Chrisedge

vs.


The Beach Boys Albums:
Surfin' Safari (1962)
Surfin' USA (1963)
Surfer Girl (1963)
Little Deuce Coupe (1963)
Shut Down Volume 2 (1964)
All Summer Long (1964)
The Beach Boys' Christmas Album (1964)
Today! (1965)
Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) (1965)
Beach Boys' Party! (1965)
Pet Sounds (1966)
Smiley Smile (1967)
Wild Honey (1967)
Friends (1968)
Stack-O-Tracks (1968)
20/20 (1969)
Sunflower (1970)
Surf's Up (1971)
Carl and the Passions - "So Tough" (1972)
Holland (1973)
15 Big Ones (1976)
Love You (1977)
M.I.U. Album (1978)
L.A. (Light Album) (1979)
Keepin' the Summer Alive (1980)
The Beach Boys (1985)
Still Cruisin' (1989)
Summer in Paradise (1992)
Stars and Stripes Vol. 1 (1996)

The Doors Albums
1967 – The Doors
1967 – Strange Days
1968 – Waiting for the Sun
1969 – The Soft Parade
1970 – Morrison Hotel
1971 – L.A. Woman
1971 – Other Voices
1972 – Full Circle
1978 – An American Prayer

The Beach Boys have more, but are The Doors just better? Is "God Only Knows" better than "The End"? Discuss...

Previous battles of the bands:

Battle #1: Led Zeppelin Vs. The Who

Battle #2: REM Vs. U2

Battle #3: Ramones vs. The Clash

Battle #4: Bob Dylan vs. David Bowie

Mike86

For me The Beach Boys but that's mostly because I consider The Doors to be completely overrated. Pet Sounds is better than anything The Doors ever did in my opinion.

Supermallet

Wow, this one is tough. The Beach Boys have a much bigger catalog, but so much of it is forgettable filler. At the same time, Pet Sounds and Smile (the unreleased album, not Smiley Smile) are two of the best albums of all time. However, by 1974 The Beach Boys had long overstayed their welcome and made some truly awful music.

The Doors are a love/hate thing for me. I think that Jim Morrison was insufferably pretentious, but the group still managed to make some good music (the first album, Morrison Hotel, and LA Women especially). Their worst music is probably pretty close to The Beach Boys worst music, but not quite as bad. The group's insistence to continue performing under the name with different singers and ruining the memory of any of the good music the band made doesn't help their case either.

In the end, I'd have to go with The Beach Boys, because the height of their creativity tops the height of The Doors', even if The Doors never sunk as low as The Beach Boys did later. I do think that neither are at the top of the musical heap, though. Really uneven careers from both bands.

Sonny Corinthos

The Doors.

Cardsfan111

The Beach Boys. Favorites of my dad, so listened to them quite a bit while growing up.

Groucho

Beach Boys by a light year.

Sessa17

This one isn't even close. Beach Boys by a mile. The Doors are one of the most overrated bands of all-time exceeded by the mythos of Morrison far exaggerating their talent or catalogue.

The Antipodean

I thought the Doors were awesome. When I was 18. Now I find some of their tunes enjoyable, but an awful lot of embarassing nonsense (if anyone over 20 can listen to "The End" without cracking up, more power to you).

For Pet Sounds alone, I'll go Beach Boys, even if they did record "Kokomo."

Falc04

um, yeah...these two bands never did anything for me

statcat

another weird pairing, I like the doors and own all their stuff but even I know Brian Wilson and the beach boys are way beyond them musically.

Ky-Fi

Not a big fan of either, and don't really know the catalog of either that well. I never really cared for the Beach Boys vocal sound, and there are a couple of Doors songs I love, so I guess I'd have to go with them.

Supermallet

If you want to hear a Doors song done better than anything the band ever did, hear "The End" by Nico. Fucking scary.

JasonF

This seems like such an apples and oranges comparison. The Doors are what got me into music in the first place, so I'm going to have to go with them. But it's not all nostalgia. For all of Morrison's pretension, they had some damned good songs. And that funky riff from Peace Frog is one of the greatest riffs ever.

RagingBull80

Jim Morrison was a great poet but Brian Wilson is a fucking GENIUS. The Beach Boys win this by miles and miles.

Pet Sounds is one of the greatest albums of all time but I don't see how you can say that Smile is also one of the greatest. I know that stuff from the Smile sessions has been heavily bootlegged and a lot of it has been legitimately released but I don't see how it could be called a great album. It without a doubt would have been a great album but for some reason (and of course this is just my opinion) I don't think without the finished recordings and proper sequencing that it could be called a "great" album. Had the album been completely finished and then put on the shelf and never released at the time, then I could see it being referred to as a great album. Until Brian put a final stamp on it I don't consider it finished and therefore can't be properly judged.

I'm not trying to downplay the greatness of the Smile recordings but I don't think it should be judged with the rest of their recordings. Brian was such a perfectionist at that time that I think it's a disservice to judge those specific recordings before they were properly finished and sequenced. I also think that the album would've been very different from the recordings we have today from those sessions.

Having said all that, I am one of the biggest "Smile" fans that you will find. I love the recordings and I love the story. And most of all I love Brian.

And Smiley Smile IS a great album.

Supermallet

What exists currently IS great. Better than a lot of albums in the 60's, including Pet Sounds. Who knows what the final product might have ended up being, but what there is now is fantastic.

PopcornTreeCt

The Doors

Just realized I haven't agreed with any of the top choices by DVDTalkers. REM over U2, seriously?

Supermallet

Now don't start THAT again!

JAA

The Doors

Sean O'Hara

The Doors were a decent hard-rock/psychedelic band, but ultimately I feel they can be summed up best with a best-of collection.

The Beach Boys, even on their bad songs, produced absolutely beautiful music, and their best works, like Pet Sounds, are the best pop-music ever produced.

DaveWadding

I hate the Doors. Ridiculously overrated.

And there's nothing like a mild summer day (I guess that would be spring in Phoenix) with Sounds of Summer on the stereo.

JOE29

I picked the Doors. I liked a lot more of their songs. I don't think there is one Beach Boys song that I actually liked. Beach Boys, as far as I know, had a squeaky clean image. Except for Dennis who hung out with Manson. Or at least their songs promoted a squeaky clean image.

rexinnih

The Doors. Back in college when I truly discovered them, they quickly shot to one of my all time favorite bands.
A few years back when they were doing all the 40th Anniversary stuff, my then company was a sponsor of the mini-concert at the Whiskey on Sunset and was there helping out during the soundcheck with Manzarek, Krieger, Perry Farrel and Chester Bennington on vocals. Have a cool pic of Ray Manzarek and me together. Great memories of (what's left of) one of my favorite bands.

AnonomusBob15

like both but I have to go with the Doors. I just find me listening to their music more often than The Beach Boys (a talent I can recognize, but not always enjoy).

Chrisedge

That is what is making these match ups so fun. Even though I disagree with some, all have been interesting...

Decker

Not a huge fan of either band, but when The Beach Boys got psychedelic and made Pet Sounds (and almost made Smile), they created some magic.