The Smiley Smile Message Board

.. people (eg: Domenic Priore and others) state that every Brian song is fantastic and yadda, yadda, yadda? I mean in the Back To The Beach book he just goes on about Brians recordings and says how fantastic they are. I mean I dont mind some of them but they aren't THAT superb. For example, he writes:

"It [Getting In Over My Head] actually can be considered on par with the material from side two of "Beach Boys Today!"

Note: He is referring to the original recording of GIOMH but still, on par with Brians vocals on Today? Is he joking?

I don't recall reading that anywhere, but yea that does sound a bit much.  Maybe he was comparing the song itself to side two of Today, since I can't imagine anyone being crazy enough to compare Brian's vocals today to his vocal prime.  When Brian does something good nowadays, yea, its a wonderful thing for us.  But at the same time the reality is that his voice isn't anywhere near what it used to be, and he's not 22/23 and at the peak of his powers anymore.  So I agree that we could do without the hyperbole.

I read something similar in Kingsley Abbot's book. That piece WAS written by Priore, and it's probably the one mentioned here. Yeah, he does say vocally it's as good. He also says that Soul Searchin' would've been a hit, and that Brian was highly involved in the recordings. So yeah, he's full of $hit.

It's wishful thinking. Some people want to believe that Brian can still make music that's as brilliant as the music he made 40 years ago.

The thing is...he doesn't have to. If he puts out an album full of songs even remotely near to the quality of "Midnight's Another Day" or even "What Love Can do", then that would be good enough for me. Actually, those four, and the two originals from the Christmas album..those are four honest-to-God *new* melodies that don't have the Shortnin' Bread bit in them! I'm interested in what else he's done with Scott Bennett. Honestly, I'm as excited as I was for BWPS.

He is however referring to the original Paley sessions versions of these tracks which are much better than the final versions released on the GIOMH album.
Brians original lead vocal for GIOMH was seriously his best (IMO) since at least 'Matchpoint of our love' and probably better than that so we're talking late 60s/early 70s. I can't fathom why in a million years they used the version on the album rather than the original which has a superior backing track and vocal.

Easy. Because Brian didn't produce it.

But they did use 'Soul Searchin' and 'Saturday Morning in the City' from the Paley sessions, the version of GIOMH on the GIOMH album is a Joe Thomas produced backing track from the 'Imagination' sessions.

Yeh I did state that in my original post and I agree that it is MUCH better than the released version but its still nowhere near some of the singing on Today!...


Yeh thats the exact thing I was talking about (ie: "Back To The Beach" by Kingsley Abbot) and yeh that last sentence of yours is basically what I was getting at, but you summed it up much better than me ;). I agree with you Jaymie's Dad that he doesn't have to put out material equivalent to his material 40 years ago, I mean some people are just too unrealistic, I mean its one thing to be a fan of a band/artist and its another thing to become overly obsessive and just worship every bit of material that the artist puts out, thats why I really respect a lot of people on this board because they are true fans and they don't just say, "oh 'smart girls' is a masterpiece etc..'. I mean in my opinion some of Brian's average material (ie: not great but not terrible) is WAY better than 95% of pop music out there today but I still think people can get too carried away at times.

Good point.  :-D

Maybe he (Priore) meant, its better than most of Brians singing - today!  :-D