The Smiley Smile Message Board

I think it's a shame that Adult Child was never released. If properly finished, it had the potential to be as good as Love You. Just as creative and quirky, but in a different way. Now, it would be a great release even in its unfinished state.
On the other hand, it would polarise fans even more than LY.

I thought it was interesting that nothing (other than a remix of "It's Over Now") from "Adult Child" made it onto the "Made in California" set.

I'm curious if there's an aversion to the material either from the compilers or any of the band members, or if they skipped over that material for MIC more because it has been so commonly booted in relatively good quality.

As with most projects like this, I think there are some good and some tedious bits in the material. Fans seem to love "It's Trying to Say", but I've never been that into that one. But I do think Al's vocal turn on "On Broadway" is pretty cool. "Everybody Wants to Live" is interesting. Don't need the even creepier mix of "Hey Little Tomboy" with the spoken-word bits, though.

I would love to see this released! Maybe next year for the 40th Ann. or this year with Brians Book coming out that would be cool! Along side Mike new solo CD when his book comes out.

The most likely scenario for release would be either another archival boxed set of some sort, or as bonus tracks on expanded versions of "15 Big Ones" and/or "Love You."

The smartest thing to do as the LOGICAL followup the TSS is the "Brian's Back Box."
Enough with the PET SOUNDS retrospectives every 15 minutes.

I say let Boyd completely have his druthers. He clearly has a (creative and marketable) vision for what can be done with these vaults.
I love the copyright "drops" -- but even official bootlegs need to be promoted. This BAND needs to promote its BRAND.
The PARTY revamp was ignored -- if it had been part of a major 1965 box set, then it might've meant something beyond the 200 people here.
And truth be told, when you have a label that's seemingly at wits end with your brand -- pick your battles wisely -- push something that will sell and pique the interest of The New York Times, MOJO -- AS WELL as the flea market schleps.

Keep it Beatles level.
No cute album covers.
No official boots with reversed negs on the cover art.
Make everything an event.

I personally think a box spanning Caribou to Fairfield is the ONLY way to keep this catalogue top shelf.
It would sell, it would allow all the members to shine, there's TONS of tape, there's TONS of footage.

Now or never.

Because mark my words -- NOBODY will be shelling out a DIME for the PS 60th box.

Yep, I wish someone at BRI would realize that the Party outtakes set and the PS 50th box have gotten less discussion online than the "Proposed Brother Bonus Tracks", and the people discussing the latter mostly haven't even heard those tracks!

While I love live shows, I'm usually the type that would much prefer a new studio album or archival release from an artists over a live show (obviously only if I had to pick one or the other), yet this year I'm a million times more interested in seeing Brian's live PS show than I ever was about the PS boxed set.

McCartney's "Pure McCartney" is equally uninteresting *to me* since I own his whole catalog numerous times over, but at least that set has *some* buzz and talk going on about some McCartney deep cuts and curios. If the BB's *have* to do compilations instead of archival releases, they could even be doing better on that front as well.

How about a solid 1 or 2-disc "Best of the Brother Years" (not to be confused with the "Vol. 3" Greatest Hits CD from 2000 that just relied on whatever were singles, like "Peggy Sue") that gets to the core best material the band did release, and then back *that* up with a boxed set of rarities?

The 80s are trendy still these days; maybe even get some dude to do a flashy remix of some BB '85 songs or something, sort of like McCartney did with "Say Say Say." It bored me to tears, but it's another thing that would get some good visibility.

Save for a handful of tracks, I think the Adult/Child album is unreleasable.  But if that good handful came out on a compilation with other 70s outtakes, I think that would be very appealing.

Surely they would be interested in the 10th Anniversary Pet Sounds 50th Anniversary Box Set Box Set, right?  ;)

On topic though, anybody here ever come up with their own actual album cover for Adult/Child? I use sonicelovenoize's for itunes and blogs and whatnot, but I'd definitely like to see what others have come up with!

I like the idea of using that picture of Brian in the bathrobe holding a surfboard, but all the versions of that cover that have been done are terrible

Sure, they will.  It'll contain a brand new audio mix by Joe Thomas, and they'll actually include a live cut of IJWMFTT from one of the C50 shows. 

Agree!

The album was considered finished at the time, and was mastered, and was submitted to Warner Brothers as is. As fun and quirky as it is, I can understand why it was rejected.

That's actually not a modern remix, but rather a vintage alternate mix.

Thanks; I should have termed it "alternate mix" meaning simply different from what was on the GV boxed set.

Apart from the actual mix, was the speed difference (compared to the GV set version) mastered that way on the vintage mix, or was the speed alteration made for the MIC set?

it's a shame Brian didn't do the album with JUST songs in the Swing style or the old standards style..I think the album is all over the place, it has no focus..it's almost like Brian wanted to do a swing album did a couple swing songs then got bored with it and just gave up and stuck a bunch of unfinished demos on it ,like "Lines", and some left over songs from 15 big ones like "On Broadway" and songs from the late 60's...it's a shame he didn't actually do the swing/standards album I think it would have been much like Harry Nilsson's  standards album which is actually a nice laid back album with cool arrangements. It's interesting because he had enough old time standards to fill up a short album from the past all he had to do was strip the voices off of the songs and put the Beach Boys vocal on them (new vocals for songs that have older vocals) ..songs like "How deep is the ocean", "Three Blind Mice", "Goodnight my Love", "Tonight you belong to me", "Old man river", "Endless Sleep", and I'm sure I'm missing a few songs that could have made it unto the album..

What's the official track list?

Side A:
1. Life is for the Living
2. Hey Little Tomboy
3. Deep Purple
4. HELP is on the Way
5. It's Over Now
6. Everybody Wants to Live

Side B:
1. Shortenin' Bread
2. Lines
3. On Broadway
4. Games Two Can Play
5. It's Trying to Say
6. Still I Dream of It

The GV box set version was mastered too slow. The MIC version was mastered at the correct speed.

What kinda confuses me is that the key Brian plays the piano demo of the track (heard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU7VFXT_2us) is the same as the "slowed down" version on the GV box set. Maybe the track was intended to be slowed down during the final mixing stages? That, or the demo itself is slowed down as well.

I adore this album. I'd love to see a making of behind the scenes video. Brian at that time working with a full on orchestra?! I wonder if any stuff would've been in Landy's vaults?

 I'm interested in ANYTHING from this period, outtakes etc.....

It'd be nice to have an official release in some variation, perhaps on a Deluxe Edition of Love You!

Oh my, how I'd love such a release! :)

Well said as usual! One MILLION percent agree.

I have plans for something like that on my youtube channel sometime soon. Look out for it in the coming weeks!

Surely a great project, Jiggy! Thanks in advance. :)

Adult Child won't be released unless

1. 'The powers that be' who decide on the marketing for this band are given their long-overdue dismissal (never forget that there exists an "official SMiLE surfboard")
2. They can figure out a way to advertise the album as a fun, party-time sum-sum-summer Beach Boys™ album

Brian Wilson the Outsider Pop Genius™ as a marketing strategy would not hurt his legacy, but it's fair to assume that 'the powers that be' are not particularly interested in reopening old wounds that previously (if not presently) made it difficult for him to be signed to a major label

Love it but it only makes sense as a Spotify digital release.

Nothing should ever be released as a streaming-only release.

I get why physical releases may not be possible in all cases, but any project should at least be released for purchase as a download.

With Spotify, contracts expire and things can be pulled from the service (just like Netflix, etc.).

With a download release, you can download it and keep it for as long as you can store the data.

With a streaming-only release, they can rest assured even *more* fans will simply download the audio for free off of YouTube than already are.

Thanks. I love Life is for the Living, Lines, and It's Trying to Say. Otherwise some filler in there.