To catch a wave : The Beach Boys and rock historiography

Abstract

From the release of their first single “Surfin’” in 1961 to the release of the album Pet Sounds in 1966, rock history traces the arc of the American rock group the Beach Boys in broad terms of the early-sixties Southern California surf music trend and the revolutionary effects of the Beatles’ stateside arrival in 1964. Typical claims for progress, autonomy, the significance of the album, and myths of authenticity in the study of the emergence of the rock concept, however, tend to promote an essentialist understanding of what rock music is about and what it is for. This study proposes an alternative narrative in which the regulating dichotomies of rock—art versus commerce, seriousness versus schlock, the authentic versus the inauthentic— are historicized, in the case of the Beach Boys’ transition from surf band to a complex studio recording project, as matters of creative practice and conflicting sensibilities. Questioning the conventional wisdom of rock history, this project suggests a counter-story about the significance of creative achievement, failure, and advancement