Line #17 Music/JanAndDean


1	[[quoteright:315:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jan_and_dean.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:315:Jan Berry (left), Dean Torrance (right).]]
3
4	->''"Yeah, I'm goin' to Surf City, 'cause it's two to one\
5	You know we're goin' to Surf City, gonna have some fun\
6	You know we're goin' to Surf City, 'cause it's two to one\
7	You know we're goin' to Surf City, gonna have some fun now\
8	Two girls for every boy..."''
9
10	Jan and Dean were an influential American singing duo, who started in the late [[TheFifties 1950s]] but were most popular in the [[TheSixties '60s]].
11
12	Almost as important to the surf-pop scene as Music/TheBeachBoys, Jan and Dean made countless songs, some of which are commonly {{misattributed\|Song}} to the Beach Boys due to their similar vocal harmony sound and subject matter. The rivalry between the acts was a friendly one; in fact, Music/BrianWilson co-wrote several of their hits, sang backup on "Surf City", and allowed the tune of his "Catch a Wave" to be re-used for the duo's "Sidewalk Surfin'". Dean, in turn, contributed (uncredited) co-lead vocals on the Beach Boys' hit version of "Barbara Ann".
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14	Their full names were William Jan Berry (April 3, 1941 – March 26, 2004) and Dean [[EmbarrassingMiddleName Ormsby]] Torrence (born March 10, 1940), and they first met playing high school football together in Los Angeles. Berry first came onto the pop scene with 1958's "Jennie Lee", recorded with Arnie Ginsberg as "Jan and Arnie" due to Torrance getting drafted into the U.S. Army Reserve. Berry and Torrance scored their first hit as a duo with "BabyTalk" in 1959, and kept singing while going through college at UCLA (unlike the Beach Boys). However, tragedy struck in 1966 when Jan crashed his car a short distance near Dead Man's Curve in Beverly Hills, slipping into a two-month-long coma and suffering partial paralysis and brain damage but retaining his genius-level intelligence. The duo had a comeback in the 1970s. Berry died in 2004, but Torrence continues to tour and give interviews.
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17
18	!!Discography:
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20	* 1960 - ''Jan & Dean'' [[note]]Some discographies list it as ''The Jan & Dean Sound'', the title given on the back cover.[[/note]]
21	* 1962 - ''Jan & Dean's Golden Hits'' [[note]]Despite the title, the album includes newly recorded songs.[[/note]]
22	* 1963 - ''Jan & Dean Take Linda Surfin' ''
23	* 1963 - ''Surf City (and Other Swingin' Cities)''
24	* 1963 - ''Drag City''
25	* 1964 - ''Dead Man's Curve/The New Girl in School''
26	* 1964 - ''Ride the Wild Surf''
27	* 1964 - ''The Little Old Lady from Pasadena''
28	* 1965 - ''Command Performance: Live in Person''
29	* 1965 - ''Pop Symphony No. 1 (in 12 Hit Movements)'' [[note]]Orchestral covers of previous Jan & Dean hits by the Bel-Aire Pops Orchestra, conducted by Jan Berry and George Tipton.[[/note]]
30	* 1965 - ''Golden Hits Volume 2''
31	* 1965 - ''Folk & Roll''
32	* 1966 - ''Jan & Dean [[JustForFun/XMeetsY Meet]] Franchise/{{Batman}}'' [[note]]The last album released prior to Jan's accident.[[/note]]
33	* 1966 - ''Filet of Soul: A "Live" One'' [[note]]Only a few of the tracks are live; the rest is studio material.[[/note]]
34	* 1967 - ''Save for a Rainy Day'' [[note]]Was only released as a limited private pressing. A wider release on Creator/ColumbiaRecords was cancelled, but an acetate for the stereo version survives (the private pressing was mono-only).[[/note]]
35	* 1968 - ''Carnival of Sound'' (unreleased until 2010)
36
37	!!Non-LP Singles:
38	* 1960 - "Gee"/"Such a Good Night for Dreaming"
39	* 1961 - "Judy's an Angel" [[note]]Otherwise available on ''Jan & Dean''[[/note]]/"Baggy Pants"
40	* 1961 - "Heart and Soul", otherwise available on ''Jan & Dean's Golden Hits'', has two different non-LP B-sides depending on the pressing: "Those Words" and "Midsummer Night's Dream".
41	* 1961 - "Wanted: One Girl"/"Something a Little Bit Different"
42	* 1962 - "Tennessee" [[note]]Otherwise available on ''Jan & Dean'' [[/note]]/"Your Heart Has Changed It's Mind"
43	* 1962 - "My Favorite Dream"/"Who Put the Bomp" [[note]]Otherwise available on ''Jan & Dean'' [[/note]]
44	* 1962 - "Frosty (The Snow Man)"/"She's Still Talking Baby Talk"
45	* 1963 - "Honolulu Lulu" [[note]]Otherwise available on ''Surf City (and Other Swingin' Cities)''.[[/note]]/"Someday (You'll Go Walking By)"
46	* 1965 - "Here They Come (from All Over the World) [[note]]Otherwise available on ''Command Performance: Live in Person''.[[/note]]/"Freeway Flyer"
47	* 1966 - "Fiddle Around"/"A Summer's Dream" [[note]]Otherwise available on ''Ride the Wild Surf''.[[/note]]
48	* 1966 - "Summertime, Summertime"/"California Lullaby"
49	* 1967 - "Hawaii" [[note]]Was to be included in ''Carnival of Sound''[[/note]]/"Tijuana"
50	* 1967 - "[[Music/{{SmileySmile}} Vegetables]]"/"Snow Flakes on Laughing Gravy's Whiskers" (credited to "The Laughing Gravy")
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53
54	!!Two tropes for every boy!
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56	* TheAllegedCar: "Bucket 'T'".
57	* TheBandMinusTheFace[=/=]DolledUpInstallment: After Jan's accident, Dean recorded and released a few singles and an album under the Jan & Dean banner.
58	* {{Biopic}}: ''Deadman's Curve'', a 1978 MadeForTVMovie with [[Series/BattlestarGalactica1978 Richard Hatch]] as Jan and Creator/BruceDavison as Dean, divided up evenly between their rise to stardom and Jan's long path to recovery after his accident. Also has [[TheCameo Cameos]] by Creator/DickClark, Creator/WolfmanJack, [[Music/TheBeachBoys Mike Love and Bruce Johnston]]. It helped revive interest in the duo, particularly in Europe where it was released theatrically.
59	* CarSong: "Bucket 'T'", "Dead Man's Curve", "Drag City", and "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena", among countless others.
60	* ChristmasSongs: They did a version of "Frosty the Snowman" for a 1962 single.
61	* ConceptAlbum: Although, sadly, almost forgotten today, ''Jan & Dean Meet Batman'' was one of rock's earliest examples. Half the record is music inspired by the comic books and the [[Series/Batman1966 TV show]], including a cover of the latter's theme; some lyrics of the songs are taken directly from ''Detective Comics'' #27. The other half details the adventures of "Captain Jan & Dean the Boy Blunder," an AffectionateParody both of UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks and also of the just-passed [[MediaNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfRadio Golden Age of Radio]]. The cuts alternate between type, and as an added bonus, the comedy is funny and the music is catchy.
62	** ''Surf City (and Other Swingin' Cities)'' is an even earlier example, with each song being named after a city.
63	** The following album, ''Drag City'', is centered around cars and hot-rod racing.
64	** ''Dead Man's Curve/The New Girl in School'' is kind of a "split" concept album: the A-side, featuring "Dead Man's Curve", follows on the cars theme of ''Drag City'' while the B-side, featuring "The New Girl in School", has songs about school. Both title songs were previously issued on the same single, which featured a picture sleeve with two distinct sides for each song.
65	* CoolOldLady: "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena" and its various followups ("The Anaheim, Azusa & Cucamonga Sewing Circle, Book Review and Timing Association", "One-Piece Topless Bathing Suit", and the [[{{instrumentals}} instrumental]] "Old Ladies Seldom Power Shift".)
66	* DeathByChildbirth: "A Beginning from an End" initially describes a girl that reminds the narrator of an ex-girlfriend that suddenly left him. A spoken interlude ''a la'' "Dead Man's Curve" then reveals that the ex-girlfriend actually died in the hospital while giving birth to the girl that was described earlier in the song.
67	* DrivesLikeCrazy: "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena", "Horace the Swingin' School Bus Driver"
68	* DrugsAreGood: Seems to be the message of "Tijuana", a marijuana-themed rewrite of "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena" about a figurative woman who's "the terror of everyone that is a square". Appropriately, it was released as a single in the midst of the PsychedelicRock craze in 1967, and later included on ''Carnival of Sound'', Jan and Dean's own [[{{Vaporware}} long-lost]] flirtation with the psychedelic genre, when it was finally released in 2010.
69	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: It took a while before Jan and Dean found their trademark California sound. They first started out with a style closer to {{Doowop}} than surf pop and their first couple of "surf" albums only included a few actual surf songs alongside covers of regular pop songs. Despite that, their style began to resemble the California sound as early as 1959. Compare "Jennie Lee" and "Gas Money" to "Baby Talk" for example.
70	* {{Instrumentals}}: A few albums include an instrumental or two as filler. Of interest is "Skateboarding", a two-part instrumental which can be best described as "''Frère Jacques'' goes skateboarding": each part was on a separate album!
71	* InTheStyleOf:
72	** Music/FrankieValliAndTheFourSeasons ("Linda").
73	** Music/TheBeachBoys (most of their other hits).
74	** ''Pop Symphony No. 1 (in 12 Hit Movements)'' features covers of Jan and Dean hits in an easy listening style quite similar to that of the Hollyridge Strings, a studio orchestra that specialized in covers of pop artists such as Music/TheBeatles and Music/TheBeachBoys.
75	* NakedPeopleAreFunny: "One-Piece Topless Bathing Suit" is about a 90-year-old lady wearing the titular garment and causing quite a commotion. The trope is invoked InUniverse, with some of the guys "laughing out loud" at the sight of the topless lady.
76	* NewSoundAlbum: ''Carnival of Sound'', a psychedelic ''Smile''-esque album Jan Berry started work on shortly after his accident. Unfortunately, [[{{Vaporware}} it wasn't released until 2010]].
77	* OvershadowedByAwesome: Despite being one of the preeminent surf-pop acts in their time, they're nowadays remembered mostly as a footnote in the history of the Beach Boys, [[MisattributedSong with whom they are often confused]]. It should be noted that while Jan and Dean (Jan in particular) were talented songwriters in their own right, many of their biggest hits were written at least in part by Brian Wilson - meaning someone trying to acquaint themselves with Wilson's surf music songwriting repertoire would have to listen to a lot of Jan and Dean!
78	* RecordProducer: Jan Berry produced and arranged most of the duo's Creator/LibertyRecords material himself. During their earlier stay at Doré Records their producers were the then-little-known Music/HerbAlpert and Lou Adler; Alpert later founded Creator/AAndMRecords and became famous for his Tijuana Brass albums, while Adler founded and produced for Creator/DunhillRecords (Barry [=McGuire=], Music/TheMamasAndThePapas) and later Ode Records (Music/CaroleKing, Creator/CheechAndChong).
79	* ShoutOut:
80	** The back-cover liner notes for ''The Little Old Lady from Pasadena'' album are credited to "Little Old Grandpa", with the parenthetical notation that "[[Film/AHardDaysNight He's very clean]]".
81	** The title of "The Anaheim, Azusa & Cucamonga Sewing Circle..." references a running gag from ''Radio/TheJackBennyProgram''.
82	* TeenageDeathSongs: "Dead Man's Curve", which is about a street race between a Corvette and a Jaguar gone awry. [[spoiler:Though the song's narrator doesn't die, it's implied the guy he was racing wasn't so lucky.]]
83	* UrExample: Their early doo-wop hits weren't exactly what we know of as the California sound that they'd develop around 1961, but they did contain many elements, especially with how they combined the standard doo-wop sound with close harmony in the style of the Four Freshmen and the Four Preps.

Context Music / JanAndDean