When I Grow Up: The Development of the Beach Boys’ Sound (1962-1966)

Abstract

The Beach Boys are an American rock group whose career has spanned over fifty years. However, it was between 1962 and 1966 that the group had most of their chart success and that their unique ‘sound’ was crystallised. This study takes a broad, big- picture overview of the Beach Boy’s repertoire from this period and charts the development of their sound through the apprentice-craft-art (ACA) framework. The concept of a ‘sound’ is able to draw together the musical, technological, sociological and historical elements that, when combined, create the sound of the Beach Boys during the 1962-1966 period. The flexibility of this concept means that areas often overlooked in popular music studies and in studies on the Beach Boys in general (particularly the roles of production and instrument types), are able to be woven into analyses of more traditional musical elements (such as song structure or chord progressions). To investigate their sound, this study analyses song structure, rhythmic feels, instrumentation, chord progressions, lyrical themes and vocals from 101 songs that the Beach Boys released on nine studio albums from the 1962-1966 period. The aim of these analyses is to give a detailed understanding of how the Beach Boys’ sound developed over time. Included in these musical analyses is a discussion of instrument types and production styles, which also have an impact on the Beach Boys’ sound. Musical findings are contextualised with important socio-cultural considerations that also contribute to the Beach Boys’ sound, such as their home in Southern California, their complicated personal histories, their relationship to surf music, and the construction of their “California myth”. The combination of the musical, the social and the historical gives a cohesive understanding of the way they constructed their sound.