I’ve been listening to this. The sound is excellent and a big improvement over
some of the boots.
I have to ask, how would this have been received back in the 60’s? No matter
how far out they got, it was still the Beach Boys. I don’t think the young hip,
out of sight audience would have gone for it since it was The Beach Boys.
A lot of The Beach Boys image problem was The Beatles. They wanted to keep up
with The Beatles. The Beatles are changing and so should we. The Beatles started
off as a Rock band, then when Epstein managed them, they got cute. So The
Beatles could have went back to being a Rock band since it was in them.
The Beach Boys started out as a Pop, Rock vocal group. Change for them was
didn’t come easy.
Now, what would have happened if they listened to Mike Love and sang about
Surfin’ and girls? There were still bands that did this stuff in the late 60’s
and had hits. Maybe the Beach Boys could have weathered the hippy storm till it
blew over.
The Hallucinatory Blog 
I love the Beach Boys-Beatles connection. I have read that that Rubber Soul was influenced by what the Beach Boys had been doing at that time, When the Beach Boys heard it, they were inspired to make Pet Sounds. When McCartney heard Pet Sounds he was blown away, and that was one of the impetus’ for Sgt Pepper. And when Brian Wilson heard Pepper he basically went crazy.
There was a friendly competition between The Beatles and Beach Boys. I think it was the downfall of The Beach Boys for awhile.
The Beatles were changing and Brian Wilson wanted The Beach Boys to change also. They put Pet Sounds which wasn’t a big seller and caused a lot of internal conflict between Brian Wilson and Mike Love. Mike didn’t want to change cause they were still going good.
The Beach Boys had an image of Surf, Girls and Cars. Once the changed that, they lost their old audience and didn’t pick up a new one.
Hi again Bob — Thanks for your “Like” of my Monk article.
On this subject, I think Capitol-EMI has a lot to answer for in their favoring the Beatles over all their other artists. The way Sir Joseph Lockwood, chairman of EMI, the Big Boss Man in London, engineered it the Beatles were a huge export industry for Britain which ensured favored trading status and diplomatic receptions in Washington DC even on the Beatles’ first visit to the States in February ’64 — This was a month after they were nobodies in America!
Yes, Mike Love was the conservative one, the most gung-ho for keeping the group together as well. After Brian’s retreat in the late 60s Carl and Dennis could have kept the group going in a new groove — as they proved over several albums up to 1973: Sunflower, Surf’s Up, Carl & the Passions and Holland, no matter how poorly received. But once Endless Summer, Spirit of America and 15 Big Ones kicked in featuring oldies, well that was the end of that — Brian had given his proxy to Mike when it came to group votes — recognising that Mike was strongest for the group continuing. Dennis and then Carl had to go solo to show what they were really about musically.