CLASSIC TRACK: The Beach Boys —
In pursuit of his ultimate ‘teenage symphony to God’, Brian Wilson spent an awful lot of time and money. Obviously, focusing on the financial in the face of such great art is inappropriately grubby and sordid, but $75,000 is $75,000. Even more so when you consider that back then you could buy a three-bedroom house and a Ford Cortina for less than the price of today’s iMac Pro.
That said, Brian was a genius, and genius could be indulged as such. Rather than just imagine what a cello and Electro-Theremin might sound like when in tandem with LA’s most sought-after session players The Wrecking Crew, he’d make it happen, and hang the expense.
Good Vibrations lasts for 3 minutes and 35 seconds. Wilson burned through over 90 hours of tape to render its elements just so. Ultimately, though, all of his unprecedented effort was worth it, because not only did
Good Vibrations prove to be a work of timeless brilliance — the 60s encapsulated in a single, magically evocative recording — it also revolutionised recording techniques beyond all recognition. It brought the impossible within reach, facilitating a future that we now look back upon as rock’s golden age. No Good Vibrations, no ‘Sgt Pepper’, no ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’, no ‘Tubular Bells’, and on and on.
Perhaps what’s most amazing about Good Vibrations is how rapidly pop fans assimilated the impossible. As it poured from a million transistor radios, as it did in 1966, no one staggered back from their speakers shouting ‘Electrickery!’ at the sound of its intrinsic impossibility. They just soaked it up, grew their hair and prepared to tune in, turn on and, to the best of their ability, freak out.
So how was the magic made? Musically, Wilson recorded distinct elements evoking very different moods, and stitched them together, hiding his joins with vast reverb. Tony Asher was called in to write the lyric, but aside from persuading Brian to go with ‘Vibrations’ rather than ‘Vibes’, bowed out, leaving Mike Love to come up with the words. Which he apparently knocked off on the way to the studio. The central Electro-Theremin, meanwhile, isn’t a pure Theremin, it’s operated with a knob. Which, as all proper Theremin players will tell you, is cheating. But still, we’ll forgive Brian that. After all, nobody’s perfect.