Introduction
1. Harmony and Discord
2. Cars and Guitars
3. Suburbs and Surf
4. Studio and Stage
5. Fathers, Shrinks, and Gurus
6. Girlfriends, Wives, and Mothers
7. When Did the Early Sixties End?
8. Jan and Dean
9. Innocence and the Second-Best Pop Album Ever
10. Hip and White
11. The Best Unreleased Pop Album Ever
12. The Beatles
13. Into the Genres
14. Dennis
15. Carl
16. Al, Bruce, and David
17. Mike
18. Brian Solo
19. Storytellers, Historians, and Fans
20. Summer’s Gone, the Endless Summer
Epilogue: Suggestions
Acknowledgments
Notes
Discography
A Chronological Listing of DVDs
Mentioned in the Book
Bibliography
Tom Smucker has written rock criticism for Creem, Fusion, Rolling Stone, and the Village Voice.
Why the Beach Boys Matter provides an excellent introduction to the
band that might have evolved, Smucker suggests, into the Beatles…We
were ready to abandon the Beach Boys. Now, with Smucker's book, we
can reconnect to them.
*New York Journal of Books*
Smucker's book on Why The Beach Boys Matter tells us exactly that,
and quite evocatively.
*Critics At Large*
It's a pretty tall order to tell the Beach Boys' oft-confusing,
decades-long history in a 176-page, 5" x 7" book, but Tom Smucker
does an admirable job in Why the Beach Boys Matter.
*Comics Worth Reading*
Smucker is a long-time fan of the Beach Boys, and his passionate
defense of their importance is carefully thought out…Why The Beach
Boys Matter packs a lot of content into a short volume. Smucker
does an excellent job summarizing the Beach Boys' long career,
examining their influences and their place in American pop
culture.
*Mark My Words*
Rather than land on a single thesis in answer to the book’s title,
Smucker gives the reader myriad starting points for determining why
the Beach Boys matter...While the rhizomatic nature of the book’s
short, chronologically nonlinear chapters may frustrate some
academic readers, others will find that the structure is a perfect
metaphor for the answer to the problem posed by the book’s title.
There is a multiplicity of reasons for the importance of the Beach
Boys, musically and historically, and to say otherwise for the sake
of a central thesis would be to attempt to insert an intellectual
square into an intellectual circle...the arguments...[are] just
right.
*Journal of Popular Culture*
[Why the Beach Boys Matter] is one of the great books for anybody
who likes to think about pop music (or the USA). Smucker
efficiently shares fresh sociocultural thinking right along with
answering the crucial "but is it good listening?" questions.
*Rock Critics*
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