Were the Beach Boys more popular in the UK than the USA...?

[C]

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As an 11 year old, back in 1964, I was mainly interested in three bands - The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys. My mum bought their albums for me and I played them to death

Anyway, I was chatting to my dear friend Neil Jung this morning about a track that he really loves on The Beach Boys 20/20 album - "Cabinessence" and I sent him a section on the album, from Wikipedia, which gave the chart position of the album. It stated that the position in the UK chart was higher than the USA chart.

I then did the same with Pet Sounds and the result was the same - a higher position in the UK than the USA.

Now, I know this type of comparison is not water-tight, but can this hypothesis be extrapolated to the statement:

"The Beach Boys were more popular in the UK than the USA"

Views?



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[robertff]

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As an 11 year old, back in 1964, I was mainly interested in three bands - The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys. My mum bought their albums for me and I played them to death

Anyway, I was chatting to my dear friend Neil Jung this morning about a track that he really loves on The Beach Boys 20/20 album - "Cabinessence" and I sent him a section on the album, from Wikipedia, which gave the chart position of the album. It stated that the position in the UK chart was higher than the USA chart.

I then did the same with Pet Sounds and the result was the same - a higher position in the UK than the USA.

Now, I know this type of comparison is not water-tight, but can this hypothesis be extrapolated to the statement:

"The Beach Boys were more popular in the UK than the USA"

Views?

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Your Mum bought you Beatles, Stones and Beach Boys records! You were a very lucky boy to have such a lovely Mum, we never even had a record player until I bought my own at the age of 17.


With regard to the Beach Boys issue, I once had a bit of a disagreement with Matt Wilson over a very similar point with me suggesting that they were more popular here, certainly around the time of the Pet Sounds/Surf's Up releases and later. I can remember Pet Sounds being heralded as a masterpiece here among the cognoscenti, whereas I seem to remember he didn't think it was the same in America - but I might have remembered that incorrectly.

Anyway, it seems to me that their early albums did much better in the US, their later, more sophisticated, ones did better in the UK.


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[C]

Your Mum bought you Beatles, Stones and Beach Boys records! You were a very lucky boy to have such a lovely Mum, we never even had a record player until I bought my own at the age of 17.

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My dad was a bookbinder by trade and worked very hard. He met my mum in the print trade, but when she had us, she did became a dinner lady because the hours suited.

I suppose my dad was quite materialistic we were the first family in the road to have a phone and people used to come round and use it. Also, he was the first person to have a brand-new car an Austin Maxi

The point is we had a radiogram which is quite unusual at the time because they were quite expensive.

You’ll recall there was a radiogram thread



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[BARON CORNY DOG]

They were certainly more popular in the UK after Pet Sounds.

[C]

They were certainly more popular in the UK after Pet Sounds.

Ok. Why do you think that was the case my learned friend?




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[BARON CORNY DOG]

They were certainly more popular in the UK after Pet Sounds.

Ok. Why do you think that was the case my learned friend?




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Because British people have notoriously poor taste.

[BARON CORNY DOG]

I don't really know. There just wasn't a constituency here for what they were doing.

[robertff]

They were certainly more popular in the UK after Pet Sounds.

Ok. Why do you think that was the case my learned friend?




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Because British people have notoriously poor taste.

I guess the later ones were just too sophisticated for the US market.



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[C]

Ok. Why do you think that was the case my learned friend?




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Because British people have notoriously poor taste.

I guess the later ones were just too sophisticated for the US market.



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Ouch….!!




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[Matt Wilson]

Yes, they were more popular in the UK from ‘66 through the rest of the 60s. They beat The Beatles in that NME poll for one thing. My Beach Boys video is the longest one that I’ve done so far and as yet it does not have a single comment.

[C]

My Beach Boys video is the longest one that I’ve done so far and as yet it does not have a single comment.

That must tell you something Matt - length isn’t everything lad





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[Matt Wilson]

[C]

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Oh er missus, as us Brits say




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[Charlie O.]

I don't know how EMI UK felt about Pet Sounds... but Andrew Loog Oldham, who (unbeknownst to most) owned a piece of the publishing, hyped the hell out of it in Blighty and helped make sure all the "right" people heard it, and that helped a lot. Meanwhile back in the States, Capitol inexplicably entered a vote of No Confidence - despite the Boys' formidable sales track record to that point (not to mention that there were at least three hit singles on Pet Sounds itself!), which didn't help at all.

[Matt Wilson]

And of course, "popular" is a relative term. I'm sure the Beach Boys made more money from US sales of Pet Sounds than they did from UK sales. Their singles, however, certainly placed higher in the UK charts than in Billboard in the late '70s.

[copehead]

Yes, they were more popular in the UK from ‘66 through the rest of the 60s. They beat The Beatles in that NME poll for one thing. My Beach Boys video is the longest one that I’ve done so far and as yet it does not have a single comment.

The history of Rock Music in 500 songs is doing a Beach Boys one at the moment segueing into Charles Manson and Huddie Ledbetter

This has come up a few times, how the Beach Boys, during the later 60s, carried on being a popular band in the UK whilst their US popularity dropped off a cliff and they struggled to make the top 100 for albums and singles.

The tying in of Ledbetter and Manson may seem a bit random but it was originally because they were both murderers, The Ledbetter episode had to be entirely rewritten because it turns out that his story is probably not the one told by white Blues writers like Lomax over the years.

A new book written by an author who has gone back to original sources tells a much sadder story of racism in the deep South in the 30s

Bring Judgment Day: Reclaiming Lead Belly's Truths from Jim Crow's Lies - Sheila Curren-Bernard

He hated being called Leadbelly, he hated being dressed up in prison garb, both things foisted on him by Lomax to make him more saleable to a White Northern Blues audience and his convictions were what happened to Black men of families with independent means in the South in those days

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bring-Judgment-Day-Reclaiming-Bellys/dp/1009098128/ref=sr_1_6?crid=JNBHXI6H1SPO&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Na9L9eOWD-y93SJcNr4VaFJTsjFZQMs7KLWepAOa0S4p32N4CqtQfyDcnodveLF6bHoXlzwbjQf9Z7_XgKdhU5kvP1arPCzqMOF51woSgvVxHXmn39O_LfPLB2nm0b98eBiAswdUpLZU4UrNtj8qoQzQN7b9KQZOOvH26mOKtwKDmDv-07bOo5HYd5ts1PO_buMpH45VdyW7Y_XmQ5L6nWfWzoEk9khOLtEFlHh9KnU.PNd8QJ7OSTyn11XnI3CZiq7FfERALpmVHFMLwnWPea4&dib_tag=se&keywords=leadbelly+book&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1734860294&sprefix=leadbelly+book%2Caps%2C98&sr=8-6

[bobzilla77]

There was a period where that was true in the late sixties, by most accounts, but by the time the US gets into Endless Summer, I don't know if it's the case anymore.