FEATURE:
I Get Around
The Importance of a New Documentary and Book Concerning The Beach Boys
_________
EVEN if a new documentary…
about The Beach Boys on Disney+ has not won over all critics (some say it is too sunny, conventional and cuts off the story too soon), many have noted how it is an essential and thorough look at The Beach Boys. The highs and lows. Whereas many music documentaries gloss over harder aspects and controversy, this one does not. There are some minor flaws, yet The Beach Boys does a great job in exploring and expanding on the music and legacy of the group. Rolling Stone highlighted how the documentary will introduce The Beach Boys to a new generation of fans. How it will reveal new information to diehard fans. With the initial line-up consisting of Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Carl Wilson and Dennis Wilson, the group quickly established themselves. I like how the documentary takes us from their debut, 1962’s Surfin' Safari, and how a simipler and more direct form of songwriting made a real impact. One can feel a real shift in terms of complexity and songwriting from 1966’s Pet Sounds. One can run that alongside The Beatles’ music. From 1963, they we rewriting punchier and shorter Pop songs. They expanded and explored the studio more from 1965’s Rubber Soul. There was this friendly competition between the two bands. I think that The Beach Boys will help bring their incredible and timeless music to new listeners. I am going to discuss that more.
First, I want to bring in reviews and takeaways from the new documentary. A bit of information about a new book (that was written by the band). The first time we have heard the story of The Beach Boys from The Beach Boys. This is what Variety noted when they reviewed The Beach Boys:
“When you sit down to watch a documentary about the Beach Boys, you know what you want: to be immersed in the California dreamin’ of the group’s early surfin’-hit days, in the jaunty beauty of songs like “I Get Around” and “Help Me Rhonda,” and in the story of how Brian Wilson began to figure out a way to turn pop songs into miniature symphonies. You want to be immersed in the recording of “Pet Sounds,” in the Beach Boys’ rivalry with the Beatles, in the derailed masterpiece that was “Smile,” and in how Brian’s mental and emotional problems began to tear himself and the group apart. You want to know how the other Beach Boys, caught in the wilderness, found a way to put the group back together, though it’s almost like they became a different group. You want to see the Beach Boys’ saga told in all its sublimity and fragility, from L.A. to “Holland,” from Van Dyke Parks to Manson, from “God Only Knows” to “Kokomo.”
“The Beach Boys,” co-directed by Frank Marshall (who made the 2020 music-doc milestone “The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart”) and Thom Zimny (who’s directed about a thousand Springsteen videos), accomplishes all of that nicely. I wondered how, exactly, the movie was going to pack the Beach Boys’ vast career into an hour and 53 minutes. But in its unabashedly conventional and fan-friendly way, it brings this off with a tasteful clarity and showmanship. In moment after moment, it gets the Beach Boys.
There are fantastic archival photographs, unseen until now, that give us an intimate glimpse of who the Beach Boys were as individuals (the inner sweetness of the wild child Dennis Wilson, the inner toughness of the hypersensitive Brian). And though so much of their story is familiar that it’s now practically mythology, Marshall and Zimny don’t let themselves get steamrolled by that. They’ve crafted “The Beach Boys” with open eyes, as if there’d never been another film about them (even though there have numerous documentaries as well as the transporting biopic “Love & Mercy”). The result is a movie that a young person who knows nothing of the Beach Boys might find enthralling, and that an ultrafan like myself can still find immensely satisfying, because the film has an inquiring temperament. It coasts along on the telling detail, the anecdote juste, the insight you haven’t heard before.
I never knew, for instance, that Brian, as a teenager, was so obsessed with the Four Freshman that he sat down at the piano to nail down the precise arrangement of the dizzying jazz-meets-big-band harmonies of 20 of the group’s songs, a process that he says “was my entire harmonic education.” I knew that “Pet Sounds,” one of the greatest albums ever made, was a heartbreaking commercial failure, but I didn’t know that Capitol Records was so unenthusiastic about the album that they refused to put any promotional muscle behind it. (If the company had believed in it more, who knows what would have happened? Music history might have been different.)
I didn’t know that the Beach Boys were set to headline Saturday night of the Monterey Pop Festival but dropped out, all but stamping themselves as relics in the new age of rock. I didn’t know that Murry Wilson, the Wilson brothers’ father, Svengali manager, and all-around micro-critical and doting/abusive presence, decided to cash in by selling the Beach Boys’ song catalog…for $700,000. (Today it would easily be worth half a billion.) I didn’t register, in the midst of the Beach Boys’ catchy but lackadaisical ’70s albums, what a paradigm-shifting phenomenon the 1974 greatest-hits double album “Endless Summer” was. I remember when it came out, but the documentary shows you that it was, in effect, the original jukebox musical, an album that reconfigured the Beach Boys’ majesty for a new era.
For all that, the best thing about “The Beach Boys” is that it actually takes in the group through a sharp and sophisticated critical lens. I’m more than capable of enjoying a pop-music documentary that’s a little too starry-eyed for its own good, like “Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry” or “Coldplay: A Head Full of Dreams” or “ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band from Texas” or “Pink: All I Know So Far” or “The Greatest Night in Pop.” But I’m also on record as complaining that too many of these movies now leave out any critical perspective — and by that I don’t just mean recognizing when an artist fails. I mean filling in, with passionate and penetrating commentary, what it is that makes them great.
“The Beach Boys” has memorable critical voices, like Don Was, the record producer who 30 years ago directed a fine documentary about Brian Wilson’s music (“I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times”), or Josh Kun, the cultural historian who wonderfully articulates the rising and falling tides of the Beach Boys’ discography. The movie goes deep into the sound and meaning of their harmony: the way they began to sing together as kids, their voices fusing with a genetic unity (it was the three Wilson brothers, their cousin Mike Love, along with their friend Al Jardine). Love and Jardine are interviewed extensively in the film (Brian shows up, but is mostly represented by older interview clips), and as Jardine recalls it, “We were like notes on a keyboard.” That sounds like a cliché, but it’s no exaggeration. They all sang as one.
The musician Lindsey Buckingham crystalizes the special symbiosis that existed between the Beach Boys and the Beatles. The two groups are usually portrayed as trying to top one another, but Buckingham notes that they were actually united in a larger quest to redefine pop music. Brian’s original deity was Phil Spector, whose direct influence you can hear in “Don’t Worry Baby,” but it was “Rubber Soul” that changed the game.
Brian heard it as a concept album, unified by sound and theme. He knew then that that’s where he wanted to go. There’s a good story about how Bruce Johnston, who by 1966 had joined the group, was trying in an underfunded way to get the word out about “Pet Sounds” in England. Derek Taylor, who’d been a publicist for the Beatles and was now doing that job for the Beach Boys (he was the one who came up with the “Brian is a genius” meme), invited Johnston up to a hotel suite, where John Lennon and Paul McCartney were waiting for him, “dressed in Edwardian suits,” all so that they could hear “Pet Sounds.” They listened to it several times and went into the studio to record “Sgt. Pepper.”
“The Beach Boys” captures the glories of Brian working with the Wrecking Crew on “Pet Sounds,” the way that “Smile” grew beyond him (the movie should have mentioned that the completed version of “Smile” released in 2004 was a transcendent vindication of Brian’s vision), and the teasing hit-or-miss quality of the albums they made after that. If you listen to some of the best songs on those albums, like “Feel Flows” and “Forever,” they show you how the other Beach Boys had learned to compose in the style of Brian. Yet no one could orchestrate a song in three astral dimensions the way he could.
Even Brian, after a while, couldn’t do it anymore. If you listen to a song like “Darlin’,” which closes out the movie (we see the Beach Boys performing it in front of 400,000 people in Washington, D.C., on July 4, 1980), it’s got the Brian magic, but the magic has been brought down to earth. It no longer lifts you up into the stratosphere. By the late ’70s, the Beach Boys had become the first pop superstars of nostalgia. They surfed their own legend. Then again, when talking about the Beach Boys, one should probably be suspicious of a word like nostalgia, when what we really mean is timeless”.
I would advise anyone who is even a passing fan of The Beach Boys to watch the new documentary. There are some fascinating takeaways and revelations. This interesting feature highlights a few key moments and talking points from an outstanding new documentary. It is one that I would urge anyone to watch. As much as anything, you get to witness and experience a soundtrack like no other. One of the most important groups ever:
“From their humble beginnings as a California surf group with fantastical harmonies to recording the experimental and boundary-pushing albums that forever revolutionized pop music, The Beach Boys’ journey from teenage phenomenon to American legends is full of the ups and downs that make up any great saga, all in the pursuit of recording some of the most beloved music ever made.
The Beach Boys goes a step further in telling the band’s whole story, with nearly two hours full of never-before-seen archival footage, new interviews with the band members and other music industry luminaries (including Lindsey Buckingham, Janelle Monáe, Ryan Tedder, Don Was), and selections from the official Beach Boys catalog. This is the definitive portrait of The Beach Boys, whether you only know the hits or are a lifelong fan. Here’s what we learned from watching The Beach Boys.
The Beach Boys have always been a family affair, with Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson being raised by their songwriting father and musician mother. Though they each had different musical interests, the Wilson brothers grew up singing three-part harmony on long car rides together, which they credit as the “birth” of The Beach Boys.
Brian Wilson and Mike Love first bonded over their love of doo-wop, especially The Four Freshmen
Mike Love was a first cousin to the Wilsons and grew up loving music and singing harmonies with the Wilson brothers. Brian and Mike especially loved the doo-wop of their youth. The Four Freshmen were a strong influence, inspiring Brian to learn all the chords and arrangements to their songs and four-part harmonies. Brian even credits them for his entire harmonic education. For most of their studio career together, Brian and Mike complemented each other nicely, with Brian being the introverted producer who wrote the songs and Mike the lively frontman who wrote the lyrics.
Dennis Wilson, the only Beach Boy who surfed, suggested that the band write songs about surf culture
It’s ironic that the band most associated with surfing did not surf much themselves. Dennis was the exception, and he was the first person to suggest that the band try to write lyrics that reflected the booming surfing culture of their native Los Angeles. This helped distinguish the Beach Boys since most surf music at the time was just instrumental. It’s also worth noting that Carl, though not as much of a surfer, was a big fan of surf rock, most notably The Ventures, The Marketts, and Dick Dale and the Deltones.
Phil Spector’s production on The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” blew Brian Wilson away—and inspired him to hire The Wrecking Crew
Phil Spector and his famous “Wall of Sound” production style was another huge influence on Brian, especially the large ensemble sound that powered The Ronettes’ classic hit “Be My Baby.” That single featured the legendary Wrecking Crew studio band, whom Brian later hired to help with his increasingly bigger and more complicated songs on Pet Sounds. This new influence can be heard on The Beach Boy’s 1964 single “Don’t Worry Baby,” which marked a turning point for the group’s sound and for Brian as a more confident producer.
Glen Campbell briefly replaced Brian Wilson as a touring Beach Boy
Speaking of the Wrecking Crew, as Brian focused more on working in the studio and collaborating with the supergroup, the rest of the band agreed to let him stay off the road and hired a rotating cast of musicians to help flesh out their live show. Wrecking Crew member and future country superstar Glen Campbell was one of those stand-in musicians, who was greatly impressed with Brian yet was not ready for all the girls screaming during The Beach Boys shows.
It was Al Jardine’s idea to cover the traditional Bahamian folk song “Sloop John B”
Other than their brief time with the Wilson’s childhood neighbor David Marks, Al Jardine was the only non-family member of the classic Beach Boys lineup. A longtime friend to Brian and fellow high school football player, Al held his own with his own harmonies and musical ideas. One example was his idea to cover “Sloop John B,” specifically The Kingston Trio’s version of the classic folk song. Brian loved the idea so much that he took on the challenge of repurposing “Sloop John B” onto the keyboard, turning it into a pop masterpiece and Pet Sounds standout.
Derek Taylor, The Beatles’ publicist, was brought on to help with the PR for Pet Sounds
The friendly competition between The Beach Boys and The Beatles is well documented; Brian first heard The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show while touring in New Zealand and immediately felt pushed to improve his musical craft. What might not be as well known is that The Fab Four’s famous press agent joined the Beach Boys’ team to help with Pet Sounds, since Capitol Records wasn’t sure how to promote it. It was Taylor who pushed the idea of promoting Brian as the Beach Boys’ lone genius, much to the chagrin of the rest of the band who felt like their contributions weren’t being appreciated at the same level.
Instead of promoting Pet Sounds in the US, Capitol Records instead focused on promoting the Beach Boys’ first greatest hits album
Even with the help of The Beatles’ publicist and all the glowing reviews of the album—with Paul McCartney even admitting that “God Only Knows” was a perfect song and a direct inspiration for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band—Capitol focused instead on selling Best of the Beach Boys, the band’s first compilation album that focused on singles and B-sides. Though now rightfully cited as one of the greatest pop albums ever made, Brian was hurt by Pet Sounds’ lack of commercial success in the US, even if the album was a critical and commercial smash in the UK.
The band considered shortening their name to just “The Beach” to shake off their upbeat youthful image
The years following Pet Sounds were full of great creativity but also tension. After the aborted Smile sessions, Smiley Smile marked the last time Brian led the musical direction of The Beach Boys. The group had reached a crossroads and felt out of step with the increasingly harder-hitting youth counterculture. To mark a new era, the band considered going by just “The Beach” to lose the baggage of their past success and better reflect their desire to write more mature music.
1974’s Endless Summer went No. 1 and revitalized The Beach Boys for a new generation
During this time of uncertainty, Capitol released Endless Summer, a new Beach Boys greatest hits compilation that focused on the Beach Boys’ pre-Pet Sounds hits. It was a massive record that went No. 1. A new generation was introduced to The Beach Boys, and the album helped turn the group into a stadium-touring machine. They have been touring in different configurations, and making fans and music lovers happy, ever since”.
To go with The Beach Boys documentary is a book. It is exciting that we get this personal and authoritative history of the group from the members. It may seem inconsequential or random that in 2024 we are getting this documentary and book. The band are not official reformed and touring. There is also not any plans of album reissues as far as I know. Even so, it is brilliant that we get overdue fandom and focus on this iconic group:
“Here, for the first time in print, is the history of The Beach Boys, by The Beach Boys.
Their only official book, The Beach Boys by The Beach Boys is the ultimate chronicle of one of the world’s greatest bands. Through their unique sound, complex harmonies, sensational live shows and use of innovative recording techniques, The Beach Boys became woven into the cultural fabric of America and influenced generations of musicians globally. This book documents how it happened.
Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine and Bruce Johnston together provide a combined career narrative especially for this book, and through meticulous compilation from sources worldwide, Carl Wilson and Dennis Wilson’s words are equally represented. Documenting how they went from a Hawthorne garage band to a global phenomenon, they tell the astounding story of their ascent: perfecting their harmonies, initial fame as a surf group, and then their ultimate progression as pioneering recording artists to become one of the most musically complex ensembles in history.
Their text is accompanied by iconic images, never-before-seen negatives and rare ephemera. Given unprecedented access to their personal archives, The Beach Boys by The Beach Boys offers intimate insight into the lives of the group. Also opening their archives are Brother Records and Capitol Records, all of which assist in illustrating their remarkable journey.
Expanding the narrative are a host of contributors who have been involved with or inspired by the band's music, including Peter Blake, Lindsey Buckingham, Eric Clapton, Elvis Costello, Ray Davies, Bob Dylan, Def Leppard, the Flaming Lips, Bobby Gillespie, David Lee Roth, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Jim Kerr, Roger McGuinn, Graham Nash, Jimmy Page, Carly Simon, Pete Townshend, Rufus Wainwright, Thom Yorke, and many more.
A group collaboration, The Beach Boys by the Beach Boys is, in effect, The Beach Boys’ autobiography. Like their music, it is poignant, frank, often humorous but always sincere.
Finally, here is The Beach Boys’ own story”.
There is more to discuss beyond the documentary and book. It is especially sad that The Beach Boys’ songwriting genius, Brian Wilson, has recently been placed under a conservatorship. Experiencing poor health, there is hope that Wilson can record with The Beach Boys again. Even so, I wonder if he has seen the new documentary and the response to it. I hope that we see a new appreciation of Brian Wilson and just what an important and brilliant songwriter he is. There have been some recent YouTube videos of classic tracks. Storyline and modern visuals around timeless songs. I hope that there is more remastering and re-release of their music. I am thinking how there has not really been much use of The Beach Boys’ music in film and T.V. How their catalogue could sit beautifully within a film. Whether it is about the 1960s and someone growing in the time – where The Beach Boys’ songs are on the soundtrack – or there is a musical about them. There is definitely opportunity and a new demand. With younger listeners discovering their music, what will the next step be?! On 13th July, their sixth studio album, All Summer Long, turns sixty. Brian Wilson turns eighty-two next month. There are further anniversaries and reasons for celebration. I do hope that we get some momentum and continuation of attention on The Beach Boys going forward. If you have not seen the new documentary or read the book, they are well worth checking out! Real understanding of the band and their history. I think that we will see a new wave of affection for this legendary band. Will they ever write and perform together again? When it comes to that question…
GOD only knows!