The Smiley Smile Message Board

I've been doing a lot of listening to Brian from the early to mid 1990's. The 1990 Convention video, the IJWMFTT cd from 1995, the Beach Boys 1995 Las Vegas show, etc. Is it just me, or did Brian actually recover quite a lot of his falsetto during that brief time?

I think it's possible. His voice was certainly quite strong on the Sweet Insanity recordings, from 91 or so. I believe that once Landy left, Brian started smoking again, and didn't quit until after his marriage to Melinda in 95.

That being said, I think Brian's voice is about at its weakest and strangest on IJWMFTT.

I think there must have been this horrible plug in tool used in early computer equipment to sanitize vocals or something around the early 90's because Paul McCartney's "trippin' the live fantastic!" cd from about that time records him sounding about as horrible as he ever did as well.  Then somehow Brian sounded much better by the late 90's, as did Paul.  HAD to be something in the production.  You can talk a live McCartney performance in his 60's and he sounds much better than he did in his early 50's?  Come on. 

I think that some of his vocals on IJWMFTT are really good. For example, "Warmth Of The Sun". Do you think that Brian would even ATTEMPT that today, thirteen years later? Brian's version of "Caroline, No" from IJWMFTT was very good too. Brian also did some falsetto on "Still A Mystery", and sounded damn good in my opinion. Brian sang "In My Room" at a Beach Boys concert in Las Vegas in 1995, and it was INCREDIBLE. I think that  in the 1990's, Brian came closer to his 1960's voice than he ever did in the 1970's, 1980's, or the present day.

I've never actually heard IJWMFTT - not a fan of Don Was.  But I think Brian was especially good on Orange Crate Art.

As a pedant, I feel it necessary to add here that at Brian's vocal peak, say 1963-67 (debatable, I know), he was not singing in falsetto for his high voice.  Falsetto is a very specific condition of the vocal folds where they actually relax and create sound a different way.  Brian used head voice to sing high back in the day.  Even Chuck Britz noted that "he would sing high and not go into falsetto."  I think that quote is in the Pet Sounds Box booklet.

The point is, and why I brought it up at all, when Brian's voice started to go south, he didn't have the breath support or technique to sing high without slipping into falsetto, which is why the timbre of his high voice is so different now.  He's got better at having a better tone in falsetto so it doesn't sound as "hooty" but it's not the same and probably never will be.

BW's Orange Crate Art voice works for me because he didn't attempt anything "youthful" on that album, comfortably singing songs from a middle-aged man's perspective. It's my favorite Van Dyke album right next to Discover America. Also, in terms of Brian's singing I clearly prefer it over IJWMFTT, which sounds far less relaxed to me.

I always wondered why his vocal in songs like "She's Got Rhythm" didn't sound like his 60s "high voice" at all... now it makes sense.

Good point...and that's exactly what you'd lose if you really abused your nose a lot...all that head voice stuff comes off your hard palate.

Incidentally, anyone seen that youtube video from 1991?  Brian's at a party and he does "Surfer Girl" and he pretty nearly nails it, high voice and all.  It's kind of shocking.

I just went to youtube and found this and wow ... that's pretty incredible.

Here's the link BTW: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a6rkWWFyck

Yeah I've seen that before actually...he sounded fantastic.  I think there's a clip of him doing "Caroline, No" from the same period where he nails the bridge and the final "nooooooo".

Yeah, the same guy has the clip but he hasn't uploaded it yet for some reason.

Too bad, because that Caroline No performance is out of this world.