NEW Mojo – free CD, Pet Sounds Revisited, BBs cover, 22-page feature!

[Disney Boy (1985)]

Trust me, it looks even weirder when you're holding the magazine in front of you...

[mammy blue]

It's nice to see an article on the BB that tries to put their whole catalog in perspective, but this list reads like someone who sort of appreciates the Beach Boys threw it together. It can mostly be compiled by reviewing a comprehensive hits package, Pet Sounds and Smile. It's like what any of our top 50 lists would be about 2 weeks after getting heavily into the band. Throw in a few random suggestions from people in the MOJO office: "Oh, you should put Tears in the Morning in there, it's really nice". No side 2 of Today. No Friends. Very few deep cuts outside of Pet Sounds and Smile. It was a fun read but ultimately unsatisfying and disappointing. You just can't depend on someone in the staff having a complete mastery of the catalog like with the Beatles, it seems.

[Cabinessenceking]

For a band with so much incredible material under the belt I would hardly include any hotrods in the top 50 except IGA and DWB.
There is nothing from Love You, CATP, Friends, Today or Holland(save Sailor).

It is one of the better ones, but as aforementioned one could compile this using only PS, Sounds of summer and warmth of the sun compilations.

God I hate them compilations for not cutting deeper. Mix deep with the popular stuff off Smile, PS, SoS and WoTS, and you get something quite unique...

[Disney Boy (1985)]

They did include one CATP song - Cuddle Up - but it was far down the list at 40 (rather depressingly, that was Dennis's highest placing (Forever scraped in at 50).
The complete dismissal of side two of Today is the biggest error. How could they??

[Runaways]

this thing has finally arrived at US barnes and noble.  Yeah the list is pretty crappy minus the top 10. 

[The Heartical Don]

I love the lead photo with Barney Hoskyns' story on the reunited Boys. Done by Robert Matheu. They look so at ease, and contended... And Brian comes across very healthy and very positive. And it is a huge picture. Hope it will be published without the lettering laid over it someday. It's a keeper.

And the piccie of Mike is so funny: in 'competitive mood', doing some, um, hypnotising fingerwork at the viewer.

[The Heartical Don]

Oh, and I forgot: the Todd Rundgren contribution, where he relates an anecdote of Brian going to a show by jazz person Larry Coryell. The latter is doing a song (or instrumental), and Brian jumps on the stage, to sing 'Be Bop A Lula' in a different key and tempo than Coryell's performance. But Coryell tries to play along with Bri, until the 'Brian Posse' takes our man out of the venue...

[HeroAndVillain]

I really like cover albums like this. Even if I don't like every track, there are usually enough really interesting versions of songs to make it a very worthwhile listen.

I've joined up here as I don't know much about the BB and am going through their music. So much easier now than (ahem) years ago when I was a teenager. I've had Pet Sounds for a while, just received That Lucky Old Sun in the mail yesterday. Looking to pick up Surf's Up and 20/20 next. That'll get me Sunflower and ... which album is paired with 20/20?

Perhaps then I'll have enough exposure such that my first paragraph up there will actually start having some meaning.

[Vega-Table Man]

"I Know There's an Answer" on this CD is blowing me away. I love the rhythm and bassline and overall feel.

[Runaways]

i really dig Gaz Coombes IJWMFTT cover.  no surprise from the songwriter of supergrass i suppose

[The Heartical Don]

I like that cover CD a lot. It's where you draw the line re: your expectations. As a freebie it is totally enjoyable and user-friendly, amusing, entertaining, and indeed, very good in places.

[Vega-Table Man]

As a freebie it is totally enjoyable and user-friendly, amusing, entertaining, and indeed, very good in places.

My feeling exactly.

Can't wait to dig into the magazine itself... tonight, I hope. (It's funny; as soon as I picked it up in the Barnes & Noble, I noticed Brian's face looked odd in the cover pic. I immediately thought of Photoshop...)

[Ziggy Stardust]

That God Only Knows cover by The Flaming Lips is quite awful.

[Runaways]

That God Only Knows cover by The Flaming Lips is quite awful.

agreed.  sometimes, those guys really bug me.

[Wrightfan]

The list is kinda meh but I dig everything else. Thanks again to John Manning for trading me this for the ezine.

In particular, I really find the photo of Brian holding the good humor hat interesting. He seems there but he doesn't. Pretty good photo showing Brian at that time.

[bgas]

My B&N just got these in Today, it seems, so I bought it! Yeah Brian's cover pic seemed off to me also. haven't explored the contents in any detail, but one thing I noticed has a nice collector's feel to it: the images they use showing the 45labels for #1 SU and #5 TID are the MUCh more difficult to find USA Reprise Steamboat label 45s, as opposed to the standard  USA Brother-Reprise issues.

[Disney Boy (1985)]

The montage pic of the group made up of album covers is pretty damn great! I'll give Mojo that, even if i don't much agree with their choice of songs...

[HeyJude]

The MOJO reunion article has a few interesting tidbits in it, but needed to be a lot longer and more in-depth.

The "Top 50" list was interesting to read, and plenty of awesome stuff is on it. But I get the feeling they threw in a few "whaaaa?" tracks just to get our attention and be different. I like "Tears in the Morning" well enough, but it isn't Top 50 in any of my lists. I think "Feel Flows" is amazing, but #12 is a bit much. "I Know There's An Answer" at #20? Again, 50 enjoyable songs on this list, no question. I knew they would go out of their way *not* to have "Good Vibrations" at #1, and I may well at certain times in my musical moods put "Surf's Up" at #1.

I can take or leave the stuff on the tribute CD. I sympathize a bit with anyone covering this material or anything for that matter. A straight-forward cover tends to elicit a "so what?" reaction, and the far out versions sound like they are going out of their way to be different. The thing overall sounds a bit too "trying to sound indie" to me. But again, I give the artists credit for attempting it.

[Eric Aniversario]

Finally bought this tonight, listening now.  I'm up to I Know There's An Answer now, and so far the only track I like is Let's Go Away For Awhile.

[shelter]

I like that cover CD a lot. It's where you draw the line re: your expectations. As a freebie it is totally enjoyable and user-friendly, amusing, entertaining, and indeed, very good in places.

My expectations were that I would get to hear some talented musicians pay their respects to a brilliant album. What I heard was mostly people who were either struggling with material that was obviously too difficult for them to perform, or who were probably trying to be artsy fartsy by destroying everything that makes the original versions so beautiful.

The only covers I enjoyed were 'I Know There's An Answer' and 'Here Today'. The cover of 'I'm Waiting for the Day' is really beyond awful (not sure if they were actually trying to make something worth listening to or if it's an attempt at sabotaging the whole project - I seriously couldn't tell) and so is 'God Only Knows' (if you really love that song, how could you possibly do that to it?).

[Cabinessenceking]

Gotta say my opinion:

IJWMFTT and You Still Believe In Me  were done great justice on these covers. Very very well done, beyond my expectations.
The instrumentals were done very differently and I admire the creativity, would be hard to tell PS was that song if not stated explicitly ^^

IWFTD is outright lazy production wise, something done to warm up the voice in the morning...
I found it interesting that so many french/non-english 1st language artists wanted to cover as their english is lacking most prominently on I Know There's An Answer, great arrangements though!

[Runaways]

I love those rumbling drums Coombes did on IJWMFTT.  And that radar sounding effect in the same area. 

[ShreddingBullets]

Perhaps it's because I'm already a huge Flaming Lips fan, but I quite enjoyed their take of God Only Knows.  It has that same emotion, but it's a lot darker now, with all the electronic interjections and super loud guitar bursts.  All in all, I quite enjoyed the entire CD, in that each band tried to put their own take on the song.  I don't know if I'll listen to many of them again any time soon, but it was a good listen for what it is.