The Smiley Smile Message Board

wow just read these amazon reviews on the new upcoming concert dvd..it seems that the fact that there are only 21 songs on it has pissed off some fans..
http://www.amazon.com/Live-Concert-50th-Anniversary-Blu-ray/product-reviews/B009KKLQVS/ref=cm_cr_pr_top_recent?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

Already being discussed HERE (http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,14450.0.html). But yeah, there's some disappointment (understandably). Hopefully there'll be a more comprehensive release for actual BBs fanatics in the near future.

I dont' really care for live DVDs but putting out a concert on one with less than half of the songs they performed in concert this tour is BOGUS. f*** that noise. i guess since record labels are all going out of business, capitol needs to rake in as much cash as they can before this beach boys ship sails./

This release is the definition of a cash grab..

I'm avoiding it like the plague. I'm waiting for the real deal.

Except that the DVD isn't released by Capitol, but by SMC Recordings.

The fact is, we were *never* going to get a full live DVD, and anyone who knows much about the industry has been saying so for months. The company releasing the DVD will have to license the rights to each song from the publisher. We don't know how much the publisher charges for each song, but according to http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/music/feature_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001525959 , "Fees for song usage range from $1,500-$15,000, with superstar tracks reaching up to $20,000-$25,000."

Assume a figure solidly in the middle of the range -- say $10,000 to keep it simple -- and that means that the extra twenty-five songs for the DVD would have cost the production company an extra quarter of a million dollars.

Now, let's assume that the sales will be about those of the Knebworth DVD -- of the many Beach Boys DVDs, that one's the most successful. According to AGD's site, that DVD had sold 50,000 copies by 2008, six years after it came out.

The DVD costs $12. Now assume that it never drops in price (a very unlikely assumption, but anyway), that gives the total earnings of the DVD over the next six years as $0.6 million -- but that's sale price. The typical online shop will take about 15% of retail price, leaving the production company with $0.51 million. About 40% of that will be costs, so the company will be left, after six years, with a *maximum* income from the DVD, realistically, of about three hundred thousand dollars, or fifty thousand dollars a year average over that time.

So when you say "release an entire show", what you're *actually* saying to the production company is "throw away the first five years' profits on the DVD".

Not going to happen, unless a rather spectacular deal got cut with the publishing company.

As it is, the tracklisting we've got is a good one. It's got All This Is That, Sail On Sailor, Heroes & Villains, Marcella and two songs from the new album -- a year ago, if someone had said the Beach Boys would release a live DVD featuring those songs, everyone on this board would have been astonished.

How is it a cash grab? The tracklist is somewhat disappointing, but why do you assume we'll see a proper release with a full concert?

21 tracks, including "Marcella" for $14.99?

I have no complaints.

How often do artists release complete concerts on DVD? Some of those songs required way too much polish to make them home theater worthy.

The a-holes giving 1-star reviews just because "whaaaaaa! We deserve more!!!!" are a disgrace to Beach Boys fans. By scaring potential buyers of the product off they are essentially sending a message to the record label that this product is not wanted and therefore they will think twice before producing similar items. STUPID.

The missing songs can be seen easily on youtube.  Sure, I would have liked "Add Some Music" on the DVD as it was a special moment of the show, but I'm sure they reviewed the footage and assembled a very watchable presentation of their live show.

Imagine if Amazon existed in 1970 and "Live at Leeds" got 1 star reviews prior to release based entirely on the tracklisting. "WHAAAA! WHAAAA! I WANT EVERYTHING MY WAY!!!!"

21 songs is far from a "cash grab" or a "rip off". Stop sniveling and act like a man.

+1

Put me firmly in the camp that's happy to have something.  anything. 

Even less now. Under $12 on amazon.

As long as it is mainly live and features as little doctoring as possible, I'm happy.

That's what I'd like to know, too -- how much post production processing? The live performances that were on the PBS special were pretty heavily processed. I wouldn't want to buy a DVD with that type of sound. I understand there will be some tweaking done here and there, but the PBS special sounded like a full Joe Thomas studio production. 

If it really is done by an outside company without Capitol, there can't be too much doctoring, could there?  The boys aren't going to re-record vocals for a third party release.  I hope it's RAW and NASTY. 

We're probably going to prefer the rough youtube videos anyway. After all, that's what hardcore fans do. :-D

Personally I expect it to be doctered ad nauseam.

:lol

+1!

I'm going to wait to buy this until I can read some reviews. If there's a lot of overdubbing I don't even see the point in buying it.

Plenty of other live DVD's chronical entire concerts.

I understand a live album (be it CD or double LP) might take the 'best' 70 minutes or so of repertoire. But a live DVD really should be the entire concert.

Pet Sounds and SMiLE were special in that they showcased specific material. But this is different. I have live DVD's from several other bands which give a typical full setlist from a tour. Licencing....bollocks.

What's the running time of this disc going to be? 60 minutes or so? Most of those songs run 3 minutes, some less. Come on. I've been buying concert videos since the early 80's and MOST of them from the VHS days to today's Blu-Ray discs are full concerts lasting two hours or more...some three hours.

There were a few shorter recordings put out in the early days of VHS, culled from master tapes of TV transmissions which were edited. I know Fleetwood Mac put out a 60 minute cut-down from the Tango tour. And of course Brian's Pet Sounds Live - but that was specifically Pet Sounds and was from the early days of DVD. Even SMiLE includes a 90 minute documentary.

This disc might not be without merit, but it belongs in the $5 bargain bin by the looks of it.

If such is the case, I hope they get other people to overdub vocals. If you're going to go cheap third-party, GO FULL BARGAIN BASEMENT

 I wonder if the price being lowered has anything to do with the overwhelming amount of complaints about this release?

But how many of those DVDs have more than twenty or so songs?
I've just had a quick look at the concert DVDs I have on my shelves (discounting music documentaries and so on, and not counting things like the Smile, Pet Sounds or Lucky Old Sun DVDs which only advertise a single album's live performance):
The Zombies 40th Anniversary -- 23
George Harrison tribute concert -- 26
Monkees Live Summer Tour -- 21 (cut down from a 40-song set. They *did* do a *VERY* limited, fan-club-only DVD of the full show, but that was made unavailable almost straight away)
Brian Wilson All-Star TNT Tribute -- 21 (missing many songs from the actual show)
Beach Boys at Knebworth -- 21
Leonard Cohen Live In London -- 24
Beach Boys Lost Concert -- 9
Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense -- 16
Neil Young At Canterbury House -- 13
The Bonzo Dog Band 40th Anniversary Celebration -- 28, of which eight are old songs in the public domain that wouldn't incur any licensing costs.

21 songs is, in other words, a perfectly normal length for a concert release. If DVDs by newer bands last longer, that may be because the cost to license the sync rights to Obscure B-Side by The Unknowns is lower than the cost to license California Girls, but also may well be because post-1970s musicians tend to stretch their songs out, especially live.

To check, I just had a look at the top ten music DVDs on Amazon UK. The live ones are as follows:
Westlife -- no tracklisting, and not released yet, but recorded at a 26-song show, so that's the maximum
One Direction -- 16
Led Zeppelin -- 16
Coldplay -- 18
Steps -- 22
Noel Gallagher -- 20 (multiple versions of many songs, but only 20 actual songs -- multiple versions don't cost more licensing money).

Basically, if you're expecting much more than about twenty songs from a DVD by a major artist whose name isn't McCartney (or someone equally able to move a million units of anything just by sticking their name on it), you're living in a dream world.

The licensing issue isn't 'bollocks', but simple fact. Each additional song added increases the cost to the production company by several thousand dollars. If it doesn't bring in several thousand dollars of extra business, then adding songs is just throwing away money.

I think you also touched on any potential live album Andrew. Same sort of number of tracks from memory. Lets hope they mix it up a little so we get a few more tracks covered between the two products.

For some of the 'historic' releases such as BB at Knebworth the entire concert may not be available. As I said, in the early 80's a lot of concert VHS releases were simply television specials for which the edited TV show was used.

For the rest you mention, how about running times? It's not necessarily about the number of songs. Led Zeppelin could get well over two hours from their 16 songs and I know the George Harrison DVD was a 2 disc set.

I have plenty of concert DVDs and most of them feature an entire gig, lasting between two and three hours.

The Knebworth show *is* available in its entirety. Five songs were cut, in some cases because the band didn't like the performance, but in at least one case (Happy Birthday) specifically in order to avoid paying royalties for that song.

As for "It's not necessarily about the number of songs."
Yes. It. Is.

That's what they have to pay for. More songs - more money. It doesn't matter if the songs last thirty seconds or two hours, the production company have to pay for each and every one of them. (And incidentally the George Harrison show is a 2-DVD set because it has two different cuts of the show, one with interviews and one without, not because the show itself is especially long).

What you are asking is simply for the production company to throw away any chance they have of making a profit. The fact that other bands' DVDs are longer is neither here nor there. A two-hour DVD with fifteen songs is *hugely* cheaper to produce than a three-hour DVD with fifty. There is no way that you will ever see a legitimate release with that many songs on, as long as those songs are in copyright.

Rock And Roll Music?
Really?

They should of at least put Add Some Music on there. Them all around the piano was amazing.

Led Zeppelin Retrospective DVD - 48 songs
The Who: Tommy & Quadrophenia Live - 61 songs
The Rolling Stones Four Flicks - 52 songs

And how about the Live Aid DVD set?  That had over 100 songs and that wasn't even for profit.

The Beach Boys are a popular group.  They have a lot of money.  Capitol Records has a lot of money.  If they don't want to spend the money, then they're just being cheap.

You have to take into account that they had to find clips of Brian not looking miserable. That eliminates a good number of songs right there. Secondly they have to use performances where they aren't terribly off-key. This isn't Springsteen. It's the Beach Boys. There are some things that just aren't going to go over well on home video.

For all you guys’ demands for the full show you're the first ones who cringe when the Boys mangle "That's Why God Made The Radio" on the Leno show. Of course, they could go back and polish it up in the studio but you guys wouldn't like that either. You know what you guys really like? Bitching.

Bitch bitch bitch. First you waste a month bitching about some bullsh*t regarding Brian using autotune, which probably wasn't even true. Then you bitch about Mike firing poor Brian. Bitch about songs missing from a box set that doesn't even have a tracklisting yet. With the new DVD you'll either bitch about overdubs or you'll bitch about lack of overdubs. You'll bitch about too few songs. Bitch about a too expensive product. Bitch about a product that's too cheap and affordable. Bitch because something is a Walmart exclusive.  Bitch because a bunch of 70 year old men aren't giving you a 4-DVD super duper 60 song package with 18 tour documentaries and slide shows and audio commentary from  Brian and Mike with a fold-out poster and a reproduction of a backstage pass.

This is the Beach Boys. They don't release warts-and-all documentary films and live concert documents. They release carefully selected products that show them at their most professional. And with an emotionally unpredictable guy like Brian Wilson in the group that requires a little more editing than the norm. If this is surprising to you you're either a newbie or you have your head up your ass.

So keep on bitching and leaving 1-star reviews on Amazon and scaring off potential buyers.  Slander the good name of your supposedly favorite band. Insult the songwriting skills of the man who co-penned their biggest hits. Dismiss the lyrics of "California Girls", even though it's the world’s most singable song after “Happy Birthday” and “The Star Spangled Banner”. Blame Mike and Capitol and corporate greed for everything that doesn't go your way in this world of The Beach Boys. You bring shame to us all.

Right...
By "Led Zeppelin Retrospective" I assume you mean this -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led_Zeppelin_DVD . Firstly, that doesn't have 48 different songs on it. Sixteen of those tracks are duplicates, interviews and so on.
Secondly, that sold *over 1,625,000* copies. The best-selling Beach Boys DVD ever to date has sold 50,000. That means the Led Zeppelin one sold *over thirty times as much* as the Beach Boys can expect to sell. You can afford to spend more money if you're going to sell millions than if you're going to sell thousands.

The Tommy & Quadrophenia set is a *three DVD set* and sells for *three times as much* as the Beach Boys DVD -- even though it's been out seven years. If you sell a DVD for three times as much, you can afford to put three times as many songs on.

And Four Flicks, again, doesn't have anything like that many songs, because many of the songs are repeated multiple times, It's not the number of performances of a song, but the number of songs, that count. And Four Flicks, again, sells for three times as much as the Beach Boys DVD -- and sold more copies *in its first week of release* than the Beach Boys' best-selling ever DVD sold *in the first six years of its release*.

And Live Aid didn't have to pay publishing royalties on any of the songs, because the publishers waived their fees (those who didn't got cut from the release).

Look, this really isn't difficult to understand. If you're selling a million copies at $40, you can afford to spend more than if you're selling fifty thousand copies at $12. That's just mathematics.

As for the Beach Boys and Capitol having a lot of money -- yes, they do. However, neither the Beach Boys nor Capitol are the production company making this DVD. And even if that production company has huge amounts of money, it won't continue to do so if it puts out DVDs at a loss. It's not "being cheap" for a business to want to put out a product that won't actually lose them money.

I am absolutely certain that if you could find one and a half million people who would buy a DVD of a full show, that DVD would appear. The market for such a DVD simply doesn't exist. That's not anyone being cheap, that's the economic reality of the world we live in.

This comment sounds a lot like the "reviews" of the upcoming concert release on Amazon.

Do you really believe... especially after Andrew's comments... that there is ANY business that's going to say "We've made a lot of money. Let's put out a product that's guaranteed to lose money. It doesn't matter."  ???  

Having a bad day perhaps?  You're absolutely right - no more bitching, only positive comments and five star reviews and unquestioning praise for whatever new masterings/mixes/DVD or CD releases the BRI brain trust chooses to let us pathetic fans buy.  Seig Heil!

How about actually seeing the goshdarn product before dismissing it?

Or perhaps... I don't know... just waiting to actually *watch* a DVD before reviewing it? Or at least waiting until someone else has watched it?

Posting a one-star review for a product you've not bought and don't intend to buy, simply because it isn't something it doesn't claim to be, is just childish. It's not like anyone's being misled -- the tracklist is publicly available, and clearly shows "only" 21 songs. Anyone buying this, then, is buying a 21-song DVD, and giving it a one-star review because it isn't something else is no help to the people who are looking for actual reviews of the actually-existing DVD, rather than comparisons to an imaginary one in the reviewer's head which no-one has ever said would come out.

Bubba, great summary of the situation. This DVD could be a good BBs concert sampler if  RAH gig DVD comes out.

Is there a way I could permanently subscribe to your posts?  :lol

Amen!

Of all the songs to choose from, why Rock and Roll Music? I know it was a hit back in the day but it is such a weak song imo. Really wish they would have included Please Let Me Wonder, Add Some Music, IJWMFTT or California Saga: California instead.

There was clearly autotune! That's why everyone stopped talking about it after awhile, because they took it away!

Yeah, the shows were much more enjoyable without that crap! If our bitching in any way nudged that decision, then huzzah for bitchin'.

Did you ever had hard proof? I mean, more than some 10 second video clip taken with a cell phone?

The 10 second video clips from later shows sounded totally different, so it is all relative. It was clearly there on early shows.
But other than that, I agreed with all of your post above. To be honest, I don't give a flying if they use autotune or not.

I believe this board was responsible for the removal of auto tune on Brian's mic..

A fine achievement!  ;D

I'm glad to see people on amazon bitching. Maybe someone at Capitol will see that there is a demand for a full show (hopefully the RAH show) and at least consider it as a release in the future. I'm not going to pretend to know how the financial side of these things work but I think the full RAH show would be a nice bonus in the upcoming box set. What a better way to end a box set celebrating 50 years than one of the final shows where all 61 songs of the tour were performed.

More likely they'll think "Hardcore Beach Boys fans will deliberately sabotage sales of any live DVD we put out because of their overwhelming, unbelievable sense of entitlement. Better not bother with any more releases then."

Nah.

From Amazon...

1.0 out of 5 stars A poor representation of an epic tour, November 6, 2012
By Frieda J. (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviewsThis review is from: Live in Concert: 50th Anniversary [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)
Unlike a lot of these other reviews, I've actually watched a prerelease copy of this disc thru the kindness of a semi-stranger. It's absolutely pathetic, from the paltry song selection to the uninspired production, lazy editing, and downright goofy shot selection choices. Let's hope 2013 releases display the band in a better light, because I think I'll just stick to what's on the internet otherwise. Beach Boys fans will, of course defend this vehemently just out of their usual battered wife syndrome. Sight unseen, right? Let's make excuses for this low budget release out of a sense of misguided loyalty and pretend they couldn't do any better. Look at the DVD cover again and pretend that's top notch work. What, was actually doing a good job in Photoshop somehow too expensive? 

That's gotta be some MAJOR "goofy shot selections and uninspired production" for me to actually hate watching "Marcella" "All This is That" and "Heroes and Villians on this DVD.  I mean really major!

A very good point!

I can't wait to check out a nice version of Marcella with the speakers cranked up! And HEROES... I loved the version on Jools and hope we get a nice mix so you can pick out all the elements. All This is That kinda bores me, they should have rotated that slot more and occasionally played another artier number there instead of pretty much always playing it. But a minor quibble, I'm sure lots of other people adore it.

 Ya think they monkeyed with the sound much? This looks pretty cheap so I dunno if they had the budget for it...

The 21 song thing doesn't bother me anywhere near as much as excessive overdubbing or too many shots of fans dancing!

Maybe it'll be a more straightforward presentation and the stuff coming next year will be more of the slick edit/interview thing that drives me bonkers.

 I wonder if I should just buy the thing and not read any more about it until I've seen it so I'm not conditioned to gnash my teeth the second I hit play.

As I think I whined about previously, wowie wow - that cover really is cheap looking, huh?

The entire DVD just consists of close-ups of Bruce's knees.

Sweet Moses!

I'm currently drafting my 1 star review.

I was hoping it was just a temporary image but sadly...it's still there.  And I secretly hoped I'd get used to it as time went on---and I still haven't.

It would be a bold artistic direction to go in and possibly worth the effort. I mean, those are some knees...

(http://www.prphotos.com/mas_assets/full/7769/SPX-047769.jpg)

"Back off, ladies... plenty of my knees to go around."

(http://www.prphotos.com/mas_assets/full/7769/SPX-047769.jpg)

"I give my knees 5 stars!"

I hear there are also a couple of 'up-shorts' shots. Very tastefully done, though.

1976 - Brian's Back
2012 - Bruce's Balls

I understand that but there is a shot that they'll think, "Damn. Fans aren't willing to praise and buy any product we put out with the Beach Boys name".  If there is nothing by 5 star reviews saying that "we're lucky to have anything", "editing may be bad but it's better than nothing", etc... then there is no reason for them to  put time or effort into releasing an entire show. They'll think fans are happy and that they've done their job.

I can understand what you have said about the financial side of releasing a full show but what's the point of paying crews to film numerous shows and then release a 21 song dvd? That seems like a waste of money and opportunity to me.

Your first point would make sense *if the people posting those reviews had actually seen the DVD*. If a shoddy product is out, giving it bad reviews and killing its sales makes sense and would have that effect. If a bunch of petulant, whining babies throw their dummies out of the pram and do their damnedest to make sure that the DVD sells no copies before they've even seen it, then what that actually says is that it's impossible to please these people.

As for "what's the point of paying crews to film numerous shows and then release a 21 song dvd?" -- the clue is in the bit "and then release a 21-song DVD". You know, like many, many other live DVDs that people with a sense of proportion buy all the time.

Twenty-one songs simply isn't an unusually small number of songs to put on a DVD, and I don't see what possible good can come of people having a screaming hissy-fit because a DVD company has released a DVD with as many songs as can economically be put on, because they're not used to the idea that the world doesn't revolve around them.

We don't have a choice of this DVD or a sixty-one song one, we have a choice of this DVD or no DVD.

One of the reviewers claims to have seen it so that is at least one review that is justified.

I probably could have worded my statement better about the 21 songs. I don't see the point in filming numerous shows to release a 21 song dvd taken from one show. I can understand filming 5 shows and using the best performances from the five but these are all taken from one show (I could be wrong, just going from what I've read here).

I can completely understand you being annoyed with whining people that act entitled to things. It is annoying. BUT.. if people wouldn't have bitched about the stereo/mono cds only being released in Japan, they wouldn't have gotten a world wide release. So as annoying as it is, it can work in your favor sometimes. I'm sure some people are just making a statement in the hopes that they'll CONSIDER the idea of releasing a full show.

(clutches Japanese 2012 Smiley Smile and makes weird noises)

blah blah blah


I'd pay £20 or even £25 (~$35) for a full concert Blu-Ray.
 
I see no point whatsoever in paying a budget price for a third of a concert. Not in 2012. Back in 1982 when it was all you could get, yes...not now.