Beach Boys vs. The Beatles Synthesis

The first chapter of De Forest's work of non-fiction entitled Beach Boys vs. Beatlemania: Rediscovering Sixties Music, is ambitious in scope. Within this chapter the author attempts to reconstruct the context of the Beach Boys' career as it took place in a zeitgeist that spanned from the early 60s to the end of the 1980s (De Forest, 2007, p. 2). His main argument is that the Beach Boys created an indelible imprint on both popular music and on popular culture. He does not argue that they spawned rock and roll, but that they helped to reshape it into the format that a number of other bands in the 60's typified.

In chapter four, De Forest attempts to explicate the popularity of the Beatles. He does so from a binary perspective that both includes the band's popularity during the 1960's and the almost mythic status that they have enjoyed ever since their untimely breakup in 1970. In providing this explanation, the author makes it quite clear that their approbation is not as deserved as that which he believes the Beach Boys are worthy of having. Essentially, he attributes their success in the 1960's to savvy marketing and management, as well as their ability to mimic trends. Their legacy, meanwhile, was solidified by their early breakup which rendered them unassailable -- particularly for those still marketing their music.

The seventh chapter allows De Forest an opportunity to fully flesh out his primary theme for this work -- a comparison between the efforts of the Beatles and the Beach Boys, which primarily favors the latter. A good deal of this chapter details the reasons that the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds was an adequate response to the musical stylings and ubiquity of Rubber Sould, which was released by the The Beatles. Still, the author points out that for the immediate time afterwards, the Beatles were able to trump the Beach Boys with the relatively rapid release of Revolver, which certainly bested Rubber Soul in the process.

Chapter 8 functions very similarly to the preceding chapter. However, the two bodies of work that the author compares in this chapter are Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Smile,...

Due to the fact that Smile was not released during the 1960's, De Forest is able to romanticize and even mythologize the projected impact that it would have. However, he is also able to discuss the very real impact that the foregoing work from the Beatles produced. At the time it was released, this album perhaps did more to solidify the band's reputation -- while embracing the countercultural elements of rock and roll -- than any others at the time.
In the ninth chapter, the author makes a point of comparing the legacy of the Beach Boys to that of the Beatles. This comparison is critical to the overall theme of this book. Moreover, there are vital points of distinction in those legacies. Multiple members of the Beatles have died; their last recordings took place decades before some of those deaths. Because of the finality of their sundering (which was reinforced by the aforementioned fatalities), the legacy of the Beatles is well protected and based on their work when they were young men. The situation is contrasted with the legacy of the Beach Boys, who recorded for much longer.

Highlights

One of the most salient highlights of the first chapter is the impact that the Beach Boys had. Listeners who gravitated towards their music in the final decade of the last century and in the early ones of this century likely did not know that the feel good, pop-friendly music of this group was even categorized as rock and roll, let alone influential to all of the many rock groups that appeared after the Beach Boys. Furthermore, the fact that there were at least three brothers in this group is another little known fact among listeners who missed the group's heyday (De Forest, 2007, p. 2). This fact is important and helps to link this group to other popular family affairs, such as the Jackson 5.

The most notable facet of the fourth chapter is the value De Forest attributes to the fact that the Beatles were torn asunder while they were still in their prime. This idea is an important one which is readily echoed through art -- in other forms of music, poetry, and in the visual arts as well. The end of the…