section_path: Legacy/California sound
section_name: California sound
paragraph_text: California sound
  
  Professor of cultural studies James M. Curtis wrote in 1987: "We can say that the Beach Boys represent the outlook and values of white Protestant Anglo-Saxon teenagers in the early sixties. Having said that, we immediately realize that they must mean much more than this. Their stability, their staying power, and their ability to attract new fans prove as much." Cultural historian Kevin Starr explains that the group first connected with young Americans specifically for their lyrical interpretation of a mythologized landscape: "Cars and the beach, surfing, the California Girl, all this fused in the alembic of youth: Here was a way of life, an iconography, already half-released into the chords and multiple tracks of a new sound." In music critic Robert Christgau 's opinion, "the Beach Boys were a touchstone for real rock and rollers, all of whom understood that the music had its most essential roots in an innocently hedonistic materialism".
  
  The group's "California sound" grew to national prominence through the success of their 1963 album Surfin' U.S.A., which helped turn the surfing subculture into a mainstream youth-targeted advertising image widely exploited by the film, television, and food industry. The group's surf music was not entirely of their own invention, being preceded by artists such as Dick Dale. However, previous surf musicians did not project a world view as the Beach Boys did. The band's earlier surf music helped raise the profile of the state of California, creating its first major regional style with national significance, and establishing a musical identity for Southern California, as opposed to Hollywood. California ultimately supplanted New York as the center of popular music thanks to the success of Brian's productions.
  
  A 1966 article discussing new trends in rock music writes that the Beach Boys popularized a type of drum beat heard in Jan and Dean 's " Surf City ", which sounds like "a locomotive getting up speed", in addition to the method of "suddenly stopping in between the chorus and verse". Pete Townshend of the Who is credited with coining the term " power pop ", which he defined as "what we play—what the Small Faces used to play, and the kind of pop the Beach Boys played in the days of 'Fun, Fun, Fun' which I preferred".
  
  The California sound gradually evolved to reflect a more musically ambitious and mature worldview, becoming less to do with surfing and cars and more about social consciousness and political awareness. Between 1964 and 1969, it fueled innovation and transition, inspiring artists to tackle largely unmentioned themes such as sexual freedom, black pride, drugs, oppositional politics, other countercultural motifs, and war. Soft pop (later known as "sunshine pop") derived in part from this movement. Sunshine pop producers widely imitated the orchestral style of Pet Sounds; however, the Beach Boys themselves were rarely representative of the genre, which was rooted in easy-listening and advertising jingles.
  
  By the end of the 1960s, the California sound declined due to a combination of the West Coast's cultural shifts, Wilson's professional and psychological downturn, and the Manson murders, with David Howard calling it the "sunset of the original California Sunshine Sound... sweetness advocated by the California Myth had led to chilling darkness and unsightly rot". Drawing from the Beach Boys' associations with Manson and former California governor Ronald Reagan, Erik Davis remarked: "The Beach Boys may be the only bridge between those deranged poles. There is a wider range of political and aesthetic sentiments in their records than in any other band in those heady times—like the state, they expand and bloat and contradict themselves."
  
  During the 1970s, advertising jingles and imagery were predominately based on the Beach Boys' early music and image. The group also inspired the development of the West Coast style later dubbed " yacht rock ". According to Jacobin ' s Dan O'Sullivan, the band's aesthetic was the first to be "scavenged" by yacht rock acts like Rupert Holmes. O'Sullivan also cites the Beach Boys' recording of "Sloop John B" as the origin of yacht rock's preoccupation with the "sailors and beachgoers" aesthetic that was "lifted by everyone, from Christopher Cross to Eric Carmen, from ' Buffalo Springfield ' folksters like Jim Messina to ' Philly Sound ' rockers like Hall & Oates ".
  
  Professor of cultural studies James M. Curtis wrote in 1987: "We can say that the Beach Boys represent the outlook and values of white Protestant Anglo-Saxon teenagers in the early sixties. Having said that, we immediately realize that they must mean much more than this. Their stability, their staying power, and their ability to attract new fans prove as much." Cultural historian Kevin Starr explains that the group first connected with young Americans specifically for their lyrical interpretation of a mythologized landscape: "Cars and the beach, surfing, the California Girl, all this fused in the alembic of youth: Here was a way of life, an iconography, already half-released into the chords and multiple tracks of a new sound." In music critic Robert Christgau 's opinion, "the Beach Boys were a touchstone for real rock and rollers, all of whom understood that the music had its most essential roots in an innocently hedonistic materialism".
  
  The group's "California sound" grew to national prominence through the success of their 1963 album Surfin' U.S.A., which helped turn the surfing subculture into a mainstream youth-targeted advertising image widely exploited by the film, television, and food industry. The group's surf music was not entirely of their own invention, being preceded by artists such as Dick Dale. However, previous surf musicians did not project a world view as the Beach Boys did. The band's earlier surf music helped raise the profile of the state of California, creating its first major regional style with national significance, and establishing a musical identity for Southern California, as opposed to Hollywood. California ultimately supplanted New York as the center of popular music thanks to the success of Brian's productions.
  
  A 1966 article discussing new trends in rock music writes that the Beach Boys popularized a type of drum beat heard in Jan and Dean 's " Surf City ", which sounds like "a locomotive getting up speed", in addition to the method of "suddenly stopping in between the chorus and verse". Pete Townshend of the Who is credited with coining the term " power pop ", which he defined as "what we play—what the Small Faces used to play, and the kind of pop the Beach Boys played in the days of 'Fun, Fun, Fun' which I preferred".
  
  The California sound gradually evolved to reflect a more musically ambitious and mature worldview, becoming less to do with surfing and cars and more about social consciousness and political awareness. Between 1964 and 1969, it fueled innovation and transition, inspiring artists to tackle largely unmentioned themes such as sexual freedom, black pride, drugs, oppositional politics, other countercultural motifs, and war. Soft pop (later known as "sunshine pop") derived in part from this movement. Sunshine pop producers widely imitated the orchestral style of Pet Sounds; however, the Beach Boys themselves were rarely representative of the genre, which was rooted in easy-listening and advertising jingles.
  
  By the end of the 1960s, the California sound declined due to a combination of the West Coast's cultural shifts, Wilson's professional and psychological downturn, and the Manson murders, with David Howard calling it the "sunset of the original California Sunshine Sound... sweetness advocated by the California Myth had led to chilling darkness and unsightly rot". Drawing from the Beach Boys' associations with Manson and former California governor Ronald Reagan, Erik Davis remarked: "The Beach Boys may be the only bridge between those deranged poles. There is a wider range of political and aesthetic sentiments in their records than in any other band in those heady times—like the state, they expand and bloat and contradict themselves."
  
  During the 1970s, advertising jingles and imagery were predominately based on the Beach Boys' early music and image. The group also inspired the development of the West Coast style later dubbed " yacht rock ". According to Jacobin ' s Dan O'Sullivan, the band's aesthetic was the first to be "scavenged" by yacht rock acts like Rupert Holmes. O'Sullivan also cites the Beach Boys' recording of "Sloop John B" as the origin of yacht rock's preoccupation with the "sailors and beachgoers" aesthetic that was "lifted by everyone, from Christopher Cross to Eric Carmen, from ' Buffalo Springfield ' folksters like Jim Messina to ' Philly Sound ' rockers like Hall & Oates ".