Why I hate Mike Love
A few weeks ago on Jay’s message board, Matt asked me who my favorite Beach Boy is. (He claims his is John Stamos.) From there, it wasn’t hard for him to prod me into discussing my least favorite Beach Boy, Mike Love. Yesterday, I was talking to a co-worker, and wouldn’t you know it, but the subject of Mike Love came up again. I’ve touched on my dislike for Mike Love on this blog in the past, but if this is going to keep coming up, what I clearly need is a fact sheet on why I hate Mike Love to which I can simply refer people when needed. So, since I was pretty thorough on Jay’s forum, I’m reprinting my comments below to fit the bill. Now watch the litigious asshole sue me.
My favorite Beach Boy is obviously Brian because he’s the genius. Next comes Dennis because he was the coolest by far, emerged as a late-blooming significant talent in his own right, and once beat the living shit out of Charles Manson and reduced him to a blubbering mess in front of the Family. And then comes Al, because he’s basically the Ringo or the Michael Anthony — the friendly, funny-looking goof who just can’t believe his good fortune at being allowed to be in the band. Mike comes way down at the bottom after John Stamos.
There should be a Wikipedia page on Reasons People Hate Mike Love. My two primary ones are these: First, he hassled Brian so much that he had a breakdown and abandoned his masterpiece, Smile, thus leaving Mike free to take control of the Beach Boys and turn them into their own cover band, a corny travelling jukebox endlessly belching out their beach and car songs for the next 40 years. And second, when Brian finally got it together enough to release Smile as a solo album, Mike had the gall to sue him for promoting it in a way that, to quote, “shamelessly misappropriated Mike Love’s songs, likeness and the Beach Boys trademark, as well as the Smile album itself.”
Other reasons to hate Mike Love:
- He apparently beat his wife.
- He rewrote the Leiber/Stoller song “Riot in Cell Block 9″ into the song “Student Demonstration Time”, which sucks ass, yet somehow made it onto the Surf’s Up album while excellent songs by Dennis such as “4th of July” and “Fallin’ in Love” stayed in the can. (Of course, Dennis got the ultimate revenge agains his longtime foe by marrying Mike’s illegitimate daughter and giving him a grandson just to piss him off.)
- His cousin Stan, along with Rocky Pamplin, kicked down Dennis’ door and beat the shit out of him, messing up his larnyx and ruining his voice.
- He really got into transcendental meditation, and just wouldn’t stop writing shitty songs about it.
- He pushed a very obviously mentally ill and terrified Brian onstage as part of the “Brian’s Back!” campaign, and even wrote a song called “Brian’s Back” in which he pretended to like him.
- He’s an alleged racist.
- He’s a right-wing Republican, but he did give $5000 in start-up capital to Tipper Gore to start up the PMRC to censor pop music.
- He thinks no one will notice he’s bald if he just keeps wearing a hat.
- He created a TV miniseries full of revisionist history to glorify his own contributions to the band and take credit for a lot of things he never actually did. He also used it to give the impression that John Lennon wanted to jam with him, although Lennon is quoted as calling him a “jerk”.
- He sued Brian over songwriting credits he claimed he never received, which might have been due to his not actually having done the songwriting he claims to have done.
- He did do a little songwriting, which used all kinds of hip slang that didn’t age well at all and sounds retarded years later. And his onstage patter was lame and unfunny.
- He keeps suing poor Al every time he tries to tour.
- He was a real dick to lyricist Van Dyke Parks during the Smile era, and even 20 years later, took a cheap shot at him on the “Wipeout” single the Beach Boys did with the Fat Boys.
- He introduced himself to Sean O’Hagan of the High Llamas, a huge Beach Boys fan who Bruce Johnston brought in to produce an album for them, by saying, as soon as he met him at the airport, “You’re English, right? Aren’t all you English guys fags?”
- He went on a drunken, bizarre, classless rant when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, calling out the Beatles, Mick Jagger, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, the Supremes, and possibly the MC5, for no discernible reason.
- His solo albums suck, even for Beach Boys solo albums, which mostly kind of suck to start with.
- He is responsible for “Kokomo”. And he’s proud of it.
- He just plain has one of those thin-lipped humourless-asshole-looking faces you want to punch.
- He’s still alive, while Dennis and Carl are dead.
Matt, for his part, was very satisfied with my vigorous dislike of the man, and responded to my call for a Wikipedia page on Reasons People Hate Mike Love by writing an introductory paragraph of one that I quite liked:
“Michael Edward Love (born March 15, 1941 in Los Angeles, California) is an American singer and songwriter who was one of the lead singers and lyric writers of The Beach Boys. He formed the band along with Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson, and a school friend Al Jardine. He is an asshole.”
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Just glad to be on the team, Peter!
Hey, Wikipedia still comes through though. They have him described as the “villian” of the Beach Boys. And they do display a particularly punchable head shot.
I think I might print it, tape it to the front of a shopping cart the next time I do groceries, then ram it into a pyramid of tuna.
Aren’t all English guys fags though?
I read the title as, “Why I hate to make love”.
But what really grinds me is the new lawsuit over “Smile.” It’s this statement here: “Once again the people around Brian, my cousin and collaborator on many hits, who I love and care about, have used him for their own financial gain without regard to his rights, or my rights, or even the rights of the estates of his deceased brothers, Carl and Dennis, and their children… Unfortunately, history repeats itself. Because of Brian’s mental issues he has always been vulnerable to manipulation. I simply want to stop the infringers and stop the deception!”
The tone of that disgusts me. “Oh, poor, simple, childlike Brian, he thinks he was the driving force behind the Beach Boys, I just want to protect him from creative fulfillment.”
Douche. He’s even accused Al Jardine of being crazy. I fucking hate Mike Love.
See, even in those TV movies, Al always came off as the sanest one, with the possible exception of Carl. Mike really is a douche. Even Wikipedia hints at it, and they have that whole NPOV policy.
For maximum effect, Nick, what you want to do is ram your Mike-cart into a pyramid of canned vegetables. Then, after you knock the whole display down, yell, “Columnated ruins domino, bitch!“
Nice how a blog about hating some one could be so humorous.
The Mini-series could almost have been subtitled “THE GOD-LIKE LEVELHEADEDNESS OF MIKE LOVE”!Total revisionist history-MIKE LOVE IS THE ANTI-BRIAN !!!
Years ago I watched a long interview with Mike Love where they went to his house in Hawaii for a long up close and personal. I had no opinion of him before that, but his slimy asswipe presence turned my stomach.
As a bonus, they showed him in his pale, old-man freckled splendor in the hot tub with his 20 year old Hawaiian wife. Yuck.
I could not agree with you more. It almost feels like he slows down his radius. That is all he has ver been good with. NOTHING.
Good Lord, I can’t stand Mike Love. I hate how he’s so proud of the whole fourth of July fiasco. BRIAN got mike where he is today. mike owes brian soooo much gratitude, it’s ridiculous. He also owes him a gigantic apology for all the shit he’s put him through.
I LOVE THIS SO MUCH.
I can’t stand Mike Love, either, and for three extra reasons that you did not have on your most excellent list.
* Mike Love takes credit for naming the Pet Sounds record, when in fact Carl always said that it was Brian’s idea, and Brian always said that it was Carl’s idea. One thing that the brothers could “agree” upon was that the name was hatched at the Pet Sounds photo session for the cover, when the group was playing with the animals at the petting zoo and laughing and joking around. The naming of the album and its genesis was always a joke between the two brothers…that is, until Mike Love came along and cleared up the controversy by declaring that he and he alone came up with the title. This is especially nauseating when you consider that Mike Love hated Pet Sounds from the very beginning…simply loathed it.
* Mike Love was a regular Eddie Haskell when it came to Murry Wilson. He would be the consummate suck-up to Murry when he was around, but would be the instigator of all sorts of trouble when Murry had his back turned. Unforgivably, Mike Love frequently joined in on Murry’s tirades against his sons, egging him on, especially Brian. Mike Love also reportedly was a tattletale in the years when Murry was their manager, sparing no details about groupie activity and such.
* Mike Love is a pompous bastard, and you can see this in the clip for “Fire.” Watch at about 20 seconds or so, when Mike makes the little “smoking joint” motion with his hands and then rolls his eyes, no doubt in reference to Brian, who is quite obviously high in this clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxbm56A8LrY
Worthy additions to the list! I knew about Mike’s condescending little eye rolling during the “Fire” clip, but I forgot. Then again, as you say, Brian was obviously high as a kite, so I can almost forgive that one.
I cannot tell you how happy I was to find this blog…I guess I would have been naive to think that I wouldn’t come up with at least one quality hit by googling “I hate Mike Love”. Nearly every reason I could think of was here except:
One time I was serving for jury duty and met some of my fellow jurors, one of which was a record industry employee. While speaking, I brought up bands that I had loved growing up and mentioned The Smithereens. My new pal told me that he was a close friend of Dennis Diken, the drummer from the Smithereens and noted Beach Boys expert. He told me that, at that time (2000), Dennis had been asked to write an exerpt for the re-release of 15 Big Ones/Love You (Peter Buck wrote the counterpart for the latter). But, when Dennis credited too much of the Beach Boys’ genius and success to Brian, Mike flipped out and refused to use Dennis’s words unless he changed them to not fawn so much over Brian.
I had only one response…”I hate Mike Love….God, I hate that bald fuck”
True Story
That’s a great story. Thanks for sharing it. Eventually, we’re going to have to just make an anti-Mike Love wiki and let everyone have their say.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Love#References_to_Mike_Love_in_popular_culture
That is truly awesome. My first Wikipedia shout-out. In case it gets edited out, which I expect will happen, the Mike Love entry in Wikipedia now contains this note: “Blogger Peter Lynn of Man vs. Clown [1] has an unhealthy dislike of Mike Love[2]“.
Now it’s out there for all to see in a public forum (not that this isn’t one, but it’s no Wikipedia). Oh, it is ON, Mike Love.
He’s also the reason why the new SMiLE album didn’t use the “Smile Shop” art – Mike Love was geared up and ready to sue if they changed the top to “Brian Wilson Presents” from “The Beach Boys Present” and so forth. He’s a fucking douche, which frightens me to write, cause frankly, I’m scared of Mike Love and don’t want him to read this and send a goon to punch me in the face. So if you do read this, Mike, your voice is great in some BB songs (but you’re still a douche).
I hate hate hate him and unlike VDP I do NOT forgive him
i think i love you (sorry i hade to mention him to say it)
is the domain, “mikelovefuckedoveraljardine.com” taken?
He didn’t give his illegitimate daughter money for a liver transplant. She died of liver failure. He always wears them ‘old man Florida’ clothes; as in them dandy coloured ‘Hawaiian’ shirts and that white cap with pink writing on it from his golden ‘Kokomo’ years.
Could not agree more with all of the above.
I thought I couldn’t possibly hate him any more until I read that bit about Sean O’Hagan. As an Englishman I’d like to ask that pious bigotted prick how he thinks can say things like that, while merrily enjoying his ill-gotten Beach Boys royalties from the English record buying public. What a cock!
Just to chip in my part, I saw an interivew with one of his sons by an estraged girlfriend the other night, who is still clearly traumatised by the phone call he received shortly after his 11th birthday from his loving dad in which Mike told him he was no longer his son…
..no explanation. No further contact.
The poor guy is a successful extreme sportsman these days, but obviously still lives in vain to win his dear old Dad’s approval…
I’d like to beat Mike Love to death with his own stupid tasseled sandles!
Great!! I couldn’t agree with you more. Mike Love has absolutely no talent and I hope he reads this.
Mike Love is such an ass. Great blog. Good to see there’s so much hate.
I love Brian Wilson and therefore despise Mike Love.
His stupid on stage talking voice in between tunes is nerve wracking. Just shut up and sing Brian’s songs, you asshole you. You’re blowing my high…
Unbelievable. It took me so many years to discover this site and immediately feel at home, together with people who also hate this guy. He was always my least (by far) favourite BB, but after I read Brian’s Biography (Wouldn’t It be Nice) I really disliked this person, also many of his family, for all the dishonest acting, and also for his lack of vision towards Pet Sounds, and any other creative work of the guys, leaded by Brian. This man wants only money. He simply don’t have the right to harass Brian or Al. A mediocre singer, a fake as a composer, absolutely non-reliable as a human being. If anyone still needs a living proof of what a farse TM is, this guy is it.
I’m actually here because I googled “Mike Love sucks”. I gotta agree with you. this man is annoying and ignorant and pure Brian could’ve been much better without him.
Hey, look-a-mee. I’m Mike Love.
I can’t sing. My voice is nasal and annoying, and every Beach Boys track would have been better if any other member had sung my part.
I can’t play instruments. That’s too tricky for me.
I have no taste. I think crappy music is good, and good music is crappy. The clothing that I wear is ridiculous.
I’m an egomaniac and think that if I lie about the past long enough, people will believe it.
Because I have no talent, and Brian does, it eats me up inside, and I hate it. The more I rail against it, the more obvious it is to everyone that Brian Wilson WAS the Beach Boys.
All in all, I am possibly the worst… musician… ever. Please send me more hate mail.
So AWESOME to find this. Mike Love is a piece of shit.
“The Beach Boys” are performing in a town close to my hometown in Iowa. Even though the only “Beach Boys” on stage are Mike Love and Bruce Johnston (who wasn’t even in the original line up, but you have to include him).
Recently the local paper wrote an article basically touting Love’s accomplishments. Never in the article does it mention Brian. It also makes Mike Love sound like a hippie-progressive who cares about the environment which couldn’t be further from the truth.
Don’t worry friends, a group of my friends and I are planning a great time at this show. We bought tickets, and will attend the show. What they don’t know is that we will be wearing Brian Wilson t-shirts, and possibly bringing a SMiLE banner if we can find one. I also plan to boo loudly every time he plays a Brian song that he claims “he wrote”.
Fuck Mike Love, and fuck the “Beach Boys”.
I also happened here by Googling “Mike Love Sucks!” I am not sure what I thought might result, but what a wonderful little blog I’ve found! It looks like this has been active for over 3 years now.
I am amazed at how well articulated all my thoughts are here. I would like to add my own contribution to the growing list… one more reason I hate this guy is the ridiculous gold rings and other outlandish jewelry he wears in concert. It’s nauseating and fits him perfectly. In his defense, this would have been the style when Kokomo was a hit.
And I agree with CaptainReality. One thing that makes me feel better about this guy is that I believe deep down he knows. I think he looks out at the 2 or 3 thousand faces in the casino audience and knows that he could be an accountant fronting a 60’s cover band on the weekends and not much would be different. I saw Paul McCartney at the end of his summer tour last month. It makes me smile to think of how Mike Love feels about the never ending adoration of all 4 of the Beatles.
And for what it’s worth, John Cowsill is fantastic. I wish he would tour on his own.
I love Mike Love
Hi everybody.
Sorry for my english which is poor because i’m french and I never went in an anglophone country. I am 21 years old and I have to confess that I truly discovered the BB recently, thanks to “God only know” and three or four other songs that I already knew such as I get around, good vibrations…).
The moment I saw Mike Love I felt everything you have mentionned here, of course I could not describe it in english but I’m glad you did it. I just typed “Mike Love sucks” on Google and followed my instinct. Somehow I knew I was not alone.
Well I keep discovering each track of Brian Wilson but not feeling guilty anymore for thinking Mike Love is a jerk.
Beurk, i’m still thinking about him repeating “so many rain” after that awesome live of god only knows !
Mike Love fucked up the Beach Boys’ music so many times. He brought the Smile sessions to an end. His stupid songs got on Surf’s Up instead of Dennis’ excellent material. He stopped what would have been the last Beach Boys album. A collaboration with the High Llamas which likey would have been mindblowing.
He always said “Don’t fuck with the formula, Brian” and then on the Beach Boys’ last material he had them doing synthpop with members of the Culture Club, Rap and backing Country singers on covers of Beach Boys oldies. What a hypocrite asshole.