Should the Beach Boys be considered Proto?

Kati wrote: SteveG wrote: Should the Beach Boys be considered Proto Prog because of Brian Wilson's employment of suite like movements and sophisticated lush musical arrangements for Pet Sounds? Not necessary SteveG I don't think they were original enough in their music or sound to classify them as the above. The melody of The Beach Boys’ classic ‘Surfin’ USA’ is almost identical to the melody of Chuck’s 1958 classic ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’. They sounded so alike in fact that The Beach Boys had to give Berry co-writing credit in order to avoid a lawsuit. A profitable experience in the end for Mr. Berry. We hear Beatles influence in The beach boys however the Beatles and many of the Band's influences were American in origin. Chuck Berry was perhaps the most fundamental progenitor of the Beatles' sound. They recorded covers of "Roll Over Beethoven" and "Rock And Roll Music" early on and many other Berry classics were in their live repertoire. Chuck Berry's influence is also heard (in altered form) on later recordings such as "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey" (1968) and "Come Together" (1969) (when "Come Together" from Abbey Road was released, the owner of Chuck Berry's copyrights sued John Lennon for copyright infringement of his song "You Can't Catch Me", after which the two reached an amicable settlement, the terms of which included an agreement that Lennon cover some Chuck Berry songs as a solo artist). Also copied as follows from wiki: In 1973, "Come Together" was the subject of a lawsuit brought against Lennon by Big Seven Music Corp. (owned by Morris Levy) who was the publisher of Chuck Berry's "You Can't Catch Me". Levy contended that it sounded similar musically to Berry's original and shared some lyrics (Lennon sang "Here come ol' flattop, he come groovin' up slowly" and Berry's had sung "Here come a flattop, he was movin' up with me"). Before recording, Lennon and McCartney deliberately slowed the song down and added a heavy bass riff in order to make the song more original.[14] After settling out of court, Lennon promised to record three other songs owned by Levy.[15] A primitive version of "Ya Ya" with Lennon and his son Julian was released on the album Walls and Bridges in 1974. "You Can't Catch Me" and another version of "Ya Ya" were released on Lennon's 1975 album Rock 'n' Roll, but the third, "Angel Baby", remained unreleased until after Lennon's death. Levy again sued Lennon for breach of contract, and was eventually awarded $6,795. Lennon countersued after Levy released an album of Lennon material using tapes that were in his possession and was eventually awarded $84,912.96. The album was called Roots. Hugs

Excellent essay on 'borrowing' influences, Katy. But unlike Surfin' USA and Come Together, Pet Sounds, at least to my ears, has no other obvious Pop or Rock "n" Roll influences. Perhaps the "long hairs" can hear Classical influences but that ability is way beyond me. I feel that Pet Sounds, even if it was derived from Surf Music, is pretty unique and original. Just like you.

Edited by SteveG - September 23 2014 at 14:51

NYSPORTSFAN wrote: [QUOTE=SteveG] [QUOTE=Kati] [QUOTE=SteveG] Should the Beach Boys be considered Proto Prog because of Brian Wilson's employment of suite like movements and sophisticated lush musical arrangements for Pet Sounds? I love Pet Sounds but it's easy to see Brian Wilson was influenced by Phil Spector "Wall of Sound" production. I mean hasn't anyone noticed that Pet Sounds is built on Phil Spector layering of different instruments. Phil Spector mentored Brian Wilson let's not forget that. What Brian Wilson did like every great musician is take his influences and brand it into their own style.

Spector was an obvious influence on Wilson primarily in Spector's ability to actually be the artist in a recordings construction as  opposed to just the artist who was being recorded. To Wlison, Spector  was the ultimate, the artist and producer fused together, namely being  both in one. However, Wilson's actual recordings were, thank God, extremely toned down compared with Spector's "Wall of Sound", with so much real and mechanical echo and reverb thrown in, that at times Spector's recordings sounded more like a "Wall of Noise".

Wilson's recordings, though Mono like Spectors, were clear, clean and had very defined detail for that era. Not bad for someone who was deaf in one ear.

Dean wrote:  I don't see that being deaf in one ear is an issue when making a mono recording, if anything it could be an advantage.

Few people can see the writing on the wall, Dean. But you are one of the few.

Cheers.

The Beach Boys were influential to many bands in the vocal department. Obviously The Beach Boys themselves were adapting older vocal styles from different decades and sort of molding it into Rock n' Roll and ballads during the early 60's. Jon Anderson was influenced by their vocal style to a degree and if you pay close attention to the harmonies of Anderson, Squire, and Howe on the early Yes recordings, you can spot the influence. 10CC were very influenced by Beach Boys vocal harmonies as well. It's sometimes difficult for people to notice...for example...trying to figure out just how Jon Anderson was influenced by the writing style of Simon & Garfunkel. To notice it, you must be dismissive of the song "America" recorded by YES and focus mainly on the chord voicings played on acoustic guitar, melodies, and vocal harmony. In the late 60's there were attitudes about Beach Boys music. People were looking back on early 60's music in a laughable sense. Basically many people felt that what was recorded and released in 64' or 65' couldn't compare to the higher level of Psychedelic music. John Lennon once stated to a journalist..."Well dear, I'm glad you liked the ole' mop tops and you like Hard Days Night love, but I've obviously grown up and you haven't". That's truly how a majority of youths in 67' felt about the music of 1964. And that's precisely why The Beach Boys were practically banned by the youth as being NOT very cool. Ironically (which was how I felt when this occured in society), the vocal styles/approach of the Beach Boys and some chord voicings that existed in their writing, found it's place in Progressive Rock. Bands like Kayak and many others naturally adapted a small portion of Beach Boys influence from hearing it as children.

Edited by TODDLER - September 24 2014 at 09:53

It's true, I saw an interview on youtube (which I will likely not find again) where Bill Bruford said something to the effect of "I was inspired by jazz, while Jon and Chris were raving about The Beach Boys and Simon and Garfunkel. Hence, we got Yes."

Lost track of this thread and am surprised to see it still going.  I'm too lazy to go back and read 190+ posts; any chance someone could summarize where we're at on this issue?

@clemofNazerath: OMG! Well I posted the question so I guess I have to summarize.

I posted the question and right off got many member's posts that said "no way" to the question.

I appealed on behalf of Pet Sounds technical achievements but was told that was of no account and that PS is a pop album.

So, I summarized PS's musical achievements and the various instrumentation used after someone referred to Good Vibrations as Surf Music with a Theremin.

Still with me?

I listed one of the instruments used as a Theremin instead of Electro-Theremin and Dean took offense as he loves real life Theremins.

I'm not sure if this was before or after I accidently referred to Sgt. Pepper's as Revolver and then had to straighten that out.

Simple mistakes are killing me! But they were still my mistakes. So...

I posted a "Progressive Roots" list from a Swedish music site called Rockprog.com that listed Pet Sounds as one of its "Important Albums" for that category.

But to make things easy for me, I listed the first five albums by number (one down to five) but someone objected as it looked a bit croaked so I posted the entire list chronologically (12 albums I think) as the Rockprog.com site had done. (it looked even better!)

Then, for fun, I compiled a combined the PA and Rockprog "Proto Prog" list with a couple of suggestions from a PA member, as I thought the thread was on it's last leg.

And now we are here. But for some reason the thread keeps going and going. The Beach Boys are haunting this site, I think, until PA lists them as Proto.



Edited by SteveG - September 24 2014 at 16:40

^The spirits of Carl and Denis Wilson have a message for you:



"Mr. Gorbechov, Tear.. down.. this.. wall!"

Edited by SteveG - September 24 2014 at 16:54

(just to throw some oil in the fire)

But they have influenced some prog bands

^I guess it's not possible for bands formed in 2003 to listen to old Beach Boys records. OK, boss, it's a day.