The Smiley Smile Message Board

I was thinking what if when the BBs were preparing 15BO they pretended that everything was fine with Brian and basically prepared an album of stellar material of outtakes of the previous 8 or 9 years and passed it off as new material? The illusion would be that Brians voice was still good and that his writing was too, add to that a small stash of good Dennis songs. Apart from the odd track leaking out, not much was known about BB outtakes at this point.
Imagine a new BB album in 1976 containing some of the following tracks:

Can't Wait too long
Soulful old man sunshine
When girls get together
Sherry She needs me
Loop de loop
Games two can play
Good time
HELP is on the way

They could have rounded it out with:
Carry me home
Susie Cincinatti
We're together again
River song
4th of July
San Miguel
and also:
Wouldn't it be nice to live again!!

That would have been a great 15 big ones!

Interesting idea.  I think "Sherry..." might have blown their cover a bit.  You definitely can hear Brian's "weathered" mid-70's vocals on that one, as great as the song is.  I guess they could've claimed it was a guest vocalist.  R. Dunbar maybe, as an "inside" tribute to Murry?

Or, just have one of the other guys do the vocals? 


Also, that pretty much means LOVE YOU wouldn't have happened.  Which I guess is a good thing in some people's eyes.

Either that or Love You would've happened and REALLY pissed people off!

That would have been funny, lure them in and then surprise them!

Add to that list "It's OK" and "Good Timin". The biggest problem with 15 Big Ones wasn't necessarily the production or the performance (although there were some dreadful moments), it was the song selection!

Edit: I'm aware that "It's OK" WAS on the album, just wanted to recognize it as essential.

You know, they could've done RIGHT after Endless Summer came out.

Yes, I think 'It's ok' and 'Good timin' would've been good on there too. I think with a lot of the Landlocked/add some music stuff, a quick remix and maybe some blobs of Brians squelchy synth might have made them a bit more contemporary. They could have had a killer album under their belts, but then isn't that always the way with the Beach Boys....?!

replace 'can't wait too long' with 'it's ok', and 'sherry she needs me' with 'good timin' ..start the album with 'it's ok', and you have a great, fun BB 1976 album. Besides, I agree that I have never had a bit of a problem with the album's production, or performance. I, too maintain it was the song selection that was the weakest link for 15BO's.....

Indeed. If one listens to the backing tracks for Had to Phone Ya, and Just Once in my life, it's obvious that Brian was still near the top of his game...at least producing tracks. Too bad the songs and vocals on the album are subpar.