Originally posted by lioness22
And I have NEVER heard anything quite like the Beach Boys. Take into account all their different styles (pop, rock, jazz, gospel........) and the way their music evolved yearly is incredible. Some people miss the Beach Boys all together and it's for you people I feel truly sad.
Of all comparisons, I'd have thought that a reference to diversity of musical style would well and truly send the Beach Boys to the Recyle Bin. Consider the following Beatles tunes:
Honey pie (vaudeville)
Rocky Racoon (country and western)
You've got to hide your love away (folk)
Revolution 9 (avant-garde sound collage)
Helter skelter (hard rock)
Let it be (rock gospel)
She loves you (pop)
Tomorrow never knows (psychedlia)
You know my name - look up the number (parody)
Eleanour Rigby (baroque ballad)
Why don't we do it in the road (soul)
Yer blues (blues)
Goodnight (lullaby)
Back in the USSR (mock surf)
The inner light (Indian)
This is a small sample of the Fab Four's stylistic variety. McCartney had by far the greatest sense of stylistic adventure, which you can readily see in his post-Beatle recordings (particularly with Wings). Throw in John's Yoko influenced and drug induced weirdness, George's noodling on the sitar and a couple of Ringo's nursery rhymes. And a producer par-excellence in George Martin, who so often creatively realised the group's musical schemes. I'd recommend that any person deeply interested in song production and sound engineering read about the making of the Sergeant Pepper album - particularly Martin's role in the recording of 'A day in the life' and 'Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite.'
Sorry, I like the Beach Boys too, but I could never accept that they defined the face of popular music in anywhere near the capacity of those Liverpudlians.