The Beach Boys (CD1, Tk14)
Good Vibrations (1966)

This recording has become the signature sound of surf music. This is, however, far from the truth of what West Coast surf music really was. Surf music is best described as a couple or more acoustic guitarists together in an informal jam. They would pass around a riff and improvise for a considerable time. There were no vocals. It was an instrumental style. However, the movie media pictured surf music as groups playing songs accompanying surfing activities. So the bands that played songs about surfing and the surfing scene became the
new definition.

The Beach Boys recorded this song using all the new gadgets available in the studio at this time. Listen to all the instrumental sounds that were not even available to surf bands at the time. For example, there was a unique instrument called a theremin, played by Paul Tanner, which used electric current to produce sounds. By moving ones hands across the electric field, the sound changed. This recording session was on such a grand scale that it cost $40,000, which was more than any other recording production up to that time. It set a new standard for what could be done in the studio. Producing this track took in excess of 90 hours in the studio and more than 70 hours of recording tape.

One additional factor was that the musicians were trained studio musicians with exceptional technique. This alone raised the bar for future recordings. Many bands at this time had solid players but could not compare with the seasoned session players the Beach Boys used. With all of this, this song still refers to the drug-induced state of the rock and roll scene of the surfers. This is evident in the dreamlike texture in this performance.