Music

Mike Love Is Kind Of An Asshole

It would be ridiculous of me to assume that you know who Mike Love is, because people who can accurately name all the members of the Beach Boys are generally not the same people who read Noisey editorial content. Don’t worry, I’m not judging you for your unawareness. I mean, I’m pretty sure the only people who actually listen to the Beach Boys intentionally are music writers and wiggy community college philosophy professors.

But hear me out: you should hate Mike Love. You should understand that Mike Love is arguably the most malignant presence in the history of pop music. Morrissey, Steve Albini, Billy Corgan, Liam Gallagher, and the McRib are completely out-jerked by Mike Love. Mike Love is a giant selfish dick. If Mike Love were a fish, he’d be a plastic bag wrapped around the neck of a beautiful sea lion. Mike Love started a career by singing in the Beach Boys, and has spent the rest of his life ruining everything good in the world. Last Thursday, we were given another really good reason to hate Mike Love, as he somehow legally kicked Brian Wilson out of the Beach Boys, which might be the most fucked up thing ever. Sadly, it was also totally predictable. Here’s a list of things of shitty things Mike Love has done, in no particular order.

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—During the recording of the now stone-cold classic Pet Sounds, Mike Love responded to one of the glorious, spellbinding harmonies with “Who is gonna hear this shit? The ears of a dog?” Brian Wilson would later use this as inspiration for the album title.

—Love later claimed he was the one that came up with the album title.

—Mike Love sued Brian Wilson for songwriting credits on a ton of Beach Boys songs even though his actual contributions were laughably minimal. Like, his contribution to “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” was “Goodnight, my baby/ Sleep tight, my baby.”

—Mike sued Brian Wilson again because of a free promotional CD that was given out for Brian Wilson’s 2004 release of SMiLE, claiming that it misappropriated the Beach Boys’ likeness and that it “damaged” the band’s reputation. The case was thrown out and Mike Love was revealed to be the Grinch.

—Decades after single-handedly ruining the SMiLE project, Love claimed he wrote all the SMiLE songs once the album actually came out.

—Also, Love had the gall to talk about how great SMiLE is in the promotional commercial for last year’s The SMiLE Sessions.

—Love somehow controls The Beach Boys’ name and has only used that power for evil throughout his entire life.

—His solo record sucks even more than you’d expect.

—He didn’t even write the songs on his solo record.

—Love sued longtime Beach Boy Al Jardine for touring under the name “Al Jardine of the Beach Boys.”

—He wrote “Kokomo”

—He tried to rewrite “Kokomo” on 2012’s “Daybreak Over the Ocean.”

— He thinks he’s the most important person in the universe.

—He donated a bunch of money to Tipper Gore to help censor pop music.

—Love launched the “Brian’s Back!” campaign, which pressured a still very mentally unstable Brian Wilson back into performing, which quickly resulted in him sinking back into addiction.

—He was a giant drunken idiot at The Beach Boys’ Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame induction.

—He thinks “Surf’s Up” sucks.

—Apparently, Love thinks he can write better lyrics than Van Dyke Parks.

—John Lennon once called him a jerk.

—And lastly, Mike Love is responsible for this quote from Brian Wilson that actually made me a little misty eyed: “I’m disappointed and can’t understand why he doesn’t want to tour with Al, David, and me. We are out there having so much fun. After all, we are the real Beach Boys.”

FUCK YOU MIKE LOVE, FUCK YOU. YOU ARE THE MUSIC INDUSTRY EQUIVALENT OF JAFAR.

@luke_winkie