Stumbled onto some Beach Boys while browsing Apple Music.
I’d gotten my dad a vinyl copy of “The Smile Sessions” for Christmas a few years ago. The only song I knew on it was Good Vibrations. It was apparently an album that The Beach Boys never finished since Brian Wilson was like obsessed with it and going crazy or something and there was infighting in the group. So when I saw this “completed” version of Smile I was interested, and so went ahead and listened to a few songs.
I think maybe The Beach Boys (or just Brian Wilson and or Van Dyke Parks) had more of an influence on popular music than I ever would’ve given them credit for. The layered vocals on this are every bit as complex and full and rich as anything Rufus Wainwright has ever done, for sure.
I can hear other results of their influence in my head, but can’t place my finger on exactly who else drew inspiration from them.
I’m surprised I haven’t heard of more a capella groups or choruses doing some of their stuff (listen to “Our Prayer/Gee” to see what I mean).
Also, Good Vibrations really hits the spot for me as far as pop music goes. I’ve listened to it like five times this morning. So good.
I’ll figure out this embed code later. Not quite sure how to embed Apple Music using markdown/Hugo, but I put a question in to the help forum about it.
<iframe allow=“autoplay *; encrypted-media *;” frameborder=“0” height=“150” style=“width:100%;max-width:660px;overflow:hidden;background:transparent;” sandbox=“allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation” src=“https://embed.music.apple.com/us/album/good-vibrations/24245496?i=24245548"></iframe>