Christian Love sings lead on GOK, and it sounds amazing!

[Mikie]

Mike Love looks very tired in that clip.  He's taking a breather.  Is that the sound of his tamborine that sticks out like a sore thumb in the mix?

[Emdeeh]

So.............this is Mike's kid, the same one who is on the Sunflower cover and inner sleeve, right? Brother of Haleigh?

Hayleigh -- now, there's the member of the Love clan who sounds the most like Carl. That gal can SING!

[Mikie]

True dat.  Girl's got the pipes!

[Dove Nested Towers]

He has a lot of Carl's gentle prettiness in his voice. His pitch control has a few problems. He doesn't sing out quite enough or elongate the phrasing toward the end (nerves?). There is a certain blandness present. Overall, quite decent.

[Mikie]

Snot nerves. It's just the way he sings. Like I was saying earlier, yes, "bland" is the key word here.

[filledeplage]

Snot nerves. It's just the way he sings. Like I was saying earlier, yes, "bland" is the key word here.

Mikie - I could not disagree more.  Saw him last weekend and find his voice to be gentle but with that rare "yearning" quality that Carl had. He does a lovely job, live, and gets serious applause for  Getcha Back, and Good Vibrations.  Bland, no way.  He sings as if it he is telling a story.  Especially Getcha Back. 

[Smilin Ed H]

I thoroughly enjoyed Mike and Bruce (and David) a few years back.  I'm in England, so we got a decent range of songs (probably down to Brian's setting the standard at the time) and the only duffer was Everyone's in Love etc.  To be honest, out of the other guys, I was least impressed by Christian's vocals and distinctly  recall You're So  Good as being awful.  Bruce did GOK and it had that soft, fragile quality that you hear in the Youtube clip of Brian posted above.  This, however, is very good indeed.

I think familiarity can breed contempt and with all the greatest hits packages and re-releases of Pet Sounds and the constant touring, we often forget just how good Brian's work (across numerous collaborators) was, but there are some works that transcend the body of great songs like I Get Around and this is one of them. As the great philosopher Thomas Earl Petty once commented - and I'm paraphrasing - pop/rock/whatever doesn't get any better than God Only Knows.

[filledeplage]

I thoroughly enjoyed Mike and Bruce (and David) a few years back.  I'm in England, so we got a decent range of songs (probably down to Brian's setting the standard at the time) and the only duffer was Everyone's in Love etc.  To be honest, out of the other guys, I was least impressed by Christian's vocals and distinctly  recall You're So  Good as being awful.  Bruce did GOK and it had that soft, fragile quality that you hear in the Youtube clip of Brian posted above.  This, however, is very good indeed.

I think familiarity can breed contempt and with all the greatest hits packages and re-releases of Pet Sounds and the constant touring, we often forget just how good Brian's work (across numerous collaborators) was, but there are some works that transcend the body of great songs like I Get Around and this is one of them. As the great philosopher Thomas Earl Petty once commented - and I'm paraphrasing - pop/rock/whatever doesn't get any better than God Only Knows.

I would submit that God Only Knows is a soft and delicate song, concerning the fragile essence of the relationship captured in the song.  And, you are correct that it does not get better than God Only Knows.  And requires a similar approach to perform it.   I can't imagine Mick Jagger (whose work I love) on lead. 

[Mikie]

Well said, Smilin' Edward!

[Autotune]

He has a lot of Carl's gentle prettiness in his voice. His pitch control has a few problems. He doesn't sing out quite enough or elongate the phrasing toward the end (nerves?). There is a certain blandness present. Overall, quite decent.

How dare you talk like that about Brian Wilson!!





 

[hypehat]

The biggest problem I have with this clip, and with the MikeNBruce band, is that the vocal harmony backing is so weak. Christian does a really fine job on the lead, though. Brian's band at least know they need more singers and harmonies - they are recreating doubled 5 part harmonies on most songs! The M&B band also have a tendency to rely on awful keyboard sounds, still. I hate the supposedly incredible Paramount 1993 gig for the same reason - The instrumentation is so cheap and half-assed.


I should probably add I've never seen them in the flesh, which will give everybody the excuse to dismiss my opinion 

[Dove Nested Towers]

Yes, the vocals in the middle section are practically inaudible, all of them.

[Ron]

Wow, this is amazing! Christian Love does an amazing job on God Only Knows, and you can tell Mike & Bruce are very pleased with the results...you can see Mike & Bruce look at each other in amazement early in the performance, and Bruce seems amazed pretty much throughout the whole thing and congratulates him at the end! I hope they let him keep singing the lead on this...this is the closest to Carl's lead that I have heard from anybody!  I know the comparisons to Carl have been out there for awhile, but to be honest, I really didn't hear it as much as others.  What do you guys think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6Qe0dZPJKo

I think he sounds fantastic.  People are going to hate this but the first time I realized how great he was, was when I saw them on t.v. doing a live version of Kokomo for something.  He nailed Carl's part, changed it up slightly but it was still just as beautiful.  It was shockingly good.  The guy has great chops, but really his dad does too, it looks like he inherited not only his father's ability to be dorky-cool but also the work ethic to get great at what you do. 

[Ron]

Snot nerves. It's just the way he sings. Like I was saying earlier, yes, "bland" is the key word here.

Mikie - I could not disagree more.  Saw him last weekend and find his voice to be gentle but with that rare "yearning" quality that Carl had. He does a lovely job, live, and gets serious applause for  Getcha Back, and Good Vibrations.  Bland, no way.  He sings as if it he is telling a story.  Especially Getcha Back. 

I agree, I think the kid's (in his 40's) fantastic.  Here's a good clip of the Kokomo stuff.  If you don't want to suffer through Kokomo, fast forward to about 3 minutes in, the camera work finally shows Christian do his thing.    He has the balls to do his own thing and change it slightly from Carl's, but still keep the vibe the same. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-yDEkyVOEM

[Aegir]

I've always been a big fan of Christian's voice.

[Andrew G. Doe]

I've always been a big fan of Christian's voice.

But you don't care for the rest of him ? 

[Awesoman]

Same here - OK, so he's not shout-singing it, but in truth, it's not a very good performance. Weak, suspect pitch and phrasing... about the only thing he does right is remember all the words and flash a smile.

Hm. Methinks you overstate for effect. The "truth" you mention is your aesthetic reaction to a performance. Others differ.

I believe those are called opinions...

And frankly, what bugs me most of all is this notion that there's some sort of zero-sum game afoot -- that for Mike's band to be decent, Brian's must be terrible, or vice versa. I don't think Brian or Mike think that. I don't think their band members think that either.

And I don't think anyone else here thinks that either.  It's not complicated: I found Christian's YouTube performance of "God Only Knows" to be good, and BW's particular performance of the same song to be lacking.  Hooray for opinions!

[Rocker]

BTW Matt Jardine does a pretty good job on it, too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHPIHJaX-J8&feature=related

[acedecade75]

 I've never heard Matt do this song before.  His voice is beautiful!  He has a warmth in his voice that most of the others seem to miss.  I also love his take on Warmth Of The Sun.

[Aegir]

"Acoustic Vibrations" by the Surf City Allstars has a great studio version of Matt singing God Only Knows.