Mike Love - Unleash the Love - Due November 17 - w/ 2nd Disc of BB Remakes

[SMiLE Brian]

All of the love in Jurassic Park!

[guitarfool2002]

A beer or two? I'd say a 4 finger glass of smooth whiskey...and put the bottle on the bar.

[SMiLE Brian]

Does the CD’s physical release come with a case of Pacifico beer?

[guitarfool2002]

Does the CD’s physical release come with a case of Pacifico beer?

I was hoping for at least a coupon to get a free can of Bud Light Lime at Club Kokomo.

[rab2591]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eY_2apR9FU0

To anyone brave enough to listen to the Help Me Rhonda cover, here it is. It’s bad. Really bad.

[SMiLE Brian]

Al Jardine don’t need no autotune!

[“Big Daddy”]

The customer reviews on Amazon are already looking to be brutal. Not good publicity for people casually interested in the BBs.

[guitarfool2002]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eY_2apR9FU0

To anyone brave enough to listen to the Help Me Rhonda cover, here it is. It’s bad. Really bad.

I'm brave. Sounds like Lloyd caused at least three Autotune rack units to catch fire and melt down during the making of that track.

Again the question is "why".

[HeyJude]

Oh my god... It's not like the "new" songs are bad, but the vocals... What happened to that Mike who wants to give a new take in the KTSA sessions video when some one syllable wasn't good enough? These songs sound like Mike woke up in a huge hangover and did the whole album on one take. Then some random dude threw the autotune on everything and pumped it to 110.

This has propably been discussed already, but why the hell there isn't a Kokomo remake on the second disc!?

Ironically, this "article" (I use that term loosely) suggests "Kokomo" is on the album, which I'm going to assume means the "author" didn't actually listen to the album:

https://parade.com/620133/stephaniestephens/the-beach-boys-mike-love-cmon-world-and-unleash-the-love/

[guitarfool2002]

OK, so in the video queue "California Girls" started autoplaying after Rhonda. The amount of autotuning in use is seriously off the charts to the point of being ridiculous. I won't even go where some might think I'm going here, but focusing solely on the sound of these tracks...it's unbelievable that anyone would hear these final mixes and think they were worthy of release.

Keeping in mind the nature of Autotune and other programs for correcting pitch...the way T-Pain and Kanye get the robot effect deliberately is to sing off-key on purpose so the effect overworks itself and sounds like the original "Cher voice" from all those years ago. These programs can correct pitch transparently, like a compressor can do its thing and not be audible unless you want an audible effect on the track.

But long and short of it, the more out of tune a vocal is, the harder the pitch correction will work  in processing it, and the more audible and obvious it will be to the listeners.

This truly is a baffling decision to release remakes of what are among the best pop songs of all time with vocals that sound this way.

[rab2591]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eY_2apR9FU0

To anyone brave enough to listen to the Help Me Rhonda cover, here it is. It’s bad. Really bad.

I'm brave. Sounds like Lloyd caused at least three Autotune rack units to catch fire and melt down during the making of that track.

Again the question is "why".

Crazy thing is the whole time I’m listening to this album I thought Mike was the sole producer...because it sounds like something he would produce. I forgot there’s supposedly a Grammy award winning producer with his name on this. “Why” is right. Makes me wonder if Michael Lloyd has some serious vendetta against Mike for whatever reason, and agreed to “produce” this album with the sole intention of tanking Mike Love’s career. I just can’t imagine a Grammy award winning producer being happy to release this as it is. The whole point of “producing” is to help the artist make a cohesive statement to the world, and make it sound great so the world wants to listen to it.

Ditch the autotune, make the covers acoustic (or just do anything different with them) and then you’d have an okay album.

[guitarfool2002]

And the mixes themselves, from what I'm hearing so far, to be blunt have no balls at all. If there is any positive in this, it could be an opportunity to go back to the original 60's mixes and consider how amazing the work done by Brian and Chuck Britz using primitive 4-track and 8-track formats with tons of bounces and sub-mixes and live punch-ins and the whole lot of it really was, and how *great* the originals really do sound even 50+ years later.

All the advanced technology available to anyone with a Mac and an audio interface in 2017...and these remakes with the limp mixes are what we get from a pro studio?

(...face plant...)  

[HeyJude]

Has anyone gone back, *after* listening to the new album, and tried the 90s stuff with Adrian Baker again? I'm thinking the "Salutes NASCAR" album might actually be easier on the ears than "Unleash the Love."

The "Looking Back with Love" album from 1981 sounds like a warm, organic festival of sound in comparison at this point.

[rab2591]

Guitarfool, if you really want an autotune doozy, check out I Get Around.

And yeah, I was gonna mention that I’ve gotten better sounding autotune experimenting on my Mac with Logic. I can’t fathom what they had to screw up to make his voice sound this bad.

As for instrumental production, the only song that wow-ed me regarding that was ‘Wild Honey’ - sounds completely different from the production on the rest of the album. I think it’s mostly because they added some reverb to the tracks.

[guitarfool2002]

The audio mix of Mike's "Q&A" with Wink Martindale sounds more ballsy than these remakes.

[rab2591]

Has anyone gone back, *after* listening to the new album, and tried the 90s stuff with Adrian Baker again? I'm thinking the "Salutes NASCAR" album might actually be easier on the ears than "Unleash the Love."

The "Looking Back with Love" album from 1981 sounds like a warm, organic festival of sound in comparison at this point.

It’s funny, because when I heard the version of ‘Pisces’s Brothers’ on this album I kinda had this same thought in mind: “the lead vocal sounds pretty good...actually that’s probably because the lead vocals on the previous songs sounded so bad”

It’s funny how good something can sound (no matter how bad it is) when you compare it to something really bad.

[HeyJude]

The audio mix of Mike's "Q&A" with Wink Martindale sounds more ballsy than these remakes.

So does this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RryIroTqs-k

[SMiLE Brian]

I had to listen to the “SMiLE sessions” while driving to work to keep my sanity....

[CenturyDeprived]

I made it through bits and pieces on Spotify.

There are a few of the "new" tunes that have their moments, and I've always been a fan of Cool Head, Warm Heart.

Other than that, the Autotune is the WORST thing I've ever heard by the band. Absolutely terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible. Did I mention terrible? I Get Around is simply atrocious. Yeah, I'm not a fan of most remakes, including for instance the remakes that Brian did on Imagination (although the remakes on Brian's Christmas album were surprisingly good). But these are SO, SO much worse.

Why is Ambha caked in Autotune? She shouldn't have an overused and overtoured voice like her pops. No excuse. Honestly I cannot fathom how this got released.

Probably will be the 1st actual BB release that I don't listen to all the way through.

As mentioned previously, this makes the Looking Back With Love album look SUPER GREAT by comparison. Mike was visibly embarrassed about the mere mention of Looking Back With Love when Brian mentioned it on TV in 1989. How can the same guy think that this is not an utter embarrassment?  

[guitarfool2002]

Guitarfool, if you really want an autotune doozy, check out I Get Around.

And yeah, I was gonna mention that I’ve gotten better sounding autotune experimenting on my Mac with Logic. I can’t fathom what they had to screw up to make his voice sound this bad.

As for instrumental production, the only song that wow-ed me regarding that was ‘Wild Honey’ - sounds completely different from the production on the rest of the album. I think it’s mostly because they added some reverb to the tracks.

Just listened to IGA. In all fairness to Mike, I cannot understand why something like this was allowed to be released. Mike's lead vocal minus the Autotune even, it just isn't there. It sounds like he's running out of breath after each phrase. I can't imagine the amount of editing and punch-ins which were done on something like this...and it still sounds this way! Unreal.

And the backing vocals - What the hell happened to the concept of a vocal blend? It sounds like you can hear multiple individual parts being stacked rather than that full blend where they all come together and create that mysterious and beautiful swirling and sweeping blend effect. I mean...that's THE SOUND of the Beach Boys, and we get this instead?

Instrumentally...again, IGA just has no balls to the overall sound of the mix. It sounds like someone doing a tribute cover on YouTube using Garage Band...and some of the tributes recorded and done by members of this board have more punch and more balls to the mixes than this...and they're not running a pro studio setup! Holy cow.

[HeyJude]

Even this is a pallet cleanser (even with Mike miming the "gun shot" gesture on the "assassinations" line):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tRmBD1UnrA

[SMiLE Brian]

Least we are “honest” unlike Filleplage would be right now....

[rab2591]

Guitarfool, in regards to vocal blend, I think the only song that comes close to a good vocal blend is ‘Brian’s Back’, and that is overshadowed by the question “why the hell is this even on the album?”

HeyJude, , you’re so right that even Lookin Back With Love is far better than the album that dropped today. Again, it’s just insane to me that 5 years ago this guy was helping make TWGMTR, a critically acclaimed album that hit billboard #3. And now he’s happy releasing this.

[SMiLE Brian]

“Happy Friday”   

[CenturyDeprived]

Guitarfool, in regards to vocal blend, I think the only song that comes close to a good vocal blend is ‘Brian’s Back’, and that is overshadowed by the question “why the hell is this even on the album?”

HeyJude, , you’re so right that even Lookin Back With Love is far better than the album that dropped today. Again, it’s just insane to me that 5 years ago this guy was helping make TWGMTR, a critically acclaimed album that hit billboard #3. And now he’s happy releasing this.

With the dove being unleashed as the album cover too, no less. If someone wanted to jokingly dream up the most laughable album that Mike could have made, it would approximate this release.