The Beach Boys

I also really like the album Surf's Up!

HolyMoly wrote: Check out the Bonzo Dog Band's "Mr Apollo" for further variations on this topic  As for the Beach Boys, I've tried off and on to get into their music, but for the most part I just feel like it's missing something, "balls" I suppose.  (beach balls?) I recently got the new "SMiLE" 2 disc set in an effort to dive into the deep end.  It's quite impressive, but I don't find myself going back to it very often, not yet anyway. "Pet Sounds"  is undeniably a landmark album in terms of studio creativity, but most of the songs just don't do much for me. "Wouldn't It Be Nice" is lovely though. The "Surf's Up" song you posted in the OP is one of the best songs I've heard by them - I'd never heard it prior to getting the SMiLE set. I recently bought the "Endless Summer" best-of album, just because I thought it'd be nice to have those old hits, and my daughter would like it.  It's fun, but some of those songs are really a bit lightweight for my tastes.

This was my post 6 years ago. I’m happy to say that I’m a fan now. The early 70s album “Holland” is my personal favorite, and I’ve really taken a liking to Carl and Dennis’s work.

I absolutely love Pet Sounds 

Why Aren't the Beach Boys on Prog Archives? Smile is a progressive rock album from 1967 that was released first in 2004 as Brian Wilson presents Smile and then the originals from 1967 were released in 2011. It's undeniable that Smile is a progressive rock album, and though it wasn't released, it was well known for being an unreleased progressive rock album for decades, with nearly all of the songs appearing on various releases and bootlegs within a half decade of the shelved Smile album, for instance, Surf's Up in 1971. Fans had bootleg and composite versions they mixed themselves for decades before Brian Wilson released the current arrangement in 2004 which they stuck in 2011. Someone wrote here that they shouldn't be proto-prog because, simply, they are the beach boys. Yes, it's a band with one completely prog album and dozens of mainly (but not entirely!) pop and AOR albums. If most get 1 star, who cares? A lot of people would take Smile over some of the best early prog works.

Pacific Ocean Blue is fantastic and sometimes almost proggy. There is a sax part that reminds me of Van Der Graaf...

....you killed the man but you couldn't kill the dream..... something

His voice is almost benefited by drug use, unlike his brother Brian's, whose voice was ruined. His vocals are rough but full of emotion and pain.

^ isn't it amazing! I was so happy when I heard it - and almost outraged that it took so long to be issued on CD a second time (after the early 90s edition was deleted)

^ wonderful song indeed.

On a related note - any fans of Dennis Wilson's only released solo album Pacific Ocean Blue?

I know it has the 'lost album' vibe, but I do think it's wonderful, with or without the hype. He has sound a wonderful voice, such an opposite to the rest of the boys.

Quite a sombre album at times - this song always surprises me when it changes

Yep! Pet Sounds and Smile are the two BB offerings I have in my collection. Good albums. I don't hate their blatent pop stuff either. Simple feel good music, which I sometimes need.

Got The Smile Sessions  last Christmas, (along with Selling England By The Pound and Death Walks Behind You). It's one of the most adorable things I've ever listened to, particularly "Heroes And Villains", "Do You Like Worms?", 'Cabin Essence", "Wonderful", "Surf's Up", "Vega-Tables", "Fire", and, of course, "Good Vibrations" (In the latter case, never knew there was a version with an extended vocal chant near the end). Call me crazy, but I hear a lot of what Brian Eno did in the mid-70s in this work.

A shame this didn't get released when it should have. Oh well, better late than never.