert footage of Mike Love's "Beach Boys" and contrast it with Brian Wilson's solo touring it's apparent what types of crowds they're playing to.

Now, some Beach Boys fans are bipartisan and that shouldn't be left unstated, but this is certainly true for the majority of them. This is where our most recent issue comes to play.

So a few weeks ago on New Year's Eve, after Trump lost the election but before he was out of office, he held a party at his Mar-a-Lago resort and the Beach Boys performed at it alongside Vanilla Ice. "The Beach Boys" in question were Mike Love and a handful of touring musicians but no other members, not even Bruce Johnston who is a republican and has toured with Mike before. To say this caused a shitstorm would be an understatement.

Beach Boys fans are insecure about many things and I'll be the first to admit that, "Pet Sounds" pretty directly inspired the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's" and yet the Beatles and the Beach Boys are often considered to be in different leagues which Beach Boys fans don't really like. One thing that fans of Brian are particularly insecure about is "The Beach Boys" being used when referencing Mike Love's touring band. You can bet that when dozens of articles from major news publications come out about "The Beach Boys" performing at Trump's mask-less party in the middle of a pandemic that these fans would be fucking pissed. And they were.

This was easily the most active I've seen Beach Boys fans in awhile, especially on Twitter where just about every tweet about the matter had a dozen Beach Boys fans underneath it clarifying that Brian had absolutely no connection to the concert. In a rare move for him, Brian (or at least his social media team) came out to condemn Mike Love for playing a mask-less concert in the middle of a pandemic to support a man who was voted out of office and wouldn't admit it. Al Jardine, another Beach Boys’ member who regularly tours with Brian agreed, and former Beach Boys’ collaborators had some more colorful things to say (including Van Dyke Parks, the lyricist for Brian’s “SMiLE” project who has pretty regularly shit-talked Mike Love over the years).

While this wasn’t the first controversy surrounding where Mike Love’s touring band choose to play concerts, there was a similar controversy a few months ago when they performed at a party for Trump’s re-election in October and another one back in February when they performed at a Safari Club (Brian Wilson is very strongly in favor of animal rights), but this was truly the last straw. Bipartisanship is nearly impossible to maintain with the current politics of band members, and while a true reunion of the band has been discussed to occur sometime later this year (or whenever quarantine lifts) it seems considerably unlikely. The band, the real band with Brian participating, is probably just over forever now. You'll still be able to see Mike Love's bastardization of "the Beach Boys", and you'll still be able to see Brian tour (and Al too, probably) with his incredibly superior backing band, but the true Beach Boys are done.

I, and I assume many others, have found some hope though. The sheer amount of backlash seems to show that the Beach Boys’ legacy hasn’t been ruined, that Brian’s experimental music has been and will continue to be properly appreciated, and that attempts to destroy with this boomer surf-rock garbage have ultimately failed. It’s nice to know, but we can’t really be sure for now. Knowing Mike Love, he’ll pull some more shit.

I don’t really know how to end Reddit posts but if any of you want a real belly-laugh I suggest you check out Mike Love’s 2017 double-album “Unleash the Love”, specifically its second disc which consists of re-recordings of classic Beach Boys songs. I don’t want to spoil it but pay attention to the vocals, they’re uhhh kinda hard to miss.

And if you want some good music to listen to, listen to Pet Sounds! It’s seen as a masterpiece for a reason. If you’ve already listened to it, then listen to their other stuff like “Friends” and “Wild Honey”. That “SMiLE” album I’ve mentioned a few times in this post was eventually released in like 2011 as “The Smile Sessions” and it’s fucking mesmerising, really worth a listen. Get involved with the Beach Boys fan community too, speaking for the Brian-side of the group there’s a lot of really good and really talented people working hard to preserve the band’s legacy. Brian’s current touring band actually consists of a bunch of Beach Boys fans (namely Darian Sahanaja, the main organiser) who were able to perfectly replicate the very complex arrangements of Brian’s songs live.

So yeah, that’s all. Have a good one, listen to the Beach Boys, and don’t be like Mike Love.

Edit/Author's Note: Just to be safe, I added a couple sentences to show that all of this did have consequences as to follow Rule 10. Didn't really impact the pacing or the point, just emphasized what's at stake in a clearer way. Also, you've all been super cool in the comments, very nice to see people who've decided to check out Pet Sounds after this. I know "thx fer de updoots" is a fucking meme but it's nice how welcoming you all are, I'll probably do a write-up on the history of SMiLE and all of the bootlegs people did sometime in the next couple weeks. Okay, author's note over.

Disclaimer

This is a repost from reddit. I really missed this sub so I decided to post some top articles from time to time until hopefully one day this community will be large enough to produce its own content.

Read the original here