Open Thread, Video-Sharing Edition

It’s the 6th of the month, a few days after the usual Open Thread launch, but so be it.

To get things started — and I can’t emphasize enough that it’s only to get things started, because Open Thread is by the people, for the people, so you introduce topics — howsabout sharing a boxing video you enjoy? It could be anything: a favorite knockout, something odd, something heroic, something recent, something old.

Then, start firing topics/questions/anything on your mind.

For this month’s music pick: a classic. I was spurred to pick it by something I was told by a fresh-outta-college sort in the office of my day job (where, by the way, I’ve had a tremendous week: a magazine cover story; writing a blog entry for The Economist; getting mentioned by tremendous Newsweek reporter Mark Hosenball for a scooplet). She was complaining that Beach Boys songs were going through her head. I replied, “You and I are totally different people! If I had Beach Boys songs going through my head, I’d be completely happy.” I think, because of the degree to which the Beach Boys have saturated our advertising and such, a lot of folk — especially the younger they are — don’t realize how amazing the Beach Boys were, and how they have influenced so many musicians, including inspiring the best work of the Beatles. Hell, when I was a kid, I only knew the Beach Boys through annoying Sunkist commercials. It was only years and years later, when I really got into music, that I discovered what a breathtaking composition “Good Vibrations” was.

Pretty much every band trying to produce an amazing work of art talks about wanting to make “our Pet Sounds,” and it’s true that it’s their best work and the beginning of their most creative period. But before that, there were some Beach Boys gems that weren’t surf anthems, which, OK, those anthems could get a bit cheesy. This is the best of them. I practically swoon at how pretty it is.

About Tim Starks

Tim is the founder of The Queensberry Rules and co-founder of The Transnational Boxing Rankings Board (http://www.tbrb.org). He lives in Washington, D.C. He has written for the Guardian, Economist, New Republic, Chicago Tribune and more.

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