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Post by northcoast on Jun 15, 2021 8:09:14 GMT -5
When Capitol released the two record set Endless Summer in July of 1974, it stunned the industry by going triple platinum and giving the Beach Boys their second number one album in the US. Suddenly a band that was playing college arenas and opening for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young were playing the largest venues in the country including stadiums that housed 50,000 ticket buyers. The fervor was so great that at Anaheim Stadium, crowds on the upper level were told to remain seated because the deck was swaying threatening the engineering integrity of the building. With their original 60's fandom and now the 70's generation catching up, the group's audience was the baby boom in total--a market of 70 plus million.
But many hard core Beach Boys fans over the years have come to see Endless Summer has an albatross---a record that sealed the group as an oldies act and functionally ended their progression as a contemporary recording act. When fans rank the band's albums, the cellar dwellers are almost always 15 Big Ones, MIU, LA (Light Album) and Keepin The Summer Alive--all records released post 1974. It is a common comment that those same hard core fans believe the group plateaued with Holland in 1973 and never dared scale such a height again.
Yet without Endless Summer, what would have happened to the mid-seventies Beach Boys? Would they have continued as a touring entity playing small venues? Would they have gotten back in the recording studio much quicker instead of relishing their new found fame? Without the obvious financial benefits accorded by the rediscovery of their back catalog, would they have broken up? And perhaps more importantly what would have happened to Brian Wilson who was spending his days in bed, heading down a very slippery slope?
Endless Summer---golden orb or sudden eclipse?
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Post by monolithic on Jun 15, 2021 8:43:42 GMT -5
It probably did have some negative effect on their creativity and relevance, but its impact is sometimes overstated and simplified.
They were still adding new songs and deep cuts to the shows throughout the 70s (in 1976 I think there were sometimes a dozen or so recent songs in the set), and it wasn't until the 80s that they really became an oldies act.
And they did make some effort in the studio in 74, but weren't up to it. Brian was obviously in a terrible state, and Carl's health also then became pretty poor in the mid 70s. Mike's book mentioned his back problems and obviously the drugs became an issue. If Carl had still been in the kind of health that he'd been in 1971-3, things might have been very different.
Also, it's scary that both MIU and KTSA were both contractual obligation albums within about 2 years of one another. Stephen Desper mentioned in another thread recently that the members didn't want to record in the same room as one another on KTSA, and the band really should have split up long before this point.
I think that is one of the biggest issues and even back in the late 1960s, I think it was Paul Williams who mentioned witnessing them as 5 or 6 very different individuals who all had their own egos and their own ideas on where the group should be heading. By the mid-70s that situation had worsened considerably. It says a lot that Mike and Al had one of the best relationships by that point, and yet never really liked each other. They were simply the only two who weren't destroying themselves in some way.
Apologies for my rambling...
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Post by #JusticeForDonGoldberg on Jun 15, 2021 8:44:39 GMT -5
I’m pretty sure that most things, at least Musicly, would’ve still remain about the same.
I don’t think Brian made 15 big ones sound the way it does because of endless summer.
And I still think they would’ve gotten Brian help, even if endless summer didn’t exist.
And I still think that they would’ve let Brian produce an album for the attention, even if endless summer didn’t exist.
As for their live act, I have no idea. But, even if endless summer didn’t exist, they would still have those songs in the American graffiti soundtrack, there would still be a wave of nostalgia, so I don’t think much would have changed.
Even before endless summer, the double LP live album went gold, the best showing they’d had in years.
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petsite
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Post by petsite on Jun 15, 2021 9:27:51 GMT -5
Also, when Dennis went to see Jimmy G. out at Caribou, he asked him for help with managing the group. Now this was before Endless Summer. Jim told the group that they needed to start playing their oldies and scrub the new songs that weren't connecting with the crowd. I think it was a confluence of many things that might have turned the group back to their hits and away from the late 60s early 70s type of material.
Brian said in interviews (maybe trying to justify the course of 15 Big Ones) that the group got too arty and also got away from playing the hits. He said they needed to take pride in the earlier work and get away from the artsy stuff. That is why he went with oldies on 15BO. But then, he started them down that road. I will say that I always tend to go to those early 70s LPs a lot. There is something about them that is really deep. But my prime BB is '65-'67 starting with Today. When I first got TODAY as a 15 yo in 1974 and heard that second side, I was hooked forever.
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Post by boogieboarder on Jun 15, 2021 10:08:24 GMT -5
When I saw The Beach Boys in Southern California in the early 90s, after they played a song from their Summer in Paradise album, everyone was sitting down and I was virtually the only one applauding. Then they performed “Be True to Your School” and everyone in the whole arena stood up and danced and screamed. It must have been pretty obvious to the band what was going on.
But this phenomenon is not unique to The Beach Boys. No band can succeed and stay current for 30, 50, or 60 years without becoming an oldies act. It happened to Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, The Monkees, and The Rolling Stones just to name a few.
Frankly, I can’t personally imagine being forced to perform “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” on stage every night for 57 years, a song I played at my High School dance in 1965!
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Post by filledeplage on Jun 15, 2021 10:12:33 GMT -5
When I saw The Beach Boys in Southern California in the early 90s, after they played a song from their Summer in Paradise album, everyone was sitting down and I was virtually the only one applauding. Then they performed “Be True to Your School” and everyone in the whole arena stood up and danced and screamed. It must have been pretty obvious to the band what was going on. But this phenomenon is not unique to The Beach Boys. No band can succeed and stay current for 30, 50, or 60 years without becoming an oldies act. It happened to Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, The Monkees, and The Rolling Stones just to name a few. Frankly, I can’t personally imagine being forced to perform “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” on stage every night for 57 years, a song I played at my High School dance in 1965! $$$ is a great motivator! The crowd response is a positive reinforcement for your work. I saw Stills a few years ago and his closer? For What It’s Worth. It’s why people show up. |
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Post by northcoast on Jun 15, 2021 15:29:48 GMT -5
When I saw The Beach Boys in Southern California in the early 90s, after they played a song from their Summer in Paradise album, everyone was sitting down and I was virtually the only one applauding. Then they performed “Be True to Your School” and everyone in the whole arena stood up and danced and screamed. It must have been pretty obvious to the band what was going on. But this phenomenon is not unique to The Beach Boys. No band can succeed and stay current for 30, 50, or 60 years without becoming an oldies act. It happened to Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, The Monkees, and The Rolling Stones just to name a few. Frankly, I can’t personally imagine being forced to perform “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” on stage every night for 57 years, a song I played at my High School dance in 1965! Yeah isn't it interesting that now every legacy act (Fleetwood Mac, Billy Joel, Rolling Stones) all play their greatest hits? The Beach Boys caught a lot of critical gripe back in the day but now everyone does it to please the playing public |
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Post by ian on Jun 15, 2021 19:10:30 GMT -5
I love the BBs but I’m not sure it’s comparable. With bob dylan you have a decent chance of hearing like a rolling stone but probably not the way it is on record and there is no knowing what else he’ll choose to play. Van Morrison is very idiosyncratic and often plays none of his hits or plays them in completely different versions. The Rolling Stones May play satisfaction but often that is the only song before 1968 that they play (maybe paint it black). They certainly don’t feel that they are obligated to play all their classic singles from 1963 to 1966 (though you have a good chance of hearing a lot from 1968-1972). The Who can be counted on to play a lot from the 1971 LP Who’s Next but not that much from 1965-1970. The BBs, however, are expected to play all their classic singles-even the super early ones. And BBs fans would be upset if those songs were not performed exactly like the record. I remember that when I interviewed Ron altbach he commented that Carl’s frustration was that he wanted to be like a Keith Richards or Eric Clapton type improviser but in the BBs it’s like being in a symphony orchestra-you learn your part and you try to nail it like the record. that’s not necessarily a bad thing but it’s a different thing
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Post by Autotune on Jun 15, 2021 20:42:58 GMT -5
The BBs career killer was…
A)their own music. The overwhelming number of great early hits they couldn’t get rid of
B) the underwhelming mass-appeal of their later stuff
C) they giving up on their later stuff
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Post by Paul JB on Jun 15, 2021 21:05:41 GMT -5
Not sure savior is the right word but ES for sure was not a killer. They had put out a string of excellent albums in the early 70’s that most people were not aware of including a fantastic double live album. As started above, the crowds were small and hits on the radio nonexistent. ES put them back on the map in a huge way……it was a great thing. They made many attempts post ES with albums that had a nod to the oldies… a cover here and there and such but they did still try to record new stuff and really wanted to succeed with it but things never really jelled again. In my view ES had little to nothing to do with that. As monolithic pointed out, they really didn’t get along much anymore, creatively they were out of gas and Brian was a mess. A hugely successful best of collection had no bearing on any of that. It’s mostly fantasy nonsense put out over the decades by Brianista types.
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petsite
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Post by petsite on Jun 15, 2021 21:55:08 GMT -5
I REMEMBER this commercial playing non-stop on local TV here in 1974.
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Post by northcoast on Jun 15, 2021 22:22:14 GMT -5
I REMEMBER this commercial playing non-stop on local TV here in 1974.
Capitol doing its K-Tel impersonation. Still showed a lot of faith investing in a television commercial to promote the album |
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petsite
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Post by petsite on Jun 15, 2021 22:44:41 GMT -5
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Post by petsite on Jun 16, 2021 0:00:58 GMT -5
I REMEMBER this commercial playing non-stop on local TV here in 1974.
Capitol doing its K-Tel impersonation. Still showed a lot of faith investing in a television commercial to promote the album And again, compiled and mastered by Michael Ross in 5 mins and Capitol spent a shitload promoting it. That is how they did it. Don't care about the product, just get it out. I know I am an old man ranting, but I just never saw an industry that cared so little about the quality of their product, whether it was how it was mastered, how it was manufactured, etc. They were awful. And as I said elsewhere, when I would talk to them, they acted all smug and literally could not care less. Guess it was more important what was going up their nose, down their pants etc etc, rather than what was going out the door. My father use to manufacture plastic for the pressing plants and by the middle of the 1980s, it was shit. Really bottom of the barrel stuff. In the meantime, they were jacking up their prices and fighting Japan who was coming up with superior technologies to what we had in the US.
Remember, the head of EMI/Capitol said in 1985, when CDs were bursting forth at CBS (Sony) and other labels, why Capitol wasn't really doing CDs, he said the CD would be gone by the end of 1987. |
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Post by donnylang on Jun 16, 2021 1:29:44 GMT -5
My take on Endless Summer is: it was inevitable.
Endless Summer didn’t happen in a vacuum, and I think really just accelerated something that was already happening. That is to say, if not Endless Summer than something like it. Even just the group continuing touring and the old best of volumes picking up speed again. Capitol was simply opportunistic.
I know it’s talked about a lot, but it wasn’t Endless Summer that killed the Holland era- it was American Graffiti. And the end of the Vietnam war. Etc.
That said, the whole phenomenon was probably more than the sum of its parts. It’s just the way things had to come together for the time, in my opinion.
But to directly answer the question- I don’t think there’s any way to spin what happened to The Beach Boys the mid-‘70s as objectively bad. This is basically when the concept of what The Beach Boys would be in the eyes of the general public was solidified forevermore. When they became an institution.
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petsite
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Post by petsite on Jun 16, 2021 2:35:06 GMT -5
As Brian said in 1976 numerous times that the group had gotten too arty. But yes, American Grafitti, Happy Days etc. changed everything. After Watergate, the war and riots, the US wanted a reprieve. Look how other music changed. The Guess Who went from AMERICAN WOMAN and NO TIME to CLAP FOR THE WOLFMAN and STAR BABY. People wanted a lighter mood. I know I did.
I bought my first BB LPs at a head shop and flea market. By 15 Big Ones, it was supermarket sized record stores. Everything was changing. In the 60s it went from upbeat to serious. In the 70s, it went the other way. Of course by the end of the 70s, the partying went off the rails. So much powder under people's noses. Not yours truly, so you can imagine what people thought when they knew I didn't get high and then they heard the music I played. THE BEACH BOYS, REALLY?
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Post by boogieboarder on Jun 16, 2021 2:36:03 GMT -5
Capitol doing its K-Tel impersonation. Still showed a lot of faith investing in a television commercial to promote the album And again, compiled and mastered by Michael Ross in 5 mins and Capitol spent a shitload promoting it. That is how they did it. Don't care about the product, just get it out. I know I am an old man ranting, but I just never saw an industry that cared so little about the quality of their product, whether it was how it was mastered, how it was manufactured, etc. They were awful. And as I said elsewhere, when I would talk to them, they acted all smug and literally could not care less. Guess it was more important what was going up their nose, down their pants etc etc, rather than what was going out the door. My father use to manufacture plastic for the pressing plants and by the middle of the 1980s, it was shit. Really bottom of the barrel stuff. In the meantime, they were jacking up their prices and fighting Japan who was coming up with superior technologies to what we had in the US.
Remember, the head of EMI/Capitol said in 1985, when CDs were bursting forth at CBS (Sony) and other labels, why Capitol wasn't really doing CDs, he said the CD would be gone by the end of 1987. Ironically, one of the worst quality CD in my collection is The Beach Boys Endless Summer on Capitol. |
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petsite
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Post by petsite on Jun 16, 2021 2:50:05 GMT -5
And again, compiled and mastered by Michael Ross in 5 mins and Capitol spent a shitload promoting it. That is how they did it. Don't care about the product, just get it out. I know I am an old man ranting, but I just never saw an industry that cared so little about the quality of their product, whether it was how it was mastered, how it was manufactured, etc. They were awful. And as I said elsewhere, when I would talk to them, they acted all smug and literally could not care less. Guess it was more important what was going up their nose, down their pants etc etc, rather than what was going out the door. My father use to manufacture plastic for the pressing plants and by the middle of the 1980s, it was shit. Really bottom of the barrel stuff. In the meantime, they were jacking up their prices and fighting Japan who was coming up with superior technologies to what we had in the US.
Remember, the head of EMI/Capitol said in 1985, when CDs were bursting forth at CBS (Sony) and other labels, why Capitol wasn't really doing CDs, he said the CD would be gone by the end of 1987. Ironically, one of the worst quality CD in my collection is The Beach Boys Endless Summer on Capitol. Yes it is. You can hear the next tune getting ready to start. No fades. Duophonic mixes. And weirdly, tracks like SHUT DOWN and SURFIN' USA that were in true stereo on the original version are in mono on the CD. It's like Larry Walsh spent all of 5 minutes on the CD. I mean, duophonic mixes? In 1987? That shows 100% I DON'T GIVE A SHIT. Someone hit my DM saying I was being too hard on these guys. Um no I wasn't. If you can't do better, get another job. And the fact that a piece of crap like ES on CD got passed a QC group is astounding. I was just re-reading an interview with Mark from 1996 in Goldmine. In the opening of the article, the writer says what utter pieces of crap ES and others were. Good to know others felt the same. |
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Post by Al S on Jun 16, 2021 3:47:59 GMT -5
Ironically, one of the worst quality CD in my collection is The Beach Boys Endless Summer on Capitol. Yes it is. You can hear the next tune getting ready to start. No fades. Duophonic mixes. And weirdly, tracks like SHUT DOWN and SURFIN' USA that were in true stereo on the original version are in mono on the CD. It's like Larry Walsh spent all of 5 minutes on the CD. I mean, duophonic mixes? In 1987? That shows 100% I DON'T GIVE A SHIT. Someone hit my DM saying I was being too hard on these guys. Um no I wasn't. If you can't do better, get another job. And the fact that a piece of crap like ES on CD got passed a QC group is astounding. I was just re-reading an interview with Mark from 1996 in Goldmine. In the opening of the article, the writer says what utter pieces of crap ES and others were. Good to know others felt the same. There’s no argument that Larry Walsh etc did a poor mastering job and seemingly spent minimal or no time doing tape research - proof’s sadly on the CD as you note. I think the unanswered question remains why was so little time invested? I speculate the mastering teams were getting smashed to get product out the door freakin’ asap, as opposed to assumed technical incompetence or other arcane reasons. |
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petsite
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Post by petsite on Jun 16, 2021 6:10:47 GMT -5
Yes it is. You can hear the next tune getting ready to start. No fades. Duophonic mixes. And weirdly, tracks like SHUT DOWN and SURFIN' USA that were in true stereo on the original version are in mono on the CD. It's like Larry Walsh spent all of 5 minutes on the CD. I mean, duophonic mixes? In 1987? That shows 100% I DON'T GIVE A SHIT. Someone hit my DM saying I was being too hard on these guys. Um no I wasn't. If you can't do better, get another job. And the fact that a piece of crap like ES on CD got passed a QC group is astounding. I was just re-reading an interview with Mark from 1996 in Goldmine. In the opening of the article, the writer says what utter pieces of crap ES and others were. Good to know others felt the same. There’s no argument that Larry Walsh etc did a poor mastering job and seemingly spent minimal or no time doing tape research - proof’s sadly on the CD as you note. I think the unanswered question remains why was so little time invested? I speculate the mastering teams were getting smashed to get product out the door freakin’ asap, as opposed to assumed technical incompetence or other arcane reasons. Alan, I think they probably were smashed to get things out the door. The real question is why would a business set itself up to be in a position to allow that to happen. I really did talk to a lot of record company people back in the day (yes most were in sales as I was in radio). There really was a WHO GIVES A **** ABOUT QUALITY? with them.
I have posted elsewhere that one of the major major radio stations here in Houston (that the record companies really needed to promote their artists) finally told the sales guys NO MORE CRAPPY SOUNDING 45s. Your product is so bad, we can't play it on-air. So here is what we want. We will review the 45s sent to us. If we decide to add your tune to our playlist, we want a tape dub from the master to use to master our carts we use to play music on-air. I have several of these reels still in my collection (no BB tho). I was there when they would tell the sales guys this info, and then would play the 45 to prove how noisy they were. The sales guys would bitch and moan and actually say SO WHAT IF THE 45 SOUNDS LIKE SHIT. YOUR LISTENERS WON"T NOTICE, THEY AREN'T THAT SMART. Of course the Music Director would say I WILL NOTICE, THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERS. I found out later that tape dubs were charged back to the sales groups. Oh it was so cool to see these guys slapped down.
So my point is, the record companies, from management on down, could have cared less of the quality of what went out the door, so long as $$$ came in. Numerous interviews thru the years would have some Record Company exec bemoaning that people were too picky. Heck, that crappy rough mix of WIBN was used on collections into the early 2000s, even tho Mark had remastered a version of the original mono mix in 1990.
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Post by ohm on Jun 16, 2021 7:21:10 GMT -5
Interesting question. On the one hand, it put them back where they belonged as a concert draw, and probably helped raise awareness of everything from 'Friends' through to 'Holland' (it'd be interesting to see year on year sales for those and whether they spiked after ES came out). But it also made the group lazy and put them on easy street. Very telling that they went from the mature creative glory of 'Holland' to the backward looking unimaginativeness of '15BO' in three years with three or four hit compilations in between. We'll never know where they'd have gone next after 'Holland' if 'ES' hadn't been so huge. Also, their main market was Europe in the first few years of the seventies, which enabled them to look at California objectively and explore themselves without the pressure of the surf and car thing hanging over them, but 'ES' took them into 'America's Band' territory and on the path to endless efforts to recapture that fun-in-the-sun vibe.
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Post by northcoast on Jun 16, 2021 8:06:16 GMT -5
Ironically, one of the worst quality CD in my collection is The Beach Boys Endless Summer on Capitol. Yes it is. You can hear the next tune getting ready to start. No fades. Duophonic mixes. And weirdly, tracks like SHUT DOWN and SURFIN' USA that were in true stereo on the original version are in mono on the CD. It's like Larry Walsh spent all of 5 minutes on the CD. I mean, duophonic mixes? In 1987? That shows 100% I DON'T GIVE A SHIT. Someone hit my DM saying I was being too hard on these guys. Um no I wasn't. If you can't do better, get another job. And the fact that a piece of crap like ES on CD got passed a QC group is astounding. I was just re-reading an interview with Mark from 1996 in Goldmine. In the opening of the article, the writer says what utter pieces of crap ES and others were. Good to know others felt the same. If you want to listen to an absolute disaster, search a dumpster and find the original CD issue of Spirit of America. Absolutely unlistenable |
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Post by northcoast on Jun 16, 2021 8:11:36 GMT -5
Reading some of the excellent complaints about Capitol Records and their shoddy mastering of product brings to mind Dave Dexter Jr., the Capitol A and R man who decided to turn up the treble on the Beatles masters sent from England creating new adventures in monophonic shrillness unmatched to this day. I did like the Americanized I Feel Fine though
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Post by AGD on Jun 16, 2021 8:37:06 GMT -5
The comp didn't kill the band's recording career because by summer 1974 it was already pretty much dead. The last real band sessions were in late 1972.
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Post by boogieboarder on Jun 16, 2021 8:50:31 GMT -5
Yes it is. You can hear the next tune getting ready to start. No fades. Duophonic mixes. And weirdly, tracks like SHUT DOWN and SURFIN' USA that were in true stereo on the original version are in mono on the CD. It's like Larry Walsh spent all of 5 minutes on the CD. I mean, duophonic mixes? In 1987? That shows 100% I DON'T GIVE A SHIT. Someone hit my DM saying I was being too hard on these guys. Um no I wasn't. If you can't do better, get another job. And the fact that a piece of crap like ES on CD got passed a QC group is astounding. I was just re-reading an interview with Mark from 1996 in Goldmine. In the opening of the article, the writer says what utter pieces of crap ES and others were. Good to know others felt the same. If you want to listen to an absolute disaster, search a dumpster and find the original CD issue of Spirit of America. Absolutely unlistenable I have the original Spirit CD as well. Yuch! In the late eighties, record companies were spinning tapes on analog to digital converters 24 hours a day, seven days a week in order to churn out CDs as quickly as possible. They were virtually printing money, because baby boomers were replacing their LP collections with CDs. They just grabbed the first tapes they could find, usually the LP cutting head masters which sounded horrible when used for CDs. A few years later, when record companies realized that they needed to find the original tapes and remaster them specifically for CD, they started reissuing “digitally remastered” CDs, and made us repurchase our original CDs all over again after having replaced our album collection in the first place. My garage is full of crappy sounding CDs from the mid to late eighties that I have subsequently replaced. |
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