You've Lost 'You've Lost That Loving Feelin's's Loving Feelin'

[pixletwin]

In the MIC mix of YLTLF that I have heard, the whole bottom end(bass frequency) drops out during the bridge and never returns. The version I have heard is only an mp3 though. I was just curios if it's my copy, or if it happens on the actual MIC set.

There's plenty of bottom end on my copy (toms + synth bass), although the deeper synth parts do come and go during the song. Maybe that's what you're hearing?

Nope, on my version the bass totally cuts out, and it sounds like somebody turned the treble up as far as it would go. It may just be a bad copy I have. The last twenty or so seconds sounds like it's echoing through a tin can.

This is totally not how it is on the actual CD, you have a dodgy rip of it.

I can't actually believe you thought that they would master it like that, though? Seriously?

Yup. That was the spotify rip that was making the rounds last week. 

[Dunderhead]

Fishmonk, some of the stuff you say makes sense but some of it is just kinda cranky.

For instance, as far as The SMiLE Sessions goes, obviously they woulda needed one disc with the songs in a completed-as-possible state. It just had to be that way. In my opinion, there needed to be good quality, Beach Boys versions of "Do You Like Worms" and "Child Is Father Of The Man" out there, amongst many others. In my opinion, it is revelatory to have those songs in a nice, cleaned up versions with as many of the elements of the recordings as they have. They couldn't just put session material out there. It wouldn't be feasible.

However, I do agree with you that they should have put the master backing tracks on their own track rather than having them on the same track as the session highlights, since the "finished" backing tracks should be made easier to access, a la The Pet Sounds Sessions.

And then as far as complaining about the "poor selection of rarities", I think that is off-base. I think they actually gave us most of the best stuff that was in the vaults. I mean, sure, maybe there's stuff that we don't know about, but judging by what we've heard from boots and whatnot, the stuff they gave us here is probably the best. We got "Where Is She?", "(Wouldn't It Be Nice To) Live Again", "California Feelin'", "Soul Searchin'", "You're Still A Mystery", "Barnyard Blues", "Back Home" from '63, "My Love Lives On", and more. All of those, in my opinion are better than whatever else is out there on bootleg. And let's face it, while they is likely still a wealth of good-to-great Denny material still unreleased, there probably isn't as much quality unreleased 1962-1985 Brian Wilson material.  Seriously, what is left that's worthwhile? "Stevie", "My Little Red Book", "Awake", I don't know what else. Maybe stuff like "Sweetie", the "Baby I Need Your Lovin'/Gimme Some Lovin'" medley (if it's somewhat complete), "Smokey Places", and "Little Girl"? I suppose the piano and vocal version of "In The Back Of My Mind" would also be pretty awesome, but who knows if they'd release it.

But yeah, I would really like if a rarities set came out, but I just don't think it's likely. I'm happy that we got The SMiLE Sessions and Made In California, and I feel like that has cleansed my palette for whatever new stuff Brian has coming out soon. I'm excited to look towards the future for him and Al, and maybe even the whole Beach Boys group again at some point.

I'm a completest. It's just who I am, I just have obsessive compulsive tendencies within my personality. When I search for "The Beach Boys" in my media player, the result, and though this is hyperbole it's perhaps truer than I'd be willing to admit, causes physical distress to my being:

2414 Songs; 4 Days, 12 Hours and 41 Minutes; 9.5 GB

And this of course doesn't include solo material, not to mention improperly tagged tracks. My collection has become like a jumbled length of Christmas tree lights, a thread so knotted and tangled physical laws appear to be violated by its existence and the possibility of straitening things out again feels beyond astronomical.

To gather together all the material out there, all the demos and unreleased and unused recordings available on official releases you have to get the twofers, you have to get Hawthorne, CA, you have to get Endless Harmony, you have to get the Good Vibrations Box, and the Pet Sounds Sessions Box, and the Smile Sessions Box, and the Made In California Box. And stereo mixes of some of those albums you already bought? Well that involves getting a whole other series of more recent reissues that don't contain the bonus material collected on the twofers and are generally just a worse value. To make matters worse, the 50th anniversary releases have raised some unanswered questions about the future availability of all the material that wasn't reissued.

On top of all that I think you also under estimate both the quantity and quality of material that has yet to be issued at all. I myself have a hard time figuring out sometimes what is and isn't available, but from the Love You/Adult/Child era for example there's a whole glut of stuff, "Lazy Lizzie", "We Gotta Groove", "Marilyn Rovell", all of Brian's demos from the period among other booted material. Even some of the stuff from Adult/Child isn't available, "Everybody Wants To Live", which is a really very strong track, and what about "Lines"? Has that been released yet? Maybe not a perfectly realized idea, but that brilliant little progression Brian teases is one of those great, unexpected moments of genius I've returned to a thousand times. Collecting all that stuff, along with things like those really low quality alternate mixes found on a boot like "Brian Loves You" totals up to a whole cd, and when you consider everything currently circulating (which is beyond mortal reckoning), and add to that all the likely to exist recordings that came out of sessions listed on AGD's site, and then add to that the further probable existence of substantial outtakes, unused material, and even entire recordings whose existence has remained so far unknown, I really don't believe anyone can honestly say "Made In California" was scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel in terms of significant rarities.

Frankly the problem with "Made In California" is that what the band actually *needs* is an official catalogue entry to bring some order to the chaotic universe of Beach Boys' rarities and bootlegs, and what "Made In California" is, "A Career Spanning Box Set"^TM, is in fact totally unnecessary and redundant. "Made In California" is just a mixtape a friend or significant other hands you that, though clever and meticulously conceived, possesses little lasting value as a "statement" or definitive representation of the band's output. Personally it has taken me years to come to appreciate many aspects of the groups musical personality and style, and considering the existence of mp3s and already existing, more manageable and specialized mix tapes focusing on those aspects individually, what's the use of this sort of set? Sure many bands put releases just like this out on a regular basis. The last few years has seen a noticeable uptick in such commemorative, career spanning, legacy boxsets hitting the market, but is anyone actually well serviced by this particular species of release besides the record labels and bands putting them out? A new fan will focus in on a very small chronological leg of The Beach Boys career, he'll listen to "Made In California" and just wade through the majority of the tracks, skipping things like "Brian's Back" no matter what infinitesimal degree of merit diehards have assigned to them through untold hours of careful deliberation.

The truly casual music fan, the older adult listener who works and raises children, who spends a very limited amount of their free time listening to music purely for enjoyment but who rather desires only something to put in the car cd player is, frankly, unlikely to radically change a lifetime of preferences and purchasing habits to exhaustively "explore" the band's obscure back catalogue and is just better serviced in every way by one of the numerous conventional greatest hits packages that already gather up the material he or she can probably be expected to want. And the more serious music listener who has the personality profile diehard fans tend to have, who takes the time to explore over the course of a number of years a much wider cross section of a band's output, well he'll undoubtedly gravitate to the Pet Sounds, and Smile material based on the reputation of those releases, find a few deeper cuts that suit his tastes from somewhere during the home studio years, buy the albums those songs were originally found on without really finding a lot to sink his teeth into elsewhere, and in several years by the time he's worked his way back around to the band's lesser, more flawed, unpopular, and critically maligned work, will have long since passed the point of "Made In California" being of any use.

I mean, I think the idea that this release is particularly suited or ideal for anyone, for any consumer demographic or segment of the music listening public is really an illusion. And I think that criticism is easily extended to every such release put out by classic bands in the last few years. The "Career Spanning Box Set" is obsolete. It's an attempt to put out a single product for the highest price that will appeal to the largest cross section of potential buyers as possible, meaning they give every type of buyer just enough to ensure a purchase, but are so dispersed in their focus and hedge their selections so severely, the majority of what they contain is of little interest regardless of who you are. In the age of mp3s this approach is paleolithic, which is the reason so many releases of this nature seem to be coming out, because it's now or never and it's better to scrape whatever money you can out them while you're still able.

In my particular case, they didn't put enough on there to entice me, they didn't cross the threshold of desirability required for me to shell out the cash. I bought "The Smile Sessions", I'm glad I did, I don't regret it and on the whole was satisfied. The day it arrived though, the first thing I did was spend a good hour or two ripping the five cds to my harddrive and tagging the all the tracks. And then the cds were put away never to be listened to again. Why did I bother to buy the physical product? Because I love The Beach Boys, I like buying things they put out and it was fun taking part in the excitement. To me, The Beach Boys are an organization I actively want to support with my purchases, because I want to give them something in return for what they've given me, and to that end, I wanted to buy "Made In California" too, because I like being able to buy Beach Boys releases. What I find frustrating and disappointing, is that I simply wasn't able to justify doing so this time around. The project was ill-conceived and tone deaf. It missed the mark plain and simple. Like I said, there was no need for a "career spanning box set", regardless of the fact that's what "Made In California" is, that doesn't change the fact there wasn't really any *need* for such a thing to begin with.

What there was a need for, and what every fan, no matter how reserved and contented he makes himself out to be today, initially felt the 50th anniversary was in fact the perfect opportunity to finally do, was a dedicated, official overview of the confusing world of the band's unreleased recordings. Is there any fan who hasn't said at one time or another something along the lines of: "they left more genius stuff on the cutting room floor than most bands recorded in an entire career"? It's so often observed in reviews and commentaries about the band to border on cliche. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's not only been one of the most surprising things I've gradually discovered about The Beach Boys, but in fact one of the distinguishing things about them that really colors my feelings of affection towards them. An exploration and celebration of that aspect of the groups career is long overdue, and it's what the band's catalogue actually needed and what the fans actually wanted. That type of release would have made a bigger splash as well. When The Beatles put out their reissues Pitchfork devoted an entire week to exclusively covering them. A rarities release, something a little bolder, a little less bland, less routine than another "career spanning box set", would have probably at least gotten a wider critical hearing than it has, and it would have brought to light and put stage center one of the truly special things about The Beach Boys that just isn't understood by their larger general audience, that they were a prolific group that compensates a thousand times over for the numerous missteps and missed opportunities littered across their career with an undercurrent of completely unreleased recordings that not only augments but actually completes their artistic canon, that renders them comprehensible on a entirely different level and without which The Beach Boys simply aren't The Beach Boys. As a thousand times before The Beach Boys zigged when they should have zagged, or released something awful while a masterpiece languished unheard, "Made In California" is the result of over-deliberation, excessive, unwarranted caution and commercial paranoia, and the characteristical flaw of the group once more repeated of doing something "safe" and unexciting when something head turning and satisfying would have made all the difference.

[Wirestone]

What I find frustrating and disappointing, is that I simply wasn't able to justify doing so this time around.

Truly your loss. A lot of great stuff there, regardless of the business decisions behind the package. For me, it was an easy thing to justify: Some three CDs-worth of unreleased / rare / remixed material and a cool-looking package. I understand it's still expensive for a lot of people, though, and I'm shocked the price didn't come down further.

What there was a need for, and what every fan, no matter how reserved and contended he makes himself out to be today, initially felt the 50th anniversary was in fact the perfect opportunity to finally do, was a dedicated, official overview of the confusing world of the band's unreleased recordings.

Please don't try to speak for every fan. It's impossible to do, and it overstates your argument beside. I doubt most Beach Boys fans care about those things at all, frankly. There is a subset of super-enthusiast fans who do, but that's not at all the same thing.

When The Beatles put out their reissues Pitchfork devoted an entire week to exclusively covering them. A rarities release, something a little bolder, a little less bland, less routine than another "career spanning box set", would have probably at least gotten a wider critical hearing than it has

This is confusing two very different things. The Beatles reissues were the much-delayed revamp of their back catalogue and included no rarities. An overview simply made sense -- much as Pitchfork gave several BB albums an overview back when they were reissued in the early 2000s.

As for a general box vs. a rarities box and critical reception, it's hard to say. Given that the rarities collection you're talking about is entirely hypothetical, it's a difficult argument to make either way. I mean, would critics really fall over themselves in praise of Lazy Lizzie? As good as much of the band's unreleased stuff is, I would argue that the very best stuff has come out.

"Made In California" is the result of over-deliberation, excessive, unwarranted caution and commercial paranoia, and the characteristical flaw of the group once more repeated of doing something "safe" and unexciting when something head turning and satisfying would have made all the difference.

Perhaps. You really should give the set a listen. MIC is many things, and has its share of flaws, but I'd hardly call it safe.

That being said, your comments on the state of the Beach Boys catalogue are spot on. It really is surprising that so little effort has been made to unify the recordings in some manner. I've long thought we needed to simply have two-disc reissues of all the albums, in stereo and mono, with each album including abundant rarities. You could then collect other odds and ends in a multi-CD rarities set. At that point, you could simply make a boxed set that included all the individual album releases, along with the rarities release, and be done with it. I guess you'd have to keep the PS Box and Smile Box in print though, simply for completeness' sake.

[Dunderhead]

Please don't try to speak for every fan. It's impossible to do, and it overstates your argument beside. I doubt most Beach Boys fans care about those things at all, frankly. There is a subset of super-enthusiast fans who do, but that's not at all the same thing.

I've long thought we needed to simply have two-disc reissues of all the albums, in stereo and mono, with each album including abundant rarities. You could then collect other odds and ends in a multi-CD rarities set. At that point, you could simply make a boxed set that included all the individual album releases, along with the rarities release, and be done with it. I guess you'd have to keep the PS Box and Smile Box in print though, simply for completeness' sake.

When I said it is what fans in advance of the 50th were expressing a desire to buy, I guess I was unclear that I was excluding "fans", as in the people who if pressed would admit to liking *a* Beach Boys song, or who will indulge in the band's summertime cheese factor and tap their toe along to "Surfin' USA" and "I Get Around" annually. To me the word "fan" suggests the core audience of something, the individuals who have a pronounced, committed appreciation of a thing over and above what's ordinary. Like you say, we're the only ones who knew the 50th anniversary was imminent, the only ones who expressed any desire to purchase product released for the occasion and the only ones who had any expectations or preferences as to what those releases might look like, so what I meant was, even the people who are now presenting themselves as the picture of satisfaction around there parts at one time fantasized about a rarities comp. And you're case in point, we've all at one time or another speculated or wished for a substantial archival rarities comp, and none of the people who hoped for something like that a year or two ago, no matter how contented with MIC they are, can honestly say, if given the choice between MIC and a six disc rarities box that totally dispensed with any pretence of "career spanning" overview of stylistic essentializing, if told they could put down $130 and buy one or the other today but not both, that they would pick MIC?

[Wirestone]

Well, sure. But that was never a choice that was offered to us. And it just seems peculiar to me to talk about how superior an imaginary thing is to the actual thing we have. I mean, of course it is. We can imagine it to be whatever we like!

[Dunderhead]

Well, sure. But that was never a choice that was offered to us. And it just seems peculiar to me to talk about how superior an imaginary thing is to the actual thing we have. I mean, of course it is. We can imagine it to be whatever we like!

I don't know if it's that peculiar. This is the core of the argument that keeps repeating itself here over and over. The number of speculative releases that can be imagined is infinite. It includes possibilities like a cassette only commemorative reissue of SIP, or a one hundred cd box set containing "Ding Dang" repeated ten thousand times in succession. Of that infinity of possible releases only one could become actual. If instead of MIC, a deluxe package of Mike Love's solo albums was released instead with a bonus dvd containing video records of his best meditation sessions would you say the same thing? That it doesn't matter how many unambiguously superior releases *could* have been put out for the 50th anniversary, there's still no sense in criticizing "Mike Love Not War: Portrait of an Artistic Genius" considering its what we're stuck with? Wouldn't you be justified in that case to wonder if better decisions couldn't have possibly been made? If there were not perhaps other recordings that should have been given priority over the unessential ones? Wouldn't you perhaps be justified in saying "this isn't worth $130".

A perfect or somehow ideal release will never be possible, but is what should always be aimed for. It's not necessarily that I think there was a better, ideal release *possible* that's causing me to criticize MIC, but rather the fact that the line that stretches from such a release and eventually terminates in MIC takes me somewhere too far beyond the circumference of my expectations. I'm like The Uncle for Goethe's Meister, I collect things, like Beach Boys releases and songs in order that the completest *idea* of the abstract, synthetic whole can emerge from within. Presiding over a well curated collection, filling in the gaps and watching a sharper and sharper image of the whole appear is a joy. And I think I'm not alone, when even you sense that there's a gap of some size or shape a comprehensive rarities box is required to plug, you aren't just idly hoping and letting your imagination carry you over the moon, you're intuiting or grasping a real idea that you've established in your understanding by means of acquiring and ordering the parts that your collection consists in according to a form, not arbitrary, but determined by the innermost nature of the idea itself. To comprehend the infinite fullness of the idea in the conformity of your collection to a law determined by it of necessity, you intuit how to progress nearer towards it, like the artist who feels his way through creation, knowing somehow what's still missing and what simply isn't right, you know what the idea demands to further its fulfilment. These releases have to fulfil a need felt by fans, they have to offer something and possess some value to warrant purchase, and how far they go in satisfying the needs I feel have yet to be dispensed with determines that value for me. MIC simply doesn't have enough value, for the distance it takes me, for the portions of the marble shell it promises to chisel away, it's just not enough for the price.

Sometimes, in limiting an infinite number of possibilities down to one, an inability to strike upon the best among them is excusable, sometimes it is not. Sometimes the whole is so obscure and still so far from being grasped a wider range of potential outcomes can satisfy us. But MIC is a case where there was a clearer sense, a much higher degree of confidence as to how to proceed, where the need was better understood and the way to meet that need fairly obvious. It was a case of painting the sky on the empty portion of the canvas green, where it's not that the criticism is a subtle one about the nuances of what shade of blue happened to be ideal, it's rather one about the fact that green was chosen when any shade of blue would have been better.

[Andrew G. Doe]

I've long thought we needed to simply have two-disc reissues of all the albums, in stereo and mono...

Ummm...

Yeah... Love You in mono... that would be interesting. Sunflower too... 

[Amazing Larry]

I've long thought we needed to simply have two-disc reissues of all the albums, in stereo and mono...

Ummm...

Yeah... Love You in mono... that would be interesting. Sunflower too... 

Love You in mono would be AWESOME.

[Wirestone]

I've long thought we needed to simply have two-disc reissues of all the albums, in stereo and mono...

Ummm...

Yeah... Love You in mono... that would be interesting. Sunflower too... 

Oh, you know what I mean. Stereo and mono for albums where it's an option. Sheesh!

[celticsurfer]

Hard to imagine cool cool water in mono! should pretty muddy.
Please let Sunflower in stereo .

[Mark H]

Again, I'm fairly disappointed by this release. WITBNTA, the alternate Meant For You, Where Is She?, My Love Lives On, Why, the two versions of California Feeling (let's be honest though, the demo is really primarily a novelty...), a couple of upgrades like Sound of Free and YLTLF, the Be With Me Demo, and I guess Barnyard Blues, these are the tracks I consider essential additions to my collection. There's a real "big-whoop" feeling among the other rarities and bonus material. I've had Mona Kana for a long time in relatively good quality on bootleg and it's a mostly uninspired track that I very rarely feel an urge to listen to. The instrumental tracks of DGNTW and TM are nice I suppose, but generally uninteresting, poor choices considering how many better choices anyone who spends 5 seconds thinking about it could probably come up with. There's one "new" stereo selection from Wild Honey, which of the ones to yet appear in stereo is actually the one that's already been circulating for some time. There are completely undesirable, bottom of the barrel selections like Da Doo Ron Ron, some dubious remixes of things like Rock and Roll Music, a slightly improved version of It's Over Now, which is a nice though certainly lesser song I doubt I'll listen to much more than I already do following the upgrade it receives.

I mean, sure, there's decent stuff here, some absolutely essential material appears here for the first time, but given the frustrating issues with the mixing and mastering, the overabundance of material everyone has already purchased several times (like on 50 Big Ones last year...), the poor selections of rarities and the fact that there's maybe a disc worth of material among the six included really worth having, and the fact that the thing is, there's no other way to put it, overpriced, I'm very satisfied that I elected to not purchase it.

I have so many things in my collection of boots that still need to be released, and a lot of it exists only in poor or very poor quality. There are really solid, original songs like California Slide. There are things like the decidedly more enjoyable early version of Santa Ana Winds. In the space allocated on disc 6 for material that already appeared on TSS, you could have probably fit in Brian's Love You demos. The list goes on and on, and that's only things we already have available to us in one form or another on bootlegs. Given what a treat something like Where Is She? and the extended Meant For You are, many of us are left drooling at the thought that the vaults still contain lots of little gems like these. We get all sorts of tantalizing bits, reports from insiders and privileged fans about some of the yet uncirculating material, hints dropped by Mark and Alan themselves about things like a deluxe reprinting of Friends with bonus tracks, I mean, few of us ever really dreamed something like the Wild Honey Surf's Up was out there until it suddenly appeared out of the blue.

Give the fans what they want already, either a definitive rarities box, or a deluxe reprinting of the catalogue with extra discs attached to each entry containing relevant unused material and outtakes, and possibly a contemporary live show here and there. I think it would additionally be a cool, and given how things were executed on TSS and MIC, even a prudent idea to recruit Desper in particular to oversee the mixing and mastering process, at least on the albums he was involved with, given especially the fact that he could then also restore those releases to the HD stereo he's demonstrated in his videos.

Great, and fair, overview of the set that pretty much echoes my thoughts.  Also agreed that the perfect reissue plan is right there for Capitol to use.  Albums with a second disc of unreleased tracks/demos/live tracks from the time.  Either that or a multi disc rarities box.

Mustn't grumble though, and thankful for all that the 50th anniversary has given, a world tour, TWGMTR and MIC

[picassosson]

Reduce treble, and fold down to mono and this is almost salvaged! Now if there was only something to do about all that digital reverb...

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

My only issue, and keep in mind this going off of spotify rips, is that there was far too much 2013 fakery going on on too many of the tracks where it wasn't warranted, and done poorly.

[monicker]

It is my hope that one day a "purist" is appointed to handle the Beach Boys catalogue and future reissues -- someone who will make it a point to present the music in the most faithful way possible with no interference or their own personal artistic liberties, someone who understands that they should be in the backseat, playing as minimal a role as possible, when presenting historical recordings that they had nothing to do with originally. You'd think that would be a given.

[DonnyL]

It is my hope that one day a "purist" is appointed to handle the Beach Boys catalogue and future reissues -- someone who will make it a point to present the music in the most faithful way possible with no interference or their own personal artistic liberties, someone who understands that they should be in the backseat, playing as minimal a role as possible, when presenting historical recordings that they had nothing to do with originally. You'd think that would be a given.

I agree.

I thought beginning around 2000 with the '70s reissues, and sort of culminating with the Smile Sessions, that the group were on their way to being held in high regard as ARTISTS again. Yet the 2012 reunion and the new box sort of seems to be going in another direction. What's Jack Rieley up to these days !?!?

I personally believe that it's better to present unfinished recordings as unfinished, i.e. historical documents. I think that revisions tend to be more dated to the period in which they were revised than they seem to be at the time.

I've always thought it would be cool to hear a Chuck Britz-style 60s mix of Pet Sounds, Today, etc. from the final 8-tracks, done all analog, on old gear ... then again, that's revisionism too !

[Nicko1234]

I think these posts are a little bit harsh on the people in question. Especially as with some of the songs their aims seem to have been just to make them sound as polished as possible. I agree that I don't like some of the mixes on this set and they have gone too far with some though.

[Jim V.]

Here's my opinion. Brian, Al and Mike are still with us, and if they approved these versions, then they are canon to me. I don't compare this to stuff like sometimes what goes on with the Hendrix material or the posthumous 2Pac or Michael Jackson or whatever. Honestly, the most offensive edit from any of the recent Beach Boys related projects was how the people who did the Pacific Ocean Blue reissue inserted an unrelated piano piece into "Album Tag Song". Dennis was not here to approve it and therefore this kinda thing makes me skeptical, whereas all of Brian's material that might sound a bit different from boots on MIC was approved by the artist himself and therefore is cool with me.

[Sheriff John Stone]

It is my hope that one day a "purist" is appointed to handle the Beach Boys catalogue and future reissues -- someone who will make it a point to present the music in the most faithful way possible with no interference or their own personal artistic liberties, someone who understands that they should be in the backseat, playing as minimal a role as possible, when presenting historical recordings that they had nothing to do with originally. You'd think that would be a given.

I agree. Some of these reissues/releases have actually detracted from my listening pleasure; it's supposed to work the other way. I know that sounds insensitive because of the Honored Guests but the truth hurts sometimes...

[hypehat]

Yeah, heaven forbid someone should put reverb on a Spector cover.

[picassosson]

Yeah, heaven forbid someone should put reverb on a Spector cover.

Yeah, except it's nasty digital reverb, the same stuff that's slathered over a lot of the 60's stereo remixes. Makes me want to tear my ears out, and will instantly date these mixes to the pro-tools era. We'll look back on these mixes like we look back on duophonic. Why add fake effects that aren't on the tapes? I just don't get it.

[Wirestone]

Face the facts, fellows: Recorded music is unnatural by its very definition.

Everything is an effect. Recording itself. Multitracking. Echo. EQ. Some of this is done in an analog domain, and some of its is done digitally. Sometimes the digital stuff sounds different. But it's all down to personal preference -- why do we accept that Brian stopped using real bass players in the 70s and replaced them with Moog keys? It's artificial. It clearly doesn't sound like a real bass. But enough time has passed that we can accept it as what it is -- simply a different sound.

Mark L. isn't replacing any mix that has ever been done. He's simply offering new perspectives, using new technology, approved by the surviving members of the band. The kind of analog bias paraded here has far more to do with snobbery than it does with anything musical.

[Mikie]

I think these posts are a little bit harsh on the people in question. Especially as with some of the songs their aims seem to have been just to make them sound as polished as possible. I agree that I don't like some of the mixes on this set and they have gone too far with some though.

As the question was posed earlier in the thread, and I agree: How can anyone be comfortable taking artistic liberties on historical recordings?

And I don't think it's being too harsh bringing the issue up or by the way it's being addressed here. It's a legitimate concern. I'm somewhat of a purist myself, and while I appreciate fan mixes (some add positive attributes to the original recordings), when altered, they are no longer the original recordings! I use to think Mark Linett was selected by Brian because of his ability to bring existing original recordings up to the current standard technology(s) while maintaining the integrity of the recording without altering it. Of course there has been minor compromising (as needed) since Linett took over engineering duties on Beach Boys recordings years ago, and there have been questions about how narrow some of the stereo mixes are and significant additions to the Smile mixes, etc. but overall he's done a great job. I started wondering with some of the tracks on TSS, but some of the things on MIC go beyond the "threshold" at times, and he's often taken obvious artistic liberties. Like fan mixes, some add good things to the recordings, and some are questionable. The amount of reverb and other effects (for example the live recordings) and the panning just don't seem necessary. Just my opinion. I think Sail Plane Song - not only has it been released before in demo form - should have been left alone. The '65/'76 Sherry mashup - still not quite sure about that one. And listen to the YouTube version of YLTLF and you tell me which one sounds better to you. I've given examples of discretions taken on another thread, and I'll stop here. Just wanted to chime in and....well I want to accentuate the positive with this box set, but at the same time wonder what happened to keeping things as close to the original as possible. Up until now, I don't question Mark's Linett's abilities, but now..........well, could I do better? Probably not, but........  

[hypehat]

I think these posts are a little bit harsh on the people in question. Especially as with some of the songs their aims seem to have been just to make them sound as polished as possible. I agree that I don't like some of the mixes on this set and they have gone too far with some though.

As the question was posed earlier in the thread, and I agree: How can anyone be comfortable taking artistic liberties on historical recordings?

Because they are, for the most part, not mixed, or at least mixed professionally, and not mastered at all. You're basing your preference for these things off of (sometimes) really shoddy work done by bootleggers. I guess you still have your hissy cassette dubs recorded with all the faders up though. I'd rather hear a mix.


Mark and Alan put some reverb on Brian's vocal to a Phil Spector cover! What an unprecedented move! Such a good reason to fire them.


For full disclosure in the threads sake, I listened to MIC on a good system and thought it was really bassy throughout, so, er, nyah. And don't base yr impressions off bloody spotify rips....

[picassosson]

Face the facts, fellows: Recorded music is unnatural by its very definition.

Mark L. isn't replacing any mix that has ever been done. He's simply offering new perspectives, using new technology, approved by the surviving members of the band. The kind of analog bias paraded here has far more to do with snobbery than it does with anything musical.

It's really not snobbery - it's COMPLETELY musical. I like a lot of the new mixes on the set, and some of the edits. I'm not a analog purist by any stretch of the imagination. But the digital reverb just sounds bad. I don't give a sh*t if it sounds "natural" or "unnatural" or if it's classified as an "effect". It sounds bad, like duophonic sounds bad. There's a reason why they spent so much time building those echo chambers back in the day - you can hear the difference.

[hypehat]

.... they built echo chambers in the mid 20th century because the reverb was better than Pro-Tools?