Brian mentoned Stevie Wonder as a huge influence on his new music during that
time. I picked up "Songs in the Key Of Life" last year and was amazed on how
fresh and modern this CD still sounded when you past the big hits. Most of the
synth patches sound right up to date with modern hip-hop (what goes around...)

Also around the same time "15 Big Ones" and "Love You" were recorded former
touring Beach Boy Darryl Dragon was scoring hits and winning grammys as the
Captain (of... & Tenille fame) with just synths and live drums. They
released a
bunch of Adult Contemporay pap in 75-6 but I think the huge success they had
might have influenced Brian to attempt the same things with synths.

In Mojo Collecors magazine last year Brian raved about the classic
"Switched On
Bach" album by Wendy Carlos (or Walter on the LP, the guy had a sex change in
the late 70's, wierd but true). 

Billy


At 05:44 PM 8/27/03 +0100, you wrote:
>Stewart Mason wrote:
>>> The Beach Boys Love You?
>>
>> I never thought of this as a punk-influenced album, and I've never
>> seen any indication that the creators did either, though I've also
>> never cared
>> enough about this album to delve too deeply into its genesis.
>
>I don't know that it was necessarily 'punk influenced', but it *DEFINITELY*
>fits in with the music that was being made at that time to quite an
>extraordinary degree... the rawness and back to basics style, the whole DIY
>aesthetic of the album seems to be something that while it may not have been
>influenced by the other music of the time definitely fits in with people
>like Jonathan Richman or Devo or The Ramones - and a lot of punks loved the
>album, notably Patti Smith.
>It also manages to be very innovative even while sounding 'retro' - the use
>of synth bass on the album is quite extraordinary, and the album is probably
>the necessary end point of the moog experiments on every album from
>Sunflower on...
>
>>  And it's  hard for me to use "intelligent" and "Mike Love" in the same
>sentence
>> anyway.
>
>Which is why the Beach Boys album with least Mike Love input out of their
>entire career can be called intelligent ;)
>
>-- 
>http://stealthmunchkin.com
>Stealth Munchkin play the Cavern, Liverpool , Wednesday 15th October
>As part of International Pop Overthrow.
>  
Billy G. Spradlin
http://listen.to/jangleradio