The Smiley Smile Message Board

Anyone know why this wasn’t released as a single...?

It's a pretty bad retread of Surfin USA

That's not a reason in Beach Boys land not to release it. I also wondered why it wasn't a single as it definitely is catchy and sounds like a potential hit.

It was apparently released as a single (commercial and promo?) in Australia:

(http://www.beachboys45.nl/pic/Australia/08%20Caribou%20PROMO/BA%203341_A%20California%20Calling%20Stamped%20As%20Promo%20OZ%20XX.jpg)

(http://www.beachboys45.nl/pic/Australia/08%20Caribou%20PROMO/BA%203341_A%20California%20Calling%20White%20Label%20Promo%20OZ%20XX.jpg)

Because it sucks?  ;D Seriously, it's one of my least favorite Beach Boys songs.

Yeah, pretty much in the bottom tier of their catalog. Definitely not "hit" material.

I'm not a fan of how Mike Love sang on it, somewhat similar to what he did on It's A Beautiful Day.

I think I am in the minority then, I like how they sang on it. It's a nice harken to their younger days. Mike sounded so off in the 70's and sounds better here. I just hate the Culture Club-esque production. Blegh.

It was apparently a single in Japan, instead of "It's Gettin' Late" (coupled with It's OK):
(https://merurido.jp/dropbox/recycle_image/SCAAA012548/01_front.jpg)

Also, count me in for those who care for this song - although it's not the best thing on the BB85 album, I think it is a hit material, in the same vein as "It's OK", that should have been a single.

I agree. As someone who actually likes "It's A Beautiful Day," I honestly think this song is awful. The lyrics try too hard to sound hip and retro at the same time and fail miserably.

I might even put this below Summer In Paradise, which, while not a great album by any means, at least tried new things (i.e. rap, production techniques, etc...)

Possibly the worst BB's song....if summer of love didn't exist.

I agree, especially with the verse lyrics. Although the chorus is acceptable IMO.

When Al sings the lyric "totally rad", I'm still trying to process whether there was any sort of ironic intent, or if he said it with complete sincerity, thinking that people would take him seriously as a 1980s rocker, especially as he grew his mullet out around the same time to be fully current with the times.

Because honestly it strikes me as probably the most laughable and lame attempt to be hip in the entire history of the band...  I suppose the entirety of "summer of love" is far worse, but this lyric is just sooo funny (not on purpose) coming from a guy born in 1942.

Is it possible that it was in the queue to be the next single? I base this on the end of the Video for It's Getting Late, where Brian picks up the shell and hears the song. Maybe the momentum had died too early for CC.

Maybe something geared toward a discussion of the BB '85 album, but honestly the album itself, the majority of it, does not sound at all out of place with what was on top-40 radio at that time. I know, I was listening to top-40 radio constantly at that time. Hot Hits 98 in Philly, with DJ's like Terry "Motormouth" Young and Barsky...and it may very well have been the last gasp of what we know as Top 40 radio and related culture. Like DJ's coming to local high schools and spinning new records for the kids, etc...

Anyway, the album itself is not out of place, in terms of production and sonics, with whatever else was hitting top 40 and MTV at the time. Getcha Back *works*, it's a good single, but above all it sounded exactly like other big hits of the day (The Spector retro throwback touches, the overall 80's update of the girl group, 4 Seasons, Spector sonic elements...castanets wailing, etc.) . It could sit next to "Say Goodbye To Hollywood" by Billy Joel, "Uptown Girl" again by Billy, "Take Me Home Tonight" by Eddie Money feat. Ronnie Spector, "They Don't Know" by Tracey Ullman written by the brilliant Kirsty MacColl, and a host of other tunes that updated the classic AM 60's pop vibes.

And, just to touch on an earlier comment, this "California Calling" track does not sound like Culture Club. Culture Club had better *songs*, that were catchy as hell, and had a terrific white soul singer in Boy George. Those reggae grooves, those gospel grooves, with George singing lead - They were good records of good songs. This California mess...not even close. It doesn't sound like Culture Club to me at all, it falls way short of CC's hit records from the few years before this one, and is a middle aged band singing material that should have been left in the dirty sand under the pier alongside the empty bottles of Genny Cream Ale and Doritos bags.

What California Calling sounds like to me is closer to one of Mike's numerous cassette-only releases from either Radio Shack/Hitbound, the gas stations, or whatever other outlets he was targeting.

It's trying to update something that doesn't need to be updated. Yet, for the 30 or so years...Hell, actually up to the present...Mike can't get beyond trying to do covers and remakes and update things that should have been left as what made them classic in the first place. Yes, this is a Wilson/Jardine composition, I know, but it sounds like it falls into that same pit of misplaced nostalgia and guys in their late 40's with comb-overs, beer guts, and bad golf shirts trying to hit on girls at a college town's local bar. It's done.


Comparing this to Summer In Paradise, specifically "Summer Of Love"? Nothing goes lower than that. Nothing. The Beach Boys featuring Mike trying to rap, and having a Baywatch video...Not much if anything can or will go lower than that sh*t.

But this track, it's kind of sad because the album itself actually wasn't that bad, and as heard in Getcha Back, they were still capable of current music and respectable songwriting efforts that sounded like it fit on Top 40 radio while not resorting to cliches and surfer bullshit that too often plagued their solo and group releases from 1979 up to 2018. They didn't have to sound like Mike's cassette-only debacles, yet here they unfortunately did...in lyrics, sound, and the whole ball o' wax.

It's also super bizarre that this song, of all songs, has drums by Ringo Starr. Of all songs for him to do a guest appearance on, it's baffling that this track happened to be what was picked... I'm guessing that was just simply a matter of timing and what was available. Does anyone know the story of how that came to be?

Yeah, Ringo on this of all tracks he *could* have guested on...I don't get it. As far as how he got on the track, they probably just called him.  ;D

What's even more under-heralded if not ignored by most people these days is that Stevie Wonder...Stevie F***ing Wonder...contributed "I Do Love You" to the album! Stevie in 1984-85 was as hot of a commercial artist as he had been, and here he shows up basically creating a full track of his original song for Carl Wilson to sing on. And Carl *nailed* it, which is no surprise given his love for Stevie's music dating back to the 60's. The track itself is a little too sophisticated and jazzy to have gotten Top-40 charting success, but it could have fit on any Adult Contemporary/Urban Contemporary playlist that year.

And it sounds like any Stevie Wonder track that was burning up the charts and airwaves in the early to mid 80's, so again it's another case of the Beach Boys putting a solid effort on a track for this album, and having it all but ignored moving forward to the present. It's a solid track, and in terms of what Stevie Wonder brought to the table, it's all there.

Just think...Imagine Mike getting his wish to have his cover of "At The Hop" placed on the album. That's the mentality which brought California Calling to the table, I believe. Yet the tracks surrounding it are pretty distinctively *not* 100% in that phony surfer nostalgia vein.

I liked California Calling one day when I was listening, not paying close attention, and thinking it was something vintage. For a few seconds.

I suppose that with better production(actual insteuments, and with a mix that doesn't sound so sterile) and better lyrics it could be better. That "totally rad" line just hurts to my soul though. This is the same group that recorded "All I Wanna Do", "Long Promised Road", and "Surf's Up"?  ???

Mike should update the song for his 2019 set, and to make it extra contemporary and fitting for the song itself, just change the title/yric to California LOL-ing  :lol

Line in bold: Imagine that same scenario when you'd see a "new" Beach Boys album appear, called "Summer In Paradise", and listening for the first time to THAT.

That reaction you posted is exactly what my own reaction was, to SIP and numerous other missteps and flops. I call it Jekyll And Hyde. You'd be in a record store, in the Beach Boys section, and see Summer In Paradise in the same bins as the two-fers and various reissues, and think "Is this the same group?"

In Beach Boys land post 1975, sounding like a potential hit is all the reason you need NOT to release it as a single. 

Also, recording amazing groundbreaking music is all the reason you need to leave it in the vault for the next 40 years. 

I also recall that while they were mixing "California Dreamin'" in late 1982 at Rumbo, they also recorded an early version of "California Calling." It would be at the very least interesting to hear that early version.

I don't believe any of the 84/85 Levine recordings used old BB tracks as a basis, so whatever exists of that '82 version of "California Calling" hasn't been heard. I'm not sure how far along that '82 version got (e.g. are there vocals?).

The song's lyrics are pretty bad. BB '85 isn't exactly Exhibit A for the band's lyrical prowess. But some of the lyrics are extra cheesy. The best stuff on the '85 album is the Carl stuff, and probably then a few of the tracks from outside writers.

"California Calling" is cut from the same cloth as other 80s "retro" tracks the band did, and I don't think a ton of those were going to get them high on the charts (or good critical notices). I think "Getcha Back" was about as far as they could go as far as doing something in that 80s mode of 50s/60s "retro" that could also have some amount of success on the charts.

A few years later and *maybe* it would have been easier to market the Carl tracks to "Adult Contemporary" radio. But it's all big "ifs" and I don't think they were ever destined to have "hit singles" again; "Kokomo" was a happy fluke.

Is it safe to assume that Denny had nothing to do with the recording of this 82 version?

I wonder if he even heard a single note of any of the "gems" that the band was cooking up in the last few years of his life, regardless if he contributed to their recording or not. Does anyone know?

Considering "California Dreamin'" was cut with session musicians in 1982, and that Dennis was only sporadically appearing in the studio in the early 80s and was rarely if ever doing layered group backing vocals by that point, I'd guess he's not on it.

C-man posted this several years back in a thread focusing on whether Brian was on the track:

Interestingly, the original report on the May 1982 "California Dreamin'" vocal session at Rumbo (printed in the Summer '82 issue of "Add Some Music") was that it "featured the entire Beach Boy vocal ensemble - including Carl and Brian".  Reason Carl would be specifically mentioned is that he had just then returned to the band.  But since both Jeff and Adrian were in the band at the time (and both are credited with "backup" on the Radio Shack "Rock and Roll City" cassette released a year later - which included, of course, the original '82 version of this track) my guess is they are BOTH on it.  They were certainly part of the "Beach Boy vocal ensemble" at the time.

I remember a super old thread, maybe even on an old board, trying to figure out who is doing the falsetto/high parts on "CD." All theories are on the table, including Brian, Bruce, Foskett, or Adrian Baker.

I was 15 when this came out and I played for a friend and I remember we were both laughing out loud at these terrible lyrics:

And I'll take ya' boogie boardin' with me
'Cause when we're surfin' it's so great to be free
And when you're on a California beach
You might even find 'em windsurfin' too

In the fifties it was "Hey Daddy O"
Then came the surfers and the Hodads ya' know
We had our woodies and our custom cars
And when we drove around we knew we were bad

My baby listens to my car radio
And when we're cruisin' lets the whole world know
And when our favorite surfin' song comes on
We always let 'em know it's "Totally Rad!"

I should add that the song overall doesn't bother me too bad-- but those lyrics just try too hard.

Which I own a copy of! God knows why.

Me, I think they're "totally rad". Because that's the way me and the guys talk, down at the country club.

I like the song. Probably because of the goofy lyrics. I do not care for the production too much, but at the time it was released, it did not bother me. It we all had a time machine, maybe the production would he better now, but it probably would have sounded out of place at the time? I don't know.

For me the music is upbeat and familiar. It seems like a lot of Beach Boys songs are ones that reminisce about better times. I look at Getcha Back as a really light weight Do It Again. Even has a distinct drum sound. California Calling is but of a nod to Surfin' USA, but that doesn't bother me at all either. When I was at the age where I really loved Surfin' USA, I had no idea what the vernacular meant - or whether it was even accurate. It just sounded cool. Back that you couldn't Google it to see what they were talking about.  :)  In fact, I am pretty sure the hard core surfers, did not care for the Beach Boys music.

I think that the 80s were the boys trying to be relevant. The call backs and self-referential stuff never bothered my. Neither did Mike's "Love" puns. It connects the music in a mainstream way. Not us super-fans, but the average radio audience.

Is I Do Love You way better? Absolutely, but will it so what the band wanted at that time? If you heard California Calling or Getcha Back on the radio in 1985, it brings you back to sounds that sound familiar of you have heard them in the past. It was quite intentional. If you have that many years of hits, why not try to connect to those who enjoyed them the first time PLUS the newer audience?

It doesn't sound stupid to me. Only after we look at everything in hindsight.

California Colin

(http://i65.tinypic.com/125qctv.jpg)

<<Even has a distinct drum sound. >>

I like it, too.  Unpretentious and fun.  And that distinct drum sound is Ringo Starr.

I love Ringo, and he often has had a distinct drum sound, performance-wise. But the drums as performed on "California Calling" are pretty anonymous and simple. I can't say the song needed something more elaborate; the drums on the song are fine. But I don’t think anyone would know it was Ringo unless told. For that matter, 1984 was a pretty dire period for Ringo. He was out of it sufficiently so that, in his “Postcards from the Boys” book a couple decades later, he admits he has *zero* memory of even doing the July 4th ’84 gigs with the Beach Boys, admitting he only believes he was there because there are photos.

Were any BBs in attendance when Steve Levine had Ringo record the drums for “California Calling?” I know varying numbers of BBs were out in the UK in ’84 to work on the album, but I always sensed at least some scattered sessions were done with few or no BBs present, especially when it came to backing tracks with little or no BB involvement.

Knowing the song and album well, it wouldn’t have surprised me at all if they had attempted to push “California Calling” as a single. I don’t think it would have had much action on the charts; I truly think “Getcha Back” and its performance were about as good as chart action was going to get for the BBs in 1985. But they tried pushing some weird stuff in that era, such as a 12-inch "Passing Friend" single with "15 Big Ones" and "LA (Light Album)" tracks as b-sides:

(https://img.discogs.com/quzHDbyi01-ZM6H7b4STakT42AA=/fit-in/501x498/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-2361147-1279498500.jpeg.jpg)

That would be my guess. The hype sticker on the album listed Getcha Back, California Calling, and one other song...might have been It's Gettin' Late. Instead, they went for She Believes in Love Again, and it didn't do a thing.

I still think that "Getcha Back" should have been a big hit and the start of a comeback for the group. As far as "She Believes In Love Again", it doesn't sound seem like such a bad move to try to push that as a hit single, once you consider the type of music that Chicago was having huge success with.

I also applaud the band to a certain degree for trying to push SBILA as a single,  because it's not a corny throwback predictable choice for them to have released as a single (the way CC is). SBILA not a super fantastic track but it's a perfectly decent track in my opinion. Carl on this song, much like he does with the rest of the album, elevates the material significantly by his voice being so so good.

At the end of the day, given what was on that '85 album, what was getting on the charts at that time, and what the BBs had been doing in the preceding several years, I don't think anything would have jump started higher chart action. As I've said before, I think "Getcha Back" was as good as it was going to get at that particular moment.

Sure, "She Believes..." is cut from a similar general cloth to the early 80s soft rock Chicago hits like "Hard to Say I'm Sorry", "You're the Inspiration", etc. But there were differences between the two band situations. I'd argue those Chicago hits from Cetera and David Foster, whether you like them or not, were/are better songs than "She Believes", probably better productions, but *most* important, Chicago had momentum going into those hits. Through Cetera's departure, they spent the late 70s and early 80s with far more hits and far more radio airplay than the Beach Boys.

Between 1976 (when "If You Leave Me Now" hit) and 1985, Chicago had by my count nine Top 20 singles, including a couple of #1 hits.

In the same time, leading up to the BB '85 album, the BBs between 1976 and 1984, the BBs had three Top 20 singles, two of which were oldie remakes ("Rock and Roll Music" and "Come Go With Me"), while the other was the lame "Beach Boys Medley." I'd wager none of those got as much airplay as Chicago hits during that same time frame. So the BBs had zero original compositions in the Top 20 during that time frame. You actually have to go back to 1968 and "Do It Again" to find a Top 20 (and literally #20 at that) original composition from the BBs on the US singles charts.

I think even if the BBs had grabbed as singles what at least many fans consider to be the strongest songs from the '85 album, like "Where I Belong", I don't think it would have had much traction.

It took another shift in the marketplace, and a different song, and some amazing luck as well, to get "Kokomo" to hit status in 1988. The fact that they didn't continue that hit streak afterwards indicates it was a fluke.

I don't think the BBs were 100% doomed to never be relevant in the marketplace in the 70s/80s/90s; smart steps could have been taken that would have at least increased their chances. But those steps were usually not taken.

Chicago's history after Terry Kath's death is perhaps something incredibly relevant to the parallel history of The Beach Boys, or a way in retrospect to contrast the two and ask what could have happened had the BB's followed suit if chart and commercial success through reinvention was the goal that "Chicago" (deliberately in quotes) reached and the Beach Boys did not.

Chicago in the years after Kath's passing wasn't doing as well, in fact if their attempt at disco "Street Player" and the various member shakeups was any indication, they needed to do something before the ship sank.

So they bring in David Foster, who like any music producers of any generation had a great run where it seemed anything he touched turned to gold and platinum.

Foster in making new records for Chicago basically put the "sound" of Chicago which they had with Kath on the backburner, and instead brought Peter Cetera into the spotlight. Horns...what horns? Danny Seraphine...who? Jazz influenced experimentation...what? Heavy guitar sounds...where?

Anyway, Foster basically made "Chicago" into a soft-pop, hit making machine. They were successful beyond belief after Foster focused on Cetera. Hardcore fans were upset unless they were cooled down a bit by hearing 25 Or 6 To 4 as the encore of a concert circa 1984...but hardcore fans didn't sustain sales and demand enough to cross over as Foster did with the ballads and light pop. The band themselves did get resentful as their records sometimes sounded more like a Cetera solo album produced by Foster than they did an actual group effort. But they were raking in the dough, so how much could they resist?

So draw the rest of the lines and how all that worked out, but ultimately it could be asked what if the Beach Boys had brought in David Foster, what if Foster began crafting records around, say, Carl Wilson who had the best voice at that time and told Mike and his various ideas and notions of leadership to take a back seat, and had the clout to tell a fraud and goofball musician wannabe like Gene Landy to either cooperate and make hit records in the moment or f**k off.

Perhaps the years after Dennis' death would have been more successful in a commercial way. Foster had the golden touch when he was cutting those records and ballads with Cetera, they sold like hotcakes. It alienated the band, hardcore fans, etc...but Foster did what he was brought in to do, which was make money for the band "Chicago".

The fluke of "Kokomo" aside, did the Beach Boys see anything near the chart success in this same time frame as Chicago and Cetera? Of course not.

Did Chicago "sell out"? Well...decide for yourself. But they made money. And they released original music that sold. Did the "Beach Boys" sell out at this same time in terms of original music? That's the question.

Well, David Foster did co-write "Fairytale" with Brian around that time (and did release it as "Is there a chance?"), didn't he?

Brian has said he and Foster wrote that song (Is There A Chance)  in 1988 and it came out on Foster's own solo album 2 years later. I don't know what that would have to do with the Beach Boys.

Edit: "Fairy Tale" of course ended up on GIOMH in 2004, but Foster released "Is There A Chance" on his own. Just to clarify I didn't see any Beach Boys connection there based on the timing and the fact these collabs with Foster were done around Brian's solo projects.

Not to veer too far off topic, but concerning Chicago, the other guys in the band certainly had little room to argue Cetera was hogging all the leads or that the band was "selling out" by doing that type of music. Cetera (and Foster) were the ones proffering the material; there's little evidence the other guys in the band had better or ample material to offer. And the other guys in the band lost any ability to claim Cetera and Foster were turning the band too soft musically; they did their first post-Cetera album with David Foster still! The first original post-Ceter hit was the 1986 single "Will You Still Love Me?", co-written by *and* produced by David Foster (and sung by Cetera's replacement Jason Scheff. Subsequently, they turned to an even softer, even *more* adult contemporary force in scoring two more songs written or co-written by Diane Warren, "I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love" and "Look Away."

To bring it back to the BBs in that same late 80s era, they clearly tried to do "Kokomo" variants in a way not totally dissimilar to Chicago continuing to prime the "power ballad" well. The difference? Again, whether you like the songs or not, those Foster-penned and Warren-penned power ballads were catchy, commercial songs that garnered radio airplay.

The BBs just never found that niche. It's possible that had they had someone like David Foster grooming the band and Carl to make that Adult Contemporary turn over several albums, ideally springboarding off a nice hit, they could have taken a similar path.

"Hard to Say I'm Sorry" may be seen as a bit cheesy or insipid or too "soft" or whatever, but it was a well-liked, well-written song. What it *wasn't*, and what the BBs continued to go after, was more a "novelty" sort of hit. Even "Kokomo" is arguably partially based on the novelty of the whole tropical motif. The BBs *weren't* directly going after literally "tropical" sounds on a regular basis at the time. But it mean that when, say, they did a full album of largely "Kokomo" variants in the form of "Summer in Paradise", nobody cared. What are the most listenable songs on SIP? Two songs that sound the most like "regular pop", "Strange Things Happen" and "Lahaina Aloha", the latter of which is more lyrically vaguely "tropical" than musically.

The closest anybody in the BBs ever came to priming that Cetera-esque power ballad, AC sound was the posthumous "Beckley-Lamm-Wilson" album, which has a few solid Carl songs, but was about a decade too late in terms of its "sound."

The Beach Boys in the 80's needed to bring a creative person into their orbit, someone who could write new songs and preferably help produce them.

Someone like David Foster  ;D

“It’s Getting Late” > “Getcha Back”
“Back Where I Belong” > “She Believes in Love Again”

Carl’s material on this album is head shoulders above three rest.

This brings up an interesting question to ponder...

What do people think of the evolution/change of Carl's songwriting from Youngblood to BB85?

-Was it an intentional shift to write songs more suited for the full BBs band somehow?
-Or was he just collaborating with different people who influenced the direction?
-Or did he simply take his time on BB85 by spending longer times in the studio to get things right, as opposed to his solo albums which might have been done quicker during breaks from touring?

It seems Carl's songs on BB85 were overall considerably better (in terms of composition and production) on BB85 when compared to his solo albums that came right before, IMHO.

Pretty much correct. I'm a Beach Boys solo album freak. I've got a bunch of Brian's stuff, a bunch of Mike's (sometimes very rare) stuff, Al's Postcard, Dennis' Pacific Ocean Blue and even nice bit of Bruce's stuff and his projects (I have Bruce & Terry, The Hot Doggers, other Bruce stuff, but definitely not Going Public). But for some reason I never could pull the trigger on either of Carl's solo albums. And I think the reason for that is the same reason I don't think I'll ever touch Going Public. They're kinda boring and obvious. Whatever you say about Mike's solo material, or Brian's Gettin' in Over My Head or freaking Bruce's Bob Sled & The Toboggans, at least it's entertainingly bad! Carl's solo albums are just regular boring music for the most part ("Heaven" definitely excepted. I think Carl wrote a great one there).

So the key to learn from this is when you do something that isn't very good at least make it entertainingly bad!

On the other hand though, I think the Beckley-Lamm-Wilson songs Carl wrote are really nice. "Like A Brother", "I Wish For You" and "Run Don't Walk" are all really nice songs that I'm pretty sure woulda been able to fit in to a cool Beach Boys album anywhere from the mid '80s to the 00's. Just my opinion.

Jim - I feel the same about Carl's solo albums. I know some completists look down on those who don't immediately praise anything released by a band member of your favorite bands, but I just never dug the sound of Carl's solo albums, and the songs just didn't hit me. I feel the same about solo efforts across the board, from BB's to Beatles to Monkees...if I like the music, I listen. But I never felt obligated to listen.

Having said that, last summer on one of the road trips I took was when Sirius was running their Beach Boys channel. And that week or so they just happened to be playing more of Carl's *live* solo material, and it really sounded great. It did hit me that time, and I dug it a lot. Much more than the studio tracks. Maybe Carl and his music from that solo era came off better with a live band and live energy? Carl definitely knew his way around the live stage, and I'd consider checking out whatever live tracks are out there from Carl's solo works, and see how those feel versus his studio work.

Carl's second solo lp has the absolutely beautiful "Giving You Up" and I've always wondered if he did this live at any time. I saw him on his solo tour (actually got to talk to him for a bit as well), but that song wasn't performed. Anyone have any info on this?

The subject is fun song. It being retread doesn't annoy in the slightest. It's Top 3 in the '85 album.

It's definitely not a remarkable song, but it's listenable enough and I like that Ringo Starr plays drums on it.

I thought "It's Gettin' Late" was a gutsy choice to followup "Getcha Back" because it didn't have that retro Beach Boys sound. I recall hearing it on the radio quite a bit, but maybe it was too far from the BB's formula sound to catch on.
One of our local AC stations played "Givin' You Up" a lot in the summer of 83. I thought it would become a hit. I loved the Youngblood album. Boring? Not at all. It doesn't sound anything like the Beach Boys, though, maybe that's why some fans still don't like it. Brian's solo albums sound like Beach Boys albums without their voices on  them; Carl went for a completely different sound. "Heaven" and "What You Do to Me" are the only ones that sound slightly Beach Boyish.
And yes, Carl did sing "Givin' You Up" at the few solo shows he did in 83 - I was at one of them.

Carl's solo albums definitely have enjoyable moments compositionally and performance-wise.

But the production on both albums is very sterile and lacking in energy/dynamics. I think things perked up production-wise a little bit on the second album; "What You Do To Me" has a peppy arrangement and production if nothing else (though I'd say that song sounds *too* light and bubblegummy, even for a BB-related record).

I've always contended that, for the first album for instance, the live 1981 shows breathed *way* more life into those songs.

As a whole, Carl's solo albums are inoffensive at worst, and at times are quite enjoyable. They feature neither the highs nor lows of contemporaneous BB albums.

I think a lot of fans agree that when Brian Wilson was able to just do whatever struck him, that tended to be the more pure and often most enjoyable. As was said all the way back to something like "Friends", when you hear that Brian is doing his own thing and *isn't* pulling in a bunch of contemporary musical influences (and when they are influences they tend to be relatively far off from pop, like Bacharach), that often *feels* right. This is true all the way up to the present. "That Lucky Old Sun" is enjoyable, but there's a good amount of Bennett in those songs. But then, you hear "Message Man" and it sounds like Brian's deal and nobody else's. I digress on this to point out that Carl never got quite to that place. He just didn't write/record/release enough material (solo, or on BB albums for that matter, certainly by the 80s) to evolve (or maybe even "de-evolve" as it were) to just purely and solely follow his own muse.

I'm not saying his solo (or BB) material is hugely compromised or anything. But the two 80s albums sound like he's either trying hard to make it mostly *not* sound like the BBs, and/or he's doing the kind of music *he likes* more than the type of music that might most purely and easily come out of him. I think, in terms of *composition*, he may have reached a slightly more pure place with his BB '85 tracks and the "Beckley Lamm Wilson" stuff recorded in the 90s. But in the case of "Beckley Lamm Wilson", some quite good compositions are again hampered by pretty stale production and arrangement. I'd still love to take some of those songs like "They're Only Words" and strip a lot of the backing track away and see it partly re-recorded and remixed.

Absolutely wonderful post Mr. Jude. Especially about Brian's work.

However, I will offer a bit of a different view on Carl's music post Youngblood. I think Carl's stuff from The Beach Boys '85 album and on was him in his element. His sweet spot. You know, like the "Message Man" type Brian you're talking about. This isn't a diss to him at all by the way. I just think that adult contemporary rock was where Carl felt comfortable. So while the production choices on things like "Like A Brother" or some of the others aren't what I may have done, I think I understand where Carl was at with this stuff. And it kinda makes me wonder where Carl woulda stood had he made it long enough to see Brian finish Imagination with Joe Thomas. I think that possibly unlike Brian's Paley material, Imagination was right in the '80s and '90s version of Carl Wilson's wheelhouse. I've thought about a thread expanding on what woulda happened with The Beach Boys had Carl beat his cancer and perhaps I will, but one has to wonder if Carl woulda worked with Brian and if Brian woulda kept a foot in The Beach Boys camp as an active member. And so on. But wow I went off the original topic.

I do think Carl was tapping into his sensibilities on stuff like the "Beckely Lamm Wilson" material.

I certainly don't think what Carl was looking to do (or could have done) in the 90s (or any other time) was to do like retro-ish-sounding Andy Paley type material vaguely nodding to the mid-60s BB material.

I think an ideal situation for Carl in the 80s and 90s would have been to continue to use his voice on other well written material (which did obviously still occur to some degree), and then give material written (or co-written) by Carl to a producer who could take Carl *compositions* but get them away from that "Beckley Lamm Wilson" adult contemporary, sort of bland, sterile production sound.

Imagine something like "They're Only Words", but with BB backing vocals mixed in, and with a backing track produced by, say, Jeff Lynne or something. That song is a good song with great Carl vocals (and some good lyrics too), but the arrangement and production outside of the vocals sounds like a mid 90s demo.