A fine selection although I would have included Little Bird, Friends, Pet Sounds and Wonderful.
The Beach Boys’ Forty Greatest Songs – Ranked!
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
No `Trader`, `Darlin`, `Add Some Music To Your Day` however not a bad list but `God Only Knows` is Top 3.
‘Darlin’ is there at number 24. A brilliant song.
Oops!
There couldn’t really be any other number one, could there? Magnificent achievement. The song that broke The Beach Boys! (I mean, I know they continued after that, but they never reached that height of combined commercialism and art ever again).
Good to see California Girls in the top ten. That’s my personal go-to favourite. That intro never fails to warm my heart, and there’s something uncanny going on in the chord changes in the verse, something that lifts a ordinary sunshine song into a weird place halfway between melancholy and joy.
No ‘All This Is That’? Pish!
Yes, I’d forgotten about this beautiful song. It would have been in my top ten.
Reasonable list, my top 40 would include every song from Pet Sounds, except maybe Sloop John B. I don’t dislike California Girls, but I think it is way down in terms of greatness. suppose no. 1 had to be no. 1, but my personal favourite is ‘Til I Die (extended version). God Only Knows is way too low.
You can keep all the hippy stuff for places 40 -> 21 but the top twenty is surely just ‘Endless Summer’ in any order with maybe California Girls at the top.
Ou est le Kokomo?
I’d probably go for Good Vibrations, Heroes and Villains or Sail On Sailor at the top of the pile. Then most of Pet Sounds. But also reserve some space for some of their soft rock numbers that don’t really sound like the Beach Boys. Such as …
Long Promised Road, Surf’s Up, Feel Flows, Cabinessence, Here She Comes, Trader, Leaving This Town, All I Wanna Do, Til I Die, Baby Blue and Only With You.
Oh yeah was LPR missing? Has to be there
Let’s face it, few bands have as many songs that make choosing just 40 such a challenge.
While Dennis’s Cuddle Up is probably not quite as good as Forever from Sunflower it’s still a terrific song and its nice to see the often unfairly overlooked CATPST get a nod
I consider myself an aficionado of the Beach Boys’ canon, so was expecting to be outraged…
…In reality, I have very little argument with the Top 10, albeit in a fairly different order.
These Guardian “thought pieces” are generally very good.
Does I Can Hear Music count? And Wonderful is wonderful.
I’d put Our Sweet Love from Sunflower in the top ten, but other that it’s a good list that doesn’t skimp on the post-Pet Sounds stuff.
God Only Knows deserves to be higher of course, but it would have been nice to see something from their goofy 1977 Love You album, especially this…
Be With Me? Wild Honey? Forever?
But how many bands have forty brilliant songs and still have brilliants favorites missed out?
And yes God Only Knows is definitely top three. My top three are God Only Knows, Good Vibrations, California Girls.
This is a fascinating video – the making of my favourite Beach Boys song
Every note, every beat, every sound, created in his head, played live by what was effectively a top-flight big band, live in the studio, under his granular direction. And that was before he even got the vocals down. If the word genius has any meaning, it’s applicable here. No-one like him, before or since. God bless you Brian.