The Smiley Smile Message Board

Having utilized the "Search" function, I suppose I still didn't quite come up with the answer I was looking for, so I'm gonna attempt to open up a discussion...

How much of the demise of this project was due to the band not liking the direction vs. the record label not liking the direction? The newly-recorded tracks, despite many being whacked out, are still often awesome. I admit there are lots of head scratching moments, but in my humble opinion, it still rules the school. The vintage tracks should never have been a consideration.

I have to think that this was somewhat of a nail in the coffin for Brian working his heart out on a project for the BBs that never saw the light of day. I don't want to call it SMiLE Part II of the '70s, but in an odd sense, that's sorta kinda what it wound up being. It had to crush him on some level all over again that tunes like "Still I Dream of It" remained in the can. Must've been deja vu.

Thoughts?

I agree, Adult Child is fantastic.  Other than Youtube, I haven't heard anything else of it.  The Brian Wilson: Songwriter documentary is where I first heard of it.  I think it's much better than most of the late 70s and early 80s albums.  I think this was an early sign of Brian getting back into the swing of things, but then rejection struck him again.

The one word that springs to mind concerning this album is, `unreleasable`.

Far too many old songs that don`t fit, far too many recordings that sound like demos and far too many lyrics that should have been rewritten. No sane record company would have released it.

It`s Trying to Say deserves a release though...

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The word is that not only did Reprise reject the master (assembled 6/27/77) but that there was resistance from within to the big band styled tracks.

Bear in mind that they'd just signed with Caribou without realising they still owed Reprise one more album. I don't think quality control was uppermost in their minds.

I totally get why it wasn't released.

I like some of the quirky new songs, although they're at best 'pretty good'.

I don't care for the big band numbers at all. Not because I don't particularly like that style of music (although, as it happens, I don't particularly like that style of music) but because I think the songs themselves aren't all that great and the lyrics are largely dreadful, and not in an enduringly daft kind of way, just dreadful ('heaven is far away, angels no longer play' - someone pass me a sick bag!).

Much of Adult Child was like the worst of Love You with added big band arrangements. Looks like someone at Reprise finally realised that mid 70s Brian was incapable of delivering a decent album by himself.

"Everybody Wants to Live" alone is worth the price of admission. A masterful song.

Why would people complain about the lyrics? Beach Boys lyrics are often daft. And nothing on Adult/Child reaches the sheer groan inducing awfulness of the tennis metaphors of "Match Point of Our Love."

Adult/Child was rejected because of the lack of commercial success of Love You, pure and simple. Had Love You been successful, Adult/Child, as an extension and development of the same type of idea, would have been released no matter how odd and amateurish both Beach Boys and record tycoons might have thought it was.

In that case, thank god Love You wasn't successful...

(Although having said that, Adult/Child is arguably better than MIU, although there's nothing on it that comes close to My Diane)

I don`t think any of the lyrics that the band sung up to 1973 were anywhere near as bad as those of Everybody Wants to Live. There are obviously some bad ones like This Car of Mine, Be With Me, Got to Know the Woman etc. but nothing approaching this.


Well Love You would never have been successful and neither would Adult/Child so a smart move by the record company. Not that MIU did any better of course...

I'm not saying it wasn't a smart move on anyone's part to not release Adult/Child. It was a very smart move. There was nothing remotely commercial about Adult/Child. However, lack of commercial appeal and artistic merit are not the same thing.

I'm not saying A/D is everybody's thing. Of course it's not. But for those who do get it.--for those whom it gets--it is a very special and rare thing, in the same way Love You is, of course.

Well put! Adult/Child is one of my favourite BBs-related 'unreleased albums'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66TSlRjVKqU  :-D

This Car of Mine, Be With Me, Got to Know the Woman: I don't see anything wrong with the lyrics to any of these songs (and yes, that includes the chicken line, which is so obviously, joyously tongue-in-cheek a person would have to be a real misery-guts to object to it...)

The big band songs on Adult Child RULE!  I can't believe some posters are expressing dislike for them.  I think if a couple more big band songs had been recorded and integrated better into the remaining songs this album would have been the equal of or better than Love You.  Life is for the Living blew me away the first time I heard it, I laughed my ass off.  Brian was breaking new sonic ground with Love You's synthesizer bass and here he was doing it again with big band songs - pushing the boundaries of pop rock again.

Adult Child doesn't sound finished. I'd say that only the big band tracks sound releasable, and there's something incredibly stiff about those songs. Brian didn't have the same feel for the classic big band arrangements as he did '60s pop. It was a redux of the more elaborate arrangements on the Christmas Album, right down to the help of Dick Reynolds. And I don't know about you, but I prefer "Little Saint Nick" and "Toys" to their take on "Frosty the Snowman".

Not that the big band songs are bad. The lyrics are kinda strange, as someone mentioned, but the chords and melodies are good.

Now if he'd put some Love You-style "polish" on songs like "Everybody Wants to Live", then we'd be cookin' with something. Btw, does anyone else find Brian's falsetto on that song incredible? In the full vocal mix, it almost sounds like '60s Brian. And to think right before, he sounded like he'd really just gotten done throwing that cigarette in the toilet.

I guess it just seems that, despite its many odd quirks, that album has more feeling to it, the heart and soul of Brian, than anything that came after.  It sounds to my ears like it has some VERY personal Brian statements on it that never came again (at least until 2012). This is why it's so maddening to me that it got rejected. Maybe there's no correlation between those two opinions, but I tend to think that this had a bigger impact than some might think on Brian's motivation to ever really try to break new ground with the band from that point on (Landy-era and other outside problems notwithstanding).
 
I suppose it's understandable that the record company rejected it, but I wonder where the BBs themselves fall into the equation from a rejection standpoint. It seems that despite the quirks and perceived unreleasability of some 15 Big Ones and Love You tracks, the band did let Brian have his way and put those albums out. I get the feeling that Brian's brothers especially (probably Carl mostly) were being protective of Brian (knowing his history of how hurt he was when his material was rejected by the band), and didn't want to rock Brian's emotional boat for those albums, thus letting them come out under the BB banner. I just wonder what happened between Love You and Adult/Child for this to change (other than lack of sales for Love You). I ponder whether it was a matter of some BB members' patience finally running out with Brian tinkering around with "odd" music, where it was ok for a little while, but now it wasn't going to be allowed anymore.

I'm also a fan of "Everybody Wants To Live" and hope it gets an official release some day.  Great vocals by the Wilson brothers.

I don't mind the big band stuff but would have preferred a different style for "Still I Dream of It" and "It's Over Now".

The reason I disagree with this assessment is I don't know see how Brian expected the label to release an album where like half the tracks are just piano, drums, and a moog bass or whatever. Those are demos, really. The sense I get from Adult/Child is that Brian gave up halfway through, and unlike with Love You, Carl and the others weren't going to come in and do the dirty work for him to get it finished up.

I'm sure the label kept demanding new Brian work, so they sent what Brian had in the vault to shut the label up.

To this day, I don't get the all the hubba hubba about EWTL. Every I listen to it, I feel the song is just eh. Adult/Child overall is good but not great in my opinion. There's great songs like Still I Dream of It and then there's tracks like Hey Little Tomboy. The outtakes they Brian selected from the early 70's were not that great either.  It's a no brainer why Warner Bros. rejected it but I will never get how they accepted 15 Big Ones or even MIU. I guess they wanted to hear Brian that badly.

Frankly, I can't believe they released Love You.  Which is sort of the point and much of its charm.

Out of all the things for other members of the band (whichever members they may have been) to complain about in the Adult/Child album, I'm surprised that the big band production is the thing they would pick.  I would have guessed they would have been more resistant to the tracks that sound more like Love You in terms of production and sentiment, like "Everybody Wants to Live," because 1) they're weirder and 2) Love You didn't sell terribly well and I would think they'd have been nervous to release anything that sounded like it.  Does anyone know specifically why certain band members were resistant to the big band style production?

I agree that it sounds like Brian gave up halfway through the process… which probably accounts for the vintage filler tracks which have no business on this collection of songs ... But my assumption is that this may have been due in part to his pattern of not finishing songs and projects 100%, but also largely due to a lack of internal band support. I think at a certain point that became a huge thing that simply messed up his process greatly, especially because it was far from the first time he had experienced this internal bandmate rejection of his vision.

Why would the band want a Big Band album? That's the music of the World War II (their parents' and grandparents') generation, which was as unhip as it got during the '60s and '70s. It was considered even worse than easy listening music. It's pretty bizarre that Brian would have been working in that genre at all and it's amazing that the record label gave him money to produce those big band sessions, which had to have cost more than the average recording session with a basic rock band.

It's enjoyable to listen to some of those tracks, but I'm not sure it would be something most people, especially then, would want to pay money for. It's like a novelty record. Though I would have liked to have seen Frank Sinatra's face when "Life Is For the Living" was played for him, if Brian got his wish for Frank to hear it as a possible song to cover. The song sounds more like an example of Brian's goofy humor than some type of artistic project.   

No love for Lines here? Maybe my favourite off that album. Just a big slice-o'life Brian.

Wrong song: "Still I Dream Of It".

Yes Lines is beautiful - my favourite too from the album and one of my favourite late 70s Brian tracks.

Frank Sinatra covered I Write The Songs

CLOSE ENOUGH right?

Controversial opinion time...i much prefer the Adult Child and New Album songs to Love You...

Plenty of Love for Lines here too - yeah, good call on the slice of life vein that stems back to I'd Love Just Once to See You (or earlier?) that pops up again in BDN, IWTS, to name a couple - I think Still I Dream of It is also not too that far removed

I can absolutely see why Love You was released at the time. Did you hear that demo version of I'll Bet He's Nice where Mike Love is clearly in awe of how brilliant that song is? The vocal performances may sound a little rough by BB standards (to put it mildly) but most of the songs were just incredibly catchy, much more so than pretty much any of the stuff the group had issued since Sunflower.

I like the ambition of the big band numbers. in fact, I wish the album had been all big band stuff. Presumably, Brian lost interest. The stuff from 69/70 sticks out like a sore thumb. I do, however, love Lines.

Releasing the big band songs as an EP would have been an interesting move but, again, not of much commercial interest I guess.

1.  Life is For The Living - awesome
2.  Hey Little Tomboy - appalling
3.  Deep Purple - awful
4.  H.E.L.P. Is On The Way - ace
5.  It’s Over Now - awesome
6.  Everybody Wants To Live - awesome

7.  Shortenin’ Bread - average
8.  Lines - unfinished
9.  On Broadway - appalling
10.  Games Two Can Play - average
11.  It’s Trying To Say - unfinished
12.  Still I Dream of It -awesome

I couldn't think of a word for unfinished that begins with "A".

"Abandoned"?  ;D

I love the big band tracks to pieces, even "Deep Purple". "It's Over Now" is up with the best of Love You, in my opinion. And as baffling as some of the material they put in is, it's a pleasant listening experience... "Life" is a great opener, "Everybody Wants To Live" you can imagine kicking off side 2, and "Still I Dream Of It" is at least a better way to close an album than "Love Is A Woman", right?

Still, a lot of the other tracks really do sound like demos - I don't know what they were expecting throwing in those versions of "Shortenin' Bread" and "Lines" in the final master. And I can't deny that "H.E.L.P", "On Broadway", and "Hey Little Tomboy" drag the album down quite a bit. (seriously, what were they thinking putting the latter on M.I.U.?)

Flawed as it is, I still love it. A big shame Brian lost interest in the big band tracks; I really do think the four put the album are special.

Life Is For The Living is a terrific opener (has everyone heard the isolated backing track? Also great!). My favourite moment on the entire album however is the 'Gonna tell her' fade to Lines - great stuff! Also, I much prefer the version of Shortenin' Bread here to that on L.A. - that repetitive farty synth is utterly splendid. Not much else grabs my attention on A/C though... (besides the 'old' tracks: HELP and Games...)

As far as the big band tracks are concerned, It's Over Now sounds pretty 1977-contemporary to me.

I agree.  I think I actually like the Love You demo versions more.

When I first heard Love You, I couldn't believe they agreed to release it.  Especially Johnny Carson.  I felt the same way for Smiley Smile.  Two of my favorite Beach Boy albums.

Still can't believe they got released.  They're nuts!   :-D

Adult/Child would have been just as "shocking."  Maybe a little more so.  It's a favorite as well.  Baseball's on!!

Yep.  I love the cheesy, schmaltzy big band tracks.  This album is so crazy!

Agreed on all counts. Shocking and whacked-out Adult/Child with flashes of true brilliance beats the bland + formulaic M.I.U. Album any day. (And mind you, I still dig M.I.U. Album and think it's underrated compared to its harshest critics, but relatively speaking it's so much more forgettable.) I guess the ultimate head-scratcher for me is why the whacked-out Love You made the release cut, and A/C didn't.

Leave out the covers and concentrate upon the big band numbers and cool gems such as Lines, and you've got a great, quirky Brian solo album. The necessity of another Warner album probably meant that it was Beach Boys or nothing at all. And nothing at all turned into MIU.

Wonder if he was so disposed to try a solo LP back then - Mike was active with Celebration at the time after all.  

That would have been a great song for Frank to sing (assuming he never did).

That reminds me of a funny Randy Newman story. He wrote "Lonely At the Top" for Sinatra and even played it for Sinatra in person, to audition the song. If I remember  the story correctly, Sinatra left the room without really saying much. And so it ended up on Sail Away, lol.

Sinatra was a cool cat.  For him to be in his 50s/60s and being out auditioning new "young" artists' material is alright!

He was interested in exploring new directions in the late 60s and 70s.  Some Brian-stuff would have been great -- lyrically and musically -- Love is a Woman, Airplane -- stuff from this era.  Man... that'da been awesome!

Oh yeah -- big MIU fan here too.  But, absolutely, MIU is like saltine crackers compared to the gin and tonic of A/C and L/Y.   :p

Any idea on what the cover woulda/coulda have been for Adult Child???

Sit ups and puuuush ups!

I can see Bri out jogging with a big shi-t eatin' grin.  Sweat bands.  With Denny running behind him, hair blowing, smiling, squinting.  Carl jogging and grinning.  Mike and Al in them running shorts!

I love Adult Child too. It's like Love You but with all strange/wonderful aspects that make it Love You AMPED UP. It's a weird album and it comes across as insane in the places that Love You was childish and endearing. The only track I dislike is Tomboy. The music itself is of average quality, but the lyrics make it, to me, unlistenable. I leave it out of all my mixes.

But I love it for those reasons - it's a truly unique piece of work.

To me the album seems much more all over the place than Love You, both in sentiment and production.  Some songs sound like Love You Part II, some are in the big band style, "Life is for the Living" is Love You in the big band style, and some are, I think, quite a bit closer to Friends than Love You.  And on top of all that, the two older tracks stick out quite a bit more than "Good Time" did on Love You.  Even though it has more songs I'm indifferent to than Love You does, I still think it's a pretty strong album, though, partly because I like how all over the place it is and partly because it has some fine Brian songs with lyrics that are either charmingly eccentric or charmingly homespun depending on the song.  It probably wouldn't have sold terribly well, but then again, neither did M.I.U.