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So I finally listened to the whole album, I was blown away by "One Kind Of Love" !   I had this Epiphany, I wanted to see if anybody else feels the same way.

Think of Brian in some of his.... lower points.  The easiest thing that comes to mind is how he looked (and sounded) on the Mike Douglas show in 1976.  He was sober and looked healthy but he was clearly in a bad place for many years there.

Now imagine if he would have sang this song, that night... just like it's recorded here!  He was completely incapable of that... the leaps and bounds Brian has made in the past 40 (FORTY) years is amazing.  

If Brian would have sang this song, this way, that night, we would consider it one of his masterpieces on par with all his other great songs.  It's literally on "Caroline, No" levels of awesomeness, and he just recorded it in his 70's!

(http://i.ytimg.com/vi/2SPIG_ff6_U/hqdefault.jpg)

Here's a link to the audio, so you could look at this picture, and listen to him sing it at the same time.  It's the same guy, although it was inconceivable that he would ever be able to sing like that again... back then.  Just amazing!  

Brian Wilson - One Kind Of Love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQfunDY14Y4

I've actually decided that it's my favorite song on the album.  I love in the chorus when he sings "unconditional" and "wishing for" and it kind of hits a minor note and it's unexpected.  You know what I'm talking about?  It's one of those things like the chord changes in "The Warmth of the Sun" that just kind of sneaks up on you.

I call it "heart-twisting"...that's where I literally felt it the first couple of times I heard that chord change.  Doesn't get much more direct than that.

Exquisite is the best way to describe where his production has went to.... he pulls little 'didn't see that coming' moments all through his production now, just to keep you on your toes.  I think basically the approach he's taking is he's so used to making seperate, 4 part harmonies that he just takes some of those cool harmony ideas and puts them in the lead.  So you get melodic approaches that aren't anything you'd expect.  He has melodies for MILES, and his bridges are still outstanding.  False endings... his use of dynamics is still masterful, he'll swell songs when he wants to swell them and then drop it down to literally just a bass and two or three voices like he does in the break near the end of this song. 


I have to say too, one of the things I like about this particular song is it's general optimistic nature.  A lot of Brian's songs don't move me as much as they could because many of them are very dreary almost, very nostalgic and backwards looking.  A song like this though is downright inspirational. 

Almost everything I could have said about this song has already been mentioned in this thread. Best song of the album as far as I'm concerned, probably because it has all the elements of a classic Brian song - unusual chords, interesting stuff going on with the arrangement (especially the strings) and surprising changes throughout.

You know how Brian always refers to Bach as being his favorite classical composer? Go to the wordless section of One Kind of Love (2:35 on the album): the influence is obvious, and works brilliantly.

Another thing in favor of that song is the fact that (and see how I'm avoiding that word here) Brian's voice sounds very natural. There's nothing to distract me from enjoying this song, both the backing track and the vocals are perfectly recorded and mixed.

Hard for me to find a classic in the album. But if there is one, this is it.

It's probably my favorite song on the album along with "This Beautiful Day" and "Our Special Love."

The thing I noticed in this song (apart from the opening notes, reminding me so much of You Still Believe in Me) is that 'There's only one kind of love, the kind that I've been dreaming of, don't you know it's unconditional' sounds like a carillon. You could use this in any joyful service.  I can imagine it in the happy ending of a fairy tale.

Can just see it, Ang --- Brian's next album/film...."Carillon Singing".  :)

I'm up for it...maybe packaged with the rock n' roll album...kind of like sides 1 and 2 of "Today?"  Or not...

I had to look up the word "Carillon".  I can see what you're saying...

I think they made a wise choice for the movie, since it's so optimistic I think it'll be a good way for people to leave the movie theatre if they're paying attention to it.  You're going to see this beautiful story full of pain and loss and then, rightfully so, this song is going to remind them that the story didn't end that way.  Not only did Brian's life return to full form, but his musical abilities (at times!) have too.   

This is a great song. I like the transition from single to multi tracked vocals. He's singing quite high here and it sounds pretty natural. I like that when the vocals are multi tracked, they are split down the middle instead of the standard Thomas left-middle-right trick. One of the best ones on the new album. Aside from Macca, it reminds me of a certain Elton John song that I can't quite put my finger on.

Funny...that's the only song I DON'T much like on the record.

Not sure if anyone has made this point, but for a song to be eligible for an Academy Award, it has to be specifically written for the movie it appears in. Thus, Love & Mercy could not be nominated for Song of the Year and was apparently just a placeholder in the version of the film shown at SXSW and a couple of other festivals. Since One Kind of Love is new and composed for the film, there's a decent chance that Brian could have an Oscar nomination next January/February.

Ron: "has went to" seriously?   Ron, my apologies if you are not a native speaker.

But I love this song. It sounds like a Beatles song, which one, I do not know, but it has some Beatles changes going on, no? "There are no limitations with love": totally Beatles. help me determine which song?

Great song! Oscar nominated? I hope so. Good call.

This should have been the last song on the album not that other effort. As someone else mentioned, I hear a bit of the Gershwin influence just before the chorus. I can't help but feel that Brian looked to one of his most popular creations 'God Only Knows'  for some inspiration when he was making this record. Not too keen on the vocals, but I guess if you want to hear BW's unvarnished voice on at least one song on the album it'll do.

"It like" a Beatles song? Seriously? Professor, my apologies if you are not actually a professor. At least Ron doesn't claim to be an academic!

I love you, Prof, but you made several spelling/grammatical/punctuation mistakes in your post. Glass houses and all that...

Beautiful track...it just keeps growing and growing on me!


This is definitely the best combination of lyrical content and musical intrigue on the whole album.

I think this will be the perfect closer for "Love and Mercy" this summer...just absolutely gorgeous.

I like to think of this as the "Midnight's Another Day" of the album.

In my opinion, it's THE standout track of the album.

yes it reminds me of "Elenore Rigby" in some aspects,,, I think maybe that's the "Beatle sound" people are hearing..especially the strings section..

Odd that this one passed me by on first listen, it's probably the closest thing on NPP to a really great track.

As I said on the NPP review thread, this and What Ever Happened are, after a couple of listens, standing out as the best tracks.  I can't think of any way WEH could be improved. In the case of OKOL, I think that while the song itself is superb, it's played at a slightly too slow, deliberately stately tempo. 

Interestingly, somebody on YT seems to agree because they speeded up the track to a little under three minutes and posted it, link below - as if he or she had time-warped from the Capitol Records tower in '67 or whatever and said, "OK, this needs a little special handling for AM - get it under three and send it to KHJ and it could be a monster."  However, it's too fast here - maybe clocking it in at 3:10 or 3:15 would show that the song would work better than the way it's been recorded.  If any track on the record were redone with an eye toward radio play like Isn't It Time was in '12, I'd say that OKOL, remade at a bit faster pace, could really grab some ears.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-iA6HTNdKs

I agree. I immediately singled this song out as my favourite when I first heard the record. Not only is it a great melody, with a really satisfying surprise chord in the chorus, but Brian's singing is pretty high. The part that had my jaw on the floor was the part where he sings I couldn't hear my heart, calling out for you... He pulls off that high note on 'calling' really gracefully, I think. But over all it's really just a great tune. It seems to pull together a lot of elements from several highlights of Brian's writing/recording career and marry them together into a great track.

Does anybody else appreciate the "bearded Brian couldn't sing that" aspect of it? 

Aye.   :)
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/a5/b6/4f/a5b64fe31abd2511134e9eabbc9ca3a8.jpg)

I don't think any Brian from 1975 to 2008 could sing it.

Thanks boots for noticing my haste in typing, and apologies if I was unkind to Ron--an unnecessary distraction in an otherwise unified thread about the beauty of this song. Ron, please accept my apologies. The Professor is not afraid to admit he was self indulgent, and foolish.

But I do appreciate the input about the Beatles; I think BW borrowed some canonical Beatles chord changes, but I don't have the chops to identify them

Everytime I listen to this track, I am blown away.

It's in my 50 best Brian tracks for sure.

I'll add to this. It's a spectacular track and the best Brian vocal on the whole darn thing. Gives me chills.