The Smiley Smile Message Board

Okay, finally bought the new Party!, beautiful package! Sat down with a discount cola and ice, lit up a cigarette, ready to, uhm, party! Not every day you get to listen to "new" BB vocals from the 1960s. Denny's voice was already gruff as early as that! Okay, it's stripped down, so instead of party effects we get studio banter instead. Not sure which I like best. But that's not my beef. There's a reason why I never bought all those SoT boxes of multiple takes, it's simply too tedious to listen to, a hard slog, and just gets filed away. I consider myself a diehard and I can see the importance of  releasing this stuff, but they could have made a shorter/single disc option for Party! for us lazy types. The way they did with the SMiLE sessions. I only bought the 2 disc set there.

I thought it was only a two cd set?

They released a shorter, single disk version some time back.

Around 1965 I think.

LOL :lol

I think I misread the post. When you said "two disc version" you meant the Smile Sessions set.

A single-disc stereo version of the album was released on CD in 2012. If you're looking for a stereo mix without multiple takes, that's the one to get.

yeah, I meant the two-disc SMiLE

for Party!, I'd have liked a single disc, stripped down with extras. Already have the 65 Party on a twofer, that goes without saying.

The new 2 disc Party! - can't see myself playing disc two a whole lot

I thought this was a disappointing release....to learn that some of the songs listed on the cover were merely snippets...ugh.  And agreed the repeat versions pretty tough sledding...the blue cover was the best thing about this release!

The stereo mix without the "party" effects was worth the admission price alone.  The other stuff is good for a couple of listens but that's about it.

However I strongly disagree that this is comparable to listening to the SOT sets of multiple instrumental takes and vocal takes.  Those are MUCH more interesting than the Party sessions and reward repeated listening IMO.

OK, well...umm...what about the semi-great liner notes, then? ;)

So tedious.  Like I needed to know who was playing what instrument.  Probably inaccurate anyways.  Didn't even mention Carol Kaye once!

 ;)

I am kind of surprised when I read a topic like this here. This is exactly the kind of material I am looking for. A look inside the studio when the boys were at their prime and with Brian at the helm.

Most of the time we are complaining that we want more, more, more. At least if we get more than we want, we can listen to whichever tracks float our boats. Nowadays, you can easily use a computer and take all of the tracks from the new release and cull out the ones you do not want to make the "perfect album" for you. If we each did that, we would probably come up with countless variations using the same source material, so that is worth a lot to me. 

While I agree that the multiple takes can get tedious, some of the sessions (especially the UM volumes) reveal that Brian could indeed hear things that most would have missed. The studio banter between the boys and the musicians is cool to hear and it is clear that Brian was on top of his game and really a genius in the studio.

You almost get to be a part of the process. How many of us will listen to multiple takes of the same song and feel the frustration when they are on take 23 and make it almost to the end before someone screws something up and they had to start all over? This is how it was back before they could just digitally edit songs or just punch a new vocal or solo into the song, and you get to live it for a while.

You do not have to listen to the complete disk set every day, but to hear there was so much material, hear what was saved and  what was discarded, which takes were used, etc. is a beautiful thing.

 :lol