The Smiley Smile Message Board

Best Historical Album - The Smile Sessions

This could be the first competitive Grammy the boys ever win as a group and in such an obscure category, they should have a pretty good chance.

Too bad none of their newer stuff was recognized though.

EDIT: Actually the nomination is technically for Brian Wilson, Mark Linett, Alan Boyd, and Dennis Wolfe but congratulations to them all the same.

Macca will win, simply because he's Macca, an ex-Beatle and therefore to be deified at every possible opportunity.

And that fucking sucks.

S'hope not. Even Macca would likely vote for TSS - he'd be a Grammy then by default for his veggie-chomping turn on Vega-tables, right? :D

I really hope that you're wrong :o

I think Brian would love to get a grammy for the smile sessions, maybe make him feel a little better about them.

I could see the Woody Guthrie collection winning, actually. 

Hope not.

Agreed. All those guys deserve a win for that set.
______

Are The Beach Boys or Van Dyke Parks included in this nomination? Or is it just the aforementioned names?

Yep, it's always the same. Not unlike Ray Charles getting the Grammy over BWPS simply because he just died shortly before. Well, let's hope anyway...

Should have gotten a nom for packaging. I don't think there's every been a more handsome box set.

Who closed the Grammy show last year? Oh yeah.

Paul will win.

No love for "TWGMTR", eh? You mean to tell me "Isn't It Time" isn't "song of the year"?

FTTBA is my second least favorite song on the album after Beaches In Mind. PCH is pretty low though too. But Summer's Gone is my second favorite after Isn't It Time.

I'm not agreeing.

If you think The Beach Boys deserved a "song of the year" nomination, you're in a dreamland. Or I want whatever you're smoking.

Not saying there isn't quality stuff on the new album, but c'mon...

"Deserve's got nothin' to do with it."

(http://promethics.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/unforgiven1.jpg)

I agree, the Guthrie set is the real competition, not Ram - luckily the voters aren't British (sorry Andrew) and most of them are L.A. Based, that gives an edge to the Smile Sessions.

It's incomprehensible to me that the box didn't get a nomination for packaging - Tom Recchion deserves a Grammy fornthe job he did, the box, the book - what were they thinking?  Did the nominating committee see the version with the light in the Smile shop?  

Um, there are plenty of people in LA who like the album Ram.

Um, so because other bands with horrendous albums get Album of the Year the Beach Boys should too?

I'm not saying that TWGMTR was a bad record, but it's certainly not Album of the Year. Personally I'd rather The Beach Boys be remembered for SMiLE and Pet Sounds, not TWGMTR.

Edit: There are great songs on TWGMTR, but nothing artistically revolutionary. They really don't deserve Song of the Year or Album of the Year, imo.

Well, Pepper was made by a contemporay group, not a bunch of 70 year olds. How'd you feel if Pepper lost in '67 to an album by Gene Austin?

Not that I feel age should be reason for disqualification. If Chuck Berry suddenly recorded the greatest album in history next year I don't think he should automatically get trumped just because Black Eyed Peas topped the charts.


btw, my original statement regarding "song of the year" was made in jest. Not because I don't love it, just because I know it's silly.

Everybody knows Joey Ramones' "Rock N Roll Is The Answer" is song of the year.

I am still waiting for MBV's loveless to get album of the year so Kevin Shields can reveal to the world the follow up album. :hat

I say that is a highly opionated response and that Sgt Pepper is one of the most highly regarded albums of all time. Groundbreaking, revolutionary (for 1967), mindblowing stuff. Great songs on that album. Not my favorite, but you've at least got to see that it has quality material on it. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's sh*t....

People took their first trips to that album (and probably still are!).

But...yeah. The Beach Boys new album is super great, a blessing for fans, and has a few of the best tracks they've ever recorded. Still, it wouldn't make sense for them to have a song of the year nomination.

I would say that you're now no longer in a position to speak on this issue with any degree of credibility.

Even so, I'd rather see the Boys get it than Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, or any of the other manufactured crap that they try pushing down the public's throat every year.

Andrew eventually though it comes down to the point where you have to decide if you even want an award that's ... awarded... so haphazardly.  Really, what company will they be in?  Do we really need the approval of the people that vote for the grammys? 

They ought to no-show. 

Go to this link and see the full listing of all nominees:

http://www.grammy.com/nominees (http://www.grammy.com/nominees)

Scroll three-quarters down the page, and you'll get to the "historical" listings.

It actually made me mad to see The Smile Sessions nominated for *only one* award. I'm biased toward the subject matter, I'll wear that proudly on my sleeve. But stepping back from that bias, the deluxe box was a pretty amazing package. It could have been nominated in several more categories, as you'll see.

I mean, seriously, it's at least as deserving as the "Some Girls" deluxe box set, a release which didn't do much at all mostly because the original album itself is a few singles strong as hell but overall a fairly standard Stones release...which is still good, but you get the point... :-D

And again, in the "REALLY?" department, you'll see under "Best Boxed Package..." a selection of boxed sets including Ben Kweller (WTF?), McCartney and Ram, the aformentioned Some Girls box, Trent Reznor for Girl W. The Dragon Tattoo soundtrack, and the old stalwart Woody Guthrie on the umpteenth reissue or compilation or remastering or discovery of his recordings (ducks for cover...but f*** all, it's true, it's been done...)

Someone convince me that The Smile Sessions deluxe edition didn't qualify for that list...any reasons why it was left off, other than the "Grammy board" going for the hip (Reznor), the new (Kweller), the revered (Sir Paul), the Baby Boomers who can afford to buy expensive vintage guitars and box sets because they had a good year in sales (The Stones), and the automatic vote (Guthrie)?

Seriously...

Oh, and also I browsed the categories where some would suggest the new Beach Boys album would have been qualified...at first looking for reasons why they shouldn't be...and in light of the competition judged by those nominees, nothing really strong stands out in any of those categories. I can almost say who will win, although none is head-and-shoulders above the rest, and nothing was truly special in any of the categories. So on my standards - and yes, I have heard and in most cases played those songs this past year - the BB's *could* have been there.

But I'm glad they were not. Because it would/could have turned against them if they won over some younger critical darling or some faddish song that media types love to name-check and praise. The "Jethro Tull" syndrome would have kicked in. I don't think Tull deserved the kind of drubbing they got in the aftermath of winning that hard rock award. I just have a feeling The Beach Boys would have been on that same hook.

And they don't deserve that.  :) Well, maybe some of them.

If I were a successful musician, I would hate to be nominated for or win a Grammy since it so often seems to be the mark of mediocrity. Every so often something wins that I like but a broken clock is right twice a day as well. Who cares if the Beach Boys win or don't win a Grammy?

Rather than watch the Grammy telecast, I plan to don my smoking jacket, matching slippers, fill my pipe with my own personal blend of exotic flavors from my tobacconist in Harvard Square, light it with my 1930's vintage Zippo, sip my Cognac, and enjoy a back-to-back listening session of those P.D.Q. Bach albums which won consecutive Grammys in the 90's. And short of outright belly laughs, I can anticipate a series of hearty guffaws and enthusiastic chuckles as I enjoy the comedy of Peter Schickele.

After that, I might consider illegally downloading the nominees from the "Spoken Word" category from a rogue file-share site, loading them up on an old iPod with half-broken earbuds attached, pressing "play", and throwing it onto a major highway during morning rush hour...watching from the bridge above while chugging from the bottle of Cognac I didn't finish during the PDQ Bach listening sesh.

Maybe the new album wasn't released in time to get a nomination,I mean how could they not get nominated for best vocal.

Awesome smile got something though.*fingers crossed*

Two words I never expected to see together on a Beach Boys message board:

I swear to god if that fu*king FUN. Album wins anything I MEAN ANYTHING I will kill every teenage girl and "yolo" user on the planet.

If they did speeches for historical categories during the broadcast show, I want Mike to troll the music industry again. That owned.

a little overdramatic ::). I actually like Fun.


"I wanna thank Mike Love for not mentioning me." - Bob Dylan

Absolutely epic.

But there isn't the same halo around "Sir Paul" here as in England.

Actually, in my experience Americans are (overall) far, *far* more in awe of McCartney, and of the Beatles generally, than British people are.

Either way, though, I don't see any way Ram will beat The Smile Sessions. Ram is one of my all-time top-five favourite albums ever, but the reissue is just a reissue of an extraordinarily good album with a few lacklustre bonus tracks added. the Smile Sessions is a real achievement. I've not listened to the Guthrie set, so I don't know how that compares to The Smile Sessions, but that's the only real competition.

Are you gonna set the world on fire?

Sounds like it.... :lol

I think the huge historical weight of critical and popular opinion of SPLHCB proves you wrong, on this point, RR.

SPLHCB deserved the plaudits it received.

Doesn't mean TSS is unworthy tho'!  It is MOST worthy.

With respect, sir, I don't think you can reasonably call "Rode All Night" lacklustre.  It's got more nervous energy than anything else in Macca's entire catalogue!

We can all agree RAM is not as good as SMILE.

Which means if the Beach Boys lose this category it simply proves what we all ready know, for some strange reason The Grammy committee are in Paul McCartney's pocket

Macca has been nominated for several of his albums in recent years, and has only won once.

Yeah, folks are assuming McCartney is much more popular than he actually is.

He's pretty popular with the Grammy people.

The man closed out the Grammy's last year for no reason..... and he has his little solo spot with the song from his album last year.

The man won't go away.

Are we talking about kisses on the buttox?

I kinda like paper moon.  sounds like they exhumed some old french hot band for the musical backup............pretty good stuff....at least the music.  Singer sounds sweet but a  little tired.


or is macca being recognized for something else?    I don't understand these award/nomination things.......


is it just me or do you think macca should go salt and pepper with the hair color rather than straight brown?

I think being Paul McCartney is a good enough reason.

He's probably one of the most famous people in the world, he was part of arguably the biggest rock band in history, and he's more than happy to keep himself in the spotlight.  I thought the way he closed out the Grammys last year was pretty awesome (if I'm not mistaken, he also had Bruce Springsteen, Joe Walsh, and Dave Grohl up with him which was pretty cool) and I can never get enough of Paul McCartney.

Not with the voters. He is popular with people who put on a TV variety show that masquerades as an awards broadcast.

That is so 1985.

Macca should just grow old grey-cefully, like the rest of us. Who does he think he is, Cliff Richard?

I actually like fun too.  Listen to some of their music, they clearly have a songwriter who likes being adventurous and writing good hooks. I wouldn't be surprised if they put out a great album someday.

You could do worse than fun. guys! Some Nights was a little underwhelming considering the heights Nate has scaled before (Dog Problems, anyone?), but I still think fun.'s debut is a great album. "Light a Roman Candle with Me" is probably my favourite off Aim and Ignite, it sounds very Friends era Beach Boys. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKoBTEcq8Ck

No one has even tried to convince me that the other nominees in the "Boxed-Deluxe Set" category or whatever the official title may be are better qualified or more deserving than The Smile Sessions...again, removing all bias favoring the material and looking at the packaging and assembly of the release itself, never mind the artist.

Ben Kweller, Sir Paul, The Stones, Woody Guthrie, Trent Reznor...no way. More to the point, no fucking way were any of them more deserving than the Smile set. On a bad day I'd call it a rip-off of the folks who assembled that set to not be nominated in that category, never mind the win itself.

McCartney is nominated because he's a big audience/ratings draw no matter where he shows up (SNL this month, Letterman, Grammys telecasts, etc), after all audience share and ratings is what it's all about anyway, and the statement posted about awards shows being variety shows is and has been absolutely true for a long time, and is spot on. Many women watch these shows to see what fashions the stars are wearing (Joan fucking Rivers made a career out of making catty remarks about the Red Carpet fashions and all that stuff), others watch for the comedy of the host(s), others watch for the entertainment and staged performances...I doubt many viewers even right now as we speak can name more than one major Grammy award winner from last year's telecast. Yet with the Grammys, folks here remember the Beach Boys' mini-set, and others remember the trainwreck that was Nicki Minaj...or Macca's love ballad with Joe Walsh. Who won the awards?

Doesn't matter...as long as people watched and saw the commercials.

And as long as we're talking about Macca's pervasive presence around these things, don't we also see the same thing happening with The Stones, in some smaller degree? I must have been sleeping when their "Some Girls" album suddenly became as revered and as loved as it seems to have been based on this Grammy nod. Exile On Main Street, hell yeah, that box set was warranted...but Some Girls? Maybe I really was asleep when that album became worthy of a box set, and of a Grammy nod.

The dude has already, it's called Dog Problems by The Format though~

Craig, Some Girls has been revered since it came out, honestly. I think it is a bit overrated myself, but it does have a lot of great songs on it. The box set is underwhelming. The Ram set is deserving of a nomination.

I mean like musically important.  I think this last album has 4-5 of my fav tracks from him.  But I hope he keeps pushing his music styles.

Some Girls is a solid album, definitely: I'm just surprised it would be considered worthy of the box set treatment, and above that the box set worthy of a Grammy nod. Beast Of Burden is one of the best things they've ever done and combined with Miss You worth the price of the album alone, I think, but the whole album? Was it a case of critics perhaps over-praising it a bit because the Stones were back in rocking form rather than judging the quality of the album as a whole? I still hear a few terrific singles placed into a mixed bag of covers and Jagger originals that "miss" Keith quite a bit in places, I don't hear the overall flow of the better Stones albums.

Better question, and one which I don't know the answer short of looking it up: Were any of the superb Monkees deluxe box sets ever nominated in these Grammy categories? I'd put the Headquarters box set as one of those which set the standard for these single-album types of releases as we see with Ram and Some Girls and the others, not to mention the deluxe Monkees sets which have appeared more recently.

Yeah, Some Girls was definitely overrated by critics because of it being a more overt rock album. I do like the punk feel of Jagger's songs such as Respectable and Lies.
No, the Monkees sets weren't nominated and they were deserving of it, for sure. Not to mention the stunning series of archival Motown releases from Hip-O.

who cares what teen girls and yolo people are into? not worth the thought tbh
just like all the people hating on this Justin Bieber kid, there is no point....

I could see Trent Reznor's "Girl With The Dragon Tattoo"  winning for best "visual media" score (movie soundtrack).  It is a good listen if you like his more atmospheric "Ghosts" side.  But yeah, I don't see why it's in  for best box set, other than being 3 CD's worth of stuff, weird.  And the exclusion of TSS from the best box set category there is very odd considering the assembly of "Smile" on disc 1 (and most of the other 4 CD's) was never heard in that form before -- unlike Ram or Some Girls.

"Ram" -- which is a masterpiece, and arguably McCartney's greatest post-Lennon work -- absolutely deserves the Best Boxed Or Special Limited Edition Package award. The remaster, although crisp, is negligible and the bonus tracks have mainly available in similar quality for eons. It's not comparable to the type of project that "The Smile Sessions" -- or "Quadrophenia: The Director's Cut" (which was criminally snubbed) -- is. That said, "Ram" should never be knocked, because it remains a massive musical accomplishment -- just as important/impressive (if not more so) than "JOL/POB" or "All Things Must Pass." It absolutely deserves a Grammy (perhaps even MANY Grammys) -- just not "Smile's" Grammy.

The bottom line is the packaging and info within the "Ram" box easily trumps the "Smile" box. It's truly a gift. The reason why "Smile" deserves to win -- and I believe WILL win in its category -- is for what Linett & Boyd did. Their work -- in all actuality, above BRIAN's even -- is what will earn this project the Grammy.  It's really THEIR Grammy. I hope that the powers that be realize that.

No -- but I suspect that's because they were made available in such limited quantities that they were essentially impossible to get hold of. The Headquarters box I actually thought was overdoing it -- it's not an album that repays that kind of detailed set (very few do). But the Birds, The Bees And The Monkees 3-CD set was absolutely stellar, turning one of their lesser albums into something of a masterpiece by presenting it in the context of their unreleased work of the time. That's one of the all-time great archival releases.

You mean you didn't find those Zilch tracks to be enlightening?

The Monkees getting a Grammy nod? Never gonna happen. Still too many idiots in the biz that see them as the 60's Milli Vanilli.

A few points to consider, namely the one that unless I'm simply not remembering my release history - Was there any precedent to the Headquarters Sessions box set? I don't believe a single pop album such as that had ever received that kind of archival treatment prior to this, at least in this rock-pop genre. If that is the case, they (Rhino) were elevating that music to the levels afforded jazz artists like Miles and Bird, who had extensive, limited run sets dedicated to specific works, and if repaying is a goal, hearing take after take of the same chart with barely any differences or studio chatter apart from those jazz fans who wish to hear every note a player like Bird ever blew, they were quite tedious at times and targeted only a very select group of fans who would pay for such sets. Yet, those too were sought after by the hardcore fans and in some cases, they went out of print before many bought them.

Second, consider that the "Birds, The Bees..." project simply had a wealth of available material to pull from the vaults. Never mind that it was originally slated to be a multi-album release back in the day, the band members were recording all kinds of things at that time. The vaults were full of Tork demos, Nesmith's country-rock sessions, various songs from Dolenz, various performances from Jones. They had many, many more tapes available to compile the set and create a comprehensive picture of that era and what the band was recording. If it had not been for Chip Douglas with the Headquarters session tapes, much of the more interesting and fascinating material caught on conversations between takes would never have survived anyway, since it was his journal reels which he had made back then which archived all of that neat stuff from Headquarters.

So they had less to work with on the HQ box, but again the precedent of it won the day: They had enough solid, interesting session material so you could get a snapshot of how these guys were building up an album, from demo stage to recording sessions up to final mono and stereo mixes of the album. They worked with what they had, and I don't think it counts against the quality of the release any more than it would be to say similar things about the BB's 93 box set because certain key Smile tracks were not included.

Last, I don't think availability should be or should have been a factor. Rhino knew the audience for something like this, even among Monkees fans, would be small. And they put it on the "Handmade" label, knowing it was a unique audience who would spend that much money on material like this. Time proved them wrong, because word spread about how cool the set was in the years after, I'd say, and that is why it did became so sought after by those who missed the first pressing. If intended audience and availability are variables, how does that stack up against the Trent Reznor movie soundtrack deluxe box, or the Ben Kweller set which are both nominated for Grammys? Did they really think more casual fans of Reznor, Kweller, etc would rush to spend that much money on these deluxe releases, and likewise were they widely available as a normal release would be? Or did they have in mind a more limited run for a much more narrow and select audience who would buy them?

I'm still sad there was not enough material in the vaults for a "Pisces Aquarius..." deluxe box that was a revelation in some way, or which would capture some of the audio verite of a session as HQ did.

Smile Sessions SHOULD win - one of the most historic releases ever. But the Beach Boys don't have a good track record with the Grammies. McCartney's Ram is a good album, but it's not Smile.

I agree that Smile Sessions should win but I don't understand when we begin comparing Smile with Ram. This is not a competition between those two albums. It's a competition between box sets. And while I personally prefer Smile Sessions despite Ram being one of my favourite albums, I nevertheless don't think it's out of the realm of possibilities that, perhaps, there will be some voters that prefer listening to, say, the Thrillington album than a disc of Heroes and Villains sessions.

And we are completely ruling out the strength of the Woody Guthrie set too.

And that pretty much sums it up.

Come to think of it, Smile really isn't Grammy music, it wasn't in the 60s it isn't now.

 Win or lose at least we have it.

I hate fun because it's mainstream pop, i'm a teenage beach boys fan :p

...And yes, i've listened to them, but all it made me wanna do is hate being an "ignorant teenager" and listen to the actual song by Simon and Garfunkel

Yes, because The Beach Boys are Norwegian Death Metal, and not mainstream pop.

I'd argue that the Pet Sounds Sessions set, tho obviously not as completist, is the clear precedent, and the inspiration for the HS set.
Also, The Complete Funhouse Sessions was released the year before the Headquarters set.

The year is 2012, I'm 15. The Beach Boys are NOT mainstream for me.

OK, cool. You're not the only person on the planet. Their last album hit the Top 5. Highly mainstream, thus.

If the Beach Boys are not mainstream what are they?

As far as hits go, relevancy and lasting appeal you can't get much bigger than The Beach Boys

In my opinion, From There To Back Again should be song of the Millennium.

The Beach Boys in 2012 are not mainstream in an Adele/Taylor Swift way. True, the album did debut in the top 5, but it was off the 200 within a matter of weeks, no staying power. The staying power, commercially, is with the old stuff, i.e, Sounds of Summer. That thing has been on the 200 off and on for years, probably their biggest seller since Endless Summer.

Yeah, reckon Woody will get it - a friend of mine has it and it's simply incredible. Dare I say, a better 'product' than TSS - the amount of archival work involved and the material presented is incredible, regardless of the actual music within.

Was the Neil Young Archives ever nominated for a Grammy?

Re: Woody Guthrie. Has the majority of the material on that box already been released in some form? Or another way to phrase it is this: If you buy the Guthrie box set, what exactly are you getting in terms of songs or recordings you do not already own if you're a fan? I'm genuinely asking, I don't know the answer...but it would seem Woody has been released and re-released many times through the past decades, including rarities, acetates, alternate versions, etc.

It would seem a CD box set ultimately should have as the main feature *the songs*, and everything else in the packaging provided to support the enjoyment of the actual music. If you're buying a Woody Guthrie box set to read the books, why not just have a book and buy that?

It's a delicate balance, that between the book/research elements, the "goodies", and the songs themselves.

Ultimately if a box set's main appeal is the book and research, it's falling short of the main goal which is the music.

My two cents. Of all the cool stuff with Smile, the music on the discs and vinyl was still the main reason people bought and enjoyed it. Much of it previously unheard, some even unknown to diehard fans. The "cake" in other words, not just the icing and decorations.

I figured something had come out before, I just couldn't remember. Funhouse it is!

I had the Pet Sounds box in mind too, but for some bizarre reason I just never considered that in the same category of "limited edition/deluxe" box sets as I'd put Funhouse Sessions or HQ Sessions or the others. I don't know why. But it is very true, that Pet Sounds box did set the precedent I'd say for looking that closely into a single pop/rock album and it was looking back a very influential release.

If we really want to trace it back, I'd say a major influence on all of this was the bootleg market. I remember a Tom Petty interview before the box came out where he mentioned driving his family crazy by listening to Brian and the musicians recording take after take of Pet Sounds, then me tracking down what he could be listening to back to one of the early PS boots that had that material in that kind of format. But the damned thing was too expensive... :-D

Leggo My Ego!

I remember that! Closest I got when that was "new" to owning an original copy was getting a preview on a portable CD player with greasy store headphones at a local shop that dealt in such material...and it was just too expensive to justify. Double-disc sets at that time were 50 bucks, compared to the other places selling official Beatles/BB's single CD's for 9.99..."Ego" was over a hundred bucks.

I waited for the official box to come out. :)  There was talk in several magazines that both PS and Smile box sets were to come out in the mid-90's, so the underground material seemed that much more overpriced if the real stuff was set to be out soon anyway. Of course it only took two more decades for Smile to hit the stores.

Yeah, I paid a hundred for it, worth every penny! That was about two and a half years before the official box. Still some bits on it not available on the official set or the Sea Of Tunes sets.

 :angel:

Fun is one of the few bands on the top 40 that have great harmonies, musical creativity, and great hooks. It's ridiculous to hate on them solely because they are mainstream.

Also, there is nothing wrong with mainstream. The Beach Boys helped create a culture - that's as mainstream as it gets.

21 out of 57 tracks are unreleased. The book is chuck full of documents, lyric sheets, historical essays, criticism (and, lets be honest, something worth writing criticism about - Priore's bit in TSS is amazingly redundant, for one) .... I am not a huge Woody Guthrie fan, is what I meant. TBH, the appeal of TSS is even less than the Guthrie box - 4 discs of sessions vs career overview/unreleased tracks.

And if I was just buying the music, I certainly wouldn't pay £120 for JUST five CDs and a vinyl album a la TSS. You're paying for the package, the book, the contents therein...

Sure, it's the whole package but at the same time the music is the draw and the main focus. I did laugh to read the comment about the appeal of The Smile Sessions being less than the Guthrie box: 4 discs of sessions is exactly what you'd be expecting on a box set called "The Smile Sessions"!  ;D  If folks wanted a career overview, copies of the '93 box are still available, surfboard sticker and all (though my set bought brand new didn't have the sticker, but I never returned it...).

I don't think we need to go over the "pros" versus "cons" of the Smile box set, but I think most notably you had many new tracks or tracks which had never been released in that quality before, taken from the original reels whereas booted copies may have been sourced from 20+ year old cassettes or worse. And for those wishing to hear it in some kind of order or sequence, they had that, too. And vinyl, for that group of listeners.

Obviously if someone thought they were purchasing anything more than an overview of the Smile sessions and would think the set didn't deliver exactly that, they were buying the wrong thing.

With the Woody Guthrie catalog, there were no "sessions" to speak of, it's a totally different market and a totally different goal for such a box set. I'm just at that point where - seriously - I don't know how many more re-releases or touch-ups or remasters or whatever of his material can add anything to the legacy. I'm being facetious, but did they dig up another wire recording of Woody singing "This Land Is Your Land" with a previously unheard verse or something? The man's catalog is and has been out there and available, in fact it's a ubiquitous catalog to see in the folk section of any music retailer, and I've been hearing various discoveries and rare recordings of his for at least 15 years on various radio shows.

The Smile Sessions was truly "new" material, the majority of it, that anyone who did not buy bootlegs would not have known nor heard. And this board doesn't count, because the sales numbers exceeded the membership numbers here.

I haven't even touched on the Beatles/Tony Sheridan re-release getting a Grammy nod. I mean, in terms of flogging a dead horse, you get My Bonnie, Cry For A Shadow, Ain't She Sweet and a bunch of filler that has been repackaged since 1964 and it gets a Grammy nod.

And I actually think the Smile Sessions book could have had more photos - but that's just me. I'd pay equal the value of another (yawn) newly discovered "This Land Is Your Land" recording to see a new Smile studio session photo that was never published, but that's my obsession, not everyone else's.

My take on the fact they hit the top 5 is that most of the people who wanted to hear that album are too old to know how to download it illegally and thus were forced to physically buy it. ::)

That nomination isn't for the collection itself, it's for the liner notes.  Grammy nominations can be totally ignorant but I think in this case, it's just being subjective.

I'm aware of that, but again I think this kind of nomination is rather pointless considering the actual music - the ultimate reason to buy a CD box set of music - has been beaten to death for close to 50 years in an attempt to cash in on the Beatles' name.

When this set was released, I remember it well and joked about it because it seemed so redundant.

If someone out there can point me to something in this set that is worthy of me buying Tony Sheridan's ersatz rock n' roll, please do! At this point I just can't see it worthy of a Grammy nod considering the nature of the music the liners were written about.

Experiment a bit with this: Go to Amazon or Ebay and search Woody Guthrie Box Set or The Beatles Tony Sheridan and see how many hits you get from the searches.

I'm being bull-headed on all of these topics because I think the Smile Sessions got ripped off by not getting these nominations.

And if "fairness" plays into the Grammy nominating process, would it sound fair if it were mentioned that the Tony Sheridan/Beatles liner notes which got nominated this year are actually more like a rewrite or a revision of liners which *the same author* wrote for a Bear Family box set release of the same Beatles material over a decade ago?

If I'm getting any of that wrong, please correct, but damn if it doesn't feel like even more of a rip-off that something legitimately new in 2011-12 gets shut out in favor of a repackage of something from the last decade.

Do the Grammy folks know about this?

Its unbelieveable the Tony Sheridan set got a nod, its the 400th repackage of a set of music that isn't that great. Its a cash in from a guy who was lucky to have the early and raw Beatles as a backing band. I guess the Beatles are so popular that people will award even the turds in the catalog.

Dude, I'm amazed you don't like this album. I'm listening to it right now and it's GREAT. Stop being a snob and embrace the big choruses!

True, the Beatles name carries a lot of the weight. But in this specific case, as the set is nominated for liner notes, almost the exact same box set was released over a decade ago on the Bear Family label, known for lavish and super-complete archival releases, and the same writer did the liner notes for *that* in the early 2000's. Then they essentially boiled that down a bit and even though it's nearly the same set and same notes, it gets a Grammy nomination.

It's more than unbelievable, it's almost absurd. I don't understand how the Grammy folks can be so strict about release dates when it come to nominations (and IIRC The Beach Boys or Brian fell into this not too long ago because of when their product was released), yet this debacle manages to slip through the cracks.

Yep. And all of those people bought it within a month of its release.

You think more people have heard of Fun then The Beach Boys, then?

Digital downloads count as physical sales. And of course, most of the outlets for illegal downloading were falling even by the time TWGMTR was released.

I strongly dislike it, the only modern group I can say I can listen to is M&S

Neil's Archives set (vol. 1) was nominated and in fact won for "best art direction".  What ever the EFF that is.
Which, SHAMEFULLY ENOUGH, this was actually Neil's first effing Grammy as a solo artist.  EFFING UNREAL

This is not Joe Blow or Justin Beiber or "Fun." or some twerpy band of autotuned 13 year olds we are talking about here.

THIS IS FREAKING NEIL YOUNG.

The Grammy awards a-holes should be glad to pick up and eat Neil's poo.

Jesus H. Christ.

wut

EVERYONE has HEARD of the Beach Boys, but their cd/download sales in 2012 are paltry compared to the current flavor-of-the-month artists.

Guys, Guys, I mean in the current TEEN SCENE Fun is unlimited more popular then the beach boys.


anddddd I hate that.

Well, c'mon now....this is common sense. If tweens and teens were idolising and crushing on the (60+ and 70 year old) Beach Boys, it would would be a bit wierd. You've got to see this, yes? In this generation, there is room for teenagers people to like all kinds of music, so don't worry that fun. is more popular than the Beach Boys with your peers in 2012, because that's exactly how it should be.

It's the music that lasts that matters..

Actually, I always thought what matters is what sounded good to you.

Which means that award-winning, not award-winning, top selling, popular, under-performing, mainstream, alternative, underground, hard rockin', soft, light, critically acclaimed, natural, authentic, has longevity, is original, traditional, simple, complex, deep, difficult, challenging, etc. are all meaningless terms in evaluating music.

What he said.

That's a good point, you can spend forever debating what's good and what's not, but at the end of the day the only thing that matters is what sounds good to the listener

Amen!! :afro

Sorry, I should clarify:


Mumford & Sons are fetid, limp swine with pretensions of 'worthiness' and 'realness' that is absolutely insulting to anyone with an ounce of sense. City boy piss-streaks singing about hoedowns and Jesus. I really hate them.

I wish Bob Dylan and the Band circa "The Basement Tapes" era would teach them how its done.

I begrudgingly agree.... but Mumford & Sons?!  ;D

I clairify, I can stand them, I never said I actually enjoy them on a daily basis.

No beef meant, man. Do try that Fun. album, mind - it's pretty much a forgotten 70's Queen/Elton album.

QFT.  Well said, rockandroll.

I think the bulk of Sgt Pepper is so good it makes the songs that are just good look bad.

I love you, hypehat, but I don't hear it. Not that I dislike fun., it's just that I'm not a big fan of the new album and the track I really liked, "Carry Me Home", was overplayed to bits here and I can't stand it now. Now, American radio has taken to "Some Nights" and playing that to death, too.

Their first album has some nice ones on it, though.

 You know, I am biased, but I truly love Woody Guthrie and the Ram album. But I really think that the Grammy voters are very well aware The Beach Boys as a group have never won a Grammy. They worked their butts of on Smile and I think the voters might see this as the last chance to honor the living Beach Boys with a Grammy.

I sure hope so.

we'll all hope they win!  But if they don't, we should all band together and make  it a point to wipe the scurvy off the face of the earth for voting wrongly.

At the same time I wouldn't want to see the Beach Boys get the award because it was felt they were owed something because they never won, or it was something other than the merits of the project which was nominated which won the award. I don't like sympathy votes, or when awards committees feel they owe it to someone to give the award. As much as I really, really enjoy Ray Charles, someone mentioned earlier an award given just after he died and it left folks feeling like he got it because he had just passed. And that wasn't fair to Ray's legacy or to the other nominees who may have won (*may* is the operative word) had a death not been a recent factor.

In my own warped pop-culture saturated mind, I call this "The Paul Newman Effect". He was positively brilliant, as good as an American actor can be, in more than one of my favorite films. Most notably "The Verdict" (one of the best performances I have ever seen in a film...), "Rachel Rachel"(as director) "Cool Hand Luke" "Butch Cassidy..." and especially "The Hustler", where he was incredible, as Fast Eddie one of the best characters he ever brought to life. He eventually won an Oscar for "The Color Of Money", playing that same character 25 years later, and I still feel it was giving a good but not great performance a make-up vote because they missed the mark the first time around. So Newman won, but I never thought the reprisal of his role deserved that win.

The Smile Sessions deserves a win because it was a terrific box set, in many ways. It should have been given the nod in more than one category, in my opinion. I don't want the Beach Boys to get Paul Newman-ed to win one, though. :)

It's not like the Grammys haven't honored the Beach Boys.  They've given them a lifetime achievement award, several Hall of Fame inductions, Brian got an award for "Fire," and if The Smile Sessions does win, Brian and the compilation producers are the only ones who pick up the awards anyhow.  I'm not saying they shouldn't win but if they do win, I don't think it would because of sympathy.  And even if it was, who cares?  It's an obscure category, one that is only announced before the television broadcast, but it would be lovely to see it win because it's a great set and The Beach Boys deserve some recognition for what they've given us these last couple of years.

Don't forget "Hud" Craig - another stunning one. I agree about "The Verdict."

Or John Wayne-ed or Al Pacino-ed. Some days I can't believe they actually did give De Niro the nod for his greatest performance. Probably because they gave him a supporting actor nod early on.

NAILED IT!!!!!!

I didn't say I liked them, just their sound :p haha

The first albums a bit better, that's true. Also, I barely listen to the radio and don't go to the mainstream clubs (hipster4lyf) so if they were a big hit over here I didn't know. I was just surprised by a mainstream pop record being that good - I've kept trying with popstars albums and they have been consistently disappointing this year, so it was a nice surprise.

I listen to anything that's on classic rock radio, I've never liked modern production, which makes me prejudice towards all modern "pop"

The beach boys have never received a grammy.  This shows that the entire grammy thing is bullshit.

If the beach boys receive a grammy this year, the entire grammy thing will still be bullshit because they ignored them for count 'em... 50 YEARS.

Only difference is, when you say 'The Beach boys never received a grammy" someone will footnote it with "well, they did after half of them died". 

I honestly hope they don't win, because even if they do win, it'll be for bullshit reasons that don't make up for this stupid award show ignoring their greatness through the years. 

Zeppelin and a bunch of other great bands from the 60s and 70s were ingnored by the Grammys.

The boys are in good company

I agree. But while the Grammy's are meaningless to me and you, it may very well be that they are meaningful to those in the band and if that's the case then it would be nice if they won.

Would it be officially "The Beach Boys won a grammy" or "The Smile Sessions + Brian, Mark and Dennis won a grammy"?

it sure would be official

As a belated aside, this Beatles release seems to be on the same label, at least here in the UK, as the impending reissue of Surfin' Safari.

This is one of those out-of-copyright specialists, with some very early Dylan material in its repertoire; far as I understand it, it's the nearest thing to a boot outfit you're gonna get this side of Dolcis.

If the Grammys give the Beatles set the gong, they're endorsing every future non-royalty paying pilfer of an artist's back catalogue imaginable. We could all set up as record labels, burn discs of our discs and nominate ourselves for a Grammy. Alternate Surfin' Safari anyone?

If the Beatles set gets an award, the Grammys should rightly be given the boot by the entire legitimate music industry. S'that simple.

Yes!

I'm hoping that there are others elsewhere raising the same concerns...are there? Or is the fact it's a Beatles release keeping the objections low?

If you've been buying records and music in general for any length of time, you've seen these kinds of "reissues" and raised an eyebrow. Their cottage industry is those folks who may not have heard of nor own the material, and would not realize these gray-area releases have been sold and marketed under different labels and titles for decades.

This set getting even a Grammy nomination should be considered an outrage, but if it should win...

Ultimately what *REALLY* annoys me on this set is how the Beatle liner notes nominated this year have already been released for the most part by the same author. That should disqualify them immediately because in no way were they done in 2012. In this way you could in theory reprint any previously released set of liner notes, re-release them at any time, and they'd be eligible. Total nonsense.

And what *REALLY REALLY* annoys me is that the Beatles are on roughly three of these duff tracks in any kind of notable or prominent way as a group.  ;D

All three of which are readily available on an official Beatles album, Anthology Volume 1 which is a better collection all around.

This type of label should also be given credit for unearthing many classic country, blues and jazz performances in complete, annotated, cheap sets that would never be released by major labels.

I don't know what I think about that.  If we're talking specifically about the Bear Family stuff, man they've put out a ton of good compilations that are absolutely impossible to hear in any form if they didn't release it.  Like I.Spaceman said, lots of country stuff that I'm interested in.  Literally songs that have never been released that they dug up somewhere, that were recorded in the 40's or 50's.  They put out a really great Roger Miller CD for instance with a ton of his early demos and early recordings of songs that either never came out or were re-recorded by other artists. 

So while in some instances I'm sure there's some gray area royalty stuff going on, I know for a fact that the country, nashville, historical community has nothing but the highest regard for them.  If you want to hear some of that old early stuff, that's your only option. 

Gaargh. My bad - the nominated 2cd Beatles with TOny Sheridan is on Time Life and was apparently released Jan 11; the newer 1cd set of material I was looking at is on Hallmark and is much more recent.

Same stuff applies though…

I am not talking at all about the Bear Family releases, in fact I specifically mentioned them earlier this thread as a label who puts out very high quality and comprehensive sets which have often set the standard.

By "gray area" releases, I mean the type of catalogs I used to get in the 80's and 90's that were full of various greatest hits packages, compilations, and other assorted collections which were not from the original artists' labels and often were not the original hit versions in too many cases. You might get, for example, a collection with the song "Louie Louie" by The Kingsmen, and everyone knows which version is on the radio and which they had on 45 as a kid, but these sets might substitute a live version instead because of money issues.

Don't get me wrong, there were some good things to be found, but it was also a buyer beware situation where you could pay 10 bucks for a Sonny and Cher compilation which was legit or pay 5.99 for one in the catalog and prepare to hear something different than the singles you expected. And the cover art was cheesy, liner notes often non-existant or half-assed, etc.

It was hit or miss, and that was the problem with these warehouse labels that sold through catalogs and magazine ads.

But there were some good finds, too, for sure. And again, I definitely do not put Bear Family or Time Life in the category of those no-name warehouse labels who would send me catalogs.

I actually scored some of my best blues music back then from K-Mart's bargain cassette rack. When I still bought cassettes, they had some killer deals.

o.k., I see what you're talking about.  Yes I'm familiar with CD's like that (or hell, tapes back in the day!).  I've always been a big fan of oldies and as a kid would run into that over and over again, you buy a CD by the platters and you end up with something recorded with a synthesizer and 1 original member in a warehouse somewhere. 

The pulled something like that with the Tony Sheridan Beatles stuff, and it's grammy nominated?  "Ain't She Sweet" is the only song I could stand on the whole thing if memory serves correct.

Thanks for clearing up the Bear Family thing, I was thinking I was going to have to stop buying their stuff, whew! 

About the royalty thing though, even big labels do that now, so maybe that's why their ambivalent about it.  Michael Jackson's #1 hits CD that came out back in the late years of his life, for instance... had all his #1's, and "Ben" was a live version.  Just couldn't bring themselves to pay Motown any royalties, I suppose.  This is on an album that went platinum several times over. 



Oh and to bring it back full circle to the Beatles, any particular reason why all of Paul McCartney's hits cd's always have a live version of Coming up? 

I think the McCartney issue has to be Paul himself choosing it. I will say that live take of that song is energetic, those horns are terrific, and it is the version most people who are not hard-core Macca collectors would recognize. They play it on oldies radio, it's the single version.

And yes, with those oldies comps, I still feel betrayed by whoever packaged and sold the Chuck Berry greatest hits set I saved up my money to buy, mostly to hear Johnny B Goode, only to play it and get some warmed-over crap which Chuck must have done in the 60's. I'm still hurtin' from that one!  ;D

The Sheridan/Beatles set is nominated for liner notes, and the same liner notes were released several years ago in almost the same form by the same author on an earlier Bear Family release. So basically the set nominated in 2012 is another version of what Bear Family did (very well) several years ago, and the liner notes do not date from 2012, therefore they probably shouldn't be nominated as the best liners of 2012.

Tony Sheridan continues to laugh, maybe not all the way to the bank, but I'm sure he's laughing at this stuff.

At the end of the day.  It's the stupid grammys.  They gave Brian a grammy for 'best instrumental' on a song with a hellova lot of harmony.  Whatever. 

It was the single version in the States, anyway.  In the UK, the studio version was the single, and is accordingly on all of the compilations.