The Smiley Smile Message Board

With the MIU album being finished in the late fall of '77 , did it take almost a year to come out because they had signed to columbia but were still on warner bros? And who agrees that if Love you had been their final album would they have maybe acquired more artistic integrity rather than issuing mediocre albums like the Light album, KTSA and the selftitled85 etc?

Which it wasn't: the last session was June 28th 1978. The California Feeling album was assembled and mastered 12/24/77, and a revised version mastered five days later. The M.I. U Album was mastered 4/20/78 and apparently remastered 6/29/78 before being released 9/25/78


The band signed to Caribou (not Columbia) round about the time Love You was released, not realising they still owed Reprise one more album (after Adult/Child was rejected, probably in July 1977). Hence the MIU sessions.

I don't want to open up a can of (do you like) worms, but why do so many people hold Love You up to the sky as some high piece of art??? I see why people like it, but let's be realistic - we like this as hardcore Beach Boys fans who want to hear "new" Brian Wilson material. Croaky and raspy voices, simplistic and sometimes dumb lyrics, scraggly harmonies, strange backing tracks. This music is insane. If The Beach Boys had ended on Love You, it wouldn't have done a thing for their "artistic integrity".

I know what ya mean about later mastering and mixing but I meant about it being mostly finished at the end of 77 and caribou- cbs(columbia ) etc....  and as far as the previous about love you: the lack of the BBs signature voices was prevalent but the songs were killer, love you was up there as one of the best albums of 77 with the ramones rocket to russia and so fourth///

I disagree with you completely. If Love You was done by any other band or artist than Beach Boys, it would've been a groundbreaking record.

In what way?

think about it, in 1977 the BBs were the only legendary rock band that had been around as long as they were up to that point that were able to put out a brand new album after a 4+ year absence of no new material, not counting 15 big ones- considering that it was 2/3 a cover/tribute album, and even tho 15 big ones is often dismissed for that reason it was still very crucial for giving them their first new commercial success to that degree in a decade! And as widely known Love you was brian's album with the BBs name on it for contractual obligation.

In many ways. It's dismissed by everyone (except the hc-fans, of course) only because the cover says: "The Beach Boys". Pet Sounds will propably always be the only thing that mainstream takes seriously, in artistic way, by The Beach Boys. I seriously don't know why. But anyway, Love You is one of the most unique and intelligent pop/rock-albums I've ever heard. It deserves much more recognition.

Unique? Absolutely. There is truly nothing else like it.

Intelligent? Sorry... in what way exactly?

I really like Love You. Is it generally a tad over-praised by fans? Yes. Do I prefer pretty much everything pre-1974? Yes. But it's still great. Brian was (still, just) a musical genius.

But intelligent? Most of the time it seems almost willfully dumb. Holland is an intelligent record. Love You however is a childlike, crazy pop gem, tinged with madness and genius.

You just answered to your own question  :lol

I agree with you 100%. I think LA is a much better album to play for Beach Boy "newbies" - it's too bad that 10 minute disco track is on there. Cut it down to under 4 minutes - the single version - and throw in It's a Beautiful Day, and you have one of the best later BB albums.

Nah.

Only a massively famous band could hand in a very obviously half-finished (being generous) album and have it released. Most bands would have been laughed out of the record company`s offices.

Why do you care what "newbies" might think of these records?

Love You is the last time Brian broke any new ground as an artist so it's an important record, but I don't think as a whole it's a very good record. For every moment of genius there's a really bad song. Clearly MIU was a reaction against it with it's smooth conventional production and while the overall effect is somewhat bland, song for song I prefer it over Love You.

Each of those things you have mentioned is why i love Love You.

I think the melodies and arrangements on Love You are genius. Popular music genius. In 1976, I don't know if Brian had the talent left for another Pet Sounds and SMiLE, but the tracks on 15 Big Ones and Love You display that he still had "it", the "it" that only Brian Wilson had. I still listen to some of the stuff on 15 Big Ones and Love You and marvel...how did he come up with that! I never get tired of listening to Love You.

If you compare the lyrics on Love You to those of Asher, Parks, Reiley, or Love, yeah, they are not as articulate or sophisticated or poetic. But they do communicate in a way that Brian's other collaborators didn't - or couldn't. I think I  know exactly what Brian was feeling on Love You. Sometimes I listen to Jim Morrison or Bob Dylan or Lou Reed and I'm blown away. They sang about things that I never experienced and I never will experience. And that's what's cool about listening to them. They can take you to places that you will never travel to. Well, on Love You, Brian shared experiences with us that we did live, we did understand, and we did FEEL. It's three o'clock, I go to my sink, I pour some milk, and I start to think. God please let us go this way. I'll bet he's nice. Tell her she smells good tonight. I can't wait to see her face. I want to pick you up. Is somebody gonna tell me why she has to lie. Johnny Carson is a real live wire!

Yeah, the vocals are hard to take sometimes. I wish Brian would've done an extra take or two, or, even if he waited another couple of weeks, his voice might've cleared up even more. But they're honest in-your-face vocals, with HONEST being the key. Love You is all about honesty. It's a true picture of our guy, Brian, in late 1976. He sat down and composed 13 songs and bared his soul. I miss that Brian. We never saw that guy again.

I agree with every word, except I personally love the raspy vocals. But I understand why some people don't like them. Brian is very underrated lyricist. His style is, just like people have many times stated, childlike and not so sophisticated, but it's the same time completely unique and one of a kind. Nobody else can write like he does. Nobody.

  Why the delays for MIU? Because everyone involved knew that it stunk. :lol

there was no artistic integrity tp save after an album like 15BO. Talk about blowing it.

We were all "newbies" at one point.

For what its worth, it took me four or five listens to appreciate Sunflower, but I loved Love You the first time I heard it.

You're not alone. I don't "get" Love You either. It's certainly not a high point, in my opinion.

It's kinda difficult to explain why I love 'Love You' so much. It's beyond weird and quirky, but there's something about it that keeps on drawing me back. I feel there's something so intriguing, charming, and magical about the album that leaves me mesmerized every time I listen to it.

Sunflower is one album that just gets better on repeated plays, even decades later. Love You just....well, I uh....I uh....it is what it is.

The only reason I own a copy of the Love You album is because the cover says: "The Beach Boys". Most of the songs are good, but everything else about this record is just ugly to me. IMHO: The singing is ugly, the synth sounds are ugly, the arrangements are without any drive, even the LP cover is ugly. It is only after listening to Love You that I can stand the first four tracks of SIP, because even those horrible songs are more pleasant to my ears.

Had the Beatles released something like that as a comeback album, it would have damaged their image permanently.



IMHO: Had they rerecorded the whole Love You album at MIU in that recording style, it would have been a great album.

Aside from personal preference with regards to singing style and arrangements, this wouldn't have fit the Love You material at all I think. The M.I.U. production style is perfect for meh stuff like Sweet Sunday (which I do enjoy, to a certain extent), whereas songs like Mona, Johnny Carson or Solar System need to sound a lot more eccentric, even idiosyncratic in order to make sense. Personally you may not like the synth arranements because you prefer a different style or more "organic" instrumentation but they were incredibly inventive and I think it's too bad they were nowhere to be heard on subsequent albums. Brian and the BB never did anything half as original again.

Masterpieces take time.

I think Love You did damage The Beach Boys severely; at the very least it stopped the momentum of the Endless Summer/Spirit Of America releases, and that was huge. 15 Big Ones hurt them badly, despite the good sales of the album and "Rock And Roll Music". There were no hit singles on Love You, and the album didn't hang around on the charts for very long. 15 Big Ones left many fans scratching their heads, but Love You just had too many WTF moments. The "Brian Is Back" era was basically over.

l can't tell you how many times I wish Brian would've sung on Love You the way he did on M.I.U., but just the singing. The production style on Love You is fine...I love it. Also, I don't think it was the quirkiness of Love You that did it in. The subject matter on Love You was right up The Beach Boys' alley. It's just that Brian and Dennis' vocals were hard to stomach (even though we diehards still embrace them! ;D).

Honkin Down the Highway certainly.

Not sure about some of the rest...

All of the songs on Side 1 would've fit on an early period Beach Boys' album. Side 2 is where it begins to get "out there", but you still have the fairly "normal" 'The Night Was So Young", "I'll Bet He's Nice", "Let's Put Our Hearts Together", and "Airplane".

It's not the production that bothers me about Love You - I love rough, whacked out music and when it works it's great, farty sythns an' all. It's just that some of the song writing is absolutely atrocious. Solar System, Let's Put Our Hearts Together, Love is a Woman and I Wanna Pick You Up to me, are worse than anything off SIP. No amount of turd polishing could have saved them. I also think Good Time should have had a contempary re-recording.

Even at its worst moments, love you is as strangely catchy as BW's glory years work.

IMHO, no song should ever get the treatment the Love You songs got... The style is certainly unique, and nobody did anything like that before or after - for a good reason.



This is not that good an example, as Sweet Sunday Kind Of Love suffers from an extremely 70s-cliché arrangement, as does Matchpoint, even more so. Both are songs that I skip when listening to MIU. A much less "typical 70s" sound have She's Got Rhythm, Woncha Come Out Tonight, and Pitter Patter, for example. I'd appreciate the Love You album much more would it sound like those three songs.

Of course, the songs would be even better had they been recorded years before. I could imagine Love Is A Woman with a Sunflower like arrangement, The Night Was So Young on Pet Sounds, or Let Us Go On This Way with a neat driving Wrecking Crew backing track on Today!



Ha, my opinion is the exact opposite of yours! :)

LIGHT ALBUM was actually the album that won me over to the Beach Boys.  I needed to hear them in a contemporary, dignified, non-surf light to appreciate what was cool about them.  The first Beach Boys albums I was exposed to were L.A., SURF'S UP and PACIFIC OCEAN BLUE.  Which should make a little sense of where my aesthetic is at.  I "got" Carl and Dennis way before I got Brian.  They were just more in tune with the times that I grew up in.

So yeah, LOVE YOU is a genius album compositionally, but I remember hearing it at the time and going WTF is this?  In the context of 1981 (when I heard it), it just sounded sloppy and amateurish.  The Human League were only just happening.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
Then it wouldn't be Love You anymore, and Love You is a wonderful thing.

Of course we both see it differently, but I wouldn't change a thing about that album.

what was the difference, in track listing, between MIU and the original "California Feeling" album?

Hehe, yes, that's the plan. ;D

In a perfect world they had two versions of the material out: "Brian Loves You" (for you) and "The Beach Boys Love You", rerecorded sounding like the MIU tracks I mentioned (for me).

unreleased albums (http://www.esquarterly.com/bellagio/unreleased.html)

That's the second master, prepared 12/29/77, five days after the first one, which also included "Shortenin' Bread" and "It's Over Now".

I was about to ask that too yesterday, but then I remembered what is always written below your posts... and went there. :wink

Let you into a secret: don't tell anyone, but Carol Kaye's right - I make most of this sh*t up on the fly.  :-D

Solar System is a masterfully-crafted song. As simple as it may sound, as naif as its subject matter may seem.


Funny. LA Album is one of the few I only listen to because it has the BBs name on it. Would have never cared for it hadn't it fit into the band's saga and catalogue. Most of their albums, I would dig if they had been recorded by any other artist. But LA, and a couple others, I can only relate to because I'm familiar with the artist . I think LA lacks most traits that I keep looking for on BB recordings.

cool thanks  ;D

If only!

The only part of Love You I cringe at is the guitar bends on TNWSY.

over and over and over and over

Whenever I play it, it leaves my friends (who really dig the BB's) so confused. Not a group listening album for most people.

Talking about this inspired me to listen to Love You today and I still stand by what's good is great and what's bad is unbelievably bad. They never made another album with such a wide divide in the quality of the material.

When someone undermines MIU they mean in comparison to older BBs albums/ as far as albums go in 1977/8 its a pretty solid one. And considering how awful mainstream rock was at that time with the exception of the Ramones and very few others like the Dickies etc.