It’s fairly common knowledge that The Beach Boys were revolutionary innovators within the context of pop music. The band (specifically, their leader Brian Wilson) introduced a complexity of song writing and production to the genre that simply wasn’t present before, peaking with the much-loved 1966 album Pet Sounds. What people probably don’t realise though, is that beyond musical composition the band often found itself innovating with ideas decades before their widespread acceptance, usually by complete accident. Some are pretty impressive, others less so, but it’s about time they receive some credit.

Caring about the environment

Environmentalism is something we’re all aware of, even if we choose to ignore the spectre of climate change or the danger plastic bags pose to seagulls. This hasn’t actually been the case for long though, and it’s only been in the last couple of decades that celebrities have thrown their famous faces behind campaigns to protect the planet.

The Beach Boys however, found themselves waving the flag of environmental protection all the way back in 1971, the same year that Greenpeace was founded. In the album Surf’s Up they kicked things off with the song Don’t Go Near the Water:

“Oceans, rivers, lakes and streams Have all been touched by man The poison floating out to sea Now threatens life on land”

One of Brian Wilson’s few contributions to the album was the bizarre A Day in the Life of a Tree, a song from the perspective of a tree wounded by human pollution.

“But now my branches suffer And my leaves don’t offer Poetry to men of song Trees like me weren’t meant to live If all this world can give Pollution and slow death”

John Lennon lay in bed for world peace, when it was a cool thing to do. Brian Wilson wrote songs about the environment, when nobody was actually listening to his music. Beach Boys: 1 Beatles: 0.

Healthy eating

In a similar vein to the above, the Beach Boys found themselves espousing the virtues of eating healthily decades before that became a widespread concept. In 1967, despite being rather overweight himself, Brian Wilson became so obsessed with the concept of health during the recording of his abandoned masterwork SMiLE that he insisted on gym equipment being set up in his house for his friends to use. He also penned the wonderfully eccentric song Vega-Tables.

“I’m gonna be round my vegetables I’m gonna chow down my vegetables I love you most of all My favorite vega-table”

A few years later, as he steadily declined into mental illness, Brian actually ran a health store in LA called the Radiant Radish. He’d open it at different times every day, often in the middle of the night, usually wearing nothing but his pyjamas. The shop is actually mentioned in the unreleased 1970 Beach Boy track H.E.L.P is on the Way, a song that starts with:

“Stark naked in front of my mirror A pudgy person somehow did appear Seems lately all I’ve eaten is sugar and fat It’s getting obvious that’s not where it’s at”

Brian’s appreciation of healthy living is somewhat ironic when you consider the incredible punishment he put his body through, but I suppose it’s contradictions like that which make him such a wonderfully enigmatic individual.

Unplugged/Karaoke albums

These are really two different ‘innovations’, but since they’re both rooted in a desire to give fans a new album without having to actually record a proper one, they sit together nicely. Unplugged albums are simply recordings of the band playing semi-live, allowing fans to enjoy the soul of the music without layers of studio polish. Before the concept was even about though, the Beach Boys released Beach Boy Party! in 1965 to placate record company executives irritated by the long wait for Pet Sounds.

The band (and pretty much everyone else they knew) camped in the studio for four days and bashed out some of their favourite tunes with bongos, their trademark vocal brilliance and a healthy quantity of fun. The most famous song from the session is the irritating Barbara Ann, but personally I love the Beatles covers and their total demolition of their own I Get Around, where they make up new lyrics as they go along:

“We always take my car although it’s a heap

And we never get turned down by the chicks we pick up on”

Brilliant.

Karaoke only really took off in the 1990s, but in 1968 The Beach Boys released Stack-o-Tracks, a collection of some of their most famous songs stripped of their vocals, complete with a booklet of lyrics for fans to sing along with. This was a completely unique release for the industry, and is still wonderful listening now, as it lets you enjoy the orchestral gorgeousness of Brian’s genius in its pure form. The backing track for God Only Knows is especially wonderful.

Emotionally tortured singer songwriters

The presence of the ‘sensitive singer songwriter with emotions to express’ archetype in the music industry seems like something of an inevitability, but when you think about it, it’s not always been the case. I can’t think of too many artists that fit that description in the 1960s – the Nick Drake, Leonard Cohen, James Taylor types only really found their success in the 1970s. Leading the way for tortured introverts everywhere though, was Brian Wilson.

Even before his descent into a state of full-time vulnerability and self-destruction Brian was penning songs exploring his intense, yet gentle emotional experience of the world. The most beautiful example is probably Pet Sounds’ I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times, the song that played in the background for most of my teenagehood:

“They say I got brains But they ain’t doin’ me no good I wish they could Each time things start to happen again I think I got somethin’ good goin’ for myself But what goes wrong Sometimes I feel very sad…”

This ability to articulate the pained thoughts of a young man in distress was evident early on, even when most of the band’s output was forgettable surf music. One track on the 1963 Surfin’ USA album, Lonely Sea, still has some real power to it, despite a cringey spoken word segment.

Selling out

With a few exceptions, most of the big bands of the sixties and seventies have at some point been lured out of retirement to bash out their classics one last time. To be fair, some of them just never stopped – AC/DC have been bashing out the same formula for 42 years. It’s pretty clear why, people are willing to pay mad dollar to see their favourites go at it again – why be a creatively interesting musical unit when you can sell out stadiums by doing the same old stuff?

Unfortunately, one of the first bands to realise this was the Beach Boys. In 1974, after years of producing some damn fine music to little or no interest, a greatest hits collection was released and immediately rocketed up the charts. Despite the efforts of a few members, their march to becoming a creatively-void jukebox band has begun. For decades afterwards the increasingly aged and divided (the amount of inter-band legal suites was impressive) group would croon about the same fantasies of carefree youthfulness, which grew more distant with every gig. Insincere optimism is depressing.

Apart from the final point, the rest of the accomplishments are fairly impressive, even if none of them were innovative on purpose. So why were the Beach Boys so continuously ahead of the curve? It wasn’t as if they were great intellectuals, I mean, in a recorded interview in 1965 Dennis Wilson remarked “… of all of Europe the only thing that stuck in my mind is the bread.”

Much of the credit has to go to Brian Wilson’s unique, bizarre genius, but there is something to be said for the fact that the band spent much of their career either being overworked by a greedy record label or struggling for attention from an uninterested populace. Out of desperation comes innovation, and even if nobody has ever credited them as such, I take immense pleasure in the fact that despite their total lack of street cred post ‘67, the band was actually just being cool in ways that weren’t cool yet. Go them.

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It’s a long shot that anyone interested in this will also be interested in my new website, but it’s worth a punt. I’m setting up a website all about the best local history facts for pretty much everywhere in the UK, called Local History is Awesome. If you’d like to write an article about your area, get in touch with me at willhazell1993@gmail.com