Our latest Random Weekend selection is the first instrumental track of the series, and perhaps the first instrumental track I’ve featured on the blog (though I’m not as sure about that).
I’m wholly unqualified to speak intelligently about instrumental music, but this certainly strikes me as a lovely piece of work that captures the spirit of Pet Sounds (on which it’s the sixth track).
Along the same lines as yesterday’s Liz Phair post, I’m featuring The Beach Boys today because I’m surprised I haven’t done so more often.
That’s probably because I just don’t have much to say about The Beach Boys. In fact, I started to write about how when I was younger I didn’t know The Beach Boys were such a big deal, artistically. I thought they were a surf band on a par with The Monkees or some other gimmicky bunch of pretty boys like that.
Then I looked back at the first time I featured a Beach Boys song on the blog (‘Don’t Worry Baby’ way back at Song of the Day #26) and these were my first words in that post: “I remember when I didn’t know The Beach Boys were a big deal.”
Being an album guy, most of my favorite songs tend to be by my favorite artists. If I were to compile a working list of my 100 favorite songs, I’m guessing the vast majority of them would be by artists who are very well-represented in my CD collection. But there would be a small but potent group of songs that rise to the top all on their own.
The Beach Boys’ ‘God Only Knows’ is such a song. I do love Pet Sounds but it’s the only Beach Boys album I own and the only one I really care to own. As much as I appreciate their talent and the unique sound Brian Wilson created, I don’t feel any real need to immerse myself in their discography. It’s one of those cases where I’m content to miss the boat.
OK, it’s come to this. Remember that scene in The Dark Knight where Alfred tells Bruce Wayne about a terrible bandit who wreaked havoc on a village for no reason but the sheer thrill of it? “Did you finally catch him?,” Bruce asks. Alfred says yes. “How?” “We burned the forest down.”
By selecting The Beach Boys’ ‘Kokomo’ as a Song of the Day, I am burning the forest down, practically destroying this blog to make a point. I was asked to present some “feel good” songs, and this must be the most painfully bad feel good song of them all. I hope that its inclusion will pave the way for more of the murk and melancholy I favor.
I remember when I didn’t know The Beach Boys were a big deal.
Before my senior year of high school, I equated The Beach Boys with teeny boppers, surfing and cornball beach cookouts where kids with plastered grins danced the Swim.
Then I read about Pet Sounds, the classic album they recorded as a response to The Beatles’ Rubber Soul, which in turn inspired The Beatles to crank out Sgt. Pepper. The idea that this surf group was in an arms race with history’s greatest band was quite intriguing, so I picked up the album.
Meet Me In Montauk 