The Smiley Smile Message Board

I've been working on completing my woefully incomplete collection, but I've hit a wall. I can't decide whether or not to get the new remastered editions or the two-for one CDs. Which is the best to own? Price is not a big issue here.

Well, if some of the titles you need aren't available in the current remastered series I reckon you gotta go 2-fer.

2-fer got liner notes, bonus tracks, and yellow orange swirl. Remasters got cardboard sleeves and rainbow and not much else.

1990 2-fer got noise reduction buy nice EQ. 2001 got no noise reduction, HDCD, but are loud and aggressive. New remasters got a hint too much treble for my liking.

Go for continuity. Get a complete set of something. If this is the end of the line for the remasters there's no point investing in something that will only give you a third of the catalog.

I refuse to believe that this is all we're gonna get for the 2012 remasters.  That would make absolutely no sense whatsoever.  Imagine if they left gaping holes in the Beatles catalog! 

For now, about all you can do is mix and match until the whole catalog is gone through.   

I get that they'd remaster Wild Honey, Friends, Holland, Love You, etc. Albums with good critical and fan reps. But will we get MIU, Keepin' The Summer Alive, et al? I'd rather they did - as always, i want EVERYTHING please! - but i'm not sure it's particuarly likely...

I don't know exactly what you have, but I'd go with a plan similar to this.

2012 Remasters

Surfer Girl
Little Deuce Coupe
Shut Down, Volume 2
All Summer Long
The Beach Boys Today! Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)
Beach Boys Party!
Smiley Smile

Twofers

Surfin' Safari/Surfin' USA
Smiley Smile/Wild Honey
Friends/2020
Sunflower/Surf's Up
Carl & The Passions/Holland
15 Big Ones/Love You
MIU/LA Light
Keepin' The Summer Alive/BB'85

Other

Still Cruisin'
That's Why God...
Pet Sounds Sessions
SMiLE Sessions

If you are interested in live things and Stack-O-Tracks, there would be a few more to add to that list. I'm happy with those on vinyl.

Hopefully, the odds and ends you'd be missing after that will mostly be collected on the new box...

Gotta get Friends and 20/20 on Pastmasters, man. Best mastering of those discs by far.

Easier to say than do, unfortunately.  Also I like the Wild Honey pastmasters.

Best Surf's Up is a toss up for me between the Caribou and the 2001 remaster, Sunflower I prefer the 2001 - and whT a deal to get both Sunflower and Surf's Up on one CD!

Thanks! I'll probably end up going with something like that!

One of my big concerns though is the bonus tracks. For example, I already own Sunflower, but not Surf's Up. Is there any way I can get the individual twofer bonus tracks as downloads from Amazon or iTunes or from compilations?

There are no bonus tracks on the 70s twofers (not by choice of the compilers, apparently). So, just grab the Surf's Up 2012 remaster and you'll be set.

While the sound quality is generally pretty good, a few songs like "Do It Again" sounds like it was recorded under water or something. I get that they're flat transfers of the original masters, but they're not 100% solid from start to finish. They're also, what, 30 bucks a pop? BALLS.

Honestly, there's no ideal situation, here. The Japmasters are generally good masters, no limiting/compression, but are expensive as f*** and two of the albums have one or two duophonic tracks on them. The 1990 twofers kind of ruin the "album" experience and are no-noised. The 2001 twofers also ruin the album experience and are too compressed/limited/processed, but both sets of twofers have the bonus tracks. The 2012 remasters (the ones released thus far) have so many first time releases of stereo/mono mixes, but are lacking the bonus tracks of the twofers and are a bit thin on the liner notes compared to the twofers and strangely have the occasional track that utilizes a fair amount of compression where as most don't even approach overdoing it.

Hate to complain, but the 2012 remasters should've been a no-brainer: faithful-to-the-original packaging, separate booklet containing liner notes similar to the exhaustive 1997 Pet Sounds booklet or the twofers, disc contents being stereo/mono (while occasionally still having minor errors or sonic oddities, unfortunately, like the "toked" issue), plus the relevant twofer bonus tracks.

Still, the 2012 remasters are cool. I'm just hoping the twofer bonus tracks see a cost-effective release elsewhere, be it on the Made In California box set or something else.

Original pressing vinyl is the only way to really hear everything on Sunflower or Surf's Up properly. Stephen can eleaborate as he does in his book.

Complete agreement on this!