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If Your Dad Were Brian Wilson, This Is How He’d Do an Interview About His New Album

http://www.vulture.com/2015/03/brian-wilson-interview.html (http://www.vulture.com/2015/03/brian-wilson-interview.html)

Edit:  They seemed to have changed the title of the article to:  "Brian Wilson on His New Album and Biopic"

Oh man...Brian was being facetious on much of it. I can picture him laughing his ass  off in his head. :lol

Well, Frank Ocean didn’t want to do the song. He wanted to do rap, so we canceled him

 :lol :lol

Lana Del Rey, uh, she just canceled out on us

 >:(

Not a cool move by Lana

`We finally recorded it with what`s his name...`

Charmingly put.  :)

Smart Girls...  cough... Wipe Out... (Wendy) cough...
 ;D

Well, Brian was definitely in his usual get-it-over-with mood, but he probably should have answered the question about the Blurred Lines decision with "I need to look at the decision more before I make up my mind" or something.  If he ever winds up in a courtroom in a similar case, the answer he gave is going to be quoted by the opposing counsel.

I had to edit my post...spellchecker changed laughing his ass off to laughing at his assistant.  Wtf lol

This is a funny topic to me. 

My actual father was born in 1943, roughly one year after BW.  He died when I was 10, in 1987.  And one of the only musical artists I ever remember him speaking of fondly was the Beach Boys.  He wasn't into music much at all, that I recall anyway. 

In fact the first concert I ever attended was a Beach Boys concert in 1986, it was an end of the year class outing with my school (strange, I know).

So, do I view BW as a father figure...not exactly, but the spiritual music connection is there in my heart.

Sad to hear about Frank Ocean. He's one of my favorite current artists. But I must admit, rapping in a Brian Wilson song doesn't work (ex. Smart Girls). He has such a beautiful voice, wish he would have used it.

As for Lana Del Rey... screw her. Brian doesn't need her whiny annoying voice on his album at all.

Notably, Brian's backing off on the retirement question. ("Actually, I shouldn’t really say that I’m going to retire. I don’t know yet.") I get the feeling he's gotten really tired of being asked that one.

His response to the "Blurred Lines" case question is interesting in its brevity, as if he was blindsided by being asked his opinion. I do get the "Surfin' USA" / "Sweet Little 16" connection to the "Blurred Lines" / Marvin Gaye case, but wasn't it Murry who cheated Chuck Berry out of his credit in the first place?

What did Lana Del Rey have to do that was more important than recording with Brian Wilson? More modeling?  ::)

Sorry, I know a lot of people here are into her music, but she seems like a blank page in high heels to me and I'm so glad I'll get to hear Brian singing "Last Song" now, which is as it should be.

Note to Brian's publicists - when you put out a press release that includes why Frank Ocean & LDR aren't on the album (scheduling conflicts, as I recall), best tell your boss what the story is. It stops you looking really stupid - and none too honest - when he gives the real reasons in a later interview.  ;D

Tell that to Mike Love since every interview since the C50 contradicts the ghost written press release. Better yet, tell him to stop using false advertising for M&B.

Which has precisely what to do with the subject in question, my dear little troll ? Go away, not wanted.  ;D

While I am overall happy that Brian will be the one singing The Last Song on NPP, I am a little bummed out that there won't be a version of Lana Del Rey singing it. I was hoping maybe Brian's version will show up on his album, and Lana's version would be released as a single or on one of her albums. But oh well.

I agree that it's kinda lame that they didn't really say the true reasons for the lack of these artists on the album.

However....


SMiLE Brian does have a point. Mike Love has been contradicting himself like crazy vis-à-vis doing a new Beach Boys album that Brian originally wanted to do. And also about his reasons for breaking up the group in 2012. So if you are so perturbed about Brian's team not giving us the truth about Frank Ocean and Lana Del Rey, I would have to imagine you'd also be somewhat annoyed by Mike Love constantly contradicting his reasons for breaking up The Beach Boys. I don't understand why you wouldn't be unless you feel more sympathetic towards Mike and Jacqui Love (due to access) and have a peculiar hatred for Melinda Wilson and company. Just seems odd to me.

Amazing how someone always has to go on a rant about Mike when it has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

Amazing how certain Beach Boys scholars never pass up a chance to give sh*t to Brian's team (or Melinda Wilson) if they have a chance, but never seem to be bothered to hold Mike and his team to the same standard. Odd.

Now don't get me wrong. I think BOTH SIDES should be held to the same standard. Yes, I'm a major Brian Wilson fan and I prefer him over any of the other Beach Boys. However, I'm also a Mike Love fan and don't like seeing him being trashed by people for no reason. I want to hear more music from him. However, it is disappointing to see certain people who claim certain posters are unfair to Mike will then at the same time hold Brian and his people to standards that they don't hold Mike and company to.

No, not really amazing at all when you think of how many people are lied to every time the fraudster falsely calls  himself and his band The Beach Boys. License schmlisence.  :tm

Couple things:

As usual, i'm not entirely convinced that Brian wasn't completely screwing around with the interviewer.

In the past, lots of us have assumed that the way Brian handles this stuff is that he just says whatever pops into his head, or whatever he thinks will make the interview end quicker.  I'm not so sure anymore.

Lets look at it. 

The whole Frank Ocean thing.  When that was announced lots of us (me included) said it sounded like a mismatch since Brian had previously said he hates rap like most old grandfathers.  So in this interview, he said "He wanted to do Rap, so we cancelled him".

That could mean that it's literally what happened.... or it could mean, that Brian is saying that as a snide way of commenting on the public perception of it.  Sarcasm, but really dry so you can't tell it's sarcasm, only Brian and his immediate crew would know for sure.

Then the Lana thing, "uh, she just cancelled out on us".  That's completely inconclusive, who knows what he was talking about but it's hard for me to believe she literally did.  Maybe somebody made a decision she wouldn't be involved, or there was more to it on either side, but the idea that she stood him up is hard to believe.

-------------------


Then the interviewer asks an interesting question, what about today's music makes you feel uncool?  So Brian says "Me?" as it shocks him that someone would think he's uncool (the question actually was a logically thought out question, very nicely done) and the guy goes "Yeah!" so Brian is confronted with a question about why his kids would think he's uncool.  He answers with "I don't listen to today's music, I like oldies-but-goodies" .

He's not necessarily saying that's all he listens to (although it probably is), he's saying, again, sarcastically that because he has an appreciation of the old stuff his kids would think he's uncool (suggesting that they don't know what the hell they're talking about because they're too young).

So the guy follows up and says you didn't know the new acts you worked with?

And Brian gets tired of playing the game so he says "Oh yeah, we knew them.  We knew them"  and drops the sarcasm so he doesn't string the guy on.

The whole "With what's his name"

"Sebu?"

"Sebu.  Yeah, Right."

Was again Brian fucking with the guy.  It's all passive aggressiveness which has been Brian's forte for decades.  He knows Sebu's  name, and he knows saying it that way was rude, he's trying to live up to the picture this guy is innocently painting him with, that he's out of touch with modern artists.  In the question before he mentions the Stones, McCartney, and the Bee Gees as what he's listening to right now.  He's just screwing with the guy, in a perfectly deadpan way.

I think he just does it as a game, he has no problem with the interviewer (who's actually decent), he's just playing a game with him, that only Brian gets to laugh at (and a few of us!).

The thing about retiring, I think you have Brian just agreeing with the guy to get the question over (If you agree with the questions/statements, there's no follow up questions)... but then realizes that it's completely against his character, and says we'll see, I shouldn't say I'll retire...   he backed off of it, because the fact is he's never going to retire from something that he loves and is his passion, and GIFT in life.  Brian will never retire, he'll leave us one day with a half-finished album.  It's so special to him that he couldn't even play his game with the interviewer with that question.

Who said I was annoyed ? I find it very funny, and another example of classic BW, in the vein of him saying he was glad the reunion had been officially announced because he was running out of ways of denying it. Dude has a mile-wide streak of basic honesty that verges on the child-like. (note, child-like, not childish - huge difference).

Was Brian exercising a classic put on ? We'll never know - that's the joy.  :)

So I was surprised by a couple of things in this interview--notably the fact that he wrote Runaway Dancer in 1998 before recording it with "whatshisname" (Sebu).  I'd assumed that that one was (a) written more recently and (b) was collaborative with Sebu from the get-go because it's such an unusual style for Brian but is stylistically similar to Capital Cities.  It would be interesting to hear if there was a demo from around the time it was written to see how much it sounds like the version we have now.

I'm a bit confused as to why they backed out with Frankie Ocean because Ocean wanted to do rap.  What kind of music did they think he wanted to do when they first contacted him?

From our friend Ray:

Ah, thank you; I missed that!