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Post-Surf Music Phase

• Brian's focused creative activity (and collaboration with enigmatic oddball Van Dyke Parks) resulted in the release of Pet Sounds (mid-1966)
  • using state-of-the-art studio techniques & extra musicians, the album was critically acclaimed, but didn't sell as well as their surf music recordings
  • the album was cited openly by the Beatles as an influential element in their move toward experimentation (e.g., Sgt. Pepper)

Brian's creative process in the Studio; session tapes:

• "Good Vibrations"
• "God Only Knows"
  lead vocal: Carl Wilson

• if the Beach Boys had stopped prior to late 1966, they would be remembered only as a good R&R band of the early 60s, spearheading the surf music trend
• the real move to their second phase began with the release of "Good Vibrations"
  • literally pieced together from musical sessions at 4 different studios
  • the song took over 90 hours of studio time, 11 versions, and ~$50,000 to produce
• the most creative & innovative single to be released in rock to that time
  • juxtaposes sections varying widely in musical style
  • introduces new timbres (e.g., Theremin; 1924 by Leon Theremin)
  • incorporated these new sounds along with doo-wop style background vocals

Good Vibrations

(#1 in 1966)

use the interactive QuickTime movie below to navigate through sections of the song
(click the "Play Clicked Section Only" checkbox to play back a section at a time)
NOTE: with more recent versions of the Shockwave plug-in there is an odd artifact that has crept in ...
sometimes you must click on the section you want to hear twice in order for the correct section to play!
Sorry ... trying to figure out why this occurs, but so far have been unable to do so.

Musical Form (repetition & contrast):

the complexity of this piece goes well beyond the style of pre-Pet Sounds Beach Boys music, yet retains the characteristics of the Beach Boys sound ... i.e., Chuck Berry-influenced rock guitar sound with thoughtfully arranged vocal harmonies

Milestone in the development of rock:

• more sophisticated than any song to this time
• did not follow the "pop song" formula
  • Brian Wilson said that in its "3 min. & 35 sec. ... it had a lot of riff changes. It had a lot of movements ... changes, change, changes. Building harmonies, here, drop this voice out, this comes in, bring the echo chamber in, do this, put the theremin here, bring the cello up a little louder here. I mean it was a real production. The biggest production of our life." (Leaf, 1985, 90).

Other Recordings of "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys:

Alternate Take: an earlier version of "Good Vibrations" with less harmonic adventure

live recording in 1966, prior to song's release (note lack of ability on the Theremin part!!)

The success of "Good Vibrations encouraged Brian to pursue further experimentation (began planning a new album entitled Smile to expand these ideas); other Beach Boys feared the possible commercial backlash, so (hurt) he dropped the project to record Smiley Smile with his bandmates, though 8 of the 20 songs were eventually released. including:

Heroes & Villains

(#12 in 1967)

Musical Form:

Alternate Version: Listen to added section

try to appreciate the complexity of this song ... Brian did it on his own (vs. the Beatles w/George Martin)

1967 - Beatles release Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, initiating a new world (and redefinition) of rock

in actuality, the Beach Boys were paralleling the development of the Beatles, but to the American public they would always represent the carefree sound of surf music; even their later returns to the spotlight seemed to serve only to capture the nostalgia of "the good ol' days" at the beach

• "Wipeout" with Fat Boys reached #12 in 1987
• "Kokomo"--without Brian--from the Tom Cruise film Cocktail reached #1 in 1988

For a discussion of the Beach Boys' post-surf music style, see the chapter by Harrison in Understanding Rock. Listening examples to accompany this article are provided on this site, simply <click here>.

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