My Dad has liked the Beach Boys ever since I can remember. (He is in his 60s.) That being said, to a certain extent, he probably grew up with their music. I always figured "Kokomo" was a song that was released in the Beach Boys hey-day. However, lately I came to find out it was released in the 80s. I'm curious, were any orgers around when this song was released? How big was this song when it was released? I mean not too long ago I saw that on an episode of all things, "Full House" the Beach Boys made a guest appearance and sang it!

So I guess I'd like to know 2 things....
How big was this song when it was out? How did the public embrace it?
And what on earth brought the Beach Boys to be popular again decades later?

Vanilli said:

lol I thought of full house too when you started talking about it. I vaguely remember hearing it when I was 5, so I think the song came out in 1988 if I'm not mistaken, though I didn't really know it all that well until the full house episode, and some clip of the muppets singing it on some video

Kokomo was huge when it was released in 1988 from the Cocktail soundtrack. Furthermore, you heard it everywhere. It went to number 1 or pretty close to it in the US.
The Beach Boys have always been very popular. They never really went out of fashion. What is kind of surprising is that a new song, like Kokomo, would be such a huge hit in the New Kids/Milli Vanilli era of late 80s.

Kokomo was the mega-Nº1 hit that Mike Love and Al Jardine were looking for since Good vibrations (1966-67)
[Edited 12/1/07 15:36pm]

thanks for seriously bringing up my least favorite song of all time

Vanilli said:

I liked it when the Chipmunks and it

I seem to remember Kermit the frog singing it at one point. Does anyone else remember this?

Love that song. I have the 45 LP of it, in good condition too.

I remember that Full House episode. You know that almost ruined it for me. Full House..... God,the cast of Full House was so corny. I do admit that "Kokomo" is a huge guilty pleasure of mine. I know die hard BB fans hate it though.

Port Au Prince, I wanna catch a glimpse! *saxophone*

AnckSuNamun said:

Why do the die-hard BB fans hate it? Too mainstream?

Vanilli said:

I don't know.....I guess.


Like my sig.?

It was a big hit. But since it's not Brian Wilson, I don't consider it real beach boys

I hate the damn song, but partly because it's so catchy. Wasn't it co written by John Phillips?

AnckSuNamun said:

No..I LOVE IT.

Vanilli said:

because Brian Wilson wasn't involved, for one.

I think I remember hearing it in gym class too in the early 90's, our gym teacher played a lot of beach boys stuff when we did warmups, so I guess it was huge

I have a clip of kermit singing it too, to whoever asked about it. I think it was included in between one of the trailers of a disney movie I own on vhs

Too popular.

Moonbeam said:

i think what helped boost sales was uncle jesse and co. in the video

Christopher said:

uncle jesse is my boyfriend, sooo hottt
[Edited 12/3/07 1:35am]

It was a huge hit, but it doesn't come close to the great songs the Beach Boys have written and performed over the years.

NDRU said:

I'm a big Beach Boys fan but I've always disliked this song. When it was first released, I wasn't aware that Wilson wasn't involved so that didn't impact my dislike for it.

I had the soundtrack to Cocktail, bought because of Kokomo. I was in South Africa at the time (Mar-Apr 1989) and that song was being played eveywhere. I loved it. Everytime time I hear it It reminds me of South Africa and one of the most beautiful girls I ever met, shame I only knew her for 3 weeks.

alphastreet said:

You can have Uncle Jesse.....I just know that Joey Gladstone is off limits. He's mine!

As previously mentioned Kokomo as a massive hit. I'm a serious Beach Boys/Brian Wilson fan but I have to admit to despising the tune, it makes me cringe!

It was totally inescapable in early '88. Huge hit. And yes John Phillips co-wrote it. I don't think it's horrible but it is a big drop from their earlier material.

After 1977 or so, even the hardcore Beach Boys fans stopped listening to the new Beach Boys albums. Brian was barely there, and not in very good shape when he was. They were uniformly awful. They were embarrassing attempts to achieve a more modern sound, and made them come off as hopelessly square. In fact, quality-wise, Kokomo might be their best moment of the 1980s. It IS catchy after all. Aruba, Jamiaca, ooh I wanna.. dammit! Get out of my head, you!

As you might have noticed, it also bugged some people that their first #1 hit in twenty years was made without Brian, and that it came in the year that Brian made his first solo album, which tanked, was insult to injury. That's not entirely fair, they'd been making records without him for a long time, and he was in pretty bad shape at the time. But, so it goes.

bobzilla77 said:

And that's an understatement.

bobzilla77 said:

You seem to be pretty hip on the Beach Boys. So I'm curious, did Brian eventually embrace the song later? Cus I thought when the boys guest starred on "Full House" and performed it, as they all walked in the Tanner house, they announced each member and I thought they said, Brian was one of the people named.

Is that the case?

Thanks for all the info about the history of the track and the Beach Boys.

It was my wedding song..the wife and I actually vacationed in Kokomo. No direct flights...you have to layover in Aruba and Jamaica.

bobzilla77 said:

Agreed. I actually quite like 'Kokomo', as it's a pleasant summery tune with some nice Carl Wilson vocals on it. It was probably a bit of a fluke that it became a massive hit. It's certainly nowhere near as good as the great '60s BB tunes, but it's nice. I suspect that, had they been a bit more flexible and had some clever management, they could have sustained a geniune comeback career from this hit in the dreaded 'adult contemporary' genre, sort of as the Bee Gees did around the same time with 'You Win Again'. They could always harmonise together beautifully, even in the late '80s.

It has to be said that, while they made the odd decent tune post mid-'70s, the Boys best days as a group were really 1961-73. However, Brian Wilson as a solo artist/ songwriter, has been producing good and occasionally great nw material since his first proper solo album in 1988. I saw him in concert with his great modern band in London a couple of months ago, where they performed hits and some fine new material. I can safely say, it was one of the best shows I've ever been to.

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the latterday Beach Boys 'classic' hit, 'Wipe Out', in collaboration with those masters of rap, the Fat Boys. . As if to balance the Brian-less 'Kokomo', rumour has it that the only Beach Boy who actually appears on 'Wipe Out' is Brian. It certainly sounds like him.

Vanilli said:

Yeah Brian was on Full House wasn't he?

He was still very much taken over by his illness & under the care of a controversial therapist, Dr. Eugene Landy. My impression is, he came & went pretty often at this point and was only present part of the time, when Dr. Landy allowed it. So between 1968-98 anytime they played, Brian might be there, might not be there, or worst of all, might be there but not all there. There are lots of embarrassing clips on Youtube of him flailing through live shows, clearly not sure of what's going on.

In short, Brian Wilson was the primary writer, arranger & producer of ALL Beach Boys songs from their debut in 1961 through the never-completed concept album Smile in 1967. After that, he had a series of breakdowns & became increasingly hard to predict. Their albums after 1968 are mostly written by the other band members, with one or two tracks from Brian on each one, some of them old unreleased songs. They're still very good albums up to about Holland in 1973.

After his brother Carl died in 1998, I believe he severed all ties & began working on another solo album, and finally started touring with his own band in 1999. And yes, that band is fabulous & some of his new work has been very good. The London shows last month premiered a new work called That Lucky Old Sun, I've heard a couple of live recordings & it sounds great.

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the latterday Beach Boys 'classic' hit, 'Wipe Out', in collaboration with those masters of rap, the Fat Boys. . As if to balance the Brian-less 'Kokomo', rumour has it that the only Beach Boy who actually appears on 'Wipe Out' is Brian. It certainly sounds like him. [/quote]

Or worse still, their 1996 collaboration with Status Quo on a version of "Fun, Fun, Fun". I vaguely recall a live concert video of this single featuring all the surviving Beach Boys including Brian, their last appearance together perhaps?