Beatles and Beach Boys pushing formal borders

After huge commercial success, the Beatles and the Beach Boys began treating the studio as an instrument and exploring how to widen music’s borders.

In earlier chapters we introduced the Beatles’ and Beach Boys’ music; we continue that thread. The two bands shared not only audiences but, at least in the U.S., Los Angeles’s Capitol Records. The Beatles had an important EMI deal in Britain, but in America they and the Beach Boys were on the same label—Capitol in L.A. They shared more than audience and label: both were ambitious about their music and ready to test their limits as musicians—traits sometimes overlooked. We touched this when we covered them before; we pick it up now as setup for the psychedelic musicians who follow.

Both bands explored new possibilities. Strong sales gave them freedom to spend whole days in the studio—then a costly place; labels would not normally let artists live there, because investment had to pay back. These two kept pushing known limits. Both treated the studio as a compositional tool, exploring what could be made there and new stances and sounds in the music. Both added classical elements, drawing on nineteenth-century tradition and the avant-garde. We can talk about orchestral instruments in their songs, and wide use of tape editing and tape loops. You find these in both Beatles and Beach Boys music.

Turn to the Beach Boys and how, from the mid-1960s (around 1967), their music grew ambitious. In early 1965 lead singer Brian Wilson stopped touring because he could not handle flying, and worked full-time in the studio. While the others toured, he stayed home and enjoyed the luxury of studio time. With strong sales he could book the studio anytime and try new things. He worked with L.A.’s top session players, the Wrecking Crew—not one band, but about a dozen elite studio musicians. Brian made all kinds of music with them. A 4-CD Pet Sounds box exists: besides the finished album, the rest is material prepared for that ~35-minute record—and only selected takes. Brian recorded a lot and tried a lot; you can sense that in “California Girls,” which we mentioned before. But the real statement was Pet Sounds in mid-1966, more experimental, influenced by the Beatles’ late-1965 Rubber Soul. Two tracks especially show the ambition: “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and, above all, “God Only Knows.” Then in 1966 came the single “Good Vibrations,” after the Beatles’ Revolver (August 1966). In “Good Vibrations” you clearly hear Brian preparing different sections and editing them together into a psychedelic feel.

In late 1966 Brian planned an album called Smile. Ads even set a 1967 release; then nothing. Too much studio music, or immersion in psychedelics—anyway it was never finished. Also in 1967 the Beatles released the double A-side “Penny Lane” / “Strawberry Fields Forever”; after Smile failed, the Beach Boys issued Smiley Smile in August 1967 in its place—after Sgt. Pepper in June 1967. Comparing the albums, both bands’ ambition kept growing. I suspect Brian was discouraged in that rivalry because he could not finish Smile (though it has been completed in recent years). I mentioned this a few chapters back: the record is strong and distinctive; had it come out then, the response would have been large—but it did not. You can see a friendly competition between the bands—perhaps friendlier from the Beatles’ side than from Brian’s.

Now the Beatles. August 1966’s Revolver clearly injected psychedelic elements, mainly because of the closing track “Tomorrow Never Knows”—then their most avant-garde, experimental, and ambitious song. As noted earlier, it followed “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields Forever,” originally meant for a concept album. On 19 August 1966 they decided to stop touring and become a studio band only, so album-making need not worry about live performance; they could try anything in the studio. “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields” were meant for a concept album about growing up in Liverpool, but once on Magical Mystery Tour they did not want them on later albums. The new album was titled Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band: the Beatles effectively became that band and would say they were Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Tracks run into each other. At the start, at the end of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” they announce Billy Shears (Ringo) and go into “With a Little Help from My Friends.” Then they drop that device and play song by song until the end of side one reprises Sgt. Pepper music and leads into side two’s first track, “A Day in the Life.” The packaging was special: a gatefold outer sleeve with band photos; inside, cardboard cutouts of mustaches and badges you could wear. Plenty of extras; the back cover printed all the lyrics—common now, but the first pop album to print lyrics on the back so you could read without listening. Bob Dylan, a major songwriter, never put lyrics on the outer package like that on the albums we covered; this was a step that freed lyric content. It is also often called the first concept album—though even if no one challenges that, it may not be history’s first. The idea goes back before rock to Frank Sinatra or jazz singers like John Coltrane. Still, the Sgt. Pepper band conceit made it count as the first concept album in many minds. John Lennon always said his songs could have sat on any Beatles album; he did not really get the Sgt. Pepper idea and his songs had nothing to do with it. What John said matters less than how people heard the album: the Beatles were already imitating an imagined Sgt. Pepper band and what the concept expressed—that is why it was so influential. Perhaps the most ambitious, music-speaking track is “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” with its tape loops. The closer, “A Day in the Life,” is often praised in rock chronicles as an “epic five minutes.” Two key changes are fully improvised—orchestral players could improvise as long as they hit a shared crescendo climax at a set point. If you have heard it, you know: everything splices together. John sings the opening, Paul the middle, then John again. Fragments are joined into a rising orchestral hymn. These elements made it their greatest song to that point and raised the bar for those who followed. They tried to extend the idea with Magical Mystery Tour in December 1967 and a film of the same name—the film failed; most people liked seeing and hearing the Beatles but not the movie. Journalists could finally say the Beatles had thoroughly flopped—of course they had not, but in 1967–68 the press wanted a story that they were finished. Magical Mystery Tour includes the “I Am the Walrus” footage. Paul McCartney several times said he disagreed with doing it that way. Also in August 1967, manager Brian Epstein, with them since 1962, died of a drug overdose; for a stretch they had no manager. They immersed in Hinduism and transcendental meditation. Two things about their career: management problems that took time to fix; and, while they took financial hits, this was also when they turned toward Eastern culture.

Back to Rubber Soul: we already heard sitar (an Indian instrument) on “Norwegian Wood.” George Harrison’s interest in Eastern instruments also shows on Sgt. Pepper’s “Within You Without You.” The Beatles brought ideas of transformation into performance; they went to India to study meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and pushed that into the mainstream. Remember: when we talk Beatles and Beach Boys we mean mainstream artists, not underground psychedelia. In summer 1967 Eastern culture as a source of wisdom met the West, and alternative spirituality truly fused with their music. Of course the Beatles did not stay psychedelic forever; they turned back. The White Album of November 1968 shows more of them as traditional songwriters, returning toward earlier ground. Its most ambitious piece is John Lennon’s tape piece “Revolution 9,” unlike most widely circulated electronic music in history. Many people hear it once and stop—or never finish—but it showed many that electronic music could sound like that.

What became Let It Be (planned as Get Back) finally appeared in the form of early 1969 sessions; that album returned to their roots. In September 1969 they released their last album, Abbey Road—perhaps their most fully psychedelic statement. Side one’s closer is “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”: a crescendo of noise and repeating guitar chords that cuts off abruptly. On side two Paul strings many fragments into a suite. In this period the Beatles and Beach Boys, in a sense, injected more ambitious musical elements into the mainstream.

Next time we turn to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury psychedelic subculture and the growth of San Francisco radio—what was happening there at the same time.