Week 10: 50 Albums That Changed Music

[BradH]

I was listening to the Hoffman/DCC disc of this the other day. Wow! Head and shoulders above any other remaster I've heard. I think this was the technical and artistic pinnacle of the 60's L.A. music machine and its session players. The Bay Area bands called that scene the Hollywood Handjob but once you get outside the Dead, Country Joe's debut and Moby Grape, imo there's nothing there that can stack up against the Beach Boys, Byrds, Zappa, Love and Buffalo Springfield. All of these L.A. bands went through the machine. (Even Carol Kaye is on Zappa's Freak Out.) Heck, even the Monkees became a real band after two albums. But Pet Sounds took that studio process into the stratosphere, never to be equaled. It wasn't done with studio wizardry or gimmickry, it was done with studio performance; I think a lot of people misunderstand that.

3-Lock: "Of course, this would be the band's last hurrah as far as leading edge pop would be concerned. The public couldn't get their squeaky clean image out of it's head and the Beach Boys would represent the very establishment that the hippy movement rebeled against."

Not showing up at Monterey was a huge mistake they never recovered from. I don't think they would've been rejected. Most of those kids were suburban students with about six months of hair down their neck and had never seen most of those acts. It was Hendrix's first time in the U.S. since leaving Greenwich Village, The Who's first time to the West Coast, most of the Bay Area bands had never played outside the Bay Area and almost none of those kids had ever seen a soul performer onstage, much less one as powerful as Otis Redding. Buffalo Springfield were huge in L.A. and nowhere else. Wasn't Ravi Shankar there? So, it was a real mix of things coming together for the first time. So, why not the Beach Boys? The BB's identified early that the money was going into a shady real estate deal but hell it was their sound system everybody was using.

Troy: "I do think, however, that Wilson the man is an enormous PITA. A pompous, self-absorbed prima-donna that uses his metal illness as a sort of badge of honor. (just to be controversial)"

Mike Love certainly saw it that way. But Love was about half-wacked himself. Don't forget, he's got those same genes from his mom. He had to be put in a straight-jacket at one point. But I've never seen Brian Wilson milk it in public, ever. Not once. In fact, most interviewers try to get all heavy and mythologize his career but he always stays casual, factual and down to earth. No messiah schtick for this guy.

Btw, Troy, what is a "metal illness". I swear, this board gets the coolest mispellings I've ever seen.

[3-LockBox]

Btw, Troy, what is a "metal illness". I swear, this board gets the coolest mispellings I've ever seen.

It's the same thing Ozzy has

[MasterCylinder]

I had the pleasure of working a Beach Boy tour (and many, many others) in the mid-70s (right after the release of HOLLAND). I was working for a major pro-sound and lighting company at that time.

Caroline No is still one of my all-time favorite songs - well done.