Adult/Child's demise

[BJL]

I dunno, when I was a kid I had Back to the Beach and How Deep is the Ocean (what can I say, I was a weird kid), and one of those two (or both? - once again I'm away from my books) had descriptions of the Paley sessions that made them sound absolutely epic. At some point I actually heard them (Napster, maybe? Were they out then? Maybe it was later...) and I was like, okay. The best stuff is as good as the best stuff on the first solo record. I think in the end it was the mundanity of the story and the mediocrity of a big chunk of the music, not all mind you, but too much of it, that undercut any potential legend in the offing...

Haha, well to each their own. I first heard the Paley stuff after marathoning BW's solo output over a few days and in that context it absolutely blew me away. It was like pure, raw, analog Brian again after hours of over-produced Landy and digital-autotuned Thomas schlock.

Getting in Over My Head is on the shortlist for my favorite post-SMiLE Brian song. Might even be #1 in that category.

I've never had as much trouble as a lot of fans hearing through the production choices on the 88 record or on Imagination to the often very beautiful songs beneath. Which isn't to say I'm happy about said production choices (although I've come around to the 80s production more or less, because in a strange way it does suite the material. That whole 80s wall of synth sound in popular music in general was pretty deeply influenced by the Phil Spector records Brian loved so much, in my view). Imagination really is a sad case, because often you have a gorgeous song and strong vocal arrangement but instead of just, like, a boring or phoned in arrangement, you have an arrangement that actively interferes with what's working in the song and just totally refuses to stay out of the way. Pretty sure you could improve a track like Cry dramatically just by mixing out all the busy aspects of the arrangement and bringing up the drums and bass a little and letting the vocal arrangement and melody carry the thing.

But man do I agree with you about Getting in Over My Head, my favorite song of Brian's solo career, or at the very least in the top 3.

[Ian]

Yeah….that lines up with the famous Hal Blaine story about Everything I Need for The Wilsons. Great song and nice arrangement but then JT insisted on adding more crap to it and Brian passively allowed it. A big problem seems to me to be that BW never lost the talent but he lost the Stalin of the studio vibe…he didn’t assert himself enough and let others make final production and mixing decisions….Someone sympathetic to BW’s intentions could really make much better mixes of some of that stuff from the 90s

[Zenobi]

The main reason I love so much the Long Promised Road soundtrack album is that we hear a last glimpse of a raw, unfiltered Brian. His worsening condition probably robbed us of the fabled Rock 'n' Roll album, but we got about a half of it.

I think that filling up the album with pieces from the Paley Sessions was a good decision. After all, those sessions are the most consistent instance of a comparatively unfiltered Brian after 1977. Andy cooperated with Brian, did not filter it through a damn vanilla "formula". And, that way, the album bridges from that short period of relative freedom in the 90's to that other, sadly even shorter, period just at the end of his career.

Brian has been plagued by several "formulas" more or less forced on him, but in reality they are only slightly variation of a single ur-formula: would-be commercialism, sacrificing art for the hope, almost always bogus, of commercial success.

The other reason is, thanks to the LPR soundtrack album, and thank Euterpe the Muse of Music and all the other Muses, "No Pier Pressure" is not Brian's last album (I am not sure whether "At My Piano" counts), and "The Last Song" is NOT Brian's last song.

[Lonely Summer]

Much of Adult Child was like the worst of Love You with added big band arrangements. Looks like someone at Reprise finally realised that mid 70s Brian was incapable of delivering a decent album by himself.

This.

[Zenobi]

I remember Mike's Beard. And Dancing Bear. And Nicko1234, though he had no "Bear" or "Beard". For the record, Mike Love's actual beard had way more sense.

Poor Brian, what fans he had. How right was Voltaire!

P.S.
I had gotten so wary of "Bea" in a nickname that rereading this thread I was pleasantly surprised that Bean Bag was actually a good guy.

[Zenobi]

I dunno, when I was a kid I had Back to the Beach and How Deep is the Ocean (what can I say, I was a weird kid), and one of those two (or both? - once again I'm away from my books) had descriptions of the Paley sessions that made them sound absolutely epic. At some point I actually heard them (Napster, maybe? Were they out then? Maybe it was later...) and I was like, okay. The best stuff is as good as the best stuff on the first solo record. I think in the end it was the mundanity of the story and the mediocrity of a big chunk of the music, not all mind you, but too much of it, that undercut any potential legend in the offing...

Haha, well to each their own. I first heard the Paley stuff after marathoning BW's solo output over a few days and in that context it absolutely blew me away. It was like pure, raw, analog Brian again after hours of over-produced Landy and digital-autotuned Thomas schlock.

Getting in Over My Head is on the shortlist for my favorite post-SMiLE Brian song. Might even be #1 in that category.

I've never had as much trouble as a lot of fans hearing through the production choices on the 88 record or on Imagination to the often very beautiful songs beneath. Which isn't to say I'm happy about said production choices (although I've come around to the 80s production more or less, because in a strange way it does suite the material. That whole 80s wall of synth sound in popular music in general was pretty deeply influenced by the Phil Spector records Brian loved so much, in my view). Imagination really is a sad case, because often you have a gorgeous song and strong vocal arrangement but instead of just, like, a boring or phoned in arrangement, you have an arrangement that actively interferes with what's working in the song and just totally refuses to stay out of the way. Pretty sure you could improve a track like Cry dramatically just by mixing out all the busy aspects of the arrangement and bringing up the drums and bass a little and letting the vocal arrangement and melody carry the thing.

But man do I agree with you about Getting in Over My Head, my favorite song of Brian's solo career, or at the very least in the top 3.

Yes, Gettin' in Over My Head, in its original Paley Sessions version, is an awesome song. To my ears, its first part has even a hint of Asian music, which I find delightful. Excellent vocals, by the way. 

[Julia]

I remember Mike's Beard. And Dancing Bear. And Nicko1234, though he had no "Bear" or "Beard". For the record, Mike Love's actual beard had way more sense.

Poor Brian, what fans he had. How right was Voltaire!

P.S.
I had gotten so wary of "Bea" in a nickname that rereading this thread I was pleasantly surprised that Bean Bag was actually a good guy.

There were a lot of good posters here, once upon a time. Still many today of course, but yeah that's partly why reading these old threads has been such a trip. Captain, Sheriff John Stone, leetwall and Summertime Blooz in addition to those you mentioned, plus many others Im sure Im forgetting. In hindsight I regret the way I treated some, like Cam Mott. His Mike apologism was annoying at the time but if I'd have known what great insight he had in the Smile Shop days, pre-'13 in this forum and later to come in PSF & even EH, I would've seen the fuller scope of what he had to offer. I think he just felt the need to stand up for someone who was already beaten-up on enough.

I wonder what caused the great schism to make so many leave--some to PSF/EH (including myself for awhile) and others off the forums entirely. For me it was personal drama with some of the people who were here at the time but that can't account for everyone else? I know there was a lot of drama regarding NPP back in the day too. Ah well. Nobody answer that, just reminiscing...

[BJL]

I remember Mike's Beard. And Dancing Bear. And Nicko1234, though he had no "Bear" or "Beard". For the record, Mike Love's actual beard had way more sense.

Poor Brian, what fans he had. How right was Voltaire!

P.S.
I had gotten so wary of "Bea" in a nickname that rereading this thread I was pleasantly surprised that Bean Bag was actually a good guy.

There were a lot of good posters here, once upon a time. Still many today of course, but yeah that's partly why reading these old threads has been such a trip. Captain, Sheriff John Stone, leetwall and Summertime Blooz in addition to those you mentioned, plus many others Im sure Im forgetting. In hindsight I regret the way I treated some, like Cam Mott. His Mike apologism was annoying at the time but if I'd have known what great insight he had in the Smile Shop days, pre-'13 in this forum and later to come in PSF & even EH, I would've seen the fuller scope of what he had to offer. I think he just felt the need to stand up for someone who was already beaten-up on enough.

I wonder what caused the great schism to make so many leave--some to PSF/EH (including myself for awhile) and others off the forums entirely. For me it was personal drama with some of the people who were here at the time but that can't account for everyone else? I know there was a lot of drama regarding NPP back in the day too. Ah well. Nobody answer that, just reminiscing...

I was more of a lurker back than, but it's wild to think how many years I've been following this board. I never had a great grasp of what happened (and like you don't have any real desire too know), but I've always felt like it was pretty depressing thing that even the hardcore Beach Boys fans of the world couldn't all share a message board without an irrevocable schism. The universal Catholic church didn't stand a chance in hell.

And I was very sympathetic to the pro-Mike crowd back in the 2000s. I think it probably sounds sort of crazy now, but my sense is that back then embracing Mike was somehow part of a process of rehabilitating the late 60s and early 70s albums, realizing that David Marks was actually important, understanding that the Beach Boys actually *did* play on their hits until like the middle of 1965, basically just that the Beach Boys were a *band*, not just a bunch of random puppets fulfilling Brian's vision. Which wasn't the line at all when I first got into them.

[Zenobi]

As you may well figure, I never had any beef with Mike apology by itself. Some months ago I went into full pro-Mike mode to an extent I maybe never saw by anybody else.

BUT... I still never liked most Mike apologists, because they seem unable to goodmouth Mike without badmouthing Brian. I am a Mike Lover, yes, but even more of a Brianista. And I have read far too many posts by Cam Mott, but can't recall him ever saying anything nice about Brian.