Think About The Days is a poor album opener

[Summertime Blooz]

That's right. Think About The Days is a poor album opener. It's quite beautiful, but way too solemn to be placed where it is. I feel like I'm waiting for the ACTUAL album to start while I'm listening to it and the flow into TWGMTR is very clunky. It would have been better without the instrumental sections. OK- now I'm going to run for cover.

[18thofMay]

Can we merge all these threads into one

[Sheriff John Stone]

That's right. Think About The Days is a poor album opener. It's quite beautiful, but way too solemn to be placed where it is. I feel like I'm waiting for the ACTUAL album to start while I'm listening to it and the flow into TWGMTR is very clunky. OK- now I'm going to run for cover.

krabklaw, you're on fire!

"Think About The Days" is a fine opener if.....if they would've followed it with "Beaches In Mind", not the jarring "That's Why God Made The Radio".

Get it? THINK ABOUT the days - beaches in MIND

[Summertime Blooz]

Can we merge all these threads into one

Hey, I know- why don't we just have one thread for everything Beach Boys related, and another one for the rest of the universe?

[EgoHanger1966]

That's right. Think About The Days is a poor album opener. It's quite beautiful, but way too solemn to be placed where it is. I feel like I'm waiting for the ACTUAL album to start while I'm listening to it and the flow into TWGMTR is very clunky. It would have been better without the instrumental sections. OK- now I'm going to run for cover.

YES - totally agree. It would work better before FTTBA or PCH. And the piano line reminds me of the music that plays in J.D's head in the show Scrubs. 

[Summertime Blooz]

krabklaw, you're on fire!

Repeated listening to the new album has energized me! See? It's got magic powers.

[18thofMay]

Can we merge all these threads into one

Hey, I know- why don't we just have one thread for everything Beach Boys related, and another one for the rest of the universe?

No why don't you stop creating new threads everytime something "springs" to mind.

[Phoenix]

I resequenced the album for myself and let me tell you, it's an absolute perfect opener (either way, but) especially when followed by "Isn't It Time"!

[Al Jardine: Pick Up Artist]

Dude you have so many threads open

what are you smoking

[TV Forces]

That's right. Think About The Days is a poor album opener. It's quite beautiful, but way too solemn to be placed where it is. I feel like I'm waiting for the ACTUAL album to start while I'm listening to it and the flow into TWGMTR is very clunky. It would have been better without the instrumental sections. OK- now I'm going to run for cover.

I disagree.  It's a little intro to the album, like "Prayer" and SMiLE.  It perfectly gels with the final 3 tracks, creating a nice cohesiveness to the LP.

It's too brief to hate.  Not worth the energy.  It's lovely and does the job.  Enough said.

[b00ts]

That's right. Think About The Days is a poor album opener. It's quite beautiful, but way too solemn to be placed where it is. I feel like I'm waiting for the ACTUAL album to start while I'm listening to it and the flow into TWGMTR is very clunky. It would have been better without the instrumental sections. OK- now I'm going to run for cover.

I disagree.  It's a little intro to the album, like "Prayer" and SMiLE.  It perfectly gels with the final 3 tracks, creating a nice cohesiveness to the LP.

It's too brief to hate.  Not worth the energy.  It's lovely and does the job.  Enough said.

I like it and I agree that it's lovely, but it sure is jarring going into "That's Why God Made the Radio." It's cool that it musically foreshadows the second side of the record. I almost feel like the first three songs are the first 'movement' of this record, and the second movement is "Spring Vacation" through "Beaches in Mind."

[Summertime Blooz]

The album is good as it is. At the same time I may change the segue between the tracks in my cellphone. I like to do that for fun and, you know, after that the record sounds totally different to me. F.ex., yesterday I played the songs as next: Strange World->Beaches in Mind->The Private Life of Bill and Sue->That's Why God Made the Radio->Spring Vacation->Daybreak over the Ocean->From There To Back Again->Isn't It Time->Summer's Gone->Shelter>Think About the Days->Pacific Coast Highway. Was it wonderful!   

Just think- Brian Wilson once liked to mix everything to mono so he could control the listening experience so that everyone would hear his music the same way he did. Today, with minimal effort, the artist doesn't even have control over the sequence in which the songs are played. Things have evolved  so much that music can be so interactive and customizable. I doubt that such things bother BW anymore.

[Runaways]

i think it would be interesting to put it before Strange World.  You'd reaaaally get a sense of two sides of a record. almost too much though

[Ron]

It kind of has a "moving through the years" vibe to it.  So when I hear Think About the Days, it's almost like you're hearing the Beach Boys sound from the past... in a current production... so as an opener, to me it sounds like it's to show you that they still sound as good as they did 50 years ago. 

If Brian had anything to do with it opening the album, all bets are off for why he did it.  He might have did it because it sounded like it was purple. 

[Summertime Blooz]

That's right. Think About The Days is a poor album opener. It's quite beautiful, but way too solemn to be placed where it is. I feel like I'm waiting for the ACTUAL album to start while I'm listening to it and the flow into TWGMTR is very clunky. It would have been better without the instrumental sections. OK- now I'm going to run for cover.

I disagree.  It's a little intro to the album, like "Prayer" and SMiLE.  It perfectly gels with the final 3 tracks, creating a nice cohesiveness to the LP.

It's too brief to hate.  Not worth the energy.  It's lovely and does the job.  Enough said.

I would argue that if it gels with the final 3 tracks so well, then that's probably where it should have been placed. I get the Our Prayer comparison, but where it seemed appropriate for that album, the new one is a much more traditional good times Beach Boys set. So, yeah, the fact that it starts on such a somber note, even if you wish to call it foreshadowing if you like, seems odd to me.

[Justin]

I think people are not allowing this album to be as artsy as it's trying to be.  I think it succeeds pretty well, if you just don't take tracks 3 through 8 so seriously.  The meat of the album are the songs that surround it.

I currently have "Think About The Days" on repeat and it's glorious.  A wonderful preview of what's to come later in the album.  A taste test, if you will.  The boom of TWGMTR startles you back to reality and onto the escape that this album is supposed to bring.

[ivy]

I could not disagree more with the OP. Sitting this song obstinately at the beginning of the album is symptomatic of the old-soul hyper-self-aware flavor that the Brian-led Beach Boys marinated in. It's a memento mori before the listens are allowed a stroll around dreamland. The album feels like a life to me and the idea that you come into this world the same way you leave it: alone.

If Think About the Days were placed before the final suite it would seem to reaffirm the media cliche of the "two Beach Boys" duality, which I believe to be false.

[MBE]

I think it's a fine mood setter. Maybe not track of the album but it does it's job nicely.

[southbay]

I think people are not allowing this album to be as artsy as it's trying to be.  I think it succeeds pretty well, if you just don't take tracks 3 through 8 so seriously.  The meat of the album are the songs that surround it.

I currently have "Think About The Days" on repeat and it's glorious.  A wonderful preview of what's to come later in the album.  A taste test, if you will.  The boom of TWGMTR startles you back to reality and onto the escape that this album is supposed to bring.

yes.  The album (intentionally or not) plays like a career arc. It is fine just as it is.

[onkster]

Re the subject line: no, it's not.

This thread ends here!*



















*As Mitch might say, when I make this joke, I'm just joking.

[Peadar 'Big Dinner' O'Driscoll]

Reminds me a bit of endless harmony

[superunison]

The chords are total Bruce styled schmaltz. Not surprised that a few other people have pointed that out.  Would have been a nice B-side to a Do It Again 2012 single, but as an album opener, I'm going to skip it every time.  Just don't like the chords, they're just not Brian at all.  He could whip out something better in his sleep. Intro to The Like In I Love You blows this out of the water.  Surprised he went with this one...

[SG7]

I thought it was nice opener myself. Better opener than say Spring Vacation.

[rab2591]

That's right. Think About The Days is a poor album opener. It's quite beautiful, but way too solemn to be placed where it is. I feel like I'm waiting for the ACTUAL album to start while I'm listening to it and the flow into TWGMTR is very clunky. It would have been better without the instrumental sections. OK- now I'm going to run for cover.

I disagree. It's a little intro to the album, like "Prayer" and SMiLE.  It perfectly gels with the final 3 tracks, creating a nice cohesiveness to the LP.

It's too brief to hate.  Not worth the energy.  It's lovely and does the job.  Enough said.

I was just thinking that: You have the chillax "Prayer" then "Heroes and Villains" comes blasting in. It's kinda the same idea with TWGMTR. I'm really loving everything about this new album.