Should the Beach Boys be considered Proto?

Interrestingly, Jim DeRogatis difinitive book (by anyone's standards) titled Turn On Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock,  published 2003, lists the Beach Boys as  first in the book as a psychedelic American rock group with particular emphasis on the song Good Vibrations (the use of the Electro-Therimin, psychedelic lyrics, choral and organ break, etc.) along with a description of the experimental approach to the ill fated Smile album.  While that album went defunct for a number of well know reasons, DeRogatis does expand on the salvaged Smiley Smile.

"Some of the songs that had been on Smile were recorded for Smiley Smile in different versions "Heroes and Villians, Wonderful. Wind Chimes and Vegetables, while a few new tracks were freshly recorded and tacked on ( the best is Brian's With Me Tonight; the worst being She's Going Bald. The harmoney vocals hold the spotlight through out and the result is not unlike what Hendrix called "a psychedelic barbershop quartet". He meant it as an insult but it's an Intruiging concept nonetheless and takes nothing away from the psychedelic intent of the Smiley Smile album, and indeed supports it."

 Early Experimental Psychedelic Rock=Proto Prog

 Smiley Smile=Proto Prog.












"Doing the right thing is never superfluous."


Edited by SteveG - September 13 2014 at 09:42

The Beach Boys were progressive as far as surf music goes, and they took the California beach sound to its utter limits. However, I would never mistake them for a proto-prog rock band.

Atavachron wrote: NYSPORTSFAN wrote: I think we all respect Brian Wilson but they are not proto-prog IMO. Pet Sounds while progressive has hardly has any rock elements, Smile was not released until way after the fact and Smiley Smile is disjointed. Another fact is The Beach Boys relied heavily on another musicians to play their instrumental parts. "Smile" was never released except as a nostalgic semi-official 'collectors release' years later (unless you mean Brian Wilson Presents Smile), but the session tapes Wilson had made for "Smile" were circulating not long after recording began.   Smiley Smile is indeed disjointed.   So what?   What does that have to do with being or not being protoprog?   It was among the first American avantgarde rock albums in history.

With your premise I guess The Velvet Underground should be proto-prog as their first couple of albums were avant-garde/rock albums and minimalistic?

SteveG wrote: NYSPORTSFAN wrote: I think we all respect Brian Wilson but they are not proto-prog IMO. Pet Sounds while progressive has hardly has any rock elements, Smile was not released until way after the fact and Smiley Smile is disjointed. Another fact is The Beach Boys relied heavily on another musicians to play their instrumental parts. The comparison to The Beatles fails miserably as they were doing the heavy hitting with Rubber Soul, Revolver, Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane, Sgt. Peppers, Magical Mystery Tour, The White Album and Abbey Road. Another point is let's look at Revolver diversity which The Beach Boys never even approached on one album and of course is progressive. There is nothing in the Beach Boys catalog as progressive or innovative as "Tomorrow Never Knows" or "Strawberry Fields Forever" "Taxman' proto hard rock/funk, "Love You To" World Music, "Eleanor Rigby" classical, "For No One (Lieder/Art Song), "I'm Only Sleeping" psych/folk, "She Said She Said" Acid Rock", "And Your Bird Can Sing" Power Pop/ Twin Guitar Leads, "Yellow Submarine" Psych Novelty Song", "Got to Get You Into My Life" psych/soul and "Tomorrow Never Knows" basically invents a couple of genres IMO. When someone says The Beach Boys are proto-prog please give me a break. Good Vibrations was the epitome of Proto prog. You have had your break, now go take another.

I'm sorry, Steve, but claiming Good Vibrations is proto-prog is almost as ridiculous as saying Velvet Underground was prog. Almost.

Good Vibrations is surf music with a theremin thrown in. That doesn't constitute proto-prog.

NYSPORTSFAN wrote: Atavachron wrote: NYSPORTSFAN wrote: I think we all respect Brian Wilson but they are not proto-prog IMO. Pet Sounds while progressive has hardly has any rock elements, Smile was not released until way after the fact and Smiley Smile is disjointed. Another fact is The Beach Boys relied heavily on another musicians to play their instrumental parts. "Smile" was never released except as a nostalgic semi-official 'collectors release' years later (unless you mean Brian Wilson Presents Smile), but the session tapes Wilson had made for "Smile" were circulating not long after recording began.   Smiley Smile is indeed disjointed.   So what?   What does that have to do with being or not being protoprog?   It was among the first American avantgarde rock albums in history. With your premise I guess The Velvet Underground should be proto-prog as their first couple of albums were avant-garde/rock albums and minimalistic?

There is no 'premise' and I have no agenda.   Artists are not added to PA because they compare well with other artists deemed progressive.   The Beach Boys were a rock band that was, or became, an art-rock band.   If that bothers you, tough.

^ I think arguing for 'Good Vibrations' as progressive or even protoprog is tenuous at best.   What I would say is that it appears on Smiley Smile, an otherwise unhinged and thoroughly irreverent album.

Svetonio wrote: When I was a little kid who just started to listen to rock music, going to concerts and buy LPs, in the mid-seventies, almost all of that was prog. At local fm radio back then I'd hear very often a song that I quite liked, and I thought that it's a prog song. Sometime later, when I decided to find and buy LP with that song, I was very disappointed when I've been told that the band is not prog band, and that song is "not prog song". The band was called the Beach Boys, and that song was Good Vibrations.  However, Good Vibrations is still to be par excellence prog song for me.

A friend of mine who doesn't like much prog, and also hadn't ever heard the Beach Boys (or at least didn't remember anything by them), was like "eh, I don't like prog very much" when I played it for him. This is after me playing prog here and there for him. The song seemed basically in line with what I'd been playing. He never made such a comment with the Beatles, even A Day in the Life.

Edited by King Crimson776 - September 15 2014 at 04:55

The Dark Elf wrote: SteveG wrote: NYSPORTSFAN wrote: I think we all respect Brian Wilson but they are not proto-prog IMO. Pet Sounds while progressive has hardly has any rock elements, Smile was not released until way after the fact and Smiley Smile is disjointed. Another fact is The Beach Boys relied heavily on another musicians to play their instrumental parts. The comparison to The Beatles fails miserably as they were doing the heavy hitting with Rubber Soul, Revolver, Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane, Sgt. Peppers, Magical Mystery Tour, The White Album and Abbey Road. Another point is let's look at Revolver diversity which The Beach Boys never even approached on one album and of course is progressive. There is nothing in the Beach Boys catalog as progressive or innovative as "Tomorrow Never Knows" or "Strawberry Fields Forever" "Taxman' proto hard rock/funk, "Love You To" World Music, "Eleanor Rigby" classical, "For No One (Lieder/Art Song), "I'm Only Sleeping" psych/folk, "She Said She Said" Acid Rock", "And Your Bird Can Sing" Power Pop/ Twin Guitar Leads, "Yellow Submarine" Psych Novelty Song", "Got to Get You Into My Life" psych/soul and "Tomorrow Never Knows" basically invents a couple of genres IMO. When someone says The Beach Boys are proto-prog please give me a break. Good Vibrations was the epitome of Proto prog. You have had your break, now go take another. I'm sorry, Steve, but claiming Good Vibrations is proto-prog is almost as ridiculous as saying Velvet Underground was prog. Almost. Good Vibrations is surf music with a theremin thrown in. That doesn't constitute proto-prog.

I always feel sad when musicians make sweeping generalizations as music, like anything else, suffers if people don't know the history of past things and events more completely. How do you know where going if your not sure where you have been?

To say that Good Vibrations is nothing more than surf music with a Theremin would be like saying that Folk Rock is simply Folk music played on an electric guitar. For the record I will state that I personally don't care for the Beach Boys, early Beatles or the voice of Bob Dylan but I do care about the truth, so I have to use these artists in my post.

The 60's is often thought simply as a time of change. That is incorrect. It was a time of people changing. To get back to folk rock which for all intents and puposes was partially created by Dylan by performing at the staid 1965 Newport Folk Festival with an electric band to back up his new musical approach. This caused an incrededible uproar in the folk circles of the time, but the point is that Dylan recognised that he had to put a 4/4 beat under his songs and create a rhythm section with bass and drums. He also knew that going rock was going to involve placing a middle eight section in his songs to be played by either electric guitar or keyboards. For his electric Newport band, he brought in electric blues guitarist Mike Bloomfield to back him and solo. The Byrds had already perfected this folk rock concept with the hit Mr. Tambourine Man. (Incidentally writen by Dylan.)  Dylan followed suit and Folk Music and Folk Rock became seperate entities, forever.

The Beatles who get so much credit for innovation, and rightly so, were also highly influenced by outside musical sources. They did not invent Rock 'n' Roll but picked up it's mantle and moved forward. Their first big influence was Mr. Dylan and his newly introspective songwriting, that tickled John Lennon's fancy the most. it came out on songs like "You've got to hide your love away", "Ticket to ride" and later on, but musicaly hidden, on "Help. It was with this growth that The Beatles started to expand their bounderies to include new musical themes and lyrics, as well as changing personal and social factors, that brought us all the way up from Meet The Beatles to Sgt. Pepper's.

Brian Wilson was also seeking change. Surf Music was a south California music genre that developed in the late 1950's with the magical Dick Dale and his signature sounding "wet'' reverb Fender Mustang guitar that went on influence other surf music instrumental groups of the early 60's like the Ventures. If you've ever heard the song "Wipe Out" by The Surfaris with it's incessant rhythm, you know what Surf Music sounds like. Wilson and the Beach Boys used this template along with the multi part harmony vocals of 50's group The Four Freshman to make up the Beach Boy's surf sound. With Pet Sounds, Wison wanted to go past the surf sound and it's themes of surfer girls and hot rods.

For Pet Sounds he brought in a outside lyricist because he wanted someone to flesh out his more personal lyrics along with a more sophisticated way of composing that would employ more sophisticated arrangements and sessions musicians. He would also employ very different musical instruments in place of the stardard surf music combo of two guitars, bass and drums. While utilizing those instruments he would supplant them with organ, piano, tympani, sleigh bells, clarinet, bass clarinet, tenor and saprono saxophone, trumpet, trumbone, flutes, cello, violins, violas, vibraphone, glockenspiel, French horn, English horn and most strangely, harpsichord. He would also use the Theremin for the first time on any recorded Rock song. ("I know there's am answer" was the song.)

Pet Sounds was so removed from Surf Music that record company Capital was shocked by it and fellow Beach Boy co-founder and co-leader Mike Love was so disgusted by Wilson's change in musical direction that he called the new music on Pet Sounds Brian's "Ego Music". The Beach Boys' fans were disappointed by the album as well and it was the first poor selling BB's album of the 60's in America.

Simply put, Pet Sounds was no longer Surf Music. It was something else for it's time. Pop by today's standards, it was almost without musical category when it was released in 1966. And so was the hit "Good Vibrations" that immidiately followed it. The twangy Dick Dale inspired manic tempo'ed music about hot rods, Woody's and making out at the Drive-in was gone. Like Folk Rock splitting away from Folk, Pet Sounds had split away from Surf.  (But the Pet Sounds split off involved the lyrics as well as the music, so it went further off than Folk Rock from Folk Music.)

So much, that a group called the Beatles, that were so heavily insipred by the lyrics of Bob Dylan and were on their own musical exploration, took notice.

The elephant in the room is still the question about if the Beach Boys are Proto Prog, but it's nice to get the facts out in order to answer that question.

Edited by SteveG - September 15 2014 at 15:32