TRAINWRECKORDS: "Summer in Paradise" by The Beach Boys

Christ, that's a good comparison. They really do.

Janeki Vontal

Thanks so much for another great video! And damn, parts of these songs sound like the Rosanne theme being blown through a conch shell.

Laura Tate

Ooh, I think there’s a lot of potential in a Think Tank episode of Trainwreckords

Nick DeCicco

I think it says a lot that my primary association with Kokomo is it being used as a punchline whenever a sitcom character wants to take a vacation for the record I like it

Nowhere Girl

Who's the Beach Boys drummer that looks like John Stamos? *Googles* Holy cow: it is John Stamos! Mind blown. EDIT: And then two minutes after I write that Todd addresses it. Have mercy.

Josh Liller

"Kokomo" came out in 1988??? I had always assumed it was from the 1960s.

Josh Liller

When "Summer of Love" comes in for the first time at around 2:20, I honestly thought it was the return of that slow-jam Scatman John song from the Scatman John OHW episode.

Jason Lee

Is Green Day this generation’s Beach Boys? In light of Green Day’s latest misguided flop album trying to cash in on millenial / Gen X’s past attitudes and nostalgia of an increasingly irrelevant genre...

Franco del Rosario

Highly recommend Love & Mercy, a movie about the writing of Pet Sounds and Brian Wilson's struggles with drugs and schizoaffective disorder. Mike Love sure is an asshole, but it also shows they needed SOMEONE to reel Brian in.

giascle

The first version of 'Kokomo' I heard was from the Muppets lmao

Anthachu

I think I discovered cynicism and that day.

Keith Badje

Screw it, might as well rewatch the fixed one.

JUST FYI I got it working again

Peter Guilherme

I am aware of the issue and am working to address it as quickly as I can

Todd in the Shadows

Same here

FrankosSpeaks

This is what I get for not watching it first thing in the morning, now it's unavailable.

Alina

yep, me too

Is anyone else getting an error message on this?

Peter Guilherme

Still laugh my ass off when I saw Family Guy take their kids to a 50’s diner and explain to them how it was very popular in the 80’s 🤣 My parents took me to an “Angel’s (50’s) Diner” in the 80’s when I was a kid too

God I remember that Full House episode with the music video because even at the time as a kid I knew it was some of the lamest shit I'd ever seen.

Shiny Skunk

This is why love these vids. I knew very little about the Beach Boys other than they were a popular in the 60s, Pet Sounds was their most revered album, and Kokomo is amazing (I heard the Muppets version so nostalgia wins). I did not know the crazy behind the scenes drama or that they were still going in the 80s. This was a great vid.

KHMakerD

Boomers were a mistake.

Yvette

To be fair, wasn't that the case these past few decades, with the 2 decades ago nostalgia only really starting when the gap is felt?

forestaysaIL

Looks like you'll have plenty of good material to go by before you'll have to resort to albums like... I dunno, Blur's Think Tank? Which I wouldn't mind a video of, but I doubt it's really considered a trainwreak (unless those more knowledgeable of Damon Albarn or Graham Coxon can claim otherwise). Discogs says this album came in an "ecopack", so I guess it's also "environmental" in that regard.

forestaysaIL

I like, and still like, "Kokomo." It's... fine. I didn't know a thing about this "Summer in Paradise" album or Mike Love's politics, or the John Stamos-Beach Boys connection. Ignorance was bliss and that's over. Man.

Elisa

Used copies of Summer in Paradise aren't actually that pricey, only about 15 bucks

RedBedroomRecords

I thought that was a damn good album personally

RedBedroomRecords

So I’m not a Beach Boys fan, but i remember watching a lot of old 60’s Beach Boys performances on YouTube and i distinctly remember thinking (as a gay guy) “they would be a very visually-appealing boy band, if it werent for that less than attractive guy off to the side with the receding hairline”. Turns out that was Mike Love this whole time. Hahaha.

Franco del Rosario

that remake of "surfin" sounds like a bad inxs song

Michael Furey

You say nostalgia is for 2 decades ago but you said on Twitter last week the sound of popular music in 2020 is dominated by the sounds of 4 and 5 decades ago

Surf's Up is also an amazing album of theirs from the 70s.

Happy birthday!

Terrifyingly, this is not the worst album I've heard by a past-its-prime act that just jettisoned its most gifted songwriter. That would be "To the Power of 3," by 3, a group consisting of Emerson, Palmer, and a guy who is most certainly not Greg Lake. It even has a terrible cover of a 60s song in it - in this case "Eight Miles High" by the Byrds. Give it a listen if you've ever wanted to TRULY long for death.

maruhkati

This also seems like a good a time as any to bust out my theory of how stuff like Summer in Paradise can ultimately be blamed on George Lucas (No, hear me out.) After the Beach Boys' commercial stock plunged after the collapse of Smile and changing trends, the band responded by making a series of critically acclaimed albums and developing a reputation as a top-flight live act. By 1973, they had reached a point where, while they weren't the pop behemoths they were in the '60s, they were still a perfectly respectable group that was making a lot of new music for a devoted audience. However, that was a also the year a little movie called American Graffiti came out that featured two of the old-timey songs very prominently. Said movie was a massive hit and Capitol Records (which had let most of the band's older catalog drift out of print) responded by slapping together a girls-cars-and-surfing compilation called Endless Summer, and the rest is history...

Kristopher Bluth

Oh God, this record... I’m in the Kokomo is shit camp, gave up on them after that song and didn’t realize they had done anything else. Glad I didn’t miss anything lol. One of my favorite Beach Boys albums is their Live in London 69 one. It is absolutely pop gold. Several of those live versions of their songs have become “the” version in my mind. The version of Do it Again is flawless with much more energy and a swinging horn section. Love’s performance in that song could only be achieved by decades of singing about girls, surfing, and cars. The crowd is also really into the entire show which adds to the feel. That enthusiasm leads to a classic episode of Mike Love being a dick. You can even hear Carl say, “That wasn’t very nice Mike.” I always thought it’s inclusion was inexplicable, surely Love would have had it cut out? Years later after learning about what a prick he was I realized that he thought it was *funny* and probably demanded that it be included. It’s a short, phenomenal album that deserves a listen if you want to hear The Beach Boys at their best.

That said, their '70s stuff really does have a lot to recommend for it. Sure, there's some crap (15 Big Ones and MIU Album), but Sunflower, Holland, and Love You can easily stand alongside Pet Sounds and Smile. Hell, I'll be generous and say that L.A. Light Album was their last gasp before turning into Mike Love's Old-Time Nostalgia Show (Just ignore the disco version of "Here Comes the Night".) Oh, and Pacific Ocean Blue (Dennis' solo album) is fucking magnificent.

Kristopher Bluth

This was basically "OK Boomer: The Album."

Nick Sestanovich

I know it gets said a lot, but I have literally never clicked on a video faster ever.

Kristopher Bluth

Covers that top the originals: Johnny Cash - Hurt Sinead O' Connor - Nothing Compares 2 U Kermit The Frog - Kokomo

Anthony Hansen

“Stamos” is a dirty word to the majority of The Beach Boys community and for good reason. That cover of “Forever” is basically the equivalent of the band whipping their dicks out and pissing all over Dennis’ memory-and the rest of the album is no better. Thank you for giving this the long-overdue reaming it deserved! (Also, minor correction: Dennis died in 1983.)

Christina Lohr

It's like if The Vulture character from Brooklyn 99 released a record when he was 70.

Juan Nunez

On the other hand, very lovely cover art. Such a waste...

Sykonee

As a huge Beach Boys fan, this is one I’ve been waiting for since you started this series.

Tanner McGuire

Now is the perfect time for a Todd video I am watching the heck out of this.

A. Crone

I thought "Summer of LOVE" was THE shit "Kokomo". In hindsight it's "Kokomo" trying to be "So Alive" by Love and Rockets, who themselves were trying to be INXS. So in a nutshell, Mike Love is even worse at being INXS than Pat Monahan was.

Jacqueline Sailer

One had Brian Wilson, the other had John Stamos.

Jacqueline Sailer

A few edit issues - I think the repeat of Brian n Mike interview clips was on purpose in some cases in other spots not so sure... Im sure theres other clips in interviews to make our skin crawl. Maybe even a clip from Love And Mercy to show his dickishness. Also a word near the end got cut off halfway... PS. Soo glad u did this episode. PPS. Summers Gone, the swan song on the Beach Boys last album is incredible. Surely a Brian song. Most of the rest sounds like creepy Mike Love retreads. PPPS. Mike Love is the Trump of music

Taylor Abrahamse

Yes. Yes. YES! This is the worst album I've ever heard! I dream of kicking Mike Love down the steps of a lighthouse. And then kicking him back up again. I'm not saying I'm gonna do that, or that I want that to happen to him, but I think that I could get sponsored to do it. That'll save the environment for sure.

Joe DL

Oh, Matt, it's a TRIP. The story of The Beach Boys is well worth reading up on; find a good biography or breakdown and saddle up. In some very real and very sad ways it's even worse than the story of the Jacksons. Fortunately, Brian Wilson seems to be much better off these days.

Patrick Thatcher

I'm someone who knows basically nothing about the Beach Boys, so this episode was a trip. Abusive *therapist*? What makes Mike Love more of an asshole than Charles Manson? How did the Baywatch thing happen? Also, and I guess this has something to do with why Mike Love is such as asshole, but does he not realise he's being a creepy old man in that Baywatch video

Matt Cramp

Oooooo bold choice. Personally, I feel like the Beach Boys put out like, at least five different Trainwreckords in their career (all of varying qualities) but this is a top tier contender for the worst.

Jacob Witmer

One quick editing issue I spot, the line about how this album was never reissued at 19:36 cuts out about a half second too early

John Stamos in the Beach Boys is like if Drake Bell had joined Aerosmith in the 2000s.

I'll be honest, I'm a late-comer Millennial/borderline Gen Z kid, and before this video "Kokomo" was a song from a Muppets VHS my aunt had when I was 7. Almost feels like there was some magic lost tonight.

Meluieth Box

Fantastic video Todd! Not to nitpick, but at 19:35, you cut yourself off when you say "It was never reissued." Just a heads-up

Sam Frederich

oh my fucking god. *facepalm*

Todd in the Shadows

Yeah there's several editing issues in this video that you might want to go back over. I'm glad you covered this though, it deserves the scorn. Crazy how the same band that released Pet Sounds and Smile could also take a shit like this.

Rolf the Whatever

Todd, I can see you behind the 4:3 footage

Matt Cramp

Wait... Kokomo wasn't a Jimmy Buffett song?

Specter Koen

Exclusive wide screen bug for a Patrons?

All this time, I wanted Todd to do a Trainwreckords on Smiley Smile. Looking back, ever since then the Beach Boys had either had critical success making progressive records and songs that had been ignored, or commercial success making nostalgic dross (and damn right, I include you in that "Kokomo"). This is the next best thing. EDIT: 19:36 What the hell is with that jump cut Todd?

New trainwreckords on my birthday?? Hell yeah, best present ever! (Especially on a very weird quarantined birthday...)

Natalie Koppen

Woo