The Smiley Smile Message Board

Not good. Not good at all.  :(

Just as I suspected.

HMV Newcastle had about 3 copies yesterday. Only the version with the DVD.  No real promotion.  He's on Live from Abby Road this Friday - a week too late - at quarter to one in the fucking morning!

Totally off-topic here.... but did we forget your birthday yesterday, Andrew? Yes we did, didn't we? Belated congrats!

That is 16 spaces above where GIOMH premiered in the UK.

I'm a bit surprised, but I'm just not familiar with what the promotion has been like in the UK.

In the US, it's been excellent -- so I think the album may actually hit the charts higher over here. Just a hunch.

These are figures from a couple of minutes ago.

Amazon in the US -- No. 5 (regular), No. 56 (CD/DVD)
Amazon in the UK -- No. 145 (regular), No. 130 (CD/DVD)

What gives ???

Andrew, what's up with your country? (joke)

This is mind blowing..

Did capitol even think to promote the album in the UK?

Hey still decent though  ;D

The US debut is looking to be very impressive though, I read that somewhere, will look for a link.

I haven't noticed any promotion. Of course reviews have appeared in all the usual places but I've seen no advertising....mind you I haven't leafed through Mojo for a few months so there could be something in there.

Yesterday I checked out my local HMV, couldn't find any evidence of TLOS. No sign of it in "new releases", no Brian at all in the pop/rock section (though there were a couple of Beach Boys CD's), nothing in the "Summer" section.....I had a wander round and couldn't find it at all.

Wasn't in my local Asda or Tesco either. All worrying, and possibly accounts for the slightly disappointing chart position.
Tomorrow I am going to make the trip to a proper record shop, and see what's up there....its the kind of place where if you mention Brian, some member of staff is bound to jump over the counter and start talking...

Is TLOS getting any radio play here? I rarely listen to any station that plays music, but has Radio 2 given it much attention...apart from the doc on Brian as a producer a couple of weeks ago?

#37 is respectable, but I had hoped for more. The Amazon figures are apalling.

I still can't get over how will it's doing on Amazon US,

It's proves what good marketing can do to an album.

What's even weirder is that the UK is primed to buy BW stuff -- Smile was Top 10 there, for goodness' sake. I don't think it would take much to have gotten the album 10 or 15 spots higher. It just seems like it didn't know this album was even coming.

Frankly I'm staggered that its broken the Top 40 at all. Who on earth buys Brian Wilson records apart from the people that visit boards like this?

Happy birthday Andrew.

Idiotic

Come on: disagreeing is fine, but why not substantiate or explain your disagreement rather than resorting to that?

On the topic, I'm a little disappointed but not particularly surprised. I don't really follow the charts at all, and most of my favorites rarely sniff the upper reaches of them. But I guess I assumed BW would do better in the UK, if only because my understanding of his reputation there is that it would carry him more. I hope for a respectable showing on the U.S. charts--especially since there have been some online and TV appearances, the live streaming, etc.--but for the most part I think brother john is correct. Brian isn't a shapely 19-year-old woman or a shirtless, muscular man. His peak years of fame are well behind him. Timbaland didn't produce this. It won't be played in the clubs. If he has a respectable showing on the charts, it should be considered a great success. He's just not going to win over vast numbers of people. This isn't an insult to Brian, but it's what I think is real life for him. Whatever bump Capitol gives him will be great, but it's not going to be 1963 all over again.

Good point Brother John, but Brian (and the Beach Boys, too, for that matter), have usually been more popular in the UK than in the US, which means either it's going to bomb in the US, or is actually going to outsell the UK version by a large margin, which I don't think anyone saw coming.

Hell, maybe it's because the UK version supposedly sounds like ass in comparison.

Luther, I agree 100%.

I think the big problem is the time lag - back in '04, BWPS was in the stores less than seven months after he'd premiered it and in the interim had been toured over here again, so was still in the public eye & ear. TLOS was performed just under a year ago, then the momentum was lost.

That said, #37 is still very disappointing, and I seriously doubt it'll climb much, if at all. I'm hoping the US figure is significantly better.

Plus BWPS had almost 40 years of hype. But yeah, I dig what you're saying. Why in hell it took so long (relatively speaking of course!) in the UK is beyond me. Also too, he performed it many more times in the UK than in the US, so maybe it'll do better here due to less saturation...?

I dunno. Feel like I'm grasping at straws or something.

Dennis' reissue did well here, though I suspect that had a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon (i've met quite a few of them), so the audience is obviously here. I haven't seen much promotion about it here though.

Before anybody says anything, I'm more than aware that the US premier was just a couple of days ago.

More than aware!? Super-aware! Hyper-aware!  :lol

FWIW I pre-ordered mine from Amazon and it didn't arrive until the Friday.  I don't know whether that's an indication of scarcity of product in the UK.

Hmm...


:lol

I am sorry, did not mean to snap at Brother John at all.

But I just feel that it placed less than satisfyingly, due to the lack of promotion, not lack of interest.

Let's think about it, apart from a review here and there, which were mixed in the UK, (I guess they didn't get it, which is not surprising cause it is a 'lover letter to L.A') the album got basically no promotion at all, and in the US where Brian usually fares worse it's doing amazing in the iTunes and amazon charts due to some heavy promotion, music fans are liking what they hear. In my view putting in down to Brian not being a musical draw is slightly ridiculous.

Seeing it's postion next week will be interesting.

And again sorry Brother John.

I could be wrong but being a commissioned work, it was not Brians to on-sell without further negotiation.

...The bit I'm not getting out of all this is why -- aside from AGD's general cheery positivity about Brian's recent efforts -- this counts in any way as a bad result.

Unless both the surfermoon site and I have missed something...  aside from the highly exceptional perfect storm that was "Smile", this is the first regular album Brian's done in more than thirty years to make the UK top 40.

Woohoo!

Yes, Brian's been more acclaimed in the UK than the US in that time, but this hasn't translated into impressive chart performance there either.  And for a 66-year-old man to score that high is pretty damn impressive.  Sure, we would have liked a bigger post-Smile bounce -- but for an album without decades of mythmaking behind it, it's still a substantial step up!

Cheers,
Jon Blum

well said.

I am not sure having reviews in Mojoa nd Uncut are good, but not a place someone who didn't know Brian's work would look anyway.  I am over in Tokyo and found it easily enough at Tower Records. However it was nowhere near the many displays of new releases...just placed amongst the other BW CDS.

This is the very first post on my new laptop.  I wanted to rave and celebrate TLOS. I'm disappointed with the concert sales and chart position.

However, I have to say, I've been listening to TLOS all weekend and I'm in love with this music and it is the most emotionally satisfying piece of new music I've experienced in a couple of years.   This album stands on its own despite chart success or sales.  Anyone who ever seriously loved the Beach Boys and appreciates the lore of the California dream, who appreciates an inspired piece of art, and eventually discovers this, is going to love it.

Sometimes something really great is not appreciated in its time.  Remember Pet Sounds?

Imagination charted at #30 in the UK in 1998.  I was just expecting more because it's good product. Top 20 was my expectation. Oddly, it seems the US chart placing may be, for once, better.

TLOS is the featured album of the week for the second week running in Borders UK. I'm pretty sure this has to be paid for by the record company.

I don't think sales at Borders (where i bought mine) count toward the UK chart.

(btw i am not suggesting that 10,000 people bought their copy at Borders, thus denying TLOS a higher chart entry.)

The reviews do count for quite a lot in the UK market, when you move past die-hard fans. And whatever your views on individual reviews and reviewers, the overall impression was that, whereas Smile had been something of a peak or plateau, we were now beginning the slow descent ...

For me the most significant feature of the infamous Guardian review was not the single star or the 'please let this be the end' comment, but the fact that Alexis Petridis, who'd been a huge supporter of BW over the last few years and gave Smile a stonking review, copped out of writing this one.

Prevailing economic conditions might have something to do with it, though I suppose chart positions are relative sales only.

Yes I think the review says a lot more about the Guardian's arts coverage these days than the album, increasingly depending on cheap youngsters to write up quick content, thinly spread between the weekday edition and the Observer on a Sunday. The book reviews can still be OK though. If Brian and a sympathetic artist ever decided to do a children's picture book (or even a "Für Kinder" album) then it would get a more serious review.

The current UK album list is dated September 8 and it must've been based on sales figures from a few days earlier. TLOS was officially released on September 2, so when the list was made it had been available for just a few days, not even a full week... Could that have something to do with the low ranking?

TLOS was released on Monday morning. It had a full week, from opening of business on Monday to close on Sunday. That is the way things are done in the UK....none of this strange releasing records mid-week.

Better marketing would definitely have helped the sales - with the success of Dennis's release, Capitol should have promoted TLOS as by "Dennis Wilson's talented older brother" and the album as a "natural successor to Pacific Ocean Blue - another celebration of California and the California lifestyle that Dennis Wilson embodied."  ;)

Hey Mr Honey, no offence taken - as Luther points out, why would a grizzled 66 (?) year old man be storming the charts ahead of all the bright young things? The market is very much driven by product aimed at 12 to 25 year olds, and they're not the ideal market for a 'mature' product. If I was young and sexy I don't think I would be thinking about buying a record by some old guy who had some hits back in the Sixties. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see Brian score a hit, and I think 37 is pretty damn respectable, but the radio stations play whatever they think makes them look good, and if you compare TLOS with some hip product that has a driving beat and a video of half naked boys and girls shouting about sex and money then it doesn't stand much of a chance.

However, lets wait and see!! :)

Exactly when is the billboard chart updated for the US?

Another week, I believe. Billboard lags album debuts by two weeks.

I do hope that Capital Records doesnt make any "accounting errors" when racking hte sales from this album.

While on the subject of PS, this from the Surfer Moon site.


PET SOUNDS
The Beach Boys
Producer: Brian Wilson
Released May 16, 1966
Capitol Records T-2458
Charted: 5/28/66
Highest chart position: 10

PS charted 12 days. Numbers crunched a lot faster today but TLOS in less than a week. Not bad IMO.

Now will people still refer to the album in 40 years?  :-\

Hits Daily Double. Don't know if many of you have checked this out before, but it compiles sales on Monday and Tuesday of each week from record chains, and then releases a chart on Wednesday. Right now, it shows Lucky Old Sun to be at #32 in the US, although this changes every 5 minutes as updates arrive.

FWIW, their week-ending charts on Wednesday typically mimic Billboards fairly accurately.

Here is the link: http://www.hitsdailydouble.com/sales/salescht.cgi