I like your rundown but this confused me. If MIU was more polished, and LA was slicker then I don't understand the difference?

MIU = Mike's vision
LA = Carl's vision

In the post Holland era Carl had a better take on what worked than Mike. 

Except for HCTN (I hated it.  The music sounds like it came from the CHiPs sound track), LA is the best album of the post Holland era.  Too bad this could not have been the 1976 album.

On BB85 and KTSA the best songs are Carl's songs - escepecially BB85 where there is just such a different feel to them.

I agree with you 100%. So much of Mike and (blasphemy alert  ) Brian's songs on those albums sound like attempts to recreate the early BB's sound; Carl, with the possible exception of the title song of KTSA, doesn't bother with that. KTSA could have been better if Dennis had bothered to contribute (as he did on LA); Brian probably had better songs he could've contributed to BB85, but preferred to keep them for his solo album.

vintagemusic, no disrespect meant but if you really think the reunion album is going to sell between 1-5 million copies then you have no grip on the music industry in this day and age. 50,000 copies on initial release is much more likely. Check how much The Smile Sessions sold.

While it's tough to predict sales, I would be wary of using TSS as any sort of benchmark. It was a seven disc archival release aimed at a specific group of fans -- and even then it outperformed expectations.

It did? What were the expectations? Someone must have thought 7 discs were too much for the typical consumer, so they came up with the 2 disc version. And how well did that version sell? Pretty poorly, if the chart performance is any indication. I agree that the reunion album is going to be a tough sell except to us die hards.

Just keep in mind how happy he seems to be there at those shows and how much the audiences loved him.

He's obviously giving it his all and was still pretty rocking, giving the band an edge

That's a nice way of looking at it. Dennis appeared to be giving it his all on stage, right up till the end.

Even considering the pressure from Capitol to have something new out every other day, the early albums are fairly underrated imo. It's like yeah, they were singing about cars and stuff I really couldn't care less about, but Brian's attention to detail and craft was extremely apparent right from the get-go. I have no f*cking clue what a "surfer moon" is, but damn, what a gorgeous song.

They got better later on, I'll grant you, and I don't love everything on the early albums (but then I don't on several other albums, too). Still, there's enough really solid stuff on them all of them.

Over time, I've found that there's just no convincing most people of anything. They'll think what they want to think, and you're gonna have a hell of a time changing their perception of it - it just proves to be too frustrating. Their loss. Just enjoy it and be glad that there are so many others who can.

Edit: Just noticed "Surfer Moon" is nowhere to be found on your tracklists. NO DEAL. NEVERMIIIIIND.

Also, am I the only one who loves "Land Ahoy" and is puzzled how it's basically better than everything on "Surfin' Safari" and yet only saw the light of day later as the much-inferior "Cherry Cherry Coupe"?

I've loved "Land Ahoy" ever since I first heard it on "Beach Boys Rarities" in 1983. Even on that album of oddball tracks it stood out.

They were on the bill with the BBs on the July 4 65 show in San Fran but had a huge fight with the promoter and basically walked on stage-waved to the audience and then walked off and out to their cars-did not endear them to that promoter!! And mercurial behavior like that damaged their career in the 60s (in fact they got banned from the states for a few years after Mick Avory and Dave Davies had a fistfight on stage) A great band though-no doubt about it. Ray Davies wrote incredible songs from 64 to 71.

Ray wrote incredible songs from 72 to 93, too. And there's some good stuff on Other Peoples Lives and Working Man's Cafe, too.

There's evidence on the KNEBWORTH video and other late period concerts that Dennis didn't know where certain songs ended, or expected some transitions to be in one place when they were in another place.  I personally witnessed them completely fall apart at a concert when Dennis blew through a segueway on a medley.  Granted, the guy was altered a lot of the time, but the impression I get is of a guy that's played the songs a certain way for a long time, and knows those arrangements, and showed up and played them.  Note, too, that Dennis left the stage for a lot of numbers a la "Lady Lynda" or "Keepin' The Summer Alive."  I'm aware that some of that is because he may not have cared for the songs, but there's a factor that he probably didn't know the live arrangements and didn't want to be bothered to learn, either.

In the Seattle 1983 concert footage, Dennis rushes through each song at a million miles an hour.  But he goes through each song without really paying attention to his performance. He often speeds up and slows down during songs.

Dennis was always an energetic performer, even in the early days. But I think that by mid 1983, his sweating probably had as much, and maybe more, to do with the condition he was in. I don't mean to be mean by focusing on Dennis's bad side, so I hope this doesn't get taken the wrong way. By mid to late 1983, if Dennis tried to cut back on his drinking, even for a two hour concert, it probably caused him to sweat profusely. He probably even started to experience DT's.

Man, this is so sad to read. I mean, I love watching those concert vids where Dennis is just pouring it all out on those drums, pure animal passion, and then to see him such a mess in 1983...just breaks my heart.

Aside from the Beatles, these two are my favorite bands, and I've often thought of the similar paths they trod. Nice to see I'm not the only one who noticed.

Brian looks great in this special - even looks involved at first. I really don't think it's bad for network tv. No Long Promised Road or Caroline, No, but we do get a nice version of Heaven and Bruce even sings a bit of Disney Girls. And I'm not gonna complain about a show that brings the BB's and the Everlys together.

My apologies to RocknRoll!

Rocker, I respect your feelings on this subject, but I have to ask: so, what are the rules exactly and who makes them? Is the rule for a piece of art (or the need for a rule) due to the fact that it will eventually go into a frame of some sort, as in, a wooden or metal frame, or on a 12 inch vinyl disc or reel of film? If so, then aren't these said rules the concern of the curator, the critic, the reviewer, the movie studios, rather than solely that of the artist?

It makes sense that you might consider art without rules as disposal, but I can't see that applying to the artist. Anything that will hamper creativity or the imagination should not be forced upon the creating person(s). It is always a battle of course with format, technology, ease of use, etc, but if you choose to filter art that you take in through a series of rules, that is your choice.

This argument somehow applying to The Mardi Gras album is silly anyway because Doug and Stu's songs certainly conform to the rules you speak of, perhaps even too much so. The songs have a verse, chorus, brige, verse, chorus and vocal melodies that offer counter-play to the basic chords at time or simply complement them. You might not like these songs, but to argue that they are invalid as songs due to these hard-set rules of art, rock n roll, whatever, is quite baseless as they are completely by-the-rules.

It's a silly conceit anyway because rules are meant to be broken ESPECIALLY in what we call rock n roll.

Miles Davis (who I consider as rock n roll as anyone else) broke every rule in the book, alienating/frustrating fans and critics by the boatload, but now his manner of breaking the rules has become a bunch of new rules that people are studying and talking about and fretting over...... So, I maintain, rules are not the concern of the artist.

Very nicely stated, Erik. I've heard endlessly about these "rules" on another message board. We don't need more rules...and rules are made to be broken, anyway.

Wowy, now that's really big news!

And I really love the words 'never-before-seen'.  

Last album?
History has shown that last albums are often the band's best albums...
Abbey Road, uh, etc...

Yeah, Phobia was definately the Kinks best album; Mardi Gras, as discussed elsewhere on the board, certainly STANDS OUT among the Creedence albums: thank God the Monkees didn't let Changes stand as their last.....or for that matter, Pool it!

Stu and Doug would be fools to pass up playing with John instead of the tribute act they currently tour with. But I seriously doubt John will ever reunite with them. If Tom were still alive, maybe, just maybe...but without him, it's just gonna remind him of the most unpleasant time in CCR history - the end.

This is kind of lukewarm album for me. Don't understand all the fuss about "My Diane", but at least it's way better than "She's Got Rhythm" - Brian screeching ...yikes! Or "Tomboy" - this track would never get released today! "Kona Coast" is fun, though, nice tune, "Sunday Kind of Love" - well, anything Carl sings I love. That's what's wrong with this album, not enough Carl...but I guess this was during his cocaine period. The album definately sounds more polished and commercial that the two before it, but I can't rate it any higher than a 2 1/2. This was also the era of bad album titles. MIU Album? LA (Light Album)?

They went right after Holland IMO, With "Love You" 

Oh God Almighty, how I'd love to bury every copy of Love You and forget it ever existed!

'
Never understood the love for it. The best three or four songs combined with the best six or seven songs on Adult Child  or some  the potential cuts on New Album (not a real LP just a tape of options that is an oddly good boot LP) ) would have been cool. I don't know if I want to destroy it (I think the post KTSA albums are far worse) but I have played it several dozen times and never got into it.

And I wouldn't feel this way except I keep reading what a work of genius Love You is. I don't see anyone heaping that kind of praise on the post KTSA albums, although I'm sure ML thinks his SIP is a work of genius. As far as songwriting goes, there's about half a good album on Love You, but the production really grates on me. Some of those songs sound better on the Brian Loves You piano demos.

I'm agnostic about LOVE YOU now, but I vividly recall my reaction to hearing it for the first time, which was perhaps four or five years after it came out: I thought it sounded like crap, one of the most unprofessional sounding records I'd ever heard from a major band.  And I'll wager in the context of 95% of the average mainstream record buyers at the time, that was, and would have been, their first and overwhelming reaction.  It was just too different from the radio to make it.  I mean, RADICALLY different.  We can debate the artistic merits 'til we're blue in the face, but that skates around the fact that in the marketplace of 1977, a record with that kind of production value was never going to be a commercial success.  So to me, the whole debate about LOVE YOU misses the point, since the band, and this includes the Wilsons, weren't going specifically for an arty cool record.  First and foremost, they wanted a record that was going to sell.  I think Carl and Dennis wanted a GOOD record that was gonna sell...but having a successful record was job one.

And I think this is saddest part of all - that  after Endless Summer and Spirit of America, the Beach Boys had the attention of the world again, the public was ready for a great new BB's record, and what did they get? 15 Big Ones. Although that album sold well, I'm sure many fans took it home, played it, and said to themselves "I'm never buying a new BB's album again". Love You only did further damage. Some fans love it for it's portrait of a damaged artist at work, but that's not what the average fan wanted. If the group had come out with great new work in 76/77, it could have been the beginning of another run at the top of the charts. Instead, it was pretty much the end as far as album sales go.

"Nuff said"

Are you insane?

You mean to tell me YOU are the God in the sky who knows what constitutes quality to the point where your opinion is fact?

WTF?

Obviously you didn't understand anything that I said. Otherwise you would get the difference between opinion and fact that I tried to make clear for you in my posting above. I don't constitue nothing. I'm just looking at it from a musical point of view. I don't have a problem mentioning that Fogerty wrote his share of bs too.

If VDP had written those lyrics you'd consider them genius (my opinion)

I'm not much of a fan of VDP's lyrics. Not all that glitters is gold.
But maybe you can tell me what's so great with these lyrics. I'm saying they're average. Everyone could write that stuff. Nothing special, quite halting, but that's all.

You wouldn't happen to frequent another board as midnightx or Doc, would you?

I don't care for both of them.

You guys have to understand that music - and therefor the difference between good, bad, average, wahtsoever - isn't about taste. As I mentioned above, I like music that's incredible terrible with no substance or great quality. Yet I never would be as arrogant to say it is good or even great only because it's very appealing to me and my personal taste.
If you can't analyse, then don't try it. For this whole discussion I never said that my opinion is fact or better than anyone else's. In fact, THAT comes from the other side.

Please don't think I was giving the Doug/Stu Mardi Gras material amazingly high praise. All I said was that for two guys who were suddenly thrust into the responsibility of writing/producing/singing/playing enough material for 90% of an album MINUS their lead guitarist/singer/arranger's participation: it wasn't all that bad and had some good points..... That's it!

Rock n Roll is about whatever the hell you want it to be and about whatever the hell you wanna like no matter what "authority" on terms of quality will tell you. And even then, most people's idea of what quality is depends on their personal taste anyway, so I don't see how you can make and preach such a false distinction with a straight face. I mean, what constitutes quality in your book? I'm curious. Should I think Winds Of Change is a better song than Tomorrow Never Knows because TNK is one chord while Winds Of Change is more complex and with more universal lyrics? Or that Kokomo must be better than Beat On The Brat for the same reasons?

I'm just trying to understand.

All I said is that their songs on Mardi Gras are average at best. Nothing else.


For the other point, let me try it this way. I don't know if my english is good enough to express it in another way or if I'd know any other way to describe it.
Take a children's drawing of a house. Just like a kid would paint (or I for that matter, because I can't draw for all the money in the world). Then you have a painting by a real artist, also a house. Nothing else. Even if you like the children's drawing much better because it's so cute, you have to agree that the style, the techniques and probably the composition of the artist's picture is better in every way. And that doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be more complex. Same with music. The way a song is built, put together, composed maybe even arranged (although that has more to do with the recording, just like the singing and playing) isn't about taste but follows certain rules of composition. Thanks to rules, art becomes art that you can stretch but not break. Many people don't understand that Rock'n'Roll has it's rules as well, because the basis of all is a song composition. Unfortunately in later years Rock'n'Roll became filled with more rules and small-mindedness than probably every other form of poular music, just because certain forms were considered un-cool and not hip. But that's another story.
I hope this explains what I mean

Channeling
Dr. John Carpenter....

They went right after Holland IMO, With "Love You" 

Oh God Almighty, how I'd love to bury every copy of Love You and forget it ever existed!

'
Never understood the love for it. The best three or four songs combined with the best six or seven songs on Adult Child  or some  the potential cuts on New Album (not a real LP just a tape of options that is an oddly good boot LP) ) would have been cool. I don't know if I want to destroy it (I think the post KTSA albums are far worse) but I have played it several dozen times and never got into it.

And I wouldn't feel this way except I keep reading what a work of genius Love You is. I don't see anyone heaping that kind of praise on the post KTSA albums, although I'm sure ML thinks his SIP is a work of genius. As far as songwriting goes, there's about half a good album on Love You, but the production really grates on me. Some of those songs sound better on the Brian Loves You piano demos.

They went right after Holland IMO, With "Love You" 

Oh God Almighty, how I'd love to bury every copy of Love You and forget it ever existed!

I'll be buying it. There's a hole in my BW albums between Brian Wilson and Getting In Over My Head. Hope Orange Crate Art get the vinyl treatment, too.

I like "Call it pretending" very much. Also "Walk on water" which was co-written by John and Tom. Don't remember though if it was Golliwogs or already CCR.

It was done as The Golliwogs then recorded again for the first CCR album. I think The Golliwogs version is the better of the two. Also did you know that Tom sings the second verse of Suzie Q?

(channeling Dana Carvey as Carson) I did not know that! That is wierd, wild stuff! Seriously, will have to listen to that again. John was/is a great talent, but ungenerous to his bandmates. If not for Tom's lead in the beginning, there may never have been a CCR.

Paul has always been gung ho Beatles, you can see it in the Anthology interviews, where he is always "up", always promoting his role in the group. George's feelings were much more mixed. After hanging out with Dylan and The Band, it was a drag to go back to the Fabs and be treated like the little kid brother. As a result, we got ATMP. Do you think this changed the way John and Paul looked at George? I doubt it. So I can't see the reunited Fabs working together for long. The way they did it was just right, with the exception of no new song for the third Anthology album. And I would've been fine if the third song was solely a creation of Macca/Harry/Starkey. Wouldn't be the first time there was a Beatles track with only 2 or 3 Beatles on it.

Has anyone heard any of The Golliwogs stuff? Some of the stuff Tom sang and wrote or co-wrote with John was actually very good. There was easily enough room in the band for another songwriter. John should have taken a leaf out of another pair of famous rock siblings from the same era, The Davies bros of The Kinks. Ray wrote the vast bulk of the album tracks but often gave Dave the b - sides of singles to express himself creatively. A little compromise could have saved a great band from falling apart.

Exactly! No one is suggesting that Tom was as good a singer or writer as John, but there again, John wrote the occasional dud, too. If Tom had been given some room to contribute the occasional song, the group might've lasted longer - which is what we all wish for, right? The guys had an amazing chemistry together that has never been replicated, not by John and his band of hired hands, not bu Stu/Doug and their Fogerty-soundalike.

I would've chosen Meet the Beatles if it was on there. Yes, Meet...not With...the Smithereens thought enough of it to cover the entire album.

I'm sorry, but your feelings on Doug and Stu's Mardi Gras songs ARE your opinion. There's no way around it. It's a fact! it's your opinion and you are entitled to your opinion and I respect your opinion. Please refrain from suggesting your opinion is a fact because it is not.

No, it's not my opinion. I listen to "Door to door" in a while, as well as "Tearin' up the country" or "Sail away". But music isn't all taste, it's quality. And these songs are not quality material. Easy.
Don't interchange opinion with fact. I really like to listen to "Summer in paradise" and like many parts of it but that won't make that a good album. It's material just isn't quality stuff. And same goes for the songs by Doug and Stu. The songs don't have any substance. That doesn't mean you can't like them (I would never tell anybody what to like and what not to like). But there's a difference between that and a musical point of view. 'nuff said

You wouldn't happen to frequent another board as midnightx or Doc, would you?

I can't stand seeing Fogerty playing with jerkoffs like Kenny Arnoff and a bunch of other faceless, overplaying merdaholes. He can say whatever he wants about Stu and Doug but they were one of those rare rhythm sections who could both swing/tear it up AND underplay at the same time. And if wasn't just Fogerty's songs that made the band kick. Toss on Doug Sahm's "Groover's Paradise" album (Cosmo produced and he and Stu are the rhythm section) for proof! There is some serious magic in those guy's playing and Sahm seems to be having the time of his life.

And the Mardi Gras album ain't half bad either! If John had played on them/sung on Doug/Stu's songs, some would be CCR classics/standards!

I think Mardi Gras got bad reviews because it was so different from what people expected. I mean, a Creedence album where John only wrote 3 songs, sang just 4? I can understand why fans at the time felt ripped off. That said, Doug had a pretty decent voice, and both he and Stu wrote some good tunes for the album. Were they as good as John's best stuff? Probably not, but they certainly weren't horrible. Too bad the democracy thing didn't happen while Tom was still in the band. There's a couple of Tom's songs I would rate with the best of CCR, Joyful Resurrection and Goodbye Media Man.

Was in my favorite record/cd store last night - one of the few left - and surprised to see the only copy of SMiLE in the entire store was the big box. Not one copy of the two disc set or the vinyl to be seen. Only a few Beach Boys cd's in stock, and the vinyl reissues of Today, Summer Days, Surfs Up, Sunflower and Endless Summer. Only one other store locally has had any copies, I know retail sales for music are on the wane, but the remaining stores have tons of copies of Sounds of Summer, Pet Sounds, etc. Was the belated release of SMiLE considered a failure? Did BWPS satisfy the curious? Can we expect a renewed push from Capitol once the summer tour begins?

I go all the way to the end with this band. Love the albums everyone else loves, the often cited Face to Face, Arthur, VGPS, Something Else, Lola, but also love Misfits, State of Confusion, Word of Mouth, even their finale, Phobia.

Yeh Misfits is excellent, unfortunately by Word of Mouth and State of Confusion Ray's production had become of it's time and renders those albums difficult listening, mind you the songs on WoM are great. If they had trimmed Phobia down to 10-12 songs it would have been brilliant. The 2 new songs on To the Bone were better produced and Animal in particular is a favourite of mine.

I don't have any problem with the production on those albums. I do think UK Jive and Think Visual were just a tad overproduced in spots, but for the most part, I really like the Kinks 80's work. I can't think of any act with similar longevity who were still producing high quality work right to the end. Certainly not the Beach Boys