Should the Beach Boys be considered Proto?

earlyprog wrote: Influence on the progressive rock movement - including its earliest form, proto prog - does not render the music proto prog.  Beatles and Hendrix are proto prog because they actually played long sections of music that was prog rock but not yet fully developed to song long or even album long prog rock. For instance, Beatles could be labelled proto crossover prog, proto raga prog etc. Hendrix played space rock (7th Stone), as did the Beatles (Flying), a prog rock genre. I cannot think of any Beach Boys song that represents proto 'insert prog rock genre'. Well perhaps something on Smiley Smile. However, the Beach Boys I think did contribute to the earliedst stage of the development of progressive rock, namely the Ideation phase and perhaps even the conceptualization stage. But they never entered the development stage as the bands listed as proto prog on PA. Pet Sounds and Sgt. Pepper freed the minds of the musicians (ideation stage) including Robert Fripp and the rest is history.  Technology in its broadest sense (studio technique, song writing skills, instruments, management) surely was the input to the development of prog rock, but if the output - the music - does not sound like prog it cannot even be labelled proto prog.

Agreed, now that the confusing dictum of influence on post Proto Bands that has plagued PA members has been resoundly clarified not once but twice, I will put forth the Beach Boys Smiley Smile album as Proto Prog. While this album is the remnants of the defunct Smile sessions it does contain one multi part suite like track recorded before the Smile sessions.

Good Vibrations was recorded at 17 different sessions and four different recording studios. It ws edited together to form a multi part song suite with an intro, verse, chorus, repeat of verse and chorus, and (for the time) a lenthy instrumental break and final chorus while sporting lyrics that today are dated but were quite hip in 1966 with the added psychedelic embelishment of an Electro-Theremin. (see Revolver: How the Beatles Reimagined Rock 'n' Roll by Robert Rodridguez)

This song is psychedelic enough for me and is as proto as anything else stated and warrants the band's placement in that catogory.


Edited by SteveG - September 11 2014 at 09:06

SteveG wrote: ^Not an attack, just an observation. Printed words that yeild no response. But  it is my subjective opinion and you have the right to resent it or view it as false. The only one that knows the truth is you, so you are correct in your criticism.

Proto Prog is not about influence. 

I think the Proto Prog category had its day about ten years ago. Adding bands now is superfluous. 

^Not an attack, just an observation. Printed words that yeild no response. But  it is my subjective opinion and you have the right to resent it or view it as false. The only one that knows the truth is you, so you are correct in your criticism.

As for Rubber Soul being some sort of vanguard of studio recording, that to me is laughable. As I stated, the album was praised for it's Dylan like song developments and overall song quality, not it's sonic quality which was still very much in line with previous Beatles recordings in regards to Microphone placement and types, recording volume, EQ ing and the like. There is nothing sonically remarkable about Rubber Soul compared to Help or A Hard Day's Night.

My quandry with the Proto Prog catagory is if the Proto Prog groups did not influence any future Prog groups, why have the catagory and if the criteria is that they influenced future Progressive Rock groups then how does one prove it?

The only substantial way to prove one musical artist's influence over another is through vocal and musical mimicry, not by the instruments they used or how many guitar players they had. In other words, if the Beatles are Proto Prog then who sounds like them? Who did Lucy In The Sky part 2. or I AM the Walrus (Again). Hendrix is listed as Proto Prog but who the hell sounds like him and exactly why is he Proto Prog? Again, I've never heard Yes do something that sounds like Purple Haze or Are You Experienced. Thank God.

Which brings us back to Pet Sounds. Who sounds like the Beach Boys doing Sloop John B. or Wouldn't It be Nice? The same answer as the rest. Nobody. So how come the're not Proto Prog. They seem to fit the same criteria.Which is still as vague when I started out this comparison. Perhaps it because Proto has had it's day

Edited by SteveG - September 10 2014 at 19:29

^Now if we can just figure out what happened before the Big bang...

Padraic wrote: SteveG wrote: Padraic wrote: Your first post asks "Should the Beach Boys be considered Proto Prog?"The argument in favor needs to demonstrate influence on progressive rock artists. Again it, it was their influence on other Proto prog groups that then went on to influence prog groups, Stop right there.We don't do "proto-proto-prog".

Come on. Isn't it all Proto proto proto prog for Chirsts sake.

Padraic wrote: Your first post asks "Should the Beach Boys be considered Proto Prog?"The argument in favor needs to demonstrate influence on progressive rock artists.

Again it, it was their influence on other Proto prog groups that then went on to influence prog groups, either by technical proficiency as Proto groups from the Beatles to the Zombies wanted to copy their 'clean clear American sound' or just the fact that that album pushed the beatles to excel and virtually created the Progressive genre in all but name only. By the way, what progressive groups did the Beatles actually influence? Or to be more precise, a lot of people claim influence but just who exactly took up the Beatles mantle and ran with it?

Edited by SteveG - September 10 2014 at 14:41

Padraic wrote: SteveG wrote: If Proto Prog is really supposed to mean the prototypical forerunner and inspiration for the late 60's prog that follows, then I think that Pet Sounds and the Beach Boys meet that criteria." It may do little at this point, but it least it sets my intention straight and hopefully  people can no longer be concerned with what album influenced what other album and when and return focus back to Pet Sounds and it's technical influence on the Beatles starting with the song Here, There and Everywhere through to Sgt. Pepper's. I'll echo Guldbamsen - no one is arguing the influence on The Beatles, but The Beatles were not a prog rock band.

Yes, that's the whole point of this exercise, the Beatles are considered Proto Prog in PA, not Progressive Rock. I'm just trying to keep the apples with apples, so to speak.

Dean wrote: A factual error does not throw an entire argument out of the window,the error was obviously a mistake but it would have been wrong to have assumed which album SteveG was referring to. To assume is to make an ass of u and me. I'd like to remind SteveG of a post from June of this year: someone wrote: <span style=": rgba255, 255, 255, 0;">Dean's take on the Pet  Sounds/Revolver/Sgt. Pepper's back and forth influences are absolutely text book. The only thing I would disagree with is the friendly rivally between the Beatles and Brian Wilson. While absolutely friendly in basis, could you imagine the effects of the pressure on someone with Brian Wilson's pysche? Brian may not have seen the rivally as friendly in his mind and that could have been a key issue in the way this all played out. And surprisingly, none of the music itself was actually influenced, just the ideas for concepts  for albums. </span> <span style=": rgba255, 255, 255, 0;"></span> <span style=": rgba255, 255, 255, 0;">Peace out</span>

It may not throw an entire arguement out of the window, but it does give good fodder for you're not considering the arguement and making one liners like 'Rubber Soul was released before Pet Sounds" which, while true, would make the arguement about the  technical achievements of Pet Sounds superfluous to you and therefore, as usual, dodge the issue and retreat back into the comfort of past archival posts and long standing practices. The proof is simply your lack of comment of the technical arguement in the post. But I'll state again that ultimately the fault is mine to begin with, not yours. I don't want to continue to split hairs over this as I have now clarified my position using Sgt. Pepper's to correctly bolster my technical argument. But with still no reaction forthcoming so I'll use a musical/historical one to put my point across. This extract is from the definitive biography of the Beatles titled Shout by Philip Norman first published in 1981. It is his description of the Beatles coping with competition from two Beatles post Revolver albums

"After Revolver, every ceative mind in pop was awakening tot he possibilities of an album that was not just a compendedium of past hits but a self-contained on a definate theme, it's tracks working interdependently like movements in a ical concerto. The two post Revolver productions from across the Atlantic that had taken the Beatles ideas several notches further on were largely responsible for driving them back into the studio. One was the Beach Boys Pet Sounds, an almost Mozartian montage of mulidubbed harmonies and counterpoint, recorded almost single-handedly by Brian Wilson while the rest of the band were out on tour.The second even sharper goad was Freak-Out by the new California group called the Mothers Of Invention: one of the first ever "double Albums", pungent with inconoclatic wit of their leader Frank Zappa, and embellished with quasi-comical sound efects and scraps of conversation. The beatles had originally meant their anwser to Pet Sounds and Freak-Out to be an album in the most literal sense, each track a snap shot of Livepool as they remembered it from childhood."

Now how is possible that of the two albums most (and by all accounts solely) responsible for the Beatles to competatively respond to in order to produce Sgt. Peppers, one is considered a full blown Avant/ Progressive Rock work while the other does not merit a nod in PA's  Proto Prog catagory with it's "almost Mozartian montage of multidubbed harmonies and counterpoint?

Mr. Gorbechov,.. tear..down..this..wall!









Edited by SteveG - September 10 2014 at 16:04

A factual error does not throw an entire argument out of the window, the error was obviously a mistake but it would have been wrong to have assumed which album SteveG was referring to. To assume is to make an ass of u and me.

SteveG wrote: ^Wise words well received Steve. And the funny thing is, is that I don't even like the Beach Boys!

HAY WATE BRYAN WILLSON WAS A GENYES OK