Old-Time Rock ‘n’ Roll:
How The 1980s Embraced 1950s and 1960s Oldies Music
The Beach Boys
Photo: "Florida Keys" by GR167 is licensed under CC PDM 1.0
The Beach Boys, a huge part of the 1960s music scene, lost quite a bit of their luster during the 1970s and into the early eighties. Drug addiction plagued Brian and Dennis Wilson. Keepin’ the Summer Alive, released in 1980, didn’t survive long on radio airplay and pop charts. Brian Wilson hardly toured with the band. Dennis Wilson passed away 28 December 1983, drowning during a drunken attempt to retrieve items thrown off a boat.
Due to a threat of being fired by the Beach Boys, Brian Wilson began a slow, gradual turnaround. Eugene Landry, a controversial figure in Beach Boys’ history, took control, quite literally, of Brian Wilson, sending him to detox and slimming an obese Wilson down to a healthy body. Wilson joined the band in their recording of The Beach Boys 1985 album. The band had Steve Levine, a hot producer at the time, work on the album to give the band a contemporary eighties sound. The album received praise from some critics. However, Thomas Osborne of The Baltimore Evening Sun felt it didn’t sound like a team effort. He didn’t recommend the albums to those looking for the vintage Beach Boys sound. The album didn’t sell well, so the public may have wanted the sounds of the Beach Boys glory days.
Mike Love and Carl Wilson created their own solo albums during the eighties, but neither had success with their works. Brian Wilson, with prodding from Eugene Landry, decided to create his first solo album. While Wilson worked on his project, the other Beach Boys kept cruising. They created a song called Living Barbie
that sold with the California Dream Barbie doll released in 1988. It may have seemed like a low point for the band but that same year Roger Donaldson asked the group to create a song for his movie, Cocktails, starring Tom Cruise and Elizabeth Shue. The song, written by sixties singers Papa John Phillips and Scott McKenzie, possesses a very catchy, totally Beach Boys harmonious chorus, credited to band member Mike Love, listing Caribbean destinations, with the fictional port Kokomo as the place to rekindle romance. Commercials, such as Make It Jamaica Again
and It’s Better in the Bahamas
aired throughout the decades with catchy jingles luring people to the Caribbean. The song Kokomo
is akin to those travel commercials. The song gave the band their first number one hit since their 1966 tune Good Vibrations.
People say the band wanted Wilson to take part in the song's recording, but Eugene Landy prevented it unless the band granted him a producing credit. Wilson's solo album, titled Brian Wilson didn't produce the same commercial success as Kokomo.
However, it did give Wilson confidence to continue with future solo projects.
With The Beach Boys back in the limelight, the band put together a quick album. Still Cruisin’ contained mostly songs the band made for mid to late eighties movies. Still Cruisin',
the album's title song, and the 1987 band's cover of Wipe Out
with The Fat Boys, are the album’s two other semi-popular tunes, in addition to Kokomo.
Although the Beach Boys ended on a positive note by the end of the 1980s, many truths about the dark side of the band were revealed during the 1990s.