The Smiley Smile Message Board

Sorry if this topic has been covered before. But it has always seemed to me that Melcher got unfair judgement from BB fans as a producer.


Not only he produced some extraordinary recordings in the 60s but he also co-penned some of the best BB material in the last portion of their recording career. So, he was a talented guy.

I think that, as a producer, he delivered an interesting and characteristic BB mature sound, with practically no nostalgia or retro feel to it and mostly lacking in reources that make the music sound dated (save a sax solo here and there).  Those guitar-filled tracks, with loud and thick drum sounds and terrific lead vocals from the guys are an achievement, even if it's true that the songwriting was rather weak on occasion (see SIP, little did we know that ML was saving some of his best compositions for a yet-unreleased album). I think he was responsible for getting some of the best lead vocals from the guys, helped deliver Mike's cool adult sound and recorded some of Al Jardine's best vocals ever. Maybe his weakest spot as a BB producer was that in general he did not manage to get a lot of GREAT-sounding group vocals. Still, Melcher has a lot of merit, I believe,  and the fact that for a number of years he managed to get this very conflicted group of men to record and release some music -so many failed at it- must not be overlooked. Thoughts?   

I think it's a fair statement, however, I found all of the Melcher-produced recordings pretty flat and lifeless.  A lot of that can be traced to the prevailing recording taste of the time, but as you note, he actually managed to make a lot of fairly organic and interesting elements sound, to me, boring.  I'm not a fan of Craig Fall's guitar playing, even though I respect the opinion of those who are for the reasons decribed, because it just goes nowhere.  It kind of noodles around for awhile, then the song ends.  Likewise the overall sound of the records, there's no dynamics.  The songs don't rise and fall, it's more than they cruise along amiably at one established sonic position and never really vary.  Real/acoustic instruments are drenched with reverb and echo so they no longer have any bite or life of their own.  At least that's how I remember them.  The exceptions are usually something really inappropriate, like a nasty-ass drum sound or something like that.

I do agree that Melcher's production for the BBs had the advantage of being distinctive and not overly fawning of the group's past (unlike, say, some of Mike's lyrics), but it just kind of lays there for me.  Even the band's biggest radio success, "Kokomo," has an electronic drum sound that was, even by the standards of the time, just horrible.

I see what you mean, and agree with most of your remarks, Adam. For me, the lifeless quality that some of the recordings have, I atributed to the songwriting and -specially on SIP- lack of terrific group vocals. It would be interesting to know what  TM's recordings would have sounded with stars&stripes-like group vocals. Also, the wandering nature of those guitar-dominated productions sometimes fits well with the songwriting... Such is the case of SNJ or the long version of Strange Things Happen IMO. Still Cruisin' also manages to work in part, I think, thanks to its interesting song structure. Those songs have no momentum, as you say, but are a continuum; that's very much unlike what  your typical BB song is like. In that respect, probably the weirdest example would be Make It Big, which has only one short verse. Anyway, just some additional thoughts 

Oh, and may I just add that the wall-of-guitar that prevails and takes away dynamic was balanced by an ever-present change of lead singers. In many of the best songs of the period every BB sings a lead line at least

One thing that bothered me is that Melcher's voice sticks out like a sore thumb in the harmony stacks on those recordings. Not that he didn't have a nice voice, but more that it affected the overall sound of the blend. For example, Jeff Foskett or the Jardine sons in the blend didn't stick out the same way Melcher did, imho.

That said, I still love "Somewhere Near Japan."

No way man, they needed Brian. Ever listened to "In My Car"?  That's what Brian could've made the Beach Boys if they would've just LISTENED to him instead of thinking they knew everything because they made "Kokomo". "Kokomo" ended any chance the group ever had of collaborating with Brian, because it convinced them they knew more about music than the modern-day Brian did.

"In My Car" is the last art song by the Beach Boys. Listen to that production! It marries the Beach Boys old lyrical and musical themes with '80s trends. I mean, when Brian throws in some church bells on the chorus, then you know he's bringing it for real.  It's as good as "Breakaway"!

Listen to the beginning of "Island Girl": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymWZAnB_ZZU&feature=related

Brian inspires the Boys to spiritual highs.

Are you serious?

In my car is a BW solo number with a couple of lead cameos by Al and Carl. And that's it. It could have fit into BW88. I like it, but it's fact that the boys did not want BW producing, nor could BW get them to record and release anything new. Melcher was the last guy to do that. Kudos to him.

I hated Melcher's production for the same reasons I hated Joe Thomas's on Imagination... sterile, overly bright, and plastic sounding stuff that would ruin ANY song, IMHO.

+1

Agree. No amount of re-eq ing  or re-mixing can make SNJ sound good, even though it's a great song with some of the guys' best vocals in decades. Too bad, 'cos Melcher and Bruce did some pretty interesting stuff in the early-mid sixties, though I'm not a fan of what Melcher did with the Byrds.

What can be said about TMs involvement with other bands?   I'm thinking Byrds.

I think Steve Levine may have been the worst Beach Boys producer, but next to him is Melcher. I cannot take those 80's and 90's productions he did. SNJ aside (which was too good a song to kill) they really sound cheesy. OK California Dreaming And Rock And Roll To The Rescue are decent for their era, but honestly even those don't hold up too well. I don't deny the man's obvious talent in the sixties, but man I just hate the plastic sound he had. Even on vinyl those records feel sterile. BTW I don't count the horrid Joe Thomas because I don't consider S&S to be a real Beach Boys album.

That said if somebody likes it that's fine by me, but I don't. In other words no disrespect meant Dr. Lenny.

In the case of the Byrdmaniax album, quite a lot can be said, and very little of it good. Luckily his work on some of the other albums by The Byrds is a lot better.

He could have done some amazing things with Manson............

I really enjoy the Still Cruisin album, and in fact my least favourite of the new songs is In My Car. Too busy, too cluttered. It needs room to breathe. Most of the songs have that classic 80s radio sound that doesn't sound out of context in terms of classic 80s radio songs.

SIP is a horrible, wretched turd.

Did Melcher produce The Byrds' Untitled? That has some great sonic production, e.g. Hungry Planet. Most of Byrdmaniax was ruined by the strings n singers, but the 'sound' of the recordings is good.

It's hard to separate out what was just Melcher and what was of-the-time if you know what I mean. Sure, a great producer should be able to make great records in any era, but it doesn't always work out that way.

Look at the credits - Terry didn't produce "In My Car".

David Crosby: Gary Usher 'was a terrible producer who mixed sh*t with a shovel. Terry Melcher was even worse. All either of them did was hold us back'.

It should be noted that in that period Crosby was an unbearable, egotistical, deluded asshole who McGuinn and Hillman booted out of The Byrds at the group's creative peak, simply because they couldn't take a second of his company.

And both Hillman and McGuire have spoken highly of Usher.

Not to mention the records themselves. Usher is one of the most versatile producers around to keep with up them in the 60's.

I know, I was saying that I preferred the rest of the new songs on Still Cruisin to the new BW production, i.e. Melcher's production was better.

Except for a few notable exceptions, I'm thinking Spector's stripped-down production on Plastic Ono Band as the most notable, a producer is hired to bring a specific "sound" to a project, and beyond that to bring direction to a project. So if you're hiring Terry Melcher for a production, and you know what kind of sounds he gets on previous records, that is what he is going to add to the band's sound. If the Beach Boys when they hired him wanted something other than that slick radio-friendly 80's production, they could have hired someone else.

Here's the thing...it may have been done in the 80s, but it was NOT 80's style production. For one, the drum sounds are too soft.

80's style production is a loaded phrase: does it mean Mike Clink's sound on Appetite For Destruction, David Foster's sound with Whitney Houston, Quincy Jones' with Michael Jackson, Nile Rodgers' with Madonna or Bowie, Scott Litt with REM, Jeff Lynne with Petty, etc... Maybe it's a case of you know it when you hear it, and then it becomes purely subjective.

I said 80's because at the time Melcher was hired a certain overall production value was expected in order to sound like a hit, and that of course is the debatable issue of "what does a hit sound like?". I'm just saying the band is responsible as much for the decisions to hire a certain producer if certain folks don't care for the finished results and place blame on the producer. I like some of Melcher's work as a producer.

I think some of the stuff he produced with Paul Revere and The Raiders in the mid sixties is nearly on par with what BW was achieving at the same time.

Well, to be fair, "In My Car" mixwise is an un-holy mess.  It's so cluttered you can barely track what's going on.  But I think otherwise you're spot on.  It's INTERESTING.

I think guitarfool gets close to the heart of the matter.

In McPartland's book with Gary Usher there's a very instructive passage about Brian asking Gary Usher about using a drummer instead of drum machines and Gary's response was that "we can't compete (commercially) with real drums."  I wasn't very old, but I was already playing a bit and with the advent of sequencers and synthesizers peoples' ability to judge good from bad taste went completely out the window, and in almost every case, it was the younger musicians and producers who fared the best in working with the new technology.  Compare, say, Thomas Dolby or the Human League's use of the technology with, say, an old school genius like Stevie Wonder's.  I was so disgusted by it at the time that I switched from keyboards to guitar.  Nobody was PLAYING anything.  I spent most of my time creating patches for people.

By my recollection, it wasn't until around 1988 or 1989 that people started to realize that the technology did not obviate the need for real organic dynamics and instruments.  Until then, everyone was following each other around embracing the new digital order in hopes of getting on the radio.

I love this. You hear all the time, "I love/hate 80s music," or something similar about some time period. It is not quite meaningless, but it's pushing in that direction. But that said, there are certainly prevailing winds. Sometimes they really blow.

 :lol :lol :lol

I do think that "super-imposing" or splicing in a new style like "Here Comes the Night" or "disco on top of rock" could be analogized to what happened with hip hop, etc., with splicing in of classic underpinning of one song and morphing it into another style...and a new interpretation of existing work...and always interesting to see how it catches on...even "Wipe Out" with a classic rock structure being reworked into a different style...you can never predict what will click with the the public...

Disco as a stand alone did work for the Bee Gees!  For the most part, I found it a little overkill and was very glad when it burned itself out!  ;)