While I have been a Beach Boys fan since the early 60s, sometimes I have to refresh myself on just how talented these guys were. Just one example regarding 3 songs: listen to Carl Wilson's lead vocals on "I Can Hear Music", "Darlin", and "God Only Knows". His voice is as pure and beautiful as it gets.
Not sure if puberty played any kind of role, but I feel like his voice also matured and got bolder as he got past his teen years. Compare when he first started singing lead on a song like "Girl Don't Tell Me" in 1965 and "God Only Knows" in 1966--when he was still a teenager, and watch it change with "Darlin" and "I Can Hear Music", and then he becomes a full out soul man on a song like "Keepin the Summer Alive"--there is a very real noticeable change!
Not really, the title song & Lil bird are great but the album as a whole is lacking...if it were a complete album there'd a been a cover or 2 & some rockers ...Wild Honey was their last Great 60s album; 20/20 was great too but it was a compilation. 💯
I have been on a Beach Boys deep dive lately playing all of my vinyl records in my pile. My favorite era is 1967-1973. Smiley Smile to Holland. I can play the tracks Meant For You and Friends from the album Friends over and over in a perpetual loop. Thank you for this fun 1968 clip!
I can appreciate your playing those two tracks in a loop. There was a time when I played the first two tracks on side two of "20/20" over and over again. "I Went To Sleep" just flows into "Time To Get Alone" perfectly. Put my needle on the vinyl at the beginning of side two and listened to those two tracks countless times.
@michaelhurley you hit the nail on the head with the 1967-1973 era. "Smiley Smile" is such an underrated album. "Friends" is a great one. I really wished the put the 1968-1969 material on CD in a boxed set instead of streaming it.
@@nicktherecordlover1969 - It's available to buy as a download as well, so it's not just available as streaming. Once downloaded, one could easily burn CD-R's of it and make a cover and then you'd have it as a physical thang!
As an American & enormous Brian Wilson & Beach Boys fan... Thank you, United Kingdom, for getting them, Pet Sounds, & subsequent albums CORRECTLY! Because Capitol & Americans just got Pet Sounds ABSOFUKNLUTELY incorrect back in 1966! Got Good Vibrations right. But not SMiLE, either. Good on you lot for 'getting' the band. And Brian Wilson has called London his musical & spiritual home, afterall!
It's a real shame that they had to go through the time where they could hardly get booked. The next few years were not the kindest to the band. But they just kept putting out some fantastic albums... I remember that I found the two for one records in the early 80's and I was so impressed with the work. I really liked the price of the records too! Dirt cheap! The "value line"!😂
Overseas but not in the US. Do it again was the highlight of the year & Wild Honey, .... friends was a lacking l.p & its sales in the US shown that. 🎶🇱🇷
“Counterculture” had written them off at the time. Friends is probably my favorite album, way ahead of its time as far as a home recording style LP. America didn’t deserve something so subtle and infinite in its rewards with repeated listens. @@jladams85
WOW! What an undiscovered gem! I realize I should have been living in England back in 1968. Their popularity was so great in England at that time. It was around that time that I really started liking the Beach Boys in a big way. The only problem was...I was living in the States at that time, in... California of all places. But the Beach Boys' popularity in the U.S. at that time was pretty low. And that's putting it politely. I felt quite lonely in my enthusiasm for the group. Which is why I feel so good seeing how they were loved so much in Europe. Enthusiastic receptions for their concerts, being mobbed by fans. Touring in Europe had to be the remedy for the group, when their popularity had gone so far downhill at home. RU-vid is such a repository for rarities such this documentary. I actually saw a few snippets of it, when the Beach Boys performed at the Whiskey in Hollywood, when they were promoting their "Sunflower" album. Altogether, a nice glimpse of the group, and their experience abroad in 1968. Nice comments from each member, scenes from the different European locales, and music from their current albums at the time, as well as their familiar hits. Thank you for posting.
The Bwach boys were typecasted as dorky squares from Pleasantville. Americams got tired of that and wanted the more nuance and sophistry of British aesthetic.
Thanks for sharing this. It’s good to see em havin a good time! After they Survived that crazy childhood not to mention the Legendary Music they created they certainly deserved it!! That movie made me wanna Hug every one of em! 😢✌️
Seems like its always cold every time they touch down in Europe. I'm thinking of how cold it looked two years earlier in 1966 on the film of the "Pet Sounds" tour. But they always look like they are fashionably bundled up for the occasion
The documentary gave insights as to what the guys were like off stage. Their reverence for what they were visiting impressed me, since in the same era, there were many artists who were too busy shooting up to pay attention to such things.
After watching this for a while, I can’t help but getting “all choked up” with each passing scene. Carl and Dennis are terribly missed. And every song creates goosebumps and memories. Thank you, “Friends.”
12.19 The City Barge is the pub that features in The Beatles Help! movie. Probably wasn’t a coincidence that they were taken there to film. The pub is still there and is worth a visit but don’t order 2 lager and limes and 2 lager and limes…they didn’t get it.
The irony is Mike Love wanted to just stick with surf music, he wasn't interested in Brians new innovative ideas and songwriting. Yet Mike Love spends the rest of his life riding on the new fantastic music Brian made that he was so against.
As far as I've read (which is a lot), Mike wasn't against The Beach Boys doing new music and moving away from surf music, it was journalists and media that convinced people he was like that. 🙂 The myth of Mike saying "Don't fuck with the formula" was made up by a Rolling Stone journalist in the early seventies. He not only didn't say that but if you listen to his in-between song banter from post-1965, you'll hear that he in fact liked the new directions they were taking plus contemporaneous interviews confirm this, too.
People who go to great lengths like Mike Love to cover their heads in giant goofy hats in summer time because they are balding as to not look ridiculous I guess end up looking ridiculous thus bringing it more attention not less. Nothing will top the silver hard hat he wore to the hall of fame induction says everything you need to know about him before …….he opens his mouth. 🤣🤣
