I wish that..

[carl r]

Clearly, the intense drug regimen that Landy had him on to keep him passive in the '80s and early '90s
permanently altered his brain, almost to the point of a small-scale lobotomy (is there such a thing?)

He saved his life, and he is physically healthy today, but what a terrible cost....At least he's happy, that's the most important thing.

Sorry to bang on, but that is what I don't really know. Was it actually Landy who determined the pharmological elements to Brian's treatment, including the dosages and types of drug? Or was there more of a free-for-all amongst the team of psychiatrists that Landy had around him, including some which were very reputable?

Landy seemed overly controlling and was undoubtably in it for the money, but did he need Brian really dosed up? he controlled everything anyway. Landy could have given Brian placebos and still got him to do what he wanted.

Maybe we'll get solid evidence of all of this. One day.

[Julia]

I think it's a mistake.  With this last "Brian's Back" campaign that began in 1998, they've positioned Brian to the general public as if he was the same guy he was around Today/SD&SN, when many of the diehards rather he be built up as the quirky guy who put out quirky, Love You-style music.

On TLOS you have a team of musicians and management running around making sure what is released is palatable, acceptable, within the boundaries...do people realize this? I know they don't over on Brian's board. Love You is the last example of Brian being engaged, in control, and revealing his stuff on almost his own terms...its HIS stuff, not a little dash of his stuff blended in with Scott Bennett or whomever else is creating the shiny Brian facsimile. TLOS is a good record, and Brian is a big part of it...but compared to Love You its not at all genuine Brian Wilson. With that said there are parts of TLOS that put a major lump in my throat, in a good way. But I'd just love to hear something closer to the source, even if its disturbing.

This is a great buried old thread from a bygone era where people were more honest about Brian and his management. (Im not sure what happened in the '10s but it feels like there was a time there where it was anathema to say some of the things I see here.)

The problems I've had with Brian's solo career are threefold: 1) the BB harmonies and shared leads are sorely lacking--after 10+ tracks in a row of later-day Brian vocals I start to really tire of his voice. It's not gruff enough to be Dennis, Bob Dylan or Johnny Cash but neither is it his old pristine falsetto--it's just kind of a whiny monotone to my ears a lot of the time. 2) There's no hooks. Almost none of the solo songs sticks with me the way the old hits or vintage (pre-78) Brian material does. I couldn't hum the melody of a single song off BW88 or Sweet Insanity if you held a gun to my head and I've heard them several times over the years. That's to say nothing of the Thomas tunes... 3) As other posters have said, it doesn't sound like Brian anymore, it just sounds like generic Tin Pan Alley vehicle #47. Anyone could've written, sung or produced the shlock that is on Imagination and beyond. Even the cover arts are generic and cheap looking, including (especially?) BWPS, sorry Mark London.

I think the problem is the people who managed Brian including (especially?) Melinda weren't actually fans of Brian's core, true identity as a musician. They liked Brian the genius who made Pet Sounds, Brian the one man hit machine who makes radio-friendly singles, Brian the family friendly guy whose songs played in the background when you took your kids to the seashore. They didn't like Brian the half-crazed occultist who made SMiLE (except to cash in on "finishing" rock's most famous unfinished LP), they wanted to pretend Brian the man-child wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt or bathrobe never existed, they were embarrassed by the likes of LY & A/C, they outright quashed the Paley sessions.

Melinda and company actively put Brian in a box and I think if we could've looked in his heart of hearts he wasn't too happy about a lot of the stuff they made him do. Imagination it sounds like he was quiet-quitting during production, he clearly sabotaged GIOMH, admitted openly "my wife and managers said to" finish SMiLE, I suspect VDP was driven away by goings-on behind the scenes with TLOS, (as the BB were for TWGMTR) and he needed a cast of flash in the pan losers (Katie Perry anyone?) to carry him over the finish line in NPP.

Some might say "yeah but without that, Brian wouldn't have done anything!" And I say "ok...so? He was retirement age and had more than proven himself, was rich, why does he need to tour and make shlock if he doesn't want to? If he has some great artistic endeavor he WANTS to do, fine, but clearly that's not what was happening post-90s more often than not." Fun quirky Brian is best Brian. Even the golden oldies had a lot of weirdness and eeriness about them. Telling Brian to sand down the "rough" edges that produced Busy Doin Nothing and Shortenin Bread is to kill his artistic spirit, hence the completely forgettable dreck we got that might as well have been made by anybody.

I think it would've been cool if he did the Smile tour with his keyboard (or even a piano) sitting in a sandbox surrounded by tumbling mats, and a tent in the backround.

That's what I was saying man, he's legendary for that, why not just own up to it. Just like Lee Scratch Perry plays up his 'insanity', Brian would only gain in popularity at this point. The people that mostly by Brian Wilson records at this point are either older fans that have been around to remember the 'good' old days, or younger people who bought Pet Sounds and have to have everything else. haha.

That would've been SO FUCKING COOL it makes me mad they didn't do that! It's just another beef I have with BWPS and Brian's latter-day management, they completely misunderstood who his fans are and what they wanted. Like, if SMiLE was Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, with all the strange asides from our half-deranged host, psychedelic dangers lurking around every corner, then BWPS is just a regular generic Hershey store where the owner is a nice old man and that's all there is to it. Basically, they took one of the coolest albums ever, teeming with pathos and lore, and tried to present it as a family friendly "song for children" you can take the kiddies to. Instead of Frank Holmes' surreal abstract art we get generic looking circus posters from Mark London. Boo.

[BJL]

I think it's a mistake.  With this last "Brian's Back" campaign that began in 1998, they've positioned Brian to the general public as if he was the same guy he was around Today/SD&SN, when many of the diehards rather he be built up as the quirky guy who put out quirky, Love You-style music.

On TLOS you have a team of musicians and management running around making sure what is released is palatable, acceptable, within the boundaries...do people realize this? I know they don't over on Brian's board. Love You is the last example of Brian being engaged, in control, and revealing his stuff on almost his own terms...its HIS stuff, not a little dash of his stuff blended in with Scott Bennett or whomever else is creating the shiny Brian facsimile. TLOS is a good record, and Brian is a big part of it...but compared to Love You its not at all genuine Brian Wilson. With that said there are parts of TLOS that put a major lump in my throat, in a good way. But I'd just love to hear something closer to the source, even if its disturbing.

This is a great buried old thread from a bygone era where people were more honest about Brian and his management. (Im not sure what happened in the '10s but it feels like there was a time there where it was anathema to say some of the things I see here.)

The problems I've had with Brian's solo career are threefold: 1) the BB harmonies and shared leads are sorely lacking--after 10+ tracks in a row of later-day Brian vocals I start to really tire of his voice. It's not gruff enough to be Dennis, Bob Dylan or Johnny Cash but neither is it his old pristine falsetto--it's just kind of a whiny monotone to my ears a lot of the time. 2) There's no hooks. Almost none of the solo songs sticks with me the way the old hits or vintage (pre-78) Brian material does. I couldn't hum the melody of a single song off BW88 or Sweet Insanity if you held a gun to my head and I've heard them several times over the years. That's to say nothing of the Thomas tunes... 3) As other posters have said, it doesn't sound like Brian anymore, it just sounds like generic Tin Pan Alley vehicle #47. Anyone could've written, sung or produced the shlock that is on Imagination and beyond. Even the cover arts are generic and cheap looking, including (especially?) BWPS, sorry Mark London.

I think the problem is the people who managed Brian including (especially?) Melinda weren't actually fans of Brian's core, true identity as a musician. They liked Brian the genius who made Pet Sounds, Brian the one man hit machine who made the quintessential Summer songs of '62-'65, Brian the family friendly guy whose songs played in the background when you took your kids to the seashore. They didn't want or like Brian the half-crazed occultist who made SMiLE (except to cash in on "finishing" rock's most famous unfinished LP), they wanted to pretend Brian the man-child wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt or bathrobe never existed, they were embarrassed by the likes of LY & A/C, they actively quashed the Paley sessions. Melinda and company actively put Brian in a box and I think if we could've looked in his heart of hearts he wasn't too happy about a lot of the stuff they made him do. Imagination it sounds like he was quiet-quitting during production, he clearly sabotaged GIOMH, admitted openly "my wife and managers said to" finish SMiLE, I suspect VDP was driven away by goings-on behind the scenes with TLOS, (as the BB were for TWGMTR) and he needed a cast of flash in the pan losers (Katie Perry anyone?) to carry him over the finish line in NPP. Some might say "yeah but without that, Brian wouldn't have done anything!" And I say "ok...so? He was retirement age and had more than proven himself, was rich, why does he need to tour and make shlock if he doesn't want to? If he has some great artistic endeavor he WANTS to do, fine, but clearly that's not what was happening post-90s more often than not.

Fun quirky Brian is best Brian. Even the golden oldies had a lot of weirdness and eeriness about them. Telling Brian to sand down the "rough" edges that produced Busy Doin Nothing and Shortenin Bread is to kill his artistic spirit, hence the completely forgettable dreck we got that might as well have been made by anybody. It'd be like telling Mike not to reference Good Vibrations or Kokomo, telling McCartney not to be romantic, telling Jim Morrison not to be dark n gritty...it's who they are as artists. Oh well.

I think it's more complicated than this, I really do. Not that this isn't part of the truth, but that it's just more complicated. Some ways in which it's more complicated, in my view:

1. The psychiatric drugs Brian very obviously needed very likely dulled his creativity and engagement.
2. The fact that Brian created a lot of the quirky music of the 70s and 80s from a place of immense pain, though he also obviously found solace in the music at that time, and created the music of the mid-60s from a much happier place.
3. The fact that Brian himself wanted his music to be popular, and that he was a touring artist who was seeing first hand at every show what went over and what didn't (I think this is a huge reason why Smile ended up happening, and suspect it was a factor inhibiting a return to Love You style recording.
4. There is a rawer, quirkier version of TLOS, we know exactly what it would have sounded like: Oh Mi Amor, Good Kind of Love, Message Man, three songs Brian wrote solo and that have been released in roughly their demo form. Oxygen to the Brain and Morning Beat are two more that in their Paley-sessions spirit seem to reflect what a "quirkier" Lucky Old Sun would have been. Now maybe both the fans and Brian would have been better off if That Lucky Old Sun had just been an album of songs like that, with no big statements a la Midnights Another Day or song-cycle pretensions. But it wouldn't have been *that* different, and it almost certainly would have had a much more muted public response - something that Brian cared about too, not just his managers.
5. The Gershwin Project was by all accounts very close to Brian's heart, and accounts from the band at the time indicate that Brian was very hands-on in producing the basic tracks and giving the vocals everything he had. I really don't think that what was stopping the other Brian albums from having that extra oomph and creativity in the arrangements and productions was pressure from management. If anything, I think that the Gershwin record suggests that when Brian was *most* engaged, he was tapping back into the old professional-record-producer habits of the mid-60s, and *not* the quirky Love You style music of the fraught 70s.
6. The idea that Brian Wilson did not want to tour has been thoroughly disproven, in my view. Those tours did not make money in any meaningful way relative to Brian's Beach Boys fortune. I think the Brian Wilson band's genuine love for the man is pretty obvious, and they've all said the same thing: he loved touring. He loved being on the bus, hanging with the guys, staying in hotels, getting room service, the adulation and affirmation he got from audiences, and, probably, you know, feeling like he was still doing something with his life. I think the obvious interpretation of what we all saw in 2022 and 2023 was an old man who didn't want to let go when it was obviously time, NOT an old man being forced to work when he wanted to be at home.

Again, I don't disagree with you entirely. I think Imagination was a major misstep (although there are some absolutely gorgeous melodies and harmony arrangements hiding in those tracks, which was pretty clearly Brian's contribution to the thing). (Also, we know in that case what a "quirky" Brian solo record would have sounded like in the mid-90s, because he actually recorded the whole damn thing with Paley!) But Brian was obviously much more interested in the vocal sessions than the tracking sessions for Imagination, and I don't know that we really have the information to ascribe that to not liking Joe Thomas's heavy hand, versus Joe Thomas's heavy hand following on from Brian's lack of interest.

[Zenobi]

Yes, fun quirky Brian is best Brian. We needed far more Night Bloomin' Jasmines, Country Feelings, and of course Love Yous. And we need released Adult/Child and, more of all, released complete Paley Sessions. Then we can decide OURSELVES what's good and what's not.