Beach Boys Lawsuit

For those of you not up to date with Beach Boys news, founding members Mike Love [the Wilson brothers’ cousin] and Al Jardine [the Brian Wilson’s friend] have been involved in a lawsuit for years over who has the right to tour under the name “The Beach Boys.” Love argued that he held the license to use the name and wanted the money Jardine made from touring as “The Beach Boys.” They settled the lawsuit on Friday but no details were given as to who gets to use The Beach Boys name in the future.

Any Beach Boys fan has to have severe mixed emotions about Mike Love. Without Love’s vocals on the Boys’ earliest hits, they may never have “made it” yet many biographies of Brian Wilson or the Beach Boys in general have Mike Love as the catalyst for the internal trouble the Beach Boys had and most notably the abandonment of the Pet Sounds follow up album SMiLE. The great song “Hang On To Your Ego” had to be changed to “I Know There’s an Answer” due to Love’s protests. Looking back, one can only guess where Wilson would have taken the group if his work had been embraced and supported by the entire band.

Mike Love on lead vocals songs:
Surfin’ Safari
Surfin’ USA
Little Deuce Coupe
Be True To Your School
Fun, Fun, Fun
I Get Around
When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)
California Girls
I Can Hear Music

Al Jardine on lead vocals songs:
Help Me, Rhonda
Vegetables
Transcendental Meditation
I Know There’s An Answer (co-)

The Beach Boys – Hang on to Your Ego
A bonus track on some version of Pet Sounds. This is the original version of “I Know There’s An Answer”

The Beach Boys – I Know There’s An Answer
From the Pet Sounds album.

Mazarin --- I Know There’s An Answer
From the collection Do It Again: A Tribute to Pet Sounds.

UPDATED: I have fixed the link to "I Know There's An Answer." Thanks for letting me know it was wrong. --Matt F.