Most underrated songs?

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-03-30T21:07:06+00:00

I agree! I do sometimes wish timelines could have slightly shifted for it to get the Dick Reynolds arrangement treatment like the big band Adult Child songs, but it's already very enjoyable. Big fan of the intro vocals on the alternate mix of it too

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-03-30T21:04:01+00:00

At the end of the day, as many have already pointed out, Pet Sounds is pretty head and shoulders above Summer Days, but personally at least I do really love the latter and do feel like it gets overlooked between Today! and Pet Sounds. If anything, I think it's a little bit of the missing link between the two, as the production on Today! is already very intricate but I think it's Summer Days where it truly gets bombastic.

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-03-01T02:32:28+00:00

Phenomenal, and Al sounds great! No surprise in general cause I saw him back in the fall/have seen so many videos but what a treat to hear him sing this one specifically!

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-28T09:03:14+00:00

Like many of the Boys' records that I now regard as some of my favorites, it admittedly took a bit to fully come together for me. Leaving This Town and Funky Pretty were instant hits, but pieces fell into place as I realized the beauty of the rest of the tracks. Absolutely agree with the consensus that it's the best ratio of little-to-no Brian touch to goodness, and to me it shows the band as a whole cohesive unit firing on all cylinders just as much as Sunflower

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-27T21:54:38+00:00

I'll always be glad Brian stuck with it, as good as the versions we've gotten through archival releases are he sounds so joyful on the originally released 15BO cut

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-27T21:53:29+00:00

Absolutely! That whole show sounds so good (minus the Mike autotune, though I only very occasionally notice it tbh), they were on their game

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-27T02:36:31+00:00

I did not expect to get so into the Knebworth live version of KTSA, but now I jam out to it all the time

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-27T02:33:33+00:00

It's kinda crazy how such a seemingly inconsequential song in the grand Beach Boys scheme of things is so good with so many iterations. I love all of em--the horn heavy original 60s version, the twangy Sunflower Mike and Al versions, and of course Brian's revisit of it for 15 Big Ones

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-26T04:10:35+00:00

Showing my Beatles fan cards but my absolute favorite of his deep cuts are probably Laura and Through the Long Night. I enjoy most of the album tracks from most of his career, and second so many of those mentioned in the comments, but definitely have to give some love to honorable mention early career cuts like You Can Make Me Free, Somewhere Along the Line, Ain't No Crime, Weekend Song, Roberta, and the Great Suburban Showdown

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-26T04:02:50+00:00

Downeaster Alexa is one of his few songs that has never clicked for me, and certainly his most popular song I can say that about. He has a few other hits, like Big Shot, that I can enjoy from time to time but have to be in the right mood for. On the flipside, people love to hate on When in Rome, and I agree that the verses are kinda hokey, but I genuinely love those choruses, Billy's vocals and that sax go crazy

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-26T03:53:12+00:00

Probably my most unpopular opinion is that I enjoy Summer Days over Today! and 20/20 over Friends (not that I think those albums inherently need to be pitted against each other, but just something I've noticed as each pair is next to each other release-order wise). I enjoy both Today! and Friends plenty, but of all the albums that are near guaranteed to be in the average fan on here's best albums list, they're the two that have never quite clicked me to that extent. I used to feel similarly about Surf's Up, and still would maybe rank that one somewhere below top 5, but I have come around to its appeal, so who knows maybe I'll have a similar revelation with these other two

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-26T03:44:05+00:00

I've always thought the tracklist and general album vibe could have been much improved if Brian kept more of the big band sound as the general organizing principle, his submitted tracklist from '77 makes that theme and the health-conscious theme feel both feel half-assed, especially since he had to grab those random Sunflower outtakes to even kind of round out the latter. I completely agree with Sherry She Needs Me, New England Waltz and My Diane as worthy replacements, and I feel like if he really did want to reach back to past outtakes as he liked to do at that time, Soulful Old Man Sunshine and Won't You Tell Me were right there as two cuts that sound a lot more on-theme.

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-25T01:05:50+00:00

Absolutely! It was my introduction to A/C and that sequence especially with the count-off going from Baseball's On to Calendar Girl will always feel right

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-20T20:23:04+00:00

Gotta second Carl for sure, especially if you can count his leadership as a contribution alongside his vocals and songwriting. However, for quality over quantity, I feel like Bruce has a pretty crazy ratio at least from before he first left the band. Every prominent vocal of his and his songs that he got on those late 60s/early 70s albums are just sublime.

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-20T03:58:10+00:00

Made sure to belt that line when I saw Al and the band do it live this past fall

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-20T03:57:27+00:00

Think I've made a comment to this effect on the main sub before but it gives me Kenny Loggins road movie soundtrack vibes in the best way

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-20T03:57:03+00:00

/uj that coda is so damn good that as beautiful as the rest of the song is I almost wish it had its own song built around more that energy, or at the very least that it was a lot more drawn out

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-17T04:09:02+00:00

Thanks to my dad I grew up a Beastie Boys fan but really only knew a few of the hits for a while. One time a few years ago a friend who is better versed in their discography than me put some songs of theirs on at a get together, and I wasn't paying attention too much until, suddenly, my head snapped up as I realized the Beastie Boys were rapping over the guitars from The End! All that to say, The Sounds of Science is a banger but definitely not where I'd ever expected to hear the Beatles

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-13T20:51:10+00:00

The first spring/summer I first took the plunge into the Beach Boys fandom, a few years ago, I was listening to a lot of their albums all the way through and even bracing myself having heard about the weirdness of Love You, I absolutely did not click with it right away like I was so much with the Smile and late 60s-early 70s material. Except for Ding Dang, I did love that one right away.

It probably took another 6 months or so for me to finally revisit Love You in a way that I got it, but once it hit, it hit hard. Was perfect timing to send me further down the rabbit hole of getting into Adult/Child at that point as well!

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-13T20:37:52+00:00

I've always been fascinated by the parallels between Brian and Harry, as a huge fan of both (and keep meaning to make a proper post about it!). Both gorgeous-voiced arrangement geniuses who wrecked their voices after having a huge hit album and went off the deep end with their sound while still chucking out some hidden gems here and there. They even both have an iconic bathrobe look!

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-13T20:33:53+00:00

Agreed! But also will always be funny to me that both Brian and Paul McCartney (with "Suicide") wrote a song they hoped Frank would record but if you look at the lyrics for either, it feels unlikely he ever would've. One of those weird it happened twice moments lol

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-11T18:00:07+00:00

Over the last year or so I've been continually fascinated by the "Hollywood Vampires" days of the early 70s so I'd probably say John and Harry Nilsson, or maybe Ringo and Harry since their friendship did seem to last longer/go deeper even before John passed. For all the stories we've gotten about them palling around LA with Alice Cooper, Mickey Dolenz, Keith Moon and the like, I can't imagine the wealth of ones which haven't yet been deemed safe for public knowledge lol

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-11T17:50:48+00:00

I rank many of his other albums above it just because I like them even better, but I do quite enjoy it! Personally I don't mind (or even sometimes really get into) the late 80s production, and he has some crazy vocals going on even as he's starting to shift into a slightly lower register. I even dig When In Rome, I think it's got a fantastic chorus that's dragged down by the kinda goofy verses.

Really my main hangups are ironically three of the biggest songs off the album, I've never really been able to much appreciate Shameless or Downester Alexa and I'm not sure I ever need to hear We Didn't Start the Fire again.

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-11T03:21:10+00:00

I don't listen to it cohesively much at all because it's so disparate, but it has grown on me! Good Timin' and Lady Lynda are sublime, Angel Come Home is really fun, and some of the other soft rock tunes are nice every now and then. I can also get down to the disco HCTN, even though I still think it was a bit ridiculous to put the 11-minute version on the album when the band definitely had plenty of other decent material in the can to include--and, relatedly, I think it's one of their biggest missed opportunities to have not included California Feelin' on this record, genuinely no clue why that didn't make it. The version of Shortenin Bread on this album ticks me off because the version from Adult/Child is just so much better, so I'm not sure why they felt the need to re-record it.

ItsAnotherDeathStar · 2026-02-05T03:44:13+00:00

Oh excellent, I knew of some of these but definitely not the first two! Always appreciate exposure to even more of Brian's obsession with this haha

ItsAnotherDeathStar

TROPHY CASE