NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Good Vibrations

"Good Vibrations" is a pop single produced by Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys. The song was composed by Brian Wilson (music) with lyrics by Wilson and Mike Love. For popular forms of music in general, see Popular music. ... A collection of various CD singles In music, a single is a short recording of one or more separate tracks. ... In the music industry, a record producer (or music producer) has many roles, among them controlling the recording sessions, coaching and guiding the musicians, organizing and scheduling production budget and resources, and supervising the recording, mixing and mastering processes. ... Brian Douglas Wilson (born June 20, 1942 in Hawthorne, California), is an American pop musician, best known as the lead songwriter, bassist, and lead singer of the American rock band The Beach Boys. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Michael Edward Love (born March 15, 1941 in Los Angeles, California) is an American singer and songwriter who was one of the lead singers and lyric writers of The Beach Boys. ...

Released as a single on October 10, 1966 (backed with the Pet Sounds instrumental "Let's Go Away For Awhile"), it was the band's third U.S. number-one hit, after "I Get Around" and "Help Me, Rhonda", reaching the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in December 1966, as well as being their first British chart-topper. October 10 is the 283rd day of the year (284th in leap years). ... 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1966 calendar). ... Pet Sounds is a 1966 album recorded by American pop group the Beach Boys. ... Lets Go Away For Awhile is a song by the American pop band The Beach Boys, taken from their classic 1966 album Pet Sounds. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Help Me, Rhonda is a song written by Brian Wilson and his cousin Mike Love. ... The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. ...

Significance

Brian Wilson's publicist Derek Taylor described "Good Vibrations" as a "pocket symphony," probably in reference to its multiple thematic segments and highly varied instrumentation.^{[citation needed]} It featured instruments unusual for a pop song, including prominent use of the cello as well as an Ondes Martenot, an instrument similar to the theremin. The song "Good Vibrations" is part of the The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll list.^[1] Brian Douglas Wilson (born June 20, 1942 in Hawthorne, California), is an American pop musician, best known as the lead songwriter, bassist, and lead singer of the American rock band The Beach Boys. ... Derek Taylor (1932-1997) is best known as the press agent for the hugely popular rock band, The Beatles. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... The violoncello, almost always abbreviated to cello, or cello (the c is pronounced as the ch in cheese), is a bowed stringed instrument, the lowest-sounding member of the violin family. ... Ondes martenot demonstrated by inventor Maurice Martenot The Ondes Martenot (or Ondes-Martenot or Ondes martenot or Ondium Martenot or Martenot or ondes musicale) is an early electronic musical instrument with a keyboard and slide invented in 1928 by Maurice Martenot, and originally very similar in sound to the Theremin. ... LÃ©on Theremin playing an early theremin The theremin (originally pronounced but often anglicized as [1]), or thereminvox, is one of the earliest fully electronic musical instruments. ... The Rock and Roll Hall of Fames 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll is based on the permanent exhibit of the same name. ...

Composition

The genesis of the phrase/title "Good Vibrations" has been recounted by Wilson on numerous occasions, including his 1995 biopic, I Just Wasn't Made for These Times. When he was a child, his mother told him that dogs could pick up "vibrations" from people, so that the dog would bark at "bad vibrations". Wilson turned this into the general idea of vibrations (and Mike Love putting "good" in front of vibrations), and developed the idea of people being able to do the same with emotions.

Lyrics

Wilson first enlisted the help of Pet Sounds lyricist Tony Asher for help in putting words to the idea. Soon after they met, Brian asked his new writing partner Van Dyke Parks to pen lyrics for the song, but Parks declined. Van Dyke Parks (born January 3, 1943) is an American composer, arranger, producer, musician, singer and actor noted for his collaborations with Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys on the song Heroes and Villains and the recently released cult-legend album, Smile. ...

Beach Boys frontman and bandmate Mike Love supplied the final version of the lyrics around August 24 1966.

According to Brian Wilson, when he re-recorded "Good Vibrations" for his 2004 version of SMiLE, his wife, Melinda, suggested he use the original lyrics written by Tony Asher. From Mike Love's lyrics, he kept just the opening line, "I, I love the colorful clothes she wears," and the chorus, "I'm pickin' up good vibrations, she's giving me excitations ..." SMiLE is a solo album by Brian Wilson, with lyrics by Van Dyke Parks, that is a revised and completed version of a legendary unfinished album project by his former band, The Beach Boys. ...

Recording

Originally composed during the Pet Sounds sessions with original lyrics by Tony Asher, Wilson recorded the song in sections, at different studios in order to capture the sound he heard in his head. Building upon the layered production approach he had begun to use with the Pet Sounds album, Wilson devoted months of effort to this single track. Tony Asher was a lyricist who co-wrote much of the Beach Boys album Pet Sounds in cunjunction with frontman Brian Wilson in 1966. ...

The first version of the song was recorded on February 17, 1966. It was described in the session log as #1 Untitled (or as Good, Good, Good Vibrations), though on the tape Brian Wilson distinctly says "Good Vibrations, Take One". After 26 takes, a rough mono mix completed the session. Rough guide vocals are recorded the following day. By February 25, Wilson placed the recording on hold in order to devote attention to the Pet Sounds album. The track was to be revisited on May 24 1966, and worked on (with Asher's lyrics) until June 18, at which time he put it aside again until August 24. The various sections were edited together in a sort of musical collage, similar to The Beatles' later "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "A Day in the Life" records, both inspired by the works of Brian Wilson (according to Paul McCartney). Sound collage is the production of songs, musical compositions, or recordings using portions, or samples, of previously made recordings. ... The Beatles were an English rock band from Liverpool whose members were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. ... Strawberry Fields Forever is a 1967 song recorded by The Beatles. ... A Day in the Life is a song composed by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and recorded by The Beatles for their album Sgt. ... Sir James Paul McCartney MBE (born June 18, 1942) is an iconic Grammy Award-winning English singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who first gained worldwide fame as one of the founding members of the Beatles. ...

The distinctive "woo woo" sound in the choruses and at the end of the record was created with an electro-theremin, played by Paul Tanner. First used by Wilson on the track "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times", the device effectively creates a sonic representation of those mysterious vibrations of the title. Image File history File links Beach_Boys_-_Good_Vibrations. ... Software development stages In computer programming, development stage terminology expresses how the development of a piece of software has progressed and how much further development it may require. ... The Electro-Theremin aka Tannerin is a unique electronic musical instrument developed by trombonist Paul Tanner and amateur inventor Bob Whitsell in the late 1950s. ... Paul Tanner (born October 15, 1917) is an American musician. ...

The production of the song is reported to have spanned seventeen recording sessions at four different recording studios, and used over 90 hours of tape, with an eventual budget of $50,000. Wilson is credited with developing the use of the recording studio as an instrument: he, the Beach Boys, and dozens of top studio musicians, including members of The Wrecking Crew, recorded and re-recorded seemingly unrelated musical and vocal sections for the song, then edited and mixed these sections into a 3:35 pop single. The Wrecking Crew was a nickname given to a group of session musicians in Los Angeles, California who earned wide acclaim in the 1960s. ...

The recording and production style used on the "Good Vibrations" single established Wilson's new method of operation: the recording and re-recording of specific sections of music, followed by rough mixes of the sections edited together, further recording as required, and the construction of the final mix from the component elements. This was the modular approach to recording that was next to be used on SMiLE. Smile is perhaps the most famous unreleased rock and roll album of all time. ...

David Leaf, author of the critically-acclaimed biography, The Beach Boys and The California Myth, said of the song, "Nothing but perfection here. The Beach Boys' first million-selling #1 hit...was a major technical breakthrough...the record that showed that anything was possible in the studio."

Incidentally, there has never been an official release of a true stereo version of the well-known version of the song, although bootlegs of this mix have been issued over the internet. It has been said that not enough stems exist to actually create a new stereo mix. However, a stereo version of the instrumental backing track does exist and was issued in 2006 on the 40th Anniversary EP CD of the "Good Vibrations" single.

Albums

Inspired by the success of the song and the positive reaction to Pet Sounds, and wanting to top The Beatles' recently-released Revolver album, Wilson and lyricist Van Dyke Parks embarked on the SMiLE project, intended as an entire album using the writing and production techniques devised for "Good Vibrations." A legendary failure, that album was never released as Wilson spiraled into depression, drug use, and paranoia; several tracks salvaged from those sessions were re-recorded in greatly simplified versions for the Smiley Smile album instead, on which "Good Vibrations" made its first LP appearance. In 2004, a re-recorded version of SMiLE was finally completed by Wilson and Parks, with Wilson's touring band in place of the other Beach Boys and studio musicians. It was released in September of that year, to widespread critical acclaim. The Beatles were an English rock band from Liverpool whose members were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. ... Revolver is the Beatles seventh album, released on August 5, 1966. ... Van Dyke Parks (born January 3, 1943) is an American composer, arranger, producer, musician, singer and actor noted for his collaborations with Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys on the song Heroes and Villains and the recently released cult-legend album, Smile. ... Smile is perhaps the most famous unreleased rock and roll album of all time. ... Smiley Smile is an infamous album by The Beach Boys, issued in 1967. ... shelby was here 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... SMiLE is a solo album by Brian Wilson, with lyrics by Van Dyke Parks, that is a revised and completed version of a legendary unfinished album project by his former band, The Beach Boys. ...

Chart position/sales

According to Badman, the single sold over 230,000 copies in the first four days of its release, and entered the Cash Box chart at number six on October 22nd.

Critical response

Both the New Musical Express and Melody Maker gave positive reviews at the time of the single's release.

Praise was not universal, however, and Pete Townshend of The Who was quoted at the time as saying "'Good Vibrations' was probably a good record but who's to know? You had to play it about 90 bloody times to even hear what they were singing about", and feared that the single would lead to over-produced records in general. Peter Dennis Blandford (Pete) Townshend (born May 19, 1945 in Chiswick, London), is an award winning English rock guitarist, singer, songwriter, and composer. ... It has been suggested that Bob Pridden be merged into this article or section. ...

"Good Vibrations" earned The Beach Boys a Grammy nomination for Best Vocal Group performance in 1966 and the song was eventually inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1994. It has featured highly in many 'Top 100 Records of All Time' charts and was voted #1 in the Mojo Top 100 Records of All Time chart in 1997. Rolling Stone magazine ranked "Good Vibrations" as the sixth best song of all time. The song was also voted #24 in the RIAA and NEA's listing of Songs of the Century. Grammy Award statuette The Grammy Awards, presented by the Recording Academy (an association of Americans professionally involved in the recorded music industry) for outstanding achievements in the recording industry, is one of four major music awards shows held annually in the United States (the Billboard Music Awards, the American Music... The Grammy Hall of Fame Award is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old and that have qualitative or historical significance. Alphabetical listing by title: List of Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients A-D List of Grammy Hall... This article is about the magazine. ... The Songs of the Century list is part of an education project by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the National Endowment for the Arts, and Scholastic Inc. ...

40th anniversary single

In celebration of its 40th year, the Good Vibrations: 40th Anniversary Edition single was released. The single includes five versions of "Good Vibrations" including:

Except as indicated, all tracks are in mono. Rarities is a Beach Boys compilation album which was released in 1983 under Capitol Records record company. ...

Cultural references

In 1978 the song was used as a jingle for the introduction of Sunkist orange soda in New York and by 1981 Sunkist Orange Soda had become the No. 1 orange soda and the No. 10 best selling soft drink in the USA, not only because of its taste, but also because of "Good Vibrations" - "The Sunkist Taste Sensation". A jingle is a memorable slogan, set to an engaging melody, mainly broadcast on radio and sometimes on television commercials. ... Sunkist is the name of a brand of orange-flavored soft drink launched in 1977. ...

In 1999, National Public Radio included the song in the "NPR 100," in which NPR's music editors sought to compile the one hundred most important American musical works of the 20th century. â€œNPRâ€ redirects here. ...

It was also featured in the 1989 "The Wonder Years" episode "Summer Song". This article needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone and/or spelling. ...

The tune of the song has also been featured in an advertisement in Australia and Canada for The Good Guys Discount Warehouses Company with the slogan, "Come in and see the good good good guys, pay cash and we'll slash the prices".

The song was played during Glyn Wise's audition tape on Big Brother UK series 7. Following is a list of the 22 housemates that participated in the seventh series of Big Brother UK, in alphabetical order. ... Big Brother UK series 7, broadcast in 2006, is the seventh season of Big Brother in the UK, a reality show shown on Channel 4 in which a number of contestants live an isolated existence in a purpose-built house who try to avoid being evicted by public vote, with...

The song was referenced on "The Drew Carey Show" in the episode "Never Been to Spain". Lewis and Oswald took up jobs as airport security screeners. When a gentleman set off the metal detector, he told them of a metal plate in his head. Lewis demonstrated this to a confused Oswald by holding a hand-held metal detector to the man's head. Of course, Lewis got silly and used the wand to make funny noises... the last of which resembled the sound of the electro-theremin and they began to sing along. The Drew Carey Show was a long-running American sitcom (set in Cleveland, Ohio) that aired on ABC from 1995 to 2004 and was known for its everyman characters and themes. ...

The song was also used in the 2001 Tom Cruise movie Vanilla Sky. Tom Cruise (born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV on July 3, 1962) is an Academy Award-nominated, Golden Globe Award-winning American actor and film producer. ... Vanilla Sky is a 2001 film which has been variously characterized by published film critics as an odd mixture of science fiction, romance, and reality warp [2], part Beautiful People fantasy, part New Age investigation of the Great Beyond[3] a love story, a struggle for the soul, or an...

The song was used in the last scene in the film before the credits in the 2007 comedy Wild Hogs where William H. Macy's character gets his "come-uppance" (he smashes into things with his bike) and everybody else in the Wild Hogs gang gets hit with a surfboard and hits them he laughs and the song and the film ends. Wild Hogs is a 2007 Biker Comedy film movie starring John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence, and William H. Macy. ... Image:William h macy. ...

The song was used at the beginning of the movie "Vegas Vacation". Vegas Vacation is part of the National Lampoon series centering around the Griswold family. ...

The song was sampled briefly by The Microphones on the song "Florida Beach" from the album Don't Wake Me Up

The song was rerecorded by Gym Class Heroes on The Road Mix: Music From The Television Series One Tree Hill, Vol. 3, as well as featured in the fourth season in episode 18 "The Runaway Found" catchy as the original recording but with a more urban twist to it it brings the song into 2007. Gym Class Heroes is a hip hop band from Geneva, New York. ...

The song is part of a code for the signal jamming system in The Looking Glass station on the show Lost. On the American television show Lost, the fictional DHARMA Initiative has built several research stations on islands located somewhere in the South Pacific. ... Lost is an Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning serial drama television series that follows the lives of a group of plane crash survivors on a mysterious tropical island, somewhere in the South Pacific. ...

Winchester Cathedral is a song released in late 1966, whereupon it shot to the #1 spot on the Billboard Top 11 Hits. ... The New Vaudeville Band was a group created by songwriter Geoff Stephens in 1966 to record his novelty composition Winchester Cathedral, a song inspired by the dance bands of the 1920s. ... The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. ... This is a list of number-one hits in the United States by year from the Billboard Hot 100. ... December 10 is the 344th day (345th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, 21 days before the next year. ... 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1966 calendar). ... Im a Believer is a song composed by Neil Diamond, recorded by the band The Monkees in 1966. ... The Monkees were a pop-rock quartet created and based in Los Angeles in 1965 for an NBC American television series of the same name. ... Reach Out Ill Be There (also formatted as Reach Out (Ill Be There)) is a 1966 hit song recorded by The Four Tops for the Motown label. ... The Four Tops are an American musical group, who helped define the Motown sound of the 1960s. ... This is a list of the number one hits in the UK Singles Chart, from its inception in 1952 to the present. ... 17 November is also the name of a Marxist group in Greece, coinciding with the anniversary of the Athens Polytechnic uprising. ... 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1966 calendar). ... Green Green Grass of Home is a country song which Tom Jones made popular in 1966 and since then has it been a popular cover song which Elvis Presley recorded 1975 and was one of his favorite songs. ... Sir Thomas Jones Woodward, KBE (born 7 June 1940), known by his stage name as Tom Jones, is a Grammy Award winning Welsh popular music singer particularly noted for his powerful voice. ...

References

External links

Categories: Articles with unsourced statements since April 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | 1966 songs | The Beach Boys songs | Grammy Hall of Fame Awards | Brian Wilson songs | Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles | Todd Rundgren songs | Psychedelic songs Smiley Smile is an infamous album by The Beach Boys, issued in 1967. ... Heroes and Villains is the title of a song co-written by Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys and Van Dyke Parks. ... Vegetables (or Vega-Tables) is a song written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks for the American pop band The Beach Boys. ... Fall Breaks And Back To Winter (Woody Woodpecker Symphony) is a song written by Brian Wilson for the American pop band The Beach Boys. ... Shes Goin Bald is a song written by Brian Wilson, Van Dyke Parks and Mike Love for the American pop band The Beach Boys. ... Little Pad is a song written by Brian Wilson for the American pop band The Beach Boys. ... With Me Tonight is a song written by Brian Wilson for the American pop band The Beach Boys. ... Wind chimes or Aeolian chimes are hollow or solid metal or wooden tubes which are usually hung outside of a building and are intended to be played by the wind, which causes the chimes to strike each other or a metal, wood, or rubber ball which may be hung in... Gettin Hungry is a song written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love for the American pop band The Beach Boys. ... Wonderful is a song written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks for the American pop band The Beach Boys. ... Whistle In is a song written by Brian Wilson for the American pop band The Beach Boys. ...

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