The Smiley Smile Message Board

Somebody has called them "the greatest album that never was". The definition once reserved to SMiLE.
In any case, I think they deserve a treatment like the 2011 SMiLE Sessions, completed with a "reconstructed" album.
What do you think?

The material should of course be released. No, it's not as great as "Smile." I don't know who called the Paley stuff "the greatest album that never was", but while a lot of the stuff is good, I wouldn't use such hyperbole.

It was never a fully sequenced album as far as I know, just an extended series of sessions that yielded far more than an album's worth of material.

I'd love to see all the tracks released. But really, a good hunk of the best stuff has been released, and much of the rest circulated in pretty solid sound quality. There are some tracks that only exist in pretty crummy-sounding versions, and I can only imagine there's stuff we haven't heard at all.

But between the tracks on Brian's current website, the "Playback" comp, and the "Long Promised Road" soundtrack, you've got a good hunk of the tracks right there in more or less "original" condition. Some other stuff has been futzed with to some degree, such as a bit of stuff on the "Gettin' in Over My Head" album and "You're Still a Mystery" from the "Made in California" set.

Now that they've dumped a good hunk of the sessions out there already, I can't see why they shouldn't release everything they've got. I don't think it needs to be presented as an "album", just put it all on a couple discs' worth. There would be some questions as to what can or should be used. They probably can't use BB vocals on a Brian release (though clearances could be pursued), and I'm not sure if they'd want to include the Paley guide vocals.

Of course they are not so good as SMiLE (nothing is). Still, imho it's pretty impressive stuff for a musician who, according to some, did nothing good after 1967, or even 1966....

I think the best tracks from the sessions could have been molded into a very good 1995 Beach Boys album.

Brian has done well by having partners that can help facilitate him creating, and also help get projects out the door. Many such as Gary Usher, Don Was, and Andy Paley were able to the former, but not the latter. That's why, despite some drawbacks, Joe Thomas has been an important figure at a few points in Brian's career, because he was able to do both, and do it both with Brian solo and with the Beach Boys.

Sire Records, where Andy is well-connected, offered to fund the completion of the Wilson/Paley album. Joe, who had somehow weaseled himself into being Brian's intermediary, refused their offer. How the hell does this guy have a reputation for "getting projects out the door"?

Better question: why would anybody even want completed Brian Wilson projects if it's just going to be tainted by a corporate dinosaur from Hollywood with the worst taste in music that you can possibly imagine? I'd rather Brian stayed at home and be comfortable banging out Phil Spector riffs on the piano. Why should he be coaxed into writing anodyne soft-rock? Hasn't this man suffered enough?

I wouldn't be surprised if Brian's estate/handlers are hoarding a huge trove of unreleased Wilson/Paley recordings spanning the 1990s-2000s. Like, several albums of non-bootlegged material, none of which will ever see official release, even after Brian passes. Well, we might get 1 or 2 songs thrown on the next greatest hits package, due for 2032. But don't expect the tracks to sound like how they were intended to be heard.

This shows that even blatant trolls, absurdly, can get something partly right once in a while.

What’s that saying about a broken clock being right twice a day?

The point was not that Thomas is a great producer, nor a cultivator of all of the best work of Brian's. The point was that Joe Thomas got s**t done. I'm not a fan of his production style (though it eased off on the later 2010s stuff compared to the late 90s). But like him or not, he's one of the main starters behind making the 50th anniversary happen in 2012.

But the point was not that Andy Paley didn't have connections in the industry. The point was that Andy was not able to navigate both the Brian and Beach Boys political machine to get his project done. Neither was Don Was. Despite both of them working on some very good material.

Joe Thomas was able to navigate the Brian world, and then eventually also the even more nefarious BB world. Was it by ingratiating himself in ways that led to not the best musical outcomes? Probably. Certainly initially by molding "Imagination" into something that, while it has some good songs and good Brian vocals, is not the musical direction most folks wanted.  

Also, Joe Thomas had $$$$, and access to $$$$. I think by leaps and bounds Thomas's best achievement in the BB world was making the reunion project happen. As someone said back then, the Beach Boys finally had a guy with the organizational skills and the *MONEY* to secure guarantees, and he was the guy clapping his hands and saying "ok, now here's what we're going to do." That worked. For about a year. But that's more than most anybody else could have mustered. He secured a reunion album deal based on the songs he had written with Brian, secured a tour with the money and organizational skills to put together that "50 Big Ones" production company with Brian and Mike, and he also got a live album and two live DVDs/Blu-rays out. All in a year (obviously some of the ancillary stuff didn't make it out until 2013).

So yeah, the point was not to argue the musical merits of these respective collaborators. The point was that the guy LITERALLY got projects out the door, as in he got them released. That was Joe Thomas. I'm not saying there weren't many, many factors. I think in another time and place Don Was certainly could have made something happen.

But I think by 2011 Thomas was pretty aware of what it took to make a BB reunion happen. Specifically, it needed his bag of songs he had started with Brian in the late 90s (a number of which *are* on par with the best Paley material I believe), the ability to secure up front cash advances for the needed parties, and the organizational skill to balance all of the projects. He also clearly learned some lessons from his first run with Brian in the late 90s where he was always by Brian's side in interviews and on camera. How many photos of Joe Thomas from the C50 reunion period even exist? I think I may have seen one? And I think I've seen one 2013 photo of Thomas during the Brian/Al/David tour.

Just as a side note, Joe Thomas did a excellent job producing the latest Chicago CD... very worthwhile recording.

I think the 90s Payley Sessions was the best music of Brian's solo career! While Lucky Old Sun and Gershwin are the best released albums. I am definitely for an official release of these songs! I feel that starting with Imaginations. Brian was reigned in a bit. But the Payley sessions have a bit of  the unleashed Friends/Love You Brian. Chain Reaction of Love is my favorite song from these sessions!

I know that Gettin In Over My Head has some remakes, but not as heart felt, with the exception of The Waltz. Speaking of which, why isn't Gettin In Over My Head available to play online anywhere? I own the cd, just curious. I tried searching on here because I am sure others have asked the same question. But this site keeps freezing up when I search.

You nail this. Unreined Brian, like in most of Love You. That is exactly the reason I love the WilsonPaley sessions.

And that's probably why I'm not head over heels in love with them. There are some gems - Everything I Need, Still a Mystery, Soul Searching, Gettin' In Over My Head- and some songs I can't stand - Chain Reaction of Love comes to mind.

I love Chain Reaction! But that's ok. We all have different tastes. I was so happy that My Solution was finally released even though many hate it.

To this day, I never understood what Carl's problem was...

I don't think we have anywhere near a full picture of Carl's opinion of the material. I don't believe he necessarily had a strong dislike for all of the material. All we really have is a bit of sketchy info that he didn't like the Don Was-produced backing track for "Soul Searchin'" (which we've never heard).

I think this mid-90s period with the Beach Boys and Brian (both separately and together) is still somewhat sketchy. I think there were still lingering issues with Brian's Landy period (and the fallout from his "autobiography"), and I think interpersonal issues and band politics sort of indirectly and directly impacted working the Paley sessions more than it was like an outright rejection of the actual songs/material.

In 1995, Brian hadn't been front and center leading a BB project in years, and was just in the process of doing the "Orange Crate Art" album (which he didn't write or produce) and the IJWMFTT film and soundtrack (which Brian didn't really produce on his own and had no original songs), so in the eyes of the band it was unclear if he could lead a project, and also whether they *wanted* that, whether they wanted to do another deal where Brian and an outside co-writer bring in all or most of the songs, and the guys just add vocals.

Recall as well that this was around the time (within a year or so) when the idea was thrown around to do a "Pet Sounds" tour with Brian and the band, and Carl supposedly didn't think Brian would be able to do it. Whether he was right or wrong at the time, or whether he was justified to feel that way or not, that speaks to how he and the band to some degree felt about having Brian as a heavy participant if not a leader on a project. I think they just felt unsure from a logistical point of view, and also the usual band politics colored things.

Mike and Brian's interactions at the "Soul Searchin'"/"You're Still a Mystery" vocal sessions speak to a weird antagonism that was still present. The band certainly was not just tripping over themselves running to Brian to service an album's worth of Brian/Andy songs.

That's not to say the material itself was not also a potential concern for some of them. Remember they were still doing stuff like the "Summer in Paradise" album, and you can see the material Carl worked on outside of the band at this time (the "Beckley/Lamm/Wilson" stuff) was very different. So I don't think some of the guys saw the value in doing an album of those Paley tracks that would have appealed more to critics and the nerd/indie contingent of Brian/BB fans that was growing in numbers at the time. This was the era of rather stale live setlists and not much studio activity. I think they were a bit on autopilot.

What did they end up working on? "Stars and Stripes", a project where an outsider (Joe Thomas not coincidentally) kind of pushed the project forward as the main producer (and I'd guess Thomas had his label involved, so he was probably putting money up front for the project too?). This all circles back to previous conversations about what it takes to get Brian or BB projects out the door for better or worse. Joe Thomas put up money and was willing to run these projects, and they got done. I don't think Andy Paley (or apparently even Don Was, a somewhat more Thomas-like figure just from a logistical point of view) were able to just put up a full album concept and the money, while also seeming to appeal to all members and not seem like an interloper. Joe Thomas wasn't going to get any songwriting credits or royalties on "Stars and Stripes"; Andy Paley was going to theoretically be a co-writer on *all* of the "Paley Sessions" songs.

yep

I think that what happened was relatively simple.
On one side, there were Brian Wilson, Andy Paley and maybe Don Was.
On the other side, the whole world, saying "Don't *mess* with the formula!"
Though, by then, nobody even knew or remembered what the heck the "formula" was.

There was a lot more to this than what's on the surface, especially family issues that got hinted at in a published article from the time. But one incident stands out: Brian had invited the band to meet and listen to new songs he had been working on, and the band literally blew off the invitation and didn't show up. That, from a basic perspective of friends and family interacting with each other, was inexcusable. And I can totally see where Brian at some point - after other incidents too, some mentioned above - would just say "f**k these guys". And piecing together other info from various sources, the relationship between Brian and Carl at this exact time was strained to say the least. But like other episodes that get close to the core in the band's history, the depth of these matters will probably never be revealed, and we're left to piece together bits of info and reports that have come out.

 

Controversial opinion time… Despite being a Wilson, Carl post-1983 seems to have a lot more in common with Mike than either of his brothers. Maybe it was Dennis’s loss,  maybe it was him being able to relate to Mike better after joining that cult, I dunno. All I do know is that the *real* band could’ve had one final great album but instead he sided with Mike. Honestly, I think if he’d had lived, we might not have gotten C50 barring a major thawing of relations. We might have had a case where the touring entities with Brian/Al vs Mike/Carl/Bruce. Who would be the “real” Beach Boys in that scenario?

Well, we won't ever know, but relations had already been thawing from where their lowest point was (He was Brian's best man at his wedding to Melinda), and I think once Brian really showed that he was alright to do live touring again, Carl would've wanted to work with Brian, especially when everybody else was also enthusiastic about doing it. I guess we won't ever really know how that would go.

I wonder if there's a good demo, studio quality, of "Where Has Love Been" with involvement by Andy.

They got married at the beginning of the year. Didn’t the falling out happen in the fall, when Carl said he was done? I can’t remember off the top of my head when the Uncut interview happened.

Remember too, that Joe willingly took his name off TWGMTR as a co-producer and claimed a "recorded by" credit. He was willing to put that aside for the interest of political harmony in the group.

As for Don Was, I believe he ended up having a lot to do with getting No Pier Pressure out the door. He played bass on it and handled A&R, so both he and Joe appear to have collaborated there.

I think a lot of feelings were hurt by Brian's "autobiography". Even knowing Landy was the real culprit, it had to hurt Mike and Carl reading how they were portrayed in that book - Mike as just an @$$hole, and Carl as a drunk.
I also  think Carl was a bit suspicious of Brian's new collaborators. Who are all these guys working with Brian now? What is their motivation?
I think it would have been a mistake to do a Beach Boys album that was essentially a Brian Wilson solo album with their voices on it. Oh yes, some of US would have loved it - but in the interest of social harmony, a better proposition would have been 5 or 6 Brian/Paley songs, a couple of Carl songs, something from Al, and something from Mike - hopefully better than Summer of Love or Still Surfin'.

Considering what we got on that Long Promised Road soundtrack from that era, then the claims of greatness over most of these tracks are definitively false.  Sure, they represent a revival of some sorts in terms of Brian's creativity and there are a few good songs to come of it, but most of that material is kind of bland and forgettable.  And none of it warrants going into any kind of deep inspection. 

The subjective take on the material is the quality of that material: I happen to agree, that some of it isn't as good as its reputation, however there are some very good songs that could have been worked into some kind of a new release for the band. And that's where the objective take on the material comes into play: This was new material for a band who literally had little or nothing to offer in terms of new songs for a potential "next album". They had that issue going back to 1988 and the fluke of the Cocktail movie and soundtrack driving Kokomo and Bobby McFerrin up the charts that year. Their old label had renewed interest in new Beach Boys songs, they had a new contract for new material, and the band gave them essentially nothing to capture the interest after Kokomo. What they did offer was Summer In Paradise, and that eventually had to come out on another lesser label because it wasn't up to par.

I think perspective based on opinions at that time these sessions were being reported on in the press is important. Brian was back with the band and writing new material for them, Mike was working and writing with Brian again and excited to be doing so, and there were reports that some of that new collaborative work would be appearing on the show Baywatch, which at that time was one of the most popular TV shows in the world. If they had pulled even a half dozen of the best songs from those sessions and padded the rest with the lesser tracks, it would still be *new Beach Boys music*. Not covers, not tributes, not rehashed oldies, but genuinely new music specifically from Brian and Mike with those two actively collaborating for the first time in years.

This was exciting news for fans. It could have gone somewhere, it could have tanked, but before it got off the ground, Carl put the kibosh on it.

I think that's where the mystique around these tracks comes from, the fact that a band who was literally starved for new material since 1989 and who released a dud of an album that basically featured Mike Love, a beta version of ProTools recording software and various bad 90's synth sounds, and barely any worthwhile contributions from the other band members, finally had their former chief songwriter and producer back on board with a collection of new material to pick from, and nothing happened. To rub salt into the wound, when the band finally DID appear on Baywatch, they featured songs from Summer In Paradise which was several years old at that time having already flopped in all regards, the music already sounded dated, and beyond that they performed one of the worst travesties of a song the band ever released.

And the question of "what could have been" became even more amplified when fans went back to those interviews from several years ago reporting they had at least three dozen (and more) genuinely new songs to choose from, and instead they again had nothing new to offer as The Beach Boys except songs from an album that tanked and barely featured any material from the full band apart from Mike.

Looking back, hindsight is 20/20 of course, it was a moment in time where Brian wanted to come back and had a large collection of new songs to work on, Mike was excited to be working with him again, and no matter what the quality was in some of those demos, they had something substantial to work with which they would never have again. The moment passed them by, and a lot of it came from Carl's vetoes. I'd ask what did Carl have to offer in return during that era. 

A few years ago I made a playlist of what a 1995/6 Beach Boys album *could* have looked like.  Not necessarily rooted in reality, but some of my favorite tracks from that era out of what was possible and to have the main players represented musically and vocally.  I think it works pretty well, accounting for the differences of when they were actually recorded.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZDS6whCNEU

The same old problem I have with 99% of  BB/BW fandom (not talking of Billy and Craig, of course). I always root for quirky, unreined Brian. And the Wilson Paley sessions are just that.
But I have a growing feeling that we are a dwindling handful.
The damned formula, whatever the heck it is, has won.

" And none of it warrants going into any kind of deep inspection. "

Feels like talking with the Thought Police.

Geez, I don't want to turn it into a treatise on what "fandom" is, but among the fans who are "hardcore" enough to be on message boards and whatnot, I've always found that the vast majority like the Paley material. I'm not sure it's quite 100% unfiltered Brian; I think Andy Paley had a pretty strong hand in many of the songs, and I suspect from time to time what we're hearing is Andy Paley "doing Brian" as much as it's Brian. But definitely, it's quirkier and more "raw" than "Imagination", etc., and surely Brian had a strong hand in the material as well.

I don't think there's anything strange about a contrarian opinion on the material; I don't think it's just 100% unfettered genius. There are some clunky bits, some cheesy bits. I think there was a period of time back in the late 90s/early 00s when folks really did talk about the stuff like it was "Smile 2", and I can see how some folks after tracking it down might have felt let down. But both with my "critic" hat on, and just based on my own preference, there is easily a *very strong* album's worth of material from those sessions.

I always come back to that Andy Paley interview where he seemed blown away by how good the full Beach Boys contingent was adding vocals on the material, and he specifically said the Beach Boys could have cut vocals for an entire album "in two days."

The story of the band is full of "ifs", and this is definitely one of them. I think a 1995 Beach Boys album with the best of this material with BB vocals would have been *very very good* and would have also performed well, especially with critics.

Guitarfool, interesting post as always, but you seem to be talking about Brian Wilson/Mike Love collaborations whereas this post is more about the Wilson/Paley collaborations. Indeed they are from the same time period, but can they be considered one and the same for this discussion's purpose?

I was considering these things as part of the same time period, however Don Was had been acting as something of a go-between and I'm sure his resume and name added some weight to getting all factions together in the name of making new music that would ostensibly sell records. If you read through various articles and interviews done at that time, there isn't much separation between, say, what The Boys were doing and what Brian was doing, and there was always a goal to get Brian and the Boys recording and releasing new material. That's specifically what Brian wanted, and what he expressed immediately after he was free of Landy: He wanted to make music with the band again. And I think Don Was was in the right position to facilitate that. And at least he tried.

So yes, I do see all of this material as part of the same discussion, because most of what was reported from that time almost suggested it was, and the end result hopefully being new Beach Boys music. It just so happened that Brian had a stockpile of dozens of song demos and ideas, Mike was enthusiastic about contributing and collaborating again (as was Brian), and they had a top level producer willing to work with them. We can go through and parse each track and say well this one was for Andy and Brian, this one was for the band, this one may have had Mike's contributions, etc. But add them all up and it feels to me like Brian was looking to place a lot these songs with the band, where they could pick ones that would fit what they needed and continue work on them.

That makes the fact that they blew him off on one of his invitations to gather and listen to the material even more sad.

And it makes the fact that Carl vetoed the ideas even more sad too, because as others have mentioned, they could easily have made a solid "comeback" album with Brian's involvement using the better examples of those dozens of songs. And they would have great PR behind the project from the media and the fans, as excitement had already built based on the fact they were even working together with Brian, and that Brian and Mike were working together again. That would have been a great angle to promote any new release, and fans would have bought it in some cases on that aspect alone.

Consider too that nearly the same scenario played out with the 50th reunion and the TWGMTR album: They needed new songs after the notion of remaking tracks like Do It Again was nixed, and Brian having been working with a collaborator on original songs had a backlog of material to present. In that case, they all agreed to go forward and proceeded to work on and release an album that was well-received and cracked the top-5 on the album charts. I can see where that could easily have happened with the material in the mid-90's had it not been scuppered by Carl.

I always cringe when I see  TWGMTR "top 5" in a post. If the album had been the mega-hit that kind of chart peak implies, the Beach Boys and Brian/Al would still be performing those songs today. Yes, the album had a great first week on the charts, but let's not fool ourselves, it wasn't Summer Days and Summer Nights part 2. How much airplay did any of those songs get? There's wasn't a Getcha Back size hit on the album, let alone a California Girls or Kokomo.
On the other end of the spectrum, it shocked me and stunned me how many years the group was pushing SIP material in their shows. How long had KTSA songs stayed in the setlists? Rock 'N' Roll to the Rescue? BB85 songs other than Getcha Back? Yet the group kept pushing this pathetic album, year after year. Maybe that's what killed Carl.

Brian and Al were playing the title track and , I believe, Summer’s Gone the next year and Mike and Bruce had Isn’t It Time in their sets for a few years.

Sorry Lonely, but it was a top 5 album. Did you have a top 5 album before? Did any of your friends? It was a nice accomplishment either way. People were excited for the album and bought it. If it was a collection of remakes featuring The Beach Boys with Bruno Mars and Locash, I'm willing to wager it wouldn't have gotten that high on the charts. People knew it was a new album featuring Brian Wilson. It mattered and it sold. Can't say the same of of Summer In Paradise, not selling enough to likely get in the top 500.

Sorry. I know the era was what it was, as far as physical copies of albums, but this is group that had albums chart at 151 or whatever just years after having massive hits. So yeah, the chart placement was a big deal. If Mike Love had an album chart at number 5 today, you and drbeachboy and whoever would be throwing a party at the Endless Summer Forum.

So, did it sell more than the Titanic soundtrack or Rumours? No. But it did well. Just as McCartney's latter day albums have been doing. Or whoever's.

Not only that, but production issues aside, it was the best album quality wise since the early 70s with no real clunkers. That’s an accomplishment in and of itself.

I think Craig is nailing the point(s).

First point: I think nobody is claiming the WP sessions are Smile 2. But then, the comparison is unfair, in any case. The WP sessions are little more than raw demoes. The Smile sessions involved a tremendous amount of vocal work by all the Beach Boys, and instrumental work by the Wrecking Crew. I don't mean that  the WP sessions could ever be as good as Smile, but just that the difference was amplified by the circumstances.

Second point: of course Andy Paley had a lot of input with the sessions. That's the reason everybody calls them the Wilson/Paley sessions. :)
But I don't like the inference "Even if they were any good, in any case they are lessened, or made less important, by Paley's involvement."
So what? The first years of the Beach Boys featured a great creative input by Mike Love. Pet Sounds, though a very personal project, featured Asher's essential lyrics and of course the sublime voices of all the Beach Boys. Smile was heavily influenced by Van Dyke Parks, and in 2004 by Darian. TLOS was something much like the WP sessions, but, I have to say MIRACULOUSLY, was actually released (probably the "formula" had taken a vacation).

Third, but not least: yes, the WP sessions had the potentiality to spawn a GREAT Beach Boys album. People should try to imagine the dozen best songs in the sessions with the Boys' voices and a good production. It could have been titled "Slightly American Music". But the "formula" was fully operational at the moment. Sigh.

P.S.
And, personal opinion, I'll have Long Promised Road over No Pier Pressure all the time.

Okay, so it was a big hit, as you say. Where are those songs today? Why aren't fans calling out requests for "Isn't it Time", "Spring Vacation", or "Summer's Gone"? Surely people attending BW shows or BB shows want to hear their latest hits?
You're more likely to hear "Love and Mercy", "Getcha Back" or "Still Cruisin" in a setlist today than any TWGMTR tracks.

I mean, I still hear the 'That's Why God Made The Radio' jingle at times on my local classic rock station and I did hear the actual song being played for a while after it came out - not sure if they still play it as I don't listen to the station as regularly as I used to. You say you "always" cringe when you read that the album was a top-5....I don't understand why one would even have such an abnormal visceral reaction to an album that was probably the best case scenario for us Beach Boys fans. Just because fans aren't clambering to hear 'Spring Vacation' at concerts doesn't mean the album isn't worthy of occasional praise (or worthy of it's top-5 placement). Most every song that is played at BW/BB shows has had 50+ years to become wonderfully rooted in the hearts/minds of Beach Boys fans, Kokomo was a #1 hit and (like it or not) is an 80s cultural phenomenon, and the songs that define the classic California lifestyle (and classic post-WWII America) are of course going to be the ones played at concerts. That doesn't make a comeback/reunion album any less enjoyable for most fans...nor does it make it unworthy of it's original chart placement.

Gotta say though, Beach Boys fandom never ceases to amaze me: never thought I'd see someone complaining about a high chart placement of a Beach Boys album :lol Gotta love it.

I would bet that, in the end, TWGMTR probably sold less than BB85 or SC.
TWGMTR is a very good album. We were lucky to get it. It's mostly a BW album with BB vocals on it - basically what Brian was trying to do back in 1995. I would be very pleased to hear a few TWGMTR songs in concert. A top 5 album? What other top 5 BB albums are completely ignored when putting together the setlists?

Now I wish someone could answer the other half of my post: why did the group keep pushing that giant turkey of an album, Summer in Paradise, in their shows? Album is released summer 1992. Makes no impact on any charts anywhere that I'm aware of. Hot Fun in the Summertime did appear on Billboard's AC chart. Yet, summer of 1993, they're still pushing it. Even did a video for it that was shown on ABC In Concert. Posted an 800 number where you could buy the album in a bundle with the box set.
1994, 1995, still trying to sell this turkey. I never saw them give an album that much of a push before. Why?

Because it was important to Mike and he was in complete control of the band at that point. It was basically Mike/Carl/Bruce vs Brian and Al at that point

This was also a different time as well. In the early to mid ‘90s, artists seemed to “work” albums for years. Take for instance, Guns N’ Roses Use Your Illusion albums or Alanis Morrissette’s Jagged Little Pill album. You could have these albums that would have anywhere from maybe four to seven singles and/or music videos supported by tours that could last like three years. And with The Beach Boys, what else were they gonna do? So they pushed that garbage hoping against hope that one of those dinky Summer In Paradise songs might take off somehow and they’d be onto a new wave of their career. I also think possibly that’s what Carl didn’t wanna do a new Brian-helmed album. He knew that they were gonna have new top-40 singles with a Brian Wilson production. I’m not sure he knew what was hip in rock or pop but I’m sure he listened to adult contemporary music and thought that it was unlikely that “You’re Still A Mystery” or “Soul Searchin’” would work in that scene. Although, by ‘97 you have Dylan releasing what’s thought to be his best album in years and you had the Beatles’ revival and reunion. So maybe he judged incorrectly.

Or maybe I’m just off base. We will never know I suppose.

It's in my top 5 of the best Beach Boys records, because all of the songs are good, and it works wonderfully, thematically, as a "summer" record. It's as good as could be hoped.

But being in the top 5 of the Billboard album chart in 2012 doesn't mean much, aside from the symbolism of it. How many copies do you need to sell to get a top 5 record? 20,000? Almost any name band or artist from the Sixties -- Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, the Beach Boys -- is guaranteed that many sales in the first week, especially since boomers are one of the last demographics to buy actual CDs. One should not think these days, from the fact that a given record gets in the top 5 or top 10 in the first week before falling out of the charts the following week, that it had any kind of commercial success beyond the fan base.

Based on what I observed backstage then, the alliances ran Mike & Bruce and Carl & Al, but then I'm just an outside observer. I suspect, as the group's mediator, Carl was the man in the middle.

The answer to that is actually quite easy.  "SIP" was released on the BRI's own "Brother Entertainment" label.  Navarre was merely a distributor.  BRI had a direct  financial stake in hawking unsold CDs in a way that they never did or have with Capitol, Reprise, CBS, etc.

I meant in regards to Brian

Thank you. Finally someone gets my point.
With all the pre-orders being counted in the first week of release, yes, any older pop/rock act is nearly guaranteed a strong first week. Bob Dylan had 3 #1 albums in the 70's - Planet Waves, Blood on the Tracks, Desire - and then nothing until Modern Times and Together Through Life in the 00's. Do I believe either of those albums sold as well as his classics? No.
So having a top 5 album in the 2010's is a nice feather in the caps of the Beach Boys, but it's not the same as Endless Summer and Spirit of America being hits in the mid 70's. It doesn't put TWGMTR on the same level as Beach Boys Today or Pet Sounds.

That was my impression, too. As far as Carl and SIP, he went along with it, but not with the idea that it was gonna be Pet Sounds Volume 2, or even Surf's Up Again.

The problem is that none of these eras are comparable. The Beach Boys were *never* going to have a "hit single" in 2012. It just doesn't work that way. A good showing on the album charts and good album reviews was the *only* success their studio material was going to see in 2012. And given the status of things in 2012 (being a long dormant studio band while also having a "version" out on tour every year *not* doing new stuff, plus not a lot of push from the label), the album did quite well.

There are many reasons TWGMTR songs didn't stay in setlists for years and years, and not having a "hit single" is like #47 on that list, below things like Mike clearly having disdain for the whole project (he kept "Isn't It Time" in his setlist for a short time; not coincidentally one of the songs he wrote lyrics for), there not being a lot of extra room in either respective setlists, the general trend since the beginning of time that "new album" songs get mostly dropped very quickly, and so on.

That Mike would keep SIP tracks in the setlist for years (if not decades), and do "Duke of Earl" and dud tracks off his low-key solo albums (who's going to his shows asking for "Rockaway Beach"?) seems to prove a general lack of correlation between a song being a "hit" and being kept in the setlist.

There weren't the more obviously delineated personal *and* business "sides" the way there had been in, for instance, 1977 when the band essentially broke up for a few weeks after the "tarmac" incident.

Al has said in interviews that Carl did not agree with him (Al) about specific issues including Mike's company taking over booking shows, and Al described that this created a certain amount of "estrangement" between he and Carl. I don't think it was absolute; I don't think Al and Carl were ever in a heavy dispute. But there was certainly a sort of passive/quite arguable "coup" happening around that time frame that pretty much left Al out in the cold on his own.

You can see this play out in the Marks/Stebbins book, when in Spinal Tap fashion Al isn't told that a member has been added to the Beach Boys and just eventually notices David keeps showing up at gigs. Once Al realizes what's going on (while David at the time *didn't* understand what was going on or what role he was unknowingly playing in it), as described in the Marks/Stebbins book, Al knows it's essentially "game over", and indeed mere months later Al was out.

I don't think we would have known how at odds Carl and Al were unless Carl has been alive and in the band as this stuff with Al unfolded (remember, as also mentioned in the Marks/Stebbins book, Mike was supposedly looking for David to replace *Al*, not Carl). Would Carl have gone along with Mike and essentially s**tcanned Al? We'll never know. I think the answer is definitely firmly in the "we don't know" realm, but with an uncomfortable amount of "yeah, I think Carl might have gone along with it."

And I think Carl would NOT have gone along with it, based on what I know about the man.

He may not have had a direct decision to make, based on how the business stuff was being structured. The question probably would have been not so much "Will Carl vote to kick Al out?", and more "Will Carl stay with Mike's licensed band once Al is squeezed out?"

What transpired in 1998 happened because Carl wasn't there to object.

I'll be honest tho, I really don't have the energy to pursue this particular topic further...

Nor me.

How is the bolded portion of this reply true? If The Beach Boys released a single in 2012 that was catchy as heck and took everyone by storm, being played on the radio nonstop that Summer, streamed like crazy (maybe even picked up and put into a movie), it’s definitely within the realm of possibility that they could’ve had a hit single. The simple fact is that they didn’t, but that doesn’t discredit the artist merit of that album! I love it.

[/quote]

How is the bolded portion of this reply true? If The Beach Boys released a single in 2012 that was catchy as heck and took everyone by storm, being played on the radio nonstop that Summer, streamed like crazy (maybe even picked up and put into a movie), it’s definitely within the realm of possibility that they could’ve had a hit single. The simple fact is that they didn’t, but that doesn’t discredit the artist merit of that album! I love it.
[/quote]

Even if they’d released something as good as Wouldn’t it Be Nice or California Girls, there’s no way what you’re describing could have happened. Radio won’t play music from 70-year-old musicians, boomers themselves are not interested in new music from old Sixties stars, and no young person will be caught dead playing/streaming music from old geezers.

Just some perspective to consider: We're having this discussion about who would listen to "old" music in a year when Kate Bush and Metallica have had songs hit either the top or near the top of the most downloaded or streamed songs, and it's not people over 50 streaming those songs. It's mostly teenagers who watch Stranger Things. The Beach Boys' own California Dreamin climbed up the sales totals charts thanks to that show too, at this point it's among the most popular songs in the band's catalog, again thanks to that show.

More to the time before and shortly after TWGMTR, The Ink Spots of all groups saw a resurgence in sales thanks to the Fallout and Bioshock game franchises which used their music prominently. Again the main audience buying these songs from the 1940's was...teenagers and people in their early 20's.

In 2007, Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" was used in the Soprano's final episode, and immediately rose to the top of the download charts. Now the song is pretty much ubiquitous at weddings and events (and karaoke nights) whereas before it had been relegated mostly to pre-programmed classic rock radio playlists. And kids, yes kids, know all the lyrics.

Kids this year were buying and listening to "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins because of the Top Gun reboot.

Generally whenever you see a song start spiking in sales or when you hear teenagers talking about an old song that seemingly reappeared out of nowhere, it was either in a viral TikTok meme or featured somewhere like a video game or a TV show.

In the past year there have also been many reports in the media about "old" songs and albums outselling new music. The same classic albums that were stalwarts on the charts are still outselling a lot of new releases, especially in the vinyl market, as younger listeners buy the same albums for their collections as their parents and grandparents had done.

I just think the notions expressed about "old" music not being listened to by the kids should be reconsidered, not specifically in terms of the TWGMTR album but in general. If a song gets placed in a key TV show or video game (or movie), and the song isn't pure crap, chances are it too will go viral and younger listeners will add it to their playlist or even buy the vinyl if available.

Just food for thought. The music business shifted radically as we're all aware over the last 20 years, but the way in which it shifted (and how it affects the so-called 'charts' of old) still seems to be a mystery to those who used to control the music business. And trying to determine what "kids" listen to by suggesting they don't listen to old music is an opinion that could be reconsidered.

Not to mention the way various numbers posted by "modern" music could possibly be manipulated and controlled by various algorithms the same way Twitter numbers and stats were manipulated to show more followers and engagement for various accounts than actually existed. Or how YouTube created algorithms to manipulate viewer engagement and visibility for some accounts while burying others, which also led to artificial tallies of views and engagement numbers.

TWGMTR was specifically made for a group that ceased to exist after the C50 tour. There was no natural group to pick up and promote its songs, and some of them were difficult to re-create live. The title track nearly always sounded like a train wreck, and Isn’t It Time was the only instance I’m ever familiar with where BW lip-synced (that incredibly exposed first verse).

Anyway, the Wilson-Paley material was and is fine. Some of it is great. I feel similarly about Imagination, although I think its high points are arguably “purer” expressions of Brian’s creativity than anything he did with Andy. But it’s not a contest. Someday I hope we get a good archival collection, along with a remixed GIOMH, all-instrumental BWPS, the full Scott Bennett demos,  the original mix of BWRG and all of the oldies he recorded at Gary Griffin’s place.

Great post, Craig, but hardly a surprise by you. :)

Yes, but those are all examples of old songs, of old hits, getting another 15 minutes in the spotlight through their use in a popular TV show on on some TikTok kid's channel. There are no recent examples that I can think of a NEW song by an old artist having any kind of commercial impact.

Do you mean he lip-synced that verse during concert performances?

This has kinda already been answered by kreen, but what I mean is that radio doesn’t (and wasn’t in 2012) playing new songs from 60s bands. Even bands that have good-selling, critically successful albums. Not literally; I’m sure some station somewhere played a song off TWGMTR here and there. But “radio” (and also digital sales and streaming) in 2012 (and certainly in 2022) didn’t work like it did in even 1988, or the 80s or 70s, etc.

The chances of the BBs having a hit *SINGLE* were marginal past the 60s. They did it a hand full of times after that. That already-marginal chance became much, much smaller by 2012 due both to the vast changes in the industry and how people consume music, and also because the Beach Boys weren’t much of a functioning “studio band” that released studio music in the previous couple of decades. Look at people like McCartney, who has had high-charting albums in the 90s, 00s, and 2010s, yet rarely has any action on the singles charts. Maybe some sort of action on one of the second-tier charts.

I’ve said before that the only way the Beach Boys would had a “hit song” or “hit single” in 2012 or today would have been some sort of “viral” thing, where it would be almost a fluke and/or some sort of novelty. There’s obviously never *zero* chance.

TWGMTR was a good album. If the band in 2012 had wanted some sort of measurable “success”, it would be with chart placement and sales for *albums*, and then things like Grammy noms. It didn’t get any Grammy noms. I’d guess the album still wasn’t quite good enough to warrant that, and the wonky nature of the reunion and its amateur aftermath certainly didn’t help any Grammy campaigns.

I totally understand; it's a difficult topic and we only have scattered information.

But Carl and Al's position in the band is germane to the Paley material.

For what it's worth, while obviously a lot transpired after Carl was no longer there to object, and of course then after his death, it is my understanding that machinations on the business side were going on while Carl was still active with the band and touring, and possibly even before his 1996 diagnosis.

The Mike-Al issues clearly didn't *start* in 1997/98; they had been festering for some time. Peter Ames Carlin reports in his book that there was a supposed attempt to oust Al from the band in *1990*, and clearly by the "Summer in Paradise" era there was some strain as well, as even Mike mentioned in interviews at the time. And again, as mentioned in the Marks/Stebbins book, Mike was seeking out David Marks in 1997 while Carl was still touring, and was seeking David out as a potential replacement *for Al*, not for Carl.

We don't know precisely how much Carl knew or how much he was involved. But Al himself mentioned in interviews that he and Carl disagreed on at least some business points (supposedly one specifically being Mike's production company taking over running the tours). This is important because this set the stage for the scenario where everybody in the band then becomes "employees" of the company running the tour. I'm guessing Al knew at this stage that, while he couldn't be ousted as a shareholder of BRI, changing the the set up of the touring band so that Al (or anyone) could be fired by a third-party production company, would make it functionally much easier to squeeze someone out.

Back to the Paley material; I think some of this (and certainly some continuing Mike-Al strain) was at play during the period they would have been working on the stuff. The momentum of touring and bringing money in was keeping everything going and keeping everyone together, but it was obviously becoming more and more shaky over time.

In a scenario where a member's company begins producing the "Beach Boys" tours, and other members are then gone from that band, this obviously impacts "Beach Boys" studio material, because there is no longer even a semblance (including legally) of a band to record under the name.

It always seemed to me that for too many people in Beach Boys "fandom" artistic merit is measured by commercial success. This thread is a confirmation of that. Not that a confirmation was needed.
Instead, I am that rare weird dinosaur who likes music for personal reasons, regardless of how many people are in the bandwagon.

Never had confirmation, but it was always suspiciously in tune and on time.

I was replying to your comment in bold:


That's far from the case at least in my experiences.

I just wanted to point out how much in agreement I am with both Rab and Jim V and what they posted above. I just cannot understand why fans of a band, any band, would try to diminish the accomplishment of that band scoring a top-5 album. Yes I understand the in's and out's of chart placement and the data that goes into those charts, but damn at some point you have to see the perspective as Jim did and ask if it were so easy to score a top-5 or even top-50 album according to the reasoning being listed above, then why haven't all "legacy" bands and artists scored a top-5 album?Why didn't "Unleash The Love" go top-5 if it were a case of the calculations behind the album charts and the diehard fans coming out the first week to binge on buying the album? Obviously more than the diehard fan base bought TWGMTR, otherwise it would have hit the charts around 78 or something instead of number 3.

I don't understand why there can't just be a pat on the back moment, a collective high-five, saying how cool it was for them to score a top-5 album instead of the parsing and explaining away what most artists would consider a great achievement, especially one that basically caps off their long career. Sometimes you just have to enjoy the sandwich instead of finding things to complain about. And as Jim suggested, if the Love solo album had hit number 3, there would be champagne corks flying everywhere. But not for TWGMTR? I don't get it.

And as far as trying to state almost as fact that no one would buy or stream or download any release...do you guys have a crystal ball to predict such things? If the "new" music business of the past 15-20 years has shown us anything, it's that social media is perhaps a more powerful vehicle to sell music than any DJ in the golden era would have been. Just ask Fleetwood Mac. Some random dude posts a reaction video to a Fleetwood Mac song, it goes viral, and the band has a hit with a song from the 70's out of nowhere.

Now labels are probably trying to replicate that, and probably finding that it doesn't work because they missed the killer app of the original viral video that reignited interest in the song and Fleetwood Mac overall: the authenticity of the guy who posted it.

Tell me that anyone in the record business can predict things like that happening. I'm sure they'd love to with all their focus-groups and research, but truth is they can't, and therefore to just totally rule out this happening to a group like the Beach Boys instead of Journey, or Fleetwood Mac, or Kate Bush, or any others seems a little misplaced. 

Not always! And if so, either multiple different recordings were used, or the pre-recording stopped around the time Melodyne wasn’t being used

This board has always been the exact opposite of this. It's full of fans who like weird, arcane, often *very* non-commercial stuff.

The vast majority of fans here have always lamented the emphasis on what's "commercial", what's the "formula."

What you're seeing (I guess; I'm not sure exactly which part of the thread you're referring to) is a discussion of the realities of the commercial/business side of things, and how that *does* have an impact on what actually gets released. Saying "X would have gotten them a Grammy nomination" or "Releasing Y would have bombed hard" is just another insight into the band; it's not a judgment on what music we each personally like.

I'm fascinated with and enjoy the weird rabbit hole that is early 80s Beach Boys music. I also know from a more objective point of view that it's some of their often wonkiest material. I've often mentioned that I'd love a 10-disc boxed set of the stuff, and I've also mentioned that fan-made track listings for theoretical "1982 Beach Boys Albums" would have still been really weak albums that probably would have been rejected by the label.

A discussion of the band becomes boring if *all* we do is name what music we like and don't like. In discussing this band's history, commercial success (and lack of success) at various junctures absolutely impacted their story on multiple levels. It doesn't mean in impacts how we *feel* about the music, or how much we each individually enjoy it.

If a fan says they like "Saturday Morning in the City", then cool. If they say "Saturday Morning in the City should have been a lead single off a new album", then that opens up a whole other conversation.

To be frank, I find it kind of condescending to drop into a thread and claim "I'm the rare person that actually likes music for personal reasons", as if the board is running rampant with like ex-1960s Capitol Records executives looking for the next "Fun Fun Fun." This board has been around for 17 years doing dozens of pages on the "Cocaine Tape" and the most intricate minutia of "Smile" sessions, and everything in between.

Threads about which of the five mixes of "Everything I Need" are the best or a thread trying to research a random 1982 session at Rumbo are not happening because people here have any sort of emphasis on what's "commercial."

This, a million time this! Though commercial success is worth less than zero in my book, regarding artistic value of anything, still I (metaphorically) jumped out of joy when reading that the Beach Boys, the band who conquered me almost sixty years ago and never really let go, had gone to #3 in 2012. How can any fan feel otherwise?

Yes, sorry for exaggerating as I did in that post. I am a bit frustrated, both by the overall tone of the thread before it was hijacked by other subjects (I sincerely thought the WP sessions were more loved), and by the discussion about TWGMTR.
However, though I agree with much of what you said, all too often discussions about the Beach Boys include several comments of the kind: "Yes, I sort of like that, but it never went past #153", or did but only for one week, and so on. And almost always those comments seem aimed at diminishing the value of an album, or song, or group or songs. The discussion about TWGMTR is a sterling example.

It's odd to me as well. Here is why:


The Beach Boys are a band that created most of their hits/recognized songs 50+ years ago. They made an album 50 years after their formation called TWGMTR. TWGMTR came after decades of massive musical trend shifts in pop music, changes in social culture, massive changes in the way people consume media. Even through the decades of culture shift and evolving music trends, TWGMTR placed #3 it's first week and it stayed in the top 200 for 8 weeks. Just think about that: 50 years is nearly the time it took us to fly the first canvas winged airplane to landing a man on the moon. 50 years is a HUGE stretch of time culturally and technologically speaking (especially in the last 200 years).

Also, did TWGMTR's chart placement have anything to do with the quality of the music? Well, 2012 was well into an era where you could easily listen to samples of each song before you buy (on both Amazon and iTunes). The lead single peaked at #16 on the Billboard singles sales (and was later named the 30th best song of 2012 by Rolling Stone). So I think people had a pretty good idea that it was a quality album, they bought it, and it landed at #3. Obviously if the album were a clunker it would not have sold as well.

So if anything, with all of that in mind, that chart placement is a huge accomplishment. And I don't think anyone is claiming this chart position places TWGMTR on the same pedestal as Pet Sounds. But even if they were, the mention of the chart placement also shouldn't elicit an equally ridiculous response of feeling embarrassment or cringe.

To sum it all up, I don't think the measure of a successful album (from a 50 year old band) in 2012 should be based on how many people shout to hear 'Isn't It Time' in concert 10 years later, or if it sold more units than BB85. In 40 years, if Justin Bieber makes an album that hits #3 on the charts I will be just as impressed. Because in 40 years musical trends will have shifted so much further, social culture will have shifted so much further, that to still have an influence on charts 50 years after your initial breakthrough is a huge achievement and hearing someone mention it is nothing to cringe at.

I'd be glad to be wrong on this! But it seemed like something was always a bit off with performances of that.

Regarding "Isn't It Time" on the 2012 tour; every recording I've heard (both audience and soundboard) as well as my own in-person experience, seemed to indicate there were pre-recorded elements being used, especially noticeable on the intro. It was always difficult to discern, because they were playing live on top of it as well.

Whether they were literally just grabbing like stems from the album recording, or some other pre-recorded elements, I'm not sure.

They added it to the tour setlist a month into the reunion tour. Then, soon after, they also prepped that weird "Single Mix" of the song (as I recall re-recording some elements of that literally while they were out on tour), and then changed their live rendition over to match that "Single" version.

This reminded, however, that I did not "drop into" this thread like some kind of unwelcome alien. I started the darn thing. If I am an alien, I am the one who landed the UFO.

Back on topic (kinda), I am sure that even the worst anti-Beach Boys and anti-Brian Wilson trolls should wish very long life to their music. Because when it should be forgotten, that would mean civilisation has completely ended.

Mike Love solo doesn't have the same diehard fanbase as the Beach Boys with Brian Wilson.

The latest album by the Who opened at number 2 on the US Billboard 200 chart. McCartney III similarly opened at number 2. Rough and Rowdy Ways, by Bob Dylan, opened at number 2. Blue & Lonesome, an album of blues covers by the Rolling Stones, made it to number 4.

So all we're saying is that, when one hears "the album was in the top 5", it needs an asterisk where people are reminded that it doesn't mean the album resonated with the record-buying public, had commercial success or had songs that got into the public consciousness. It just means that the fanbase bought it, which in this day and age is enough to get a top-5 showing for one week if you're an old, established Sixties band.
 

Quick poll: who here, when you're told that TWGMTR made it into the top-5 billboard in 2012, thinks that that chart position suddenly equates TWGMTR with the musical and commercial success of ANY classic Beach Boys record from the 60s?

Personally, I don't think it's worth needing to footnote every instance of when an album charts with how the culture/medium/chart-meaning changed in that instance of time just for the sake of knocking down TWGMTR a few pegs. I'm hopeful that other message boards aren't adopting such a ridiculous practice...can't imagine a Bob Dylan forum asterisking every mention of Dylan's recent #1 digital sales chart with "gUyS iT's IrReLeVaNt BeCaUsE lYkE a RoLlInG sToNe ChArTeD tWo In 65!!!"

I credit the overall fanbase for having more intelligence than a rock (thus being able to easily decipher that TWGMTR is clearly not on par with Pet Sounds), I wish others did as well.

I'll ask what kind of people would be happy if there were such an asterisk or disclaimer placed on the accomplishment of landing a top-5 album? It feels like an attempt to diminish the accomplishment itself, and I just don't understand the need to do that for some artists but not others. So in your opinion, only "legacy" artists or those who have been making music for 50 years or more should get the asterisk? Should one be applied to modern artists, or rap artists, or should the Beiber/Beyonce/Kanye/Post Malone "big earners" get one too considering that their fanbases also drive bigger sales in the first several weeks after a new release drops?

I totally disagree with the notion that any asterisk or disclaimer should be applied. If any artist is set to release a new album, their fanbase will naturally buy the album when it's released and the sales/chart numbers will reflect that. It shouldn't matter if the artist is in their 70's or in their 20's, in fact if an artist in their 70's has a loyal enough fanbase to generate a top-5 chart placement on a new album, it should be celebrated that they're able to appear on the charts next to the "young" artists.

I was going to suggest the whole idea smacks of ageism but I won't go further on that. A top-5 album is a top-5 album whether the artist is 75 or 20.

I'm not sure how this rabbit hole was created regarding the "success" of the TWGMTR album.

I'm not a fan of like fence walking just for the sake of it, but really, the chart success of TWGMTR is all relative, and it was neither "meh, just the hardcore fans bought it", nor "This is a smash hit like they had in the 60s!"

In the huge, grand scheme of things when we look at the history of the modern music business and look at the entire career of the band, TWGMTR is not a HUGE smash hit.

But all things considered, considering *all* factors (not just modern industry trends, but also the latter-day history of *the band* itself), a Top 5 showing for the album in 2012 was *quite good*.

Again, some of the *many* factors working against the album even doing that well:

1. Less people buying music for "legacy artists", and certainly *liking* and sticking with that new music, and instead just seeing their shows (See: Paul McCartney). Even "longtime fans" often won't drop $15 on a new album, but will pay $80 for the overpriced hoodie at the concert.

2. The Beach Boys as an actual creative, living entity releasing new music being something that mostly stopped at 1980, and completely stopped at 1992.

3. The aforementioned scant number of "new" albums in the 80s and 90s being generally not that great, especially their then-most recent from 1992.

4. Not the best promotion (either in quantity or quality) from Capitol. I think had the album come out after the Universal merger, it may have been at least marginally better.

I could go on and on, but the point is that the 50th Anniversary reunion, on all fronts, went VERY WELL for about 9 months. The album could have been like an awful hodge podge of the worst aspects of "Summer in Paradise" and "Gettin' in Over My Head" rolled up together, but these guys, who hadn't been in the studio together in any long-term, meaningful way since 1980-something, pieced together a surprisingly "pretty good!" album.

All of this of course occurring in the midst of the world-renowned BRI brand of politics and dysfunction. Somehow they pulled off a solid album that dig "pretty good!" on the charts, and the tour was really even more substantially beyond all expectations. Good reviews, the guys all there nailing it. How many people here actually thought there was any chance any fan would even *suggest* a 2012 reunion tour might be their best shows since 1975?

The only thing that ever irked me about the TWGMTR chart performance is that Mike in later interviews minimized it, claiming it didn't stay on the charts long. Which A) Shows a gross lack of understanding of how modern sales and charts worked and B) Is, at least in the hypothetical, really hypocritical considering there's NO CHANCE he wouldn't have NEVER STOPPED TALKING about it if he had written another "Kokomo" in 2012 that hit #1 for like one week and then fell off the charts quickly.

A top-5 album is a top-5 album whether the artist is 75 or 20.
[/quote]

Yes, but a top-5 album is not a top-5 album whether the year is 1970 versus 2012, and whether the album remains in the top 5 for 20 weeks or stays there for one week before dropping out of the top 200 altogether.

You say it's diminishing the accomplishment. I'm saying there is no accomplishment to diminish: it sold the minimal number it was always going to sell. They have a fanbase of about 20,000 people worldwide that will buy a new album in the first week. Millions more like their old music but will not buy or listen to any new album they put out.

It reminds me of the old spin Sony Music put on Michael Jackson's Blood on the Dance Floor album. "It's the best-selling remix album of all time". Some fans still use that factoid all these years later. Sounds good, until you remember remix albums are usually niche releases, which means of course a major MJ album promoted as a real new album will be the best-selling remix album of all time by default. Record stores still sent back unsold copies to Sony by the truckload.

I'm losing brain cells reading this drivel. Honestly. How you can write that even after HeyJude spelled it out in crayon for anyone to understand is beyond me.

In terms of sales, yes a Top 5 album in 2012 (or now) was/is not the same as the heyday of album sales decades ago. I suppose the sales of BB music *relative* to other artists at that time in 2012 could gauged as "pretty good!" considering there have been other eras where they sold far, far less than other acts at that same time (which I know is just a long-winded way of saying they charted poorly often  in the 70s/80s/90s, and didn't even hit the Top 200 with "Summer In Paradise" in 1992).

Is saying they hit the "Top 5" in 2012 more valuable while selling like 25K copies than it was back in a few decades ago when they could have moved 50K copies and not hit the Top 50? I guess that's debatable.

It's more of a curio/bit of trivia at this stage, but it was pretty tacky that they were literally selling "10 PACKS" of the album at the merch stand on 2012 tour (with an autographed copy as enticement) to goose sales numbers (especially since fewer were streaming/downloading new BB music in 2012), and even *more* tacky that Mike made it a bit during the shows to do a cheesy sales pitch about it.

I think I have unravelled this mystery, at last, with the help of my dear Tom Hardy:

https://youtu.be/ThJcHjCI9j4

:lol very true.

I've been trying to find the data on how many copies of the CD were sold, but it seems to be harder to find than I imagined. I guess that would settle the debate as to whether a top-5 showing means anything.

To get back on topic, I became a fan of the BB in the early days of the Internet, when the "Paley Sessions" tended to be talked about as a kind of "Smile 2", another instance of BW coming up with great, quirky material that his know-nothing entourage and clueless record company suits thought wasn't "commercial" enough.

So I eagerly downloaded the whole thing, and, yeah... Some of it was fun, some of it was ok, but by and large, it wasn't as good as its reputation.

Yes, but a top-5 album is not a top-5 album whether the year is 1970 versus 2012, and whether the album remains in the top 5 for 20 weeks or stays there for one week before dropping out of the top 200 altogether.

You say it's diminishing the accomplishment. I'm saying there is no accomplishment to diminish: it sold the minimal number it was always going to sell. They have a fanbase of about 20,000 people worldwide that will buy a new album in the first week. Millions more like their old music but will not buy or listen to any new album they put out.

It reminds me of the old spin Sony Music put on Michael Jackson's Blood on the Dance Floor album. "It's the best-selling remix album of all time". Some fans still use that factoid all these years later. Sounds good, until you remember remix albums are usually niche releases, which means of course a major MJ album promoted as a real new album will be the best-selling remix album of all time by default. Record stores still sent back unsold copies to Sony by the truckload.
[/quote]


Well , sh*t then, guess we should abandon the charts entirely since they’re worthless. Everyone instead gets a participation trophy.  “Only” making it to #3 on the top 200… those poor imaginary non-existent other 197 artists ranked below them must’ve really been depressed that week.

If I win the lottery tomorrow, I’ll throw away the ticket because it means less, since less people are buying it vs a few weeks ago when the jackpot was several hundred million. Hell, so long to my right kidney; it’s only functioning at a percentage of its smaller cousin. I have two kids, but might as well give my son up since the sex lasted longer when I conceived my daughter.*

* not really. I mean, I didn’t have a stop watch set . Obviously that was a joke, but I could *never* pass up the opportunity to be sarcastic. It’s my civil duty.


Edit

Wtf happened to the quote tree?

Geez, I mean, a Top 5 showing isn't really ever "nothing", at least for a band that hadn't released an album in 20 years and whose last album didn't hit the Top 200.

It hit #3 on the Top 200 album chart with 61,000 units sold in the first week according to this article:

https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/the-beach-boys-thats-why-god-made-the-radio-debuts-at-no-3-1093377/

I have little reason to doubt that sales tapered off from there. There are probably some old threads on this very board about it, and some additional sales data might be buried in there.

It did just squeak into the year-end Top 200 chart.

This is all I think a pretty clear case of landing on the positive/optimistic side of realistic expectations for an album at that time.

Looking back at old threads very briefly, they did try a few gimmicks to goose sales eventually on the album. There was the 10-pack at shows as I mentioned before, and in July they dropped the price of the MP3 album on Amazon to 99 cents for some period of time. It sounds like at that point albums under a certain price didn't count towards sales on the Billboard chart for the first four weeks, so I'm guessing this was done at Week 5.

In any event, the album did fine as essentially sort of a semi-ancillary product to the arguable main draw of the reunion, which was the live tour.

It's also worth noting, as Wirestone alluded to awhile back, three months after the TWGMTR album was released, there was no band to support it.

That also means that, in many ways, there was no *need* for it to be a success at that point. Beyond a nice feather in the cap, or a nice stat for fans to feel good about, why did the album need to be successful by some measure? It would be to add to momentum for the band to do more things. More tours, more albums, more projects. Good reviews and good sales would help with those things.

But only 3-4 months after the album came out, they were all off on their own again, acrimoniously at that. There was nobody to represent the album, and the album represented a now-junked project/lineup.

If the band had stayed together, I have little doubt that they would have seen bigger shows and more touring in 2013, and I would imagine Capitol would have been happy to put out a follow-up studio album. Good press and momentum would have all tied it all together.

Instead, TWGMTR got literally the shortest, least substantive push by the band of any studio album they ever released.

They *actually* even could have continued to celebrate and push more singles and more reunion projects (there were *more than one* canceled reunion concert films/videos for instance) even after they split apart. But they all dropped the entire thing nearly like it never happened. Sure, Mike did "Isn't It Time" a a hand full of times with his band  (weird on multiple levels, but whatever), and Brian did  TWGMTR on a short solo 2013 mini-tour, and did a couple other songs from the "suite" one time at that Vegas 2014 gig for PBS.

It is indeed ironic that they did "Summer in Paradise" songs in concert for YEARS, but that wasn't because they were more relevant on the music scene in 1992. It was because there was a band there to do it, to represent that album.

I rememeber a fan reporting on a 1995 Beach Boys concert where someone yelled out at Mike to do "Orange Crate Art", and obviously Mike said they wouldn't be doing that one. I think you'd get the same reaction now if you shouted at him to do "From There to Back Again" or "The Private Life of Bill and Sue."

I think that if anybody asked "From There to Back Again", Mike or even Bruce would have the offender ejected by the security.

http://www.bellagio10452.com/sales.html

Info taken from the web. Reposted on bellagio. Data is ten years old now but it has sales figures you were asking about.

Are those numbers shipped or sold-through? Some of those seem surprisingly low.

It doesn't matter. There are two kinds of people who showed up to those BB reunion shows. Hardcore fans like all of us here who bought the record Day One. And casual  fans who don't care for any new music they release and only want to hear the hits. Even if the band had stayed together, there's no audience for new music from old acts beyond the hardcore fanbase. Paul McCartney, in a recent interview, talked about this :

"I’d like to do a whole show of new songs but that’s for the anoraks in the crowd, that’s for the deep fans. Most of the people who come and see me, who have paid good money, have brought their mums and dads, who have travelled a distance… I’m not so sure they wanna hear the deep cuts. I think they want Beatles stuff mainly, Wings stuff, and maybe some of the new stuff. I force some of the new stuff on them. I know which ones people like because you can see it all light up, all the phones recording… when you say you want to do a new one it’s like a black hole!"

Where are you getting your statistics for this? Were there any demographic studies done of the concert goers that year?

You’re missing the third, most important group of all… the new fans (mostly around college age) who were just getting into the band from TSSand were excited at the opportunity to see the reunited lineup for the first/only time. That was a HUGE part of it, especially since many of them went on to be musicians of note themselves, or make up a huge portion of the indie pop/indie rock journalism scene. It’s one of the big parts of the renaissance over the past decade, and for some reason (likely ageism) it’s the segment of the fanbase the longer term fans dismiss, if not outright despise.  They were certainly there during  c50 , and not just at Bonnaroo (the fact that they even PLAYED there also spoke volumes). I think some of us even commented on that during the original c50 tour threads, how there was a surprising amount of 20 somethings in the crowds, and TWGMTR and especially Isn’t It Time seemed to go over better with *them* than others. No, they weren’t drawn in by the new songs, but they certainly didn’t embarrass the BB like the newer output did in 1995, which was the last time The Beach Boys were starting to get indie cred and f***ed it up , hence the very subject of this thread.

Those people are parents now, or had small kids then. This is the generation watching Stranger things or doing YouTube videos doing in-depth analysis on why they’re disappointed with the mastering of the new compilation.

Oh and McCartney had a good amount of exposure for his song “New” a year or so after . Yeah it was in a kids movie but still.

I'm going by what Paul McCartney says about his own audience: I figure he knows what he's talking about.

Yes, that's the young, hipster, music-nerd crowd I was a part of myself 20 years ago, when I got into Smile. They show up at Brian Wilson concerts, read Pitchfork and some of them probably come here. I include them in the hardcore fanbase.

My point is that you and Lonely Summer are being very particular about what makes an album a successful album (it has to stay on the charts this many weeks to be successful apparently, one or more songs from the new album need to be called out to be played in concert for it to warrant a non-asterisk footnoting in forum posts, and because the album charted blank number of years after blank we need to ensure that people don't think the album is on the same pedestal as Pet Sounds, etc etc). So if you're going to be this particular about when and why we should compliment or not compliment an album then you should be just as particular in finding statistics or studies to back up your claims about a particular audience/album/etc.

This takes me back to my original point: no one is disagreeing that people would rather hear Little Deuce Coupe over anything from TWGMTR in concert. Of course songs that have been ruminating in the public conscious for 30, 50+ years are going to be more popular at concerts. This fact does not mean that TWGMTR isn't worthy of praise for it's chart showing in 2012. That, among other reasons which Hey Jude spelled it out in layman's terms above, which you completely ignored.



So, according to you, 20,000 hardcore/non-casual fans bought the album the first week and that's what broke it into the top-5. And according to you, 20,000 people buying the albums the first week is an unimpressive non-achievement. But according to the above stats, that leaves roughly 180,000 sales to account for from casual fans (and possibly non-fans?). So is that other 180,000 also an unimpressive figure?

I really just don't get why people put this much effort into trying to knock a great send-off album. Again, this is like if Bob Dylan fans were complaining about his recent #1 with 'Murder Most Foul', it would be quite incredulous to witness.

Also, since we're quoting Paul:

Egypt Station hit #1 and stayed on the charts for 8 weeks (compare that with TWGMTR hitting #3 and staying on the charts for 8 weeks), his response to Egypt Station's placement:

"'Oh, oh, wait a minute, hey guys.' I announce to everyone, 'We're number one.'

So that party that evening, that was special, because we had a real great reason to celebrate. … We danced the night away, baby."

So Paul McCartney found reason to celebrate his chart achievement (clearly if charting the first week isn't an achievement for these legacy artists, surely he knows there's no reason to celebrate?), yet, like you, I figure he knows what he's talking about.

I'd also add that Weird Al Yankovic had the number one album on Billboard two years after TWGMTR, landing the top spot in 2014 and becoming the first comedy album since 1963 to achieve that position. I remember talking about that here when it happened. And when he was on a talk show just after it happened, the host presented him with a framed copy of the Billboard chart page, which made Al emotional and he actually teared up on the show. And that accomplishment of him having the #1 album made headlines all over the media.

So if we're putting asterisks on "legacy" artists scoring a number one, or top-10 or whatever album in the last 10-15 years, give one to Weird Al too. But I don't think he'll give a sh*t.

I'll repeat again what's been said numerous times, I just don't understand why such an accomplishment has to be parsed or given an asterisk or diminished in some way, especially if it seems to be based on who the artist is and how old they are rather than the merits of reaching that high on the charts.

I can't find the interview, but there's one where Paul McCartney relates how he was told his compilation "Pure McCartney" had made it to like number 10 in the charts. He goes, that's great, how many copies did we sell? His people tell him, like, "2,000". He goes, man, we used to sell that in an hour, not in a week.

Paul knew chart placement doesn't mean anything these days.

Which is why he was celebrating a #1 placement of his solo album? Read your own posts, because they make no logical sense.

This is the moment when I start HOPING this is only normal Internet trolling.

I have never questioned the quality of the music contained on TWGMTR. I've said before, and I'll say it again, it was the best album we were going to get under the circumstances (no Dennis, and especially no Carl). Did it have a strong chart debut? Yes, I think we all recognize that. What it didn't have was staying power. Off the charts in two months, and both touring bands basically acting like it never existed.
I would have thought, at least on Brian's side, that there would be a certain amount of pride in making that album happen; that even in 2016, he and Al might want to play a couple of the songs in their shows. "Here's a song from an album we did a few years ago, you might have heard it". It just seems like the album is forgotten now, but all except us fans.
In contrast, when Come Go With Me was a hit in 1981, the group put the song in their setlists, and there it stayed for most of the 80's. Ditto with Getcha Back, California Dreaming, Kokomo, and Still Cruisin'.

Finally someone gets what I was trying to say! Thank you.

I don't think anyone is arguing these points. Our point is that remarking about TWGMTR's chart position in 2012 shouldn't elicit a cringe or shouldn't require a footnote explaining why chart positions supposedly mean absolutely nothing these days.

Here's the thing: The Beach Boys are a 50 year old band. You and Kreen are stating that their chart position is not an achievement (or that's it's not actually a top-5 album) because they can't compete with the chart-staying power that Drake, Adele, Taylor Swift, etc had in 2012. But why would they have that staying power? They are a 50 year old band who no longer has their finger on the pulse of the culture.

The fact that they still have a fan-base, that they were still getting together to make music, that they actually created some quality music that landed on a radio during that year, and all of that led to them getting a #3 chart placement. THAT is an achievement. Is it the exact same thing as Drake staying on the charts for 40 weeks in 2012? Not at all, and no one here is arguing that. We're just saying that 50 years after their creation, selling 200,000 albums (which rivals the sales of CATPs and nearly Holland (which are getting the boxset treatment soon) and getting a top-3 placement is still an achievement and nothing for fans to cringe at or footnote.

edit. words

Staying 40 weeks on the charts?
If Drake, or anybody, lands an album at #3 for one week in 2062, now THAT would be an achievement.

To paraphrase Joey Adams' motto: with such fans, who needs enemies? (Not talking of Rab, of course.)

Yes, it's very cool that the Beach Boys could have a top 5 album in 2012, and their music is still selling today. Amy greatest hits collections from now on must include at least 1 or 2 songs from TWGMTR - one of their highest charting albums ever. Higher than Still Cruisin; higher than BB85; higher than Holland or Surf's Up; higher than Pet Sounds.
I remember cruising the boulevard that summer of 2012 like it was yesterday, top down, radio blaring Spring Vacation, Summer's Gone, Isn't it Time. I guess that's why God made the radio!
The Boys really missed out this time around, though. Could have had a #1 album if they had layed down some tracks for the 60th. Maybe they'll package a new album with the Sail on Sailor box set, ala Carl and the Passions - So Tough/Pet Sounds.

Well, other than some odd vocals from Brian, I think that the Wilson Paley sessions are wonderful and the fact that they were never made into a proper Beach Boys album is yet another episode of the group’s tragi-comedy history of poor career decisions.

Weirdly, I appear to be off-topic, judging by the recent endless discussion about TWGMTR that one would have thought would have been moved to its own thread ...

But then, I’m the madman who thinks the GIOMH version of Gettin in Over My Head is the definitive version of that song and is a latterday BW masterpiece ...

The mistake was offering the Wilson/Paley songs to a group that wasn't interested. It should have been material for one of Brian's albums. All the writers were raving about the material in their articles about IJWMFTT and OCA, so why didn't it get released?
The Beach Boys in the 90's wanted Kokomo clones and boring country retreads. Mike was running the ship, Bruce as always went along with his leader; Al was on the outs with the leader, and Carl just didn't care anymore.
Mike's vision was the mainstream - even though the mainstream had changed considerably since Kokomo. Brian's fans wanted to see him embrace the alternative scene; record music the way he did it in the 60's, no synths, all natural instruments played by the Wrecking Crew. Not the A/C direction Joe Thomas pushed him in. Brian's music is supposed to be edgy, weird, not sunny, surf and sand stuff.

Thanks for returning to the original topic of the thread, and for actually liking the WP sessions.  After having to suffer thru pages of nitpicking trying to argue that having a #3  album was a terrible, terrible thing and the Beach Boys should be ashamed of that, yours was a breath of fresh air.
GIOMH (the song) is a great song anyway, but I love much more the original version in the sessions, which I consider one of the best things Brian ever did. The official album version is "earthy", while the WP one is airy and spacey. Just my opinion. :)

While I think the Paley material could have formed a great Beach Boys album, and it was a bummer that the band's reception towards the material was one of anywhere from rejection to ambivalence to perhaps mild enthusiasm, I don't think the BBs sort of passively rejecting the material was the only reason it never came out.

I don't think Brian or Andy ever made the material (nor didn't release it) based on it only being potential BB material.

The question of why this didn't come out as a Beach Boys album is somewhat answerable. We don't have all the details, but clearly politics and lack of enthusiasm for the material, and another project being worked on instead, all played a large part.

The question then becomes, why didn't this make it out as a Brian solo album? And again, that takes us back to Joe Thomas and his ability (again, even if part of that ability was ingratiating himself upon Brian and Melinda) to get *his* "version" of a Brian album out.

There were a bunch of rumors/vague reports back then, including Melinda liking Joe's adult contemporary and AOR vibe, and that's indeed what we got. Joe even worked on several of Brian and Andy's songs during those sessions "Where Has Love Been?" and "Gettin' In Over My Head." Also, while I've still never been able to discern much solidly, and Andy's name isn't on the song, it sure seems like bits of "How Could We Still Be Dancin'" were migrated over from "Dancing the Night Away."

Like most people on the outskirts of Beach Boys-dom, both Paley and Joe Thomas were at various points "in" or "out" as far as working with Brian. Through I'm sure a healthy mixture of luck, happenstance, and political and music biz skills, Joe ended up co-producing and co-writing more material with Brian that made it out through a variety of channels.

Meanwhile, Andy's stuff got piecemealed out across many years in both original, partially re-recorded, and fully re-recorded form, on both ostensibly "new" albums as well as "archival" packages.

I suspect we've probably heard and have in pretty good to excellent sound quality most of the best of Brian and Andy's songs. But I'd still love to see a nice deluxe set of everything, including demos and other stuff we haven't heard. (And throw on the Don Was stuff as well).

The weird sound quality on some of the tracks, including the stuff on the "Long Promised Road" soundtrack, seemed to open up some questions as to whether all extant multi-track tapes survive from those sessions. But we know some if not most or all do; as they were re-jiggering both "Soul Searchin'" and "You're Still a Mystery" a number of years after their initial recordings.

It struck me over the past few days, after seeing some of the "highlights" and musical performances from the VMA Awards (supposedly a showcase of the best, hottest, biggest selling, most trendy music of our present time...) how absurd it is to worry about whether a ten year old Beach Boys album should have an asterisk next to it for chart position, or how reaching #3 on that Billboard chart is upsetting to some. Considering the supposed "talent" on display, and the songs heard on that awards show...holy sh*t that's what should be causing grief and debate instead of asterisks and chart positions. And that's the kind of music and the artists we're being programmed to hear and, what else, respect? Sad commentary on modern pop music.

But surely the VMA Awardees will still be trending like heck in 2072. Just look at them: it's obvious that their allure is one who will stand the passing of just half a century. Surely.

Music is a dumpster fire these days. And it's not just the themes - sex and drugs have always been themes in rock-n-roll since the 60s? But in the modern era there is no talent to be had to write, produce, record these "songs"...most of which you can't even understand the "lyrics", and every pop backing track nowadays sounds like a copy/paste from late-90s Brittney Spears songs...and those pop tunes are probably the best that music has to offer, don't even get me started on "rap" these days.

So yeah, completely agree, if The Beach Boys showed up on the charts we should be grateful that they cast a ray of light onto the music world, even if but for a short period of time.

I think the ones who started EVALUATING music based on position in the "lists" are guilty of all this. This includes a whole section of the Beach Boys "fandom" (to be clear, as it seems it's necessary: I am not talking of HeyJude and the like).
This has brought to the current situation, where position on lists are directly manufactured by the Powers That Be,  with no remaining link to anything resembling "music".

I think part of this is simply the different ways fans and scholars look at and discuss this stuff. That will sometimes invariably lead to cross-talk where some folks are kind of missing each other.

Some folks just like to talk about what they like. They don’t want to get bogged down in the politics and the “negative” stuff, or industry stuff. Some folks don’t even really want to get into the basic biographical details.

That’s all fine (obviously), but I’d argue that if the idea is take a scholarly approach on any level to the band and its history, you can’t just ignore all of that stuff.

I don’t think anybody (anybody here anyway) is taking facts/stats/lists/sales, etc. and then letting it shape their subjective/qualitative/personal opinion of the music.

The point in getting into the charts, at least for me, is not to start ranking what’s better or worse. I’m mainly interesting in how sales and chart success impact the *story* of the band. And it absolutely does! To varying degrees at varying points. But the reason it’s important to contextualize something like the “performance” or “success” of the 2012 reunion album is that it is both a cause and a result of all sorts of machinations involving the band’s story and history. *Especially* when it comes to a hot-button, divisive topic like the 2012 50th reunion.

So if one wants to understand why such-and-such material (e.g. the Paley stuff) didn’t get released (or worked on more by the band, etc.), then an understanding of the industry (including sales and charts) and the band’s history is very important.

The question of the chart success of TWGMTR is somewhat different. The “success” of that album is really just one part of the 50th reunion story. I believe, if one has to very briefly sum it up, that the album was *relatively successful* in that it performed adequately, was generally well-received, and served its purpose in the context of the reunion. 

Yet again: I was NOT talking of you, or other people with similar views. Whatever has your answer in common with what I actually said?
However, just for the chronicle: no, personally I am not interested in the more scholarly approach to the Beach Boys (which, by the way, imho has always spawned very good things but also a wealth of, to be extremely charitable, "dubious" stuff), and yes, I am interested in their music, and that goes WAY, WAY beyond just saying which albums or songs one likes.

However, I had some skirmishes with Rab, one of my favourite posters ever, before we cleared some small misunderstandings.
You are another great contributor and nothing I ever said was aimed against you. :)

But, again about the WP sessions. I know why they were not released. It's too obvious!

"DON'T ****  WITH THE FORMULA, BRIAN!" This is not commercial, and will never climb the lists!

And no need to guess who said that. IT WAS A COLLECTIVE, as always.

Simplistic? Maybe, but often truth is simplistic.

Brian, Andy and maybe Don Was vs The Rest of the World. Simple as that.

But the sacrifice was worth the while, as the extremely commercial "Stars and Stripes Vol. 1" climbed to an impressive #101 and the even more commercial MOR "Imagination" climbed to a whopping #80. Long live the Formula!

And after all, the Beach Boys, with SIP, had just climbed to # ..., oh, never mind, so they were absolutely right in being wary of all that uncommercial out-of-formula Brian music.

As PhilSpectre said, tragi-comical.

I am a huge Brian fan but at the end of the day we have to say that he must take some of the blame. If he is unwilling to ever again take total control of the recording process, as has basically been the case since the late 70s than he will be at the mercy of the people he cedes control to. If Brian had really wanted a Wilson-Paley album to be released in the 1990s than he had to actually produce the record but it seems like he ultimately, despite being free of Landy, no longer wanted that responsibility.

We all know, or so I hope, Brian's problems. We all know, or so I hope, that he needs a mess of help to finish a project. He never made a secret of this, either.
But methinks that in several crucial periods of Brian's career he got some scattered help and a whole mess of UNhelp.

No worries, I wasn't assuming you were talking about me. I don't only respond and discuss if I think I'm specifically being referenced. I was just commenting on some of the points in general regarding "fandom", because having been a fan and immersed in and/or observed every corner of "fandom", I feel I have a pretty good idea of how things have gone over the years, and certainly here on this board. What I was saying is that, as best as I can tell in terms of what you were positing ("....EVALUATING music based on position in the "lists" are guilty of all this. This includes a whole section of the Beach Boys "fandom"...."), is that I *don't* see that as a huge problem in "fandom". Perhaps we all just have different definitions of what a "fan" is.

I was trying to point out that, certainly in discussions here and other places where hardcore fans congregate, discussion of things like album charts have more to do with contextualizing the band's history than it does fans "evaluating" the quality of the music itself.

This band's "fandom" certainly has plenty of issues; and I've discussed some of those over the years. But I've never seen a lot of this "evaluating music based on positions in lists" phenomenon. I mean, I guess there are very casual fans who just like the really mainstream stuff who, perhaps need actual validation from charts and lists, and/or use the charts or lists to decide what they like. But I don't particularly consider that a case of being the real "fandom" for the band. That's certainly the case if we're talking about the "powers that be" (to the extent I can discern who or what that's supposed to be). 

But my main point was that, as best as I can tell, the discussion of charts in this thread have involved trying to understand how that all fits into the band's history and to try to appropriately contextualize such things.

If ever there was a place that concentrated a lot on "scholarly" Beach Boys discussion, it's this board. It's got many other facets as well, but that one is a big one. So yeah, you're going to run into a wall quite a bit if you want to talk *around* that aspect of things when discussing most any topic concerning the band. I'm not saying people can't discuss this stuff in any way they want to; but I guess one of the main points I'm trying to get to is that there are plenty of historians/scholars who *also* have plenty of personal preferences and feelings about the music, and are able to discuss *both* separately, and even sometimes at the same time.

I agree that the Paley material is good, and better than anything the others had been working on in recent prior years and contemporaneously.

But I do think trying to explain the lack of an album materializing by saying it was just another "Don't f**k with the formula, Brian" situation is far, far too reductive. It isn't *always* much more complicated; but sometimes it is, and a knowledge of the *very complicated and nuanced" band politics around this time indicate a lot more was going on than simply a few fellow band members thinking the material was not commercial.

Have you read Cindy Lee Berryhill's account of the Beach Boys group session with Paley and Brian? That alone indicates a lot of more nuanced, weird, deep stuff was going on than simply someone thinking the material wasn't commercial. A lot of weird passive-aggressive stuff was going. And that was only on the more micro level when it came to actually literally working on the material. The larger political issues surrounding the organization were also at play. I've probably already gone on about a lot of that already in this thread.

I'm reminded of some anonymous person who was in the studio during the reunion album recording sessions in 2011/2012, and I'm loosely paraphrasing, but they said something like "everything is an argument with these guys", and seemed to feel everything they do is *constantly* weighed down by many, many deep layers of politics and inter-personal bulls**t. And I think this was true back in the mid-90s as well. It had long ago gone way beyond simply a "don't f**k with the formula" situation.

I think this is way too broad of a brushstroke to paint this situation, specific to the years 1994-1996 when the material we're discussing was on the table as material for the band, not just Brian, to record and release. HeyJude already made some comments about the interpersonal and business situations at that time, which is what I was going to say too, but there could be several chapters of a book written about what was going on in that specific time period.

First and probably most prominent, you're going on the assumption that Brian had either the power to, or the full ability to, make such a judgement call and say I'm going to produce this album. And it leaves out the fact that Brian wanted at least a chunk of the material he was writing with Andy to go to The Beach Boys. That's very clear. However, the Beach Boys blew him off when he wanted to play them some new tracks for consideration and didn't show when he invited them to a listening session. There were a lot of personal issues going on specific to this time period too, as mentioned, and the band in some cases was skeptical of Brian coming back to "produce" an album, let alone function as a band member again which is what he said he wanted to do. Some members treated him almost like a child, overcompensating to try to make him feel comfortable, some didn't think he could cut it live and rejected various ideas to get him on stage, others were still burned by various aspects of the Landy years (including slander lawsuits, suspicious writing credits, demands from Landy to be a 'partner' in the process, etc.), and there just seemed to be a feeling of skepticism around Brian's return.

In some cases their actions were understandable, Landy overall was like a festering wound they couldn't get rid of. Once he was gone, it wasn't as simple as the "old Brian" coming back and being able to helm the production of a full album, and the fact they tried to connect Brian with Sean O'Hagan (which Bruce and Carl were trying to do) says there wasn't the same confidence in his abilities anyway.

Meanwhile they had tracks which Don Was had said Carl was excited about, and then all of a sudden Carl changed his mind and vetoed everything. In a related situation, Virgin's Richard Branson came calling with a record deal, each "faction" of the band wanted something out of it including Brian who wanted co-production credit and a solo album release, and the Virgin deal fell through.

So when Brian did step up to say he'd produce what he wanted to produce, he was basically told no. The next time he would actually produce for the band, it was one of the bargaining chips used to get Willie Nelson on board with the country project, and the track Brian did with Willie was not only the one he was fully involved with, but also one of the true highlights of that whole album. Why that wasn't pushed hard as a single over James House and Kathy Troccoli is still a mystery too.

I guess I'm trying to understand where the blame falling on Brian theory comes in because when he did step up and actually offer material, offer to produce and co-produce, and basically say in many ways he wanted to be a Beach Boy again after getting rid of the Landy b.s., it got shot down by other members and pieces of the machine. By the time Stars and Stripes became the focus, all of what had happened with the Paley/Was material was a dead issue and everyone had moved on.

The time to release this stuff, or at least do something with it, was when the Beach Boys started working on the Paley tracks and I have to give the opinion that I think that was what Brian wanted more than putting together a solo record at that specific time. By the time a solo album possibility was on the table, and Brian pitched it to Virgin Records as part of the Beach Boys deal, the players and the game had been changing and the window of opportunity had closed. 

And also important to note is that the Beach Boys could not beg, borrow, or steal a record label deal at this time and had no label deal on the books at all with anything resembling a big player in the business. After Summer In Paradise was rejected, Capitol ended their deal and was done with them as a vehicle for new original, focusing on reissues. When Brian came back into the fold, there was interest again, and Brian even said he wanted to help them score a new deal to release new music. Without Brian they were without a deal or interest. It's not like he didn't try.

You make great points. Mainly I was just noting that as much people bemoan Joe Thomas -he is there because Brian chooses to not be totally in control of the recording process for a variety of reasons.

But I thought nobody tells Brian Wilson what to do?

I mean, it's all what-ifs on top of what-ifs, but certainly I've never heard the Paley stuff discussed as if it was *only* a project intended to produce a Beach Boys album. Even Andy Paley, who spoke in interviews enthusiastically about how well the BBs performed (I recall his petsounds.com interview in particular singling out how good Al Jardine sounded), and who said the band could have cut vocals for an album's worth of material in two days, didn't seem to speak of the material as if a BB album was the only, or even the main, goal for doing the sessions.

He made it sound as though it was he and Brian doing material, with no specific but potentially *any* goal. I personally always felt it seemed like they were angling towards both a solo *and* BB album (and Joe Thomas attested that a few years later Brian would write or co-write stuff and put some stuff in a "solo" pile and some stuff in a "Beach Boys" pile, even during a time where a BB album seemed *even less* likely/possible).

As far as Brian's agency in doing projects, I think it's fair to say he needed a facilitator. to actually fully realize a project from writing/conception to release. Just about everything he did after about 1978, in terms of what actually got released, had some sort of co-writer and/or co-producer and/or some sort of facilitator.

He used Bruce on LA and KTSA. He did some sporadic sessions on his own into the early 80s pre-Landy Part 2, and I find that era and those sessions quite interesting, but they were never close to being a viable, releasable project.

By the mid-80s, he was usually working with someone. The Gary Usher book has a ton of insight into this, with some very frank (but also very sympathetic) discussions of what Brian was and wasn't capable of. Everybody who worked with Brian realized he needed someone to help him at various points to get product released. And I'm not just talking about needing a tape-op or engineer. He needed a co-producer (whether they were credited as such or not, and indeed the Usher book over and over gets into Landy's push and Brian's hands-off/ambivalence about Usher not getting a co-producer credit).

The '88 album brought a series of co-producers.

I suppose Brian sort of did "Sweet Insanity" on his own, and not totally coincidentally, it wasn't released. I'm not saying all of the material was bad, and certainly that was the peak of Landy making *everything* more complicated.

Brian had Andy and Don Was for the Paley sessions and the IJWMFTT project (the latter having Was cut most of the stuff without Brian, down to having someone sing guide vocals, and then Brian came in to add his leads). Van Dyke was obviously the main starter on the "Orange Crate Art" album (though I still feel a *ton* of the vocal arranging on that album is Brian, and Brian does an *amazing* job on that album, help or not).

That gets us to modern, "touring era" Brian, which can of course dredge up a lot of debates about Brian's ability and agency. But on most every project, whether by necessity or by choice (and I think it was either or both at various times), he had some sort of co-producer/co-writer/facilitator. Joe Thomas, Foskett, Darian, Mertens, Bennett, and so on.

Was Brian in the last decade or two capable of doing an album all on his own, from conception to release?  Even the "Brian alone at a piano playing new stuff" album some fans have wanted (an album full of "Message Man" type tracks for lack of a better way to describe it) would have required somebody to come up with and push for that idea.

Back specifically to the Paley material, I think Brian had enough agency in 1995 that he could have pushed hard to make that a new solo album. He didn't. And as puzzling as the Beach Boys' lack of enthusiasm for the material may be, it's not their fault that Brian and Andy didn't turn an album's worth of that stuff into a new Brian Wilson album. There was enough stuff written and recorded to even ignore an album's worth of stuff that he could have earmarked for a BB album.

That's absolutely accurate. I'd go even farther when it comes to the 50th reunion; I'm not sure anyone else at that exact moment could have pulled together that project in that way. Even *Mike* was giving kudos *during the tour* to Joe Thomas and his ability to get the project done. What specifically soured concerning *Mike and Joe Thomas* after that point is not 100% clear.

Where can I find this?

I believe it was published in ESQ at or around the time of those sessions. 

You know what? The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that they did Brian just like they did with Dennis and manson. Once that episode happened he was never treated  quite the same, and it's the same with Brian and landy*.


*Excluding the fluke 2012 reunion that almost seemed to defy any and all logic, of course.

Brian was Landy’s victim, and unfortunately some people like to blame the victim rather than the perpetrator

Which is crazy, if you consider the fact that they basically created their own monster by getting land involved to begin with.

I never understood why Don Was chose to work with Brian, and all they could get released was an album of remakes. The point of his film seemed to be that "Brian is a genius - a troubled genius, but his troubles are behind him and he's creating great music again". Did it boil down to, "new music has to be with the Beach Boys, or it's not going to happen?"

Hey, I see elsewhere that Al is re-releasing his solo album again. Might be a good idea to release TWGMTR again, too.
One little odd sidenote: by the time the Record Store Day EP came out in 2012 (the one that looked like a Pee Chee), Surfin' Safari/409/Isn't it Time, the reunion was pretty much over. That felt odd. Like we're still celebrating the reunion, even though both camps had returned to their respective corners.

;D

Double Tom Hardy this time.

https://youtu.be/ThJcHjCI9j4

https://youtu.be/ThJcHjCI9j4

I have to clarify a thing about my insistence on "don't **** with the formula". I use it as a metaphor.
Yes, I know that if you analyse the reasons for the demise of the Paley Sessions, there are a lot. I am not so naive or uninformed as to believe there was only one reason, or a couple of them.
But in another sense, all those reasons coalesced into a giant metaphorical "don't **** with the formula, Brian". And he, in the end, complied. Again.

I think any rational fan saw what you were saying. I'm glad Kreen wrote the "But I thought nobody tells Brian Wilson what to do?" because it perfectly showcases the ignorance of a small swath of the fanbase that loves to needle anyone who has any sympathy/liking/preference for the Brian camp. Acting like a tool, not participating in any rational discourse when your opinion/post is countered shows exactly why there is such a divide among the fandom...fortunately I think most sane fans see how the petulant trolling isn't winning anyone over to that side.

I think that the attitude a sadly non-negligible section of the BB "fandom" keeps regarding Brian is one of the most shameful examples of "ableism" ever. It's absurd, crazy, and it has gone on for too, far too long. Tom Hardy is the only answer they deserve. "That's bait."

At one point, the loss of the Paley sessions seemed like a tragedy.

But then we got BWPS, TLOS, BWRG and TWGMTR. Brian working with his band, writing and arranging new and familiar tunes, and eventually singing far better than he ever had in his solo career. He gave us a late career miracle, of a kind I will never forget or underestimate.

The myth of the Paley sessions persists, and don’t get me wrong — I think everyone here would love a collection at some point. But so much else happened in the subsequent 27 years that I no longer see it as much of a tragedy. Would it have been nice? Sure. But did we still get a bunch of top quality new material from BW? Yes. Did we get great tours and shows? Yep. Did the vast majority of highlights from the sessions find their way out anyway? They sure did.

It goes beyond that; I think the mocking stems from the fact they for whatever reason don’t like Brian very much, the way some feel towards Mike, or the way I feel about Billie Eilish. These are the types of people who likely grew up as bullies and see Brian’s issues as a sign of weakness. I just roll my eyes and scroll , hoping a rule infringement would happen so the inane comments would stop. Til then, we’ll just keep playing the world’s lamest game of internet chicken.

I think the fact that we got Imagination instead caused it to get elevated more in the 1999-2002 timeframe when it looked like that was all we were gonna get studio album-wise. But, Brian outdid it several times after, esp on the Gershwin album which has my favorite vocals he’s ever done . His voice may have been better in his youth, but he sang his ass off.

But I digress

The only person who sees abandoning Wilson/Paley as a tragedy these days is a guy like Dom Priore.

Even so, Don’s friends still managed to get involved with and are still involved with Brian.  The Gen X-ers who were the hip Brian audience in the 90’s did not abandon him after Imagination, not matter how much Dom says or wishes that it had happened.

Very wise words, Wirestone. I myself don't consider the "loss" of the Paley sessions a tragedy. More just like a missed opportunity.
I'll try to use this as a springboard to say what I think of Brian's overall output (wow...).
On one hand, there is some sadness. There is no way to know what a Brian working on full cylinders for dozens of years could have done, starting from a completed 1967 SMiLE. The idea boggles my mind.
On the other hand, things could have gone SO worse, and we were SO lucky. Brian, thru all his enormous problems, managed to give us Smiley Smile, great songs in all the further albums, Mt. Vernon, Love You, Rio Grande, and as you said BWPS, TLOS, BWRG, TWGMTR, and I'll throw in these two unexpected recent gems, At My Piano (Brian alone at a piano! And being awesome at it!) and Long Promised Road (after which, I consider the promise of the R & R album fulfilled). And by the way, Brian's one is my fav Christmas album.
So, yes, his late career is really a miracle. And, of course, he got a mess of help from a lot of great people...
Let's say that we could have had something unimaginable, but we "just" had a modern Mozart...and a couple of psychedelic barbershop ensembles. :)

I agree, Brian's vocals in BWRG are great. I like particularly his phrasing.

There are people who don't like Brian very much? I thought everybody loved Brian. He's a very lovable guy. Someone you just want to give a big bear hug and tell him it's gonna be alright.
I think the Wilson Paley sessions are held in such high regard is - in some quarters - they are perceived as being Brian doing what Brian wanted to do, compared with IJWMFTT (Don Was does a film about Brian and wants him to re-record some songs to be used in the film); OCA - Brian singing on VDP's album because - in VDP's words "I can't stand the sound of my own voice"); Imagination - Brian being pushed into an AC sound by Melinda and Joe Thomas; and on and on. There always has to be someone else pushing Brian to do something, instead of Brian just doing what he wants to do.
But Brian in 2022 is a much different story than Brian in 1990-whatever.

I think as you say that the Paley sessions loomed large for many years because a certain part of the fandom continued to argue that things like Imagination were Brian being pushed into a more commercial/bland direction and that the “real” Brian was represented on the more “raw” Paley demos. The suggestion is that Brian was pushed into collaboration with people like Joe by “outside forces” and that he would make more experimental music left to his own devices. But I just think that is wishful thinking and not where Brian head has been at since 1988

1) It isn't just wishful thinking. As the Paley sessions showed, he just needed a nudge in that direction, which Andy had supplied. Instead, Brian got quite a few, let's say, "nudges" in the opposite direction.
2) About 2022 Brian: I hope everybody agrees that he is not in the best place. But ableist trolls (not talking of Ian here) don't know either love or mercy. What I know is that the 2021 Brian actually completed two albums.

I think it's more that people don't like Brian's camp, not necessarily Brian. And I think a lot of the animosity stems from the years that Mike received backlash for this or that, and so any opportunity that arises to needle/prod Brian fans does not go to waste (as Kreen's comment above perfectly exemplifies)....and I think this because I notice that most of this animosity comes from people who defend Mike's camp incessantly.

And those of us who do sympathize/support Brian's camp are the targets of this animosity. So yeah, everyone seems to love Brian, but that doesn't stop some fans from disrespecting his wife, disrespecting his children, disrespecting his band, disrespecting his own stated intentions.

So while some people claim to love Brian, they sure don't show evidence of this when they make flippant/sarcastic comments regarding his free will, or regarding the motivations behind certain albums. The people who have this constant hate towards anything associated with Brian's management seem to forget that Brian's world is not black and white. Brian is a very complicated/complex person so expecting his life and his career to be uncomplicated is astoundingly ignorant. And I'm not saying we can't discuss this stuff - I do not think for a second that Brian's career post-Landy has been all sunshine and rainbows (so there is much to discuss), but these smartass sarcastic pot-shot comments that pepper these discussions aren't adding anything remotely constructive to the conversation.   

I think the reason the Paley sessions are thought of as such a tragedy is because It is in a way, for The Beach Boys. These songs were intended for a Beach Boys album specifically. Brian bounced back and had moments of brilliance, but not The Beach Boys as a group. Instead of what could have been their best work since Holland, everything was scrapped for a half assed "tribute album". Then Carl got sick and died, and the group more or less fizzled out. The time between the buzz generated from the 1993 Good Vibrations box set and the IJWMFTT documentary gave them a valuable window of time/opportunity, but it all went to waste over petty politics that should have been dealt with years ago. Instead a once great band slipped away doing mediocre greatest hits shows. The worst part about all this is that this was their last chance with Carl(of course they didn't know it at the time). Therein lies the real tragedy.

Boom! This exactly.

Couldn’t agree any more

I'll have more to say, but some of the points I was trying to make is that the BBs not working more on this material may even be *more* of a tragedy because it *wasn't* tantamount to a "don't f**k with the formula" situation. The Beach Boys machine/monster was so complicated and had so many machinations that there are numerous *100% non-musical* reasons they didn't do an album of Paley material. There were some reasons that had *nothing* to do with Brian at all. The other guys had their own BS going on between them as well.

I'm not saying the type of music being made had zero to do with anything, but really, there were many interpersonal and political and business things going on right around that time, as mentioned in past posts.

And, outside of just sort of feeling that in was sort of written in the stars for this to be only a "Beach Boys" album, I also would say it's pretty clear the songs were mostly *not* written or recorded with only a Beach Boys album in mind. Brian was already releasing solo material by 1995, and indeed a few Brian/Andy tracks were released around this time under Brian's name.

I'm not trying to not put any blame on the Beach Boys; I've pointed out specifics before regarding how they were clearly not super supportive about the material.

But I think it's dangerous to combine the "the project was intended to be a Beach Boys album specifically" reasoning with the "it was all about telling Brian not to f**k with the forumula" reasoning, because that then sets things up to make it pretty easy to just say it's the other Beach Boys' fault that this music was not released. And that is just not historically accurate. The other guys' ambivalence and potential objection to material is one part of the story, a BIG part, certainly one of the most *interesting* parts of the story. But the other four Beach Boys were not anywhere near the only obstacle for an album of this material materializing. I say that not out of defensiveness for the other guys (I've said many times they clearly didn't want to embrace some great material, and they certainly weren't doing anything great on their own), but for the sake of something approaching historical accuracy.

It's pretty easy to stitch together the most basic situations from that time: Brian was free of Landy and actively working on new music, the Beach Boys had no label, no label interest, no new songs, a true dead-in-the-water flop of an album-of-record at the time, and were touring with dancers, giant surf boards, and fake palm trees on stage. There was a major producer working with Brian and bringing the group back together with him (baby steps, as there were still the issues between all sides), and both Brian and the legacy music had been getting a lot of attention and praise from new generations through the reissues and the box set, and also the Was documentary.

Brian expressed how he wanted to be a Beach Boy again, and work with the band again. Once it came out that the band was without a label, needed new material, and basically needed something to bring them back with renewed interest, Brian had all of these songs to choose from and a producer with enough industry clout to make it happen. They chose songs to work on, Mike and Brian started collaborating again, the media began picking up on it, and it looked like something would happen.

I don't see a stretch in saying when the band needed songs, and Brian and the band started interacting again, that those songs became Beach Boys songs intended for the band to work on and hopefully release (or at least generate label interest which was non-existant at the time). And they obviously started working on those songs, not as solo Brian songs but as Beach Boys potential releases.

I don't know where the divide is in saying these were Beach Boys songs when there were songs picked out and worked on as Beach Boys songs. Brian, Andy, and Don had dozens of songs worked up, naturally not all were going to the Beach Boys, but as soon as the band needed material there were songs specifically targeted to that purpose. And Mike and Brian worked on some beyond that. I don't know where the inaccuracy is in saying some of the Wilson-Paley-Was sessions and songs alongside whatever the Wilson-Love collaborations would be were targeted for the Beach Boys.

It was a marriage of supply and demand, the band needed material and Brian had material for them. Whatever soured the whole thing is the tragedy.

Yes, for sure, they selected specific songs for the Beach Boys to work on. They definitely had a Beach Boys album in mind as a potential project and home for Brian/Andy songs (whether an eventual album would have been all Brian/Andy songs, or all Brian/Andy songs with Mike adding some lyrics, or some sort of more “political” thing where non-Paley material was added as well is of course an unknown).

What I’m looking at is the “Wilson/Paley” project/sessions/material on the whole.

Yes, the Beach Boys were a HUGE part of why a *Beach Boys* album with Paley material didn’t materialize. They were pretty much *the* reason, as Brian seemed game and Andy certainly was and again, even said it could have been done quickly in fact if they had been so inclined. I mean, I think “group politics” were at play, and that did involve Brian as well. But yes, the Beach Boys were a huge part of why a group album didn’t happen.

But the reasons were much more complicated than simply not liking the material, or feeling it wasn’t “commercial” enough. I think the other members’ opinion of the actual *material* hasn’t been that explored. Bruce (stupidly and inexplicably) didn’t seem impressed even though the band was given two of the strongest tracks, but who gives a f**k what Bruce thinks. He would and will clearly show up for whatever. Mike expressed in later years mixed messages about the material. I think he told Carlin that they were willing, but not enthusiastic, or something along those lines. Which pretty much matches Bruce’s sentiment of being “willing” to do the material as a “favor” to Brian. To be clear, these sentiments and vibes were part of why a BB album didn’t materialize I’m sure. In other interviews, I believe Mike has been somewhat more positive about the material, though again never like super-enthused about it as if it’s a lost gem of a project. Al, the one time I can think of that he was asked in that 2000 Ken Sharp interview, said he liked the material. Carl, I believe according to Al in a different edit of that same interview, had some sort of issue with the material, and we later learned it was specifically in relation to one backing track on one song. There’s no record of Carl or anybody saying like “Market Place sucks” or something.

And, apart from all of this, another point I was addressing was the possibility of putting a Brian solo album out based on the material. I’m not sure why this is being dismissed. There is obvious evidence a few songs were earmarked for the Beach Boys, and I believe there were a few other comments about a few other tracks that they may have had Mike add some lyrics to. But I never got the impression those sessions and material, from conception to the end, was only ever intended as a Beach Boys project and only a Beach Boys project. It seemed like Brian and Andy wrote a bunch of songs, started recording them, and then Brian and Mike “reunited” post-lawsuit, and they brought Was into the fold, and so on as guitarfool has described. But I never sensed Brian and Andy felt this stuff would *only* be Beach Boys material. And certainly, it’s literally true that it didn’t *have to be*, and indeed a bunch of the tracks were released as solo Brian tracks in subsequent years. They literally released “This Song Wants to Sleep With You Tonight” in 1995 as a Brian solo track. We learned years later that Brian re-worked “You’re Still a Mystery” in 1999 with a new lead vocal, and he cut a couple Paley songs with Joe Thomas in 1997/1998.

My recollection is that the entire “mythos” around the “Paley Sessions” starting in the late 90s was not framed as a “lost Beach Boys album”. It was viewed as a tantalizing, and *large* group of songs that Brian had co-written and performed that fans thought was quite good. That some of the songs leaked very early on in pretty good sound quality certainly helped. I even recall some fans not even knowing the BBs had worked on the material, describing getting a hold of some version of the Paley tapes only be surprised to all of a sudden hear Carl on “Soul Searchin’”, and Mike on a line on “You’re Still a Mystery.”

The first lamenting of this as Beach Boys material I recall was fans wanting the two “reunion” songs to be on the “Endless Harmony Soundtrack” in 1998, and my recollection is that it just wasn’t plausible at that point based on legal/contractual/political issues.

Another unfortunate aspect of the whole failed Paley sessions is that not only could they have had potential commercial success, but they were also beginning to get "street cred"(for lack of a better term) with indie artists and fans, and that could have proved to be a very valuable asset. More so than being noticed by "mainstream" media. The same thing is happening right now today too, but I think it may be far to late to matter much.

Let's not make the mistake of thinking all these problems are only in the past. "Long Promised Road", the album, has disappeared literally at once after its "release". I hope it's still available in digital format...

Yeah, I was checking discogs last night, and there wasn't even a vinyl release.

And if the guys over the years, and certainly in the 90s, didn't have much of a grasp on what was "commercial", they had even less ability to discern what would get them "street cred", and they certainly didn't care and in some cases still don't (see: Mike and the 2012 reunion).

The guys, including Carl, seemed to not give much notice to the then-burgeoning indie/nerd scene concerning their music. In 1995, Carl was fine playing stale live setlists (he sounded great of course, I'll never take that away from him) and doing some pretty kind of bland, AOR/AC music. (I actually like several of the Beckley-Lamm-Wilson songs Carl contributed; he sounds great on them, but the production is very AC/mid-90s/bland).

I'm not trying to hammer Carl more than the other guys. But we already know based on subsequent years that Mike and Bruce were all about the touring band, and will sometimes sign on to whatever in terms of studio material. While there's no evidence that Carl like *hated* the Paley material, it wouldn't surprise me if he had more specific issues with the material and its style, whereas I don't think Mike or Bruce cared too much, and I think Al would have joined in on whatever relatively enthusiastically.

There is sometimes a (not unwarranted) strain of pinpointing Mike and his "don't f**k with the formula" ethos (whether he ever actually said that or not) when it comes to the band's position on the Paley material specifically, and this is one case where I think Carl was possibly more iffy on the material than even Mike was, in part because Carl might have cared more about discerning material in the first place, which isn't a bad thing in and of itself.

One of the big mysteries is how it was reported at the time that Carl was enthusiastic about the new tracks and was working on them, then he was the one who pulled the plug. I've never seen it discussed why he made that decision after his initial enthusiasm.

I was the same. Sure, I heard scattered comments about the Beach Boys from the alternative music world - and there was that Sub Pop single released as a preview of the PS box. But the people I knew that were into the whole indie/alternative scene were not Beach Boys fans. If it didn't have guitars with amps turned up to 11, screaming yelling vocals, pounding drums, and lyrics about suicide and heroin addiction, they weren't interested. Oh, I tried to get them interested, but no luck. Pet Sounds, for example, widely praised in the rock press - the music is far too mellow for that crowd. Jimi Hendrix - they could relate to that. Fuzzed out, heavy guitars, trippy lyrics, heavy beat; contrast that with "God Only Knows". 'Oh, this is sweet, pretty - I hate it!" I was always reading that so-and-so claimed the Beach Boys, or at least name checked Brian Wilson as an influence - but I sure didn't hear it in their music. I got so bombarded by heavy alternative rock and metal from the people around me, my personal taste went more towards A/C - something to calm down with.

I don't know that anybody needed to pull the plug, as it wasn't an ironclad "album project" with a record deal, etc. It sounds like it was exploratory similar to what they did in May 2011 recording that "Do It Again" remake just to see if they could record a track and survive being in the room recording together.

The whole thing seemed to be kind of a loosey-goosey thing. I'm not even sure who was footing the bill for the group vocal sessions. Does anybody know?

Bruce described the vocal sessions as a "favor" to Brian.

So it was easier to sort of passively "pull the plug" on the project when it was so loose to begin with.

I'm not absolving the other guys of anything. I think those two tracks they worked on were very strong, and it's disappointing that nobody seemed to be showing enough enthusiasm. But this is where group politics may have usurped any musical misgivings, as it sounds like Carl just had more of nitpick issue specifically with a Don Was backing track. If he thought the material was garbage, he could have easily just not shown up.

I think the other guys in the band had less of an issue with the songs, and more of an issue with Brian. I think some of the guys were still having a sort of antagonistic situation with Brian (whether it was justified or not). There are of course ten million reasons that could have happened. I've gone on about a bunch of them before, with lingering ill will about Landy being a potential major source.

So, so interesting. All of this. Points to consider —

Circa 1995, Brian was arguably a bigger name than the band. That may have complicated things. It was cool to like BW, less so the other guys. He was cooler than the other guys.

I’d never considered BW viewing that work as BB material, but it makes sense. We know he earmarked co-writes with Thomas just a few years later for the band and not himself. Could it be the reason we haven’t seen a full release is that BW only saw a handful of songs as “solo” tracks?

Some in the band wanted BW to be _more_ avant-garde than the Paley sessions. Bruce brought in Sean O’Hagen of the High Llamas as a possible producer and co-writer after listening to “Hawaii.” That didn’t go well, but O’Hagen was in the mix for a time.

Brian marries Melinda in the middle of this. Now, her role was debated back then, but it’s pretty clear that Brian’s life was in transition as he moved from an independent conservator to having Melinda fill that role and guide his business affairs. The move to Chicago and some other big decisions around this time (a country album?!) suggest an artist recalibrating his career and personal life.

And let’s not forget the partial album with his daughters from 1997. He also got together with Asher and co-wrote a bunch of songs after Paley but before Joe Thomas.

This all suggests to me that Brian was interested in going back to Spector-like songwriter and producer role, for both the BBS and his daughters. Melinda and Joe together, I think, persuaded him to take the solo artist route. Carl’s death sealed the deal.

These events happened in only three or so years. It was crazy!

There were definitely a lot of moving parts, that’s for sure.

But yeah, while I’ve often talked about Joe Thomas being involved (apparently/supposedly a preference of Melinda as well) as finally pushing a project to the finish line, it’s certainly worth noting that “Imagination” happened instead of a Brian “Paley Sessions” album. As with most things, it’s usually not a case of “discarding one specifically for another”, but certainly once the decision is made to do “Imagination” with Joe, there certainly isn’t going to be a Paley album (at least, not one that sounds like those Paley sessions and with songs mostly or all written by Brian and Andy).

Just as it’s unclear exactly how much “Stars and Stripes” happened over the corpse of a BBs/Paley Sessions album, it’s also unclear how much the Joe Thomas/Imagination stuff happened literally at the death bed of the Paley material.

Had Joe Thomas never entered the picture, would a Paley album have happened (either a BB or Brian solo album, or both?). We’ll obviously never know. I think there were a lot of internal political/interpersonal things going on apart from any other projects that could have “taken the place” of a Paley album, such that I think, at the very least, it’s quite possible that the “Paley” album wouldn’t have happened in any scenario. If Thomas hadn’t come along, who’s to say someone else wouldn’t have come along with a whole new ethos of how to do an album?

Also, regarding the chaotic nature of the Brian and BB world in the 1994-1998 time frame, it’s worth noting that the Mike-Al stuff was a HUGE issue within the BB organization. If you read the Marks/Stebbins book (and other sources), you can easily see how Al Jardine and Mike Love were quite busy with non-musical matters such that they were probably not thinking about the Paley material. Add to that Carl’s illness. The Beach Boys were busy vying for who was going to run the touring empire during this time, which was always going to be a much bigger financial deal even in a world where a Paley/BB album had hit #1.

This is true. The Beach Boys were coming off the flop of Summer in Paradise; they were the band with the girls in bikinis on stage, the band that thought Summer of Love was hip. Brian, on the other hand, was back in the spotlight, revitalized, with I Just Wasn't Made For These Times and Orange Crate Art. He was the one earning the praise of John Cale, Thurston Moore, Tom Petty, and Crosby and Nash.

Just a year or two after the Beach Boys sessions, Brian also arranges and produces -- on his own -- a backing track for Carnie and Wendy. It's "Everything I Need," which has nothing to do with Andy Paley or Joe Thomas.

Thomas eventually overdubs the bejesus out of it, but the original circulates. It makes me wonder, frankly, if a solo album without Thomas would have included Asher material as well. It's clear that Brian didn't see Andy as an entirely essential piece of what he was putting together.

Very good point; Brian was working on a lot of things in that era, and the Paley Sessions was only one album scenario.

What's interesting is that the band still seemed to view Brian as a question mark in this time frame. I'm not sure if they felt Brian could spearhead an album, and they certainly didn't know what he could do on stage. Carl rather infamously balked at the idea of doing a Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" tour with Brian, feeling Brian couldn't do it.

I think viewing the prospect of Brian doing such a tour as questionable was totally warranted in that era.

But in terms of writing and recording, I have to question a lot of the potential misgivings the band members may have had. Brian released TWO albums of material in 1995, and by the end of 1995 the band also knew he had written and recorded TWO MORE albums worth of material with Andy Paley. That wasn't even touching on anything Brian could have gone on to write with Mike, also doesn't include any Tony Asher collaborations, and doesn't even factor in the 500 unreleased songs from the 80s Brian had banked. To be sure, not all of this was like A-game material.

But Brian, even if you feel he was being given plenty of "assists" in the writing and in the studio recording, was still FAR more active recording in that 1994-1995 time frame than the Beach Boys were. At least, as far as we know.

I think in the bizarro world of the Beach Boys, some band members could have possibly been both *skeptical* of Brain's abilities, and also kind of weirdly jealous or intimidated by the 27 studio projects he was busy working on while the band slogged through "Under the Boardwalk" and "Wipe Out" in concert night after night.

That's what I've been saying for years, and a few of us said it earlier in this discussion: For all of the doubts or hesitation the band had with Brian, he had a literal backlog of material he had been writing that could have easily formed a new album for the Beach Boys, and he had been working on music pretty consistently since the Landy sh*t ended. During that time, just look at the list of songs he was working on, and the list of people he was working with in the studio on various projects.

If the Beach Boys couldn't see what was happening, if they couldn't find something worth releasing, or if they thought Brian wasn't "up to the task" of making music...that's all on them, they were clearly going on factors other than whether Brian was able to make new music that could be a viable release. And again the question since 1967 with the band was if they didn't want or like what Brian was offering them, what did they offer in return, and what could they do without him that was commercially viable? The only fluke of the whole history was Kokomo. When the band did get an international showcase on Baywatch, they performed one of the absolute worst songs in their entire catalog history.

And Brian was the one who wasn't up to the task? Unreal.


Also don't forget the track that came out on the Rob Wasserman "Trios" album, Fantasy Is Reality / Bells Of Madness, featuring Brian and Carnie with Wasserman. For fans of Brian's music, that was a pretty solid track that had key elements of Brian in there, and I remember being very, very excited at the news this track was coming out back in the day. If the band could have collected more songs in that vein, they could easily have had a solid album of new material to plug, as we've said before.

I'm glad you brought this up! The most revealing perspective on this track came from Hal Blaine, who was called to play on the original sessions. From a Steve Escobar interview with Hal:

<<<<<<<<
SE:     I recently spoke with Brian and I asked him if he ever thought of re-    uniting the Wrecking Crew for a record.  He said that he thought it was a good idea.

HB:     Well not too long ago, that we did this song, “Everything I Need,” with his two daughters, and he called me to contract, saying to “get the guys together.”  This was about two and a half, three years ago?   we did this beautiful record with Wendy and Carnie, and Brian playing piano.  We just had an incredible day recording. Then three or four days later he called me.  I got all the strings together and we did the string overdub.  I said, “Brian, I have a hunch that this could be record of the year!  And I hope it is because I’d love to have nine, instead of eight.” And we laughed about that, and Wendy and Carnie, they were just sweethearts you know, they showed a lot of love for me.  Then I get a call from this guy who’s producing him now, it was just a work call at A & M for Brian Wilson.  I thought, ok, whatever, so I go in and here’s Brian, Wendy, Carnie, and their producer.  They said, “We’re gonna play that song you that you guys just did, ‘Everything I Need’.” I said,oh, man, I loved that song!  And they played it.  and it was gorgeous, really gorgeous.  I said, “Jesus, I love that song!”  And I sincerely meant that.   The producer told me that he’d like for me to do some more drum fills and I said, “Really!”  he said “well do you feel like you want to, or could?” and I said, if it was me [doing the drum fills] I wouldn’t touch the record -I think it could go on the air just like that tomorrow and be a major hit.  The girls said “you know? we feel the same way, it’s absolutely beautiful”  I told them that their vocals were all gorgeous, but  I’m  talking about the general picture of the track, and the strings, and everybody had done such a beautiful job . . . So [the producer] says “We thought that was the way you did records with Brian.  You’d come in a week or two later and do some      more stuff . . .”  I told him that I’d be happy to do that for you, but that I didn’t think it needed anything else, but, whatever you want.   “Yeah,just play, and let’s do some fills”  All of a sudden it became a fucking drum solo, so I told them, “Look, I’ll do whatever you want.”  And I did it, you know of course, that was the end of it. And then Brian sent me the record three months later and I couldn’t believe it was the same song or the same record.  It was terrible.

SE:     Really?

HB:     It was a piece of sh*t!  This guy, whoever he was, the producer, Maybe Brian would talk about some of the wood block sounds and some of the sounds I used to do, the whole thing was covered with percussion.  It went click, boom, bang, clack, boom, bing . . .  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing!

SE:     Nowadays they tend to put the drummer up front and everything else is buried behind them.

HB:     That’s something else, but this song was so fuckin’ gorgeous.  You’d think that Barbara Streisand would be singing it.

SE:     Sometimes less is more.

HB:     Absolutely!  That’s exactly what I preach!
>>>>>>>

So there was Brian creating what was, according to Hal, a beautiful piece of music only to see it overdubbed and tinkered with to the point where Hal had that strong of a negative reaction. It's not like Brian couldn't do it, in this case another cook unfortunately was one too many cooks in the kitchen and spoiled the broth.

I guess the point could be that there was a "formula" at play here too, where what Brian originally did wasn't what the search for a commercial "hit" or whatever was dictating it should sound like. But remove the tinkering and fatuous overdubbing, and consider in the two or three years previous to this song, something good definitely could have come out of Brian's work which the Beach Boys could have used. I think the Wasserman track and the original work on this Wilsons track shows there was more that could have been tapped into.

Honestly, that doesn't make much sense to me, Brian was always the number 1 guy in charge straight from the beginning.

Yeah, listening the kind of production Brian, "left to his own devices", had meant for Carnie and Wendy, and then hearing the Thomasised version, is a (sad) ear opener. Reason I am SO happy the latest Brian album is not NPP, but the criminally underrated and/or ignored, and delightfully "raw", Long Promised Road.

There were a number of years/eras where Brian was either literally not there, or not all there emotionally/performance-wise. Certainly when it comes to live touring.

Brian in 1979 or 1980 wasn't in charge of anything. He was a stage decoration.

And there are of course a million layers to all of that stuff. But rightly or wrongly, by whatever circumstance, there was definitely an element of the band potentially having moments of resentment because they were schlepping out on tour (and sometimes in the studio) while Brian was either not there at all, or was in rough shape (78-82), or perhaps even more grating, post-Landy '83 through 1990 Brian would mostly only show up for high profile gigs and TV appearances (and on rare occasions was a fill-in for one of the other guys).

I'm not defending the guys being antagonistic or resentful or whatever in that 90s time frame. But between Landy, and the nasty stuff written about them in the "autobiography", and then Brian not being there much (literally not at all on stage between mid-1990 and 1995), these are all things that may have played into various strains of estrangement/resentment/awkwardness.

And again I refer back to Bruce's interview with Howie Edelson, where Bruce opines that the two Paley tracks weren't that great, and that he felt as through *he* (and the other guys) were the ones doing *Brian* a favor by being there and singing on it. That seems totally asinine to me (Brian hands you two great songs, but what are you doing to do instead, another AC remix of Stamos's "Forever"?), but it's an important insight into the attitude at least some of the guys had about Brian and Brian material in 1995.

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Bruce interview with Howie? I don't remember seeing or hearing that. You sure you don't mean the Peter Ames Carlin? I remember reading some stuff from Bruce (or was it Mike?) in his biography of Brian. Anyways, if there is a digital copy of that Bruce interview, would you be willing to pass it on?

There are some standouts from the Wilson/Paley sessions, but I do think it's a bit romanticized among the fanbase. Even if the BB recorded those songs for an album in 1995, I really don't believe it would have fundamentally altered their career trajectory. Maybe some buzz in indie circles, maybe fleeting top 40; but I really don't see any of that material as chart topping material, even though there are some great songs present.

A few things to consider:

1) How much of these songs are Brian and how much are Andy with Brian being there?  I think Brian was more involved with this material than some of his later solo releases, but perhaps a lot of these songs were more written by Andy than Brian.

2) Carl had the right to be skeptical of Brian's ability to do an album. I'm sure many here have seen this Brian interview from 1995: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUHUGXDIhz0  This is the worst I've ever seen Brian. Overweight, chain-smoking, grimacing frequently, struggling to be coherent. I think this interview is one of the few times fans can see what Brian's mental illness is like behind scenes. Carl had already seen Brian get used and abused several times prior and probably felt that Brian couldn't produce an album again.

3) Melinda did not like the Paley material. She said it was good therapy but not something to be released. I disagree with that statement, but it's important to discuss in why this material was never completed back in the day. I'd much rather prefer this as an official release than Stars and Stripes or Imagination. They did re-record some of these songs, but done in the style of Joe Thomas.

Right it is a complex issue….Brian was/is a quirky guy. I love Love You but it was not a commercial album. It’s a fascinating window into where Brian was at in 1976-77 and the guys were so scattered at the time that they basically let him make a solo album with little interference but they were not going to let him do Love You Part 2 in 1995. A quirky album was going to be made. The BBs in 1995 would micro manage Brian and I don’t think he works well in that setting.  Also I don’t think Melinda wanted a Love You part 2 and maybe Brian agreed…in 1998 they were looking to make a nice commercial record that sounded polished and professional, thus enter Joe Thomas. But I do recall Dianne Rovell’s comments on the A&E biography (I think it was her or Ginger BLake) that the Brian you heard was not the real Brian but a tamed Brian, something along those  lines.

I think the weight went back on as soon as Landy was gone. The surf nazi's weren't around anymore to force Brian to exercise. And he started smoking again. It's pretty much what I expected after Gene was removed from Brian's life. Despite that, I think that interview is fascinating. I think this is the real Brian here - i don't see him struggling to be coherent. He seems very coherent here. He's giving much more than one or two word answers. The downside of being heavily medicated for depression, etc, is that you may be feeling LESS - instead of the intense emotional pain, you're just kind of (I can't believe I'm quoting this band) comfortably numb. I struggle with similar issues myself, and I don't know which is worse. I do think some incredible creativity can come out of intense emotions; but those feelings can also lead down a hole where the creativity dies because the person just feels too awful to do ANYTHING.

I can't really disagree with that statement. If a record company is going to invest a lot of money in recording Brian, they want something they believe they will get some return on, not Love You Volume 2 - I mean, Volume 1 didn't sell back in 1977, so why would they think a sequel would do any better in 1998? When you get into commercial record making, there's always going to be outside voices trying to steer you in the direction they want you to go. If you're not willing to play that game, just put your own weird stuff out on your own label and be willing to eat the cost of making it.

Right-that is it exactly-Frank Zappa is that exactly-a quirky guy who just put out what he wanted to put out and sold just enough records to keep being allowed to make more but hardly ever bothered the record charts. Brian, however, was the leader of a very commercial/mainstream group and therefore he could only get away with a truly quirky statement like Love You once. No one around him would allow anything so raw out ever again. So Sweet Insanity was shelved and he was pushed in a more mainstream direction.  The question is whether Brian was sad about that and I guess that may never truly be known.  Whether 1998 Brian really loved the sound of Imagination or was just going through the motions and dreamed of doing wilder stuff like Sweet Insanity -I just cannot answer that.

Brian had answered this question himself many a year ago: "It kills my soul."

Well, I've only heard one version of Sweet Insanity - it's called the Millennium Edition - and other than Smart Girls, I don't think it's a totally left field album like Love You. Pretty commercial sounding, very polished and shiny. I think it's non-release probably had more to do with the label's dislike of Landy, and some of his lyrics.
I doubt it will ever get released - not as long as Melinda is around, anyway.

 Considering what he said about the sessions in his book, along with contemporary interviews he made, Brian’s thoughts on Imagination are pretty much known at this point. I think that lawsuit to end the business relationship with Brian and Thomas probably stemmed a lot from his feelings on the album and (probably even more so) the type of promotion done for it. Once Thomas was gone, you never saw Brian on CMT again, or anything to do with the country scene again. The difference between in demeanor for the earlier shows (and the first incarnation of the band ) and a year later is night and day, and not just because Brian got more comfortable on stage.

In retrospect that was a very strange period.

What did he say about the sessions in his book?

According to one session musician on Imagination, he never saw Brian at any of the sessions he played on. Apparently Brian was  ‘ unwell ‘. 

Think being thrown right from Landy to Imagination. For a creative artist like Brian. Terrible.

Basically said he “wasn’t sure” about the production choices Thomas did, and how he heard more of him (Thomas) than himself and how he felt control was taken away from him.

And some of you (not you Billy), always guessing that Andy Paley, Scott Bennett, even Joe Thomas (!!!) actually composed many of his songs.
Ableism to 10000000000000000000000000000000%.
Brian is the greatest songwriter in the world, but he has mental problems and answers yes and no in interviews. So he can't be the real composer, right? It must have been that famous songwriter, Joe Thomas. Or whoever.

But he wasn't thrown right from Landy to Joe Thomas. In between, there was Don Was, Van Dyke Parks, Andy Paley...lots of stuff going on in those years between Sweet Insanity to Imagination.

Brian's always wanted a collaborator, and he's always brought out the absolute best that his collaborators had to offer. It seems like one of the most important things for Brian was to work with someone who didn't have a strong ego about it, and that this is partially, perhaps, what led him to collaborate with so many unknowns in the 60s, and someone like Joe Thomas in the 90s (and what made working with Mike so hard). But as a creative mind Brian is just such a dominant force that it is blindingly obvious that his collaborations are all Brian Wilson songs, and that when they fail it's up to what Brian brought to the table, not the collaborator. Imagination is a deeply flawed record but so many of those songs are catchy as hell. If Joe Thomas could write hooks like that without Brian Wilson sitting next to him, he'd have done it. And if Brian had cared about how the backing tracks sounded, he'd probably have shown up to the sessions. Basically, I agree with you completely. Brian has had a lot of problems over the years and a lot of struggles, but in the big picture, it's pretty clear that, with the exception of Landy, who really exercised extreme psychological control methods, the buck has stopped with Brian. He's responsible for the sound of his music, both when you like it and when you don't, and Love You or Paley are not *more* Brian or *more* authentic, they're just a direction Brian pursued at one moment, and at other moments he pursued other directions, and sometimes he was hands on and sometimes he was hands off, by choice.

Remember that comment made by Brian about Mike during the 1996 sessions? Something like "Do we need to get you a damn Maharishi robe to get this damn vocal?"? Maybe that gives a clue about how much Brian may have been in control and calling the shots back then. Just a thought.

Right, but it all ended in Imagination. :(

I have a lot more to say about this and Brian's agency as a songwriter and record maker in the "solo" era. There are no clear-cut, easy answers about characterizing who was more or less involved.

But it's clear Brian has not always been the prominent voice in his songwriting and record production. Sometimes by choice, sometimes by necessity, sometimes by the simple organic evolution of a given collaboration.

But read McParland's "The Wilson Tapes" about Brian's work with Gary Usher in 86/87. Yes, that is during the Landy era and yes, Landy's abusive role in Brian's life and career at that point did color *everything* about the work Brian did with Usher. But, you can also clearly see that Brian, all on his own, *needed* help both on the writing and arrangement/production fronts. Usher paints a very blunt, yet also very sympathetic picture of this in the book. I think Usher knew Brian needed help, but he was not of the mind that Brian was now incapable of all of the things he had done in the past. He was simply rusty, and even at that point already addled as well by Landy's medication. The only area where Usher feels Brian lacks an innate ability was Brian's lack of commercial instincts, and I think Usher was clearly correct as it pertains to the 1986 pop music landscape. And, I think while Usher was a great therapeutic force for Brian to dust off the cobwebs and get into writing and recording shape, and Usher seemed like a truly kindly, warm person, Usher also didn't have the songwriting chops nor commercial instincts either. Which is one of many reasons the Usher sessions went mostly unreleased.

I think Brian's solo career and process was refined by the time Landy was gone and he started doing stuff again in the mid 90s. I think Brian still had a lot of help (again, out of necessity and by choice, and by simple momentum of his collaborations), but he had more sympathetic and savvy collaborators that, for lack of a better way to put it, understood Brian's deal. They understood both the hands-on implications of working with Brian, and also understood the internal and external political climate surrounding Brian (and the BBs where applicable). I think it's fair to say that "Produced by Brian Wilson" meant something different in the 2000s than it did in 1964, or even 1977. And, I think a "Wilson/Paley" or "Wilson/Thomas" or "Wilson/Bennett" songwriting situation was not always the same set up as  "Wilson/Asher" or "Wilson/Love", etc.

I think, certainly during these eras of his solo career, Brian *could have* done an "all Brian" album. Brian writing new stuff and playing it on a piano, The End. An album of "Message Mans." I would have loved this. So it's not a question of Brian's potential or ability.

But, also, to say that Brian could write a song by himself doesn't mean he then never *needed* help to write stuff as well. The issue of choice versus necessity is murky. I think he *chose* to collaborate when he didn't need to sometimes, and also *chose* to work with folks because that's what he needed.

I think there are songs in Brian's solo catalog that are more from the pen of his collaborators than Brian. To say this is not to impugn Brian's songwriting ability. Many collaborative situations are not two people writing stuff 50/50 from scratch. And, it's not blasphemous to say that *sometimes*, even when Brian did do a face-to-face collaboration, that the other person dominated for a variety of reasons. I know Jeff Lynne's work well,  and "Let It Shine" is not a 50/50 situation. That song is 80-90% Jeff Lynne. And when a song is good, it's good! Sometimes that's fine. Other times, we want pure Brian, and we got it sometimes as well.

BJL, I think you nailed this. And yes, I don't think that Smiley Smile, Love You or the WP sessions are the only "authentic" Brian. It's simply the Brian I prefer, the one I consider almost consistently great. The "mellower" Brian, after Pet Sounds, has been more hit and miss, imho.
That's the reason the Long Promised Road soundtrack has been such a nice surprise for me.

Seeing this interview, I can absolutely see how Carl didn't want Brian to do a Pet Sounds tour. You see how Brian is completely twitching for about eight seconds as the interviewer is asking his question. Eight seconds might not seem like a long time, but that would be an eternity for someone in the middle of singing I Just Wasn't Made For These Times. Except for his worst substance abusing days in 1977-78, Carl was always protective of how everyone performed onstage, and definitely wouldn't have wanted Brian to embarrass himself.

As for what Brian was saying in the interview, he seemed to be pretty on-point, and was very complimentary toward Carl. It seems like with Carl's encouragement and support -- remember, he was the guy who basically produced Holland -- they could have gotten an album out, and maybe eased Brian back into the band onstage.

I think Brian and Carl would have gotten closer had Carl lived. Landy obviously poisoned Brian's mind about Carl, and Carl had to be hurt hearing the words come out of Brian's mouth, even if he knew intellectually it was really Landy talking.

By 1998, when actual good, caring doctors had begun to undo Landy's damage and more time had passed, I think the Wilson brothers would have grown closer again. Maybe there would have been a Pet Sounds tour with the Boys.

I think this is absolutely spot on. We may disagree on what we like, but I think nearly everything released under Brian's name as a solo artist has _something_ distinctive from him in it. It's really just how he approached the collaboration and what folks' individual tastes are. I find a lot to enjoy in most projects, but I acknowledge that the easy-listening BW isn't to everyone's taste (although also something he's done for a long time, going back to his Four Freshmen fandom).

I would also add that compared to his own work, Imagination can come off as bland. But compared to the music that the audience that he was trying to reach with that album? It’s extremely odd and quirky compared to what Adult Contemporary was playing in 1998. Celine Dion’s music didn’t sound as idiosyncratic as Imagination.  That’s probably a reason why it didn’t really click: too slick for the Brian fans who love Pet Sounds, SMiLE, and the Brother era. But also too damn weird for the Celine Dion crowd even after making concessions to that audience.

I think that's a great interview with Brian. He's talkative, he has things to say, he's real.
I think the way to do Pet Sounds in the 90's would have been for the guys to share the lead vocals - as they had been doing live for many years. Carl or Al singing Wouldn't it Be Nice - and on a good night, like Live Aid 1985, Brian. Al singing You Still Believe in Me. Carl singing Caroline, No. Don't put all the pressure on Brian, if that's what Carl was worried about.
Yeah, I'd like to think Brian and Carl would have grown closer if Carl had been around longer.

I think that the impossibility of replicating Pet Sounds, and the religious cult of it as an unreachable totem, damaged Brian more than not completing SMiLE. He managed to stop working on SMiLE, but could not undo Pet Sounds, and so has had to carry that weight since then.

That is a very good point. And remember, SMiLE was intended to “beat” Pet Sounds (and Good Vibrations), which was an incredibly high bar to clear. It created possibly unreasonable expectations for Brian to overcome

Agreed.

god I love seeing people so incredibly wrong

Dynamite drop in, Orange-y. That Troll school really paid off

.

What part do you feel is wrong?