The Smiley Smile Message Board

Hypothetical question: What if the BB had recorded "TLS" in the mid-late 70's? How do you think it would have been received? Also, whom do you think would have taken the lead on each of the songs?

I can definitely hear Carl singing "Morning Beat," Mike on "Good Kind of Love," and Dennis on "Midnight's Another Day." What do you guys think?

I can definitely imagine Al Jardine singing lead on both Live Let Live and California Role. Have to say though that I can hardly picture TLOS as a 70s record.

ANY Brian Wilson solo album with Beach Boys' vocals would've been better received.

I can picture a song like "Good Timin" or "It's A Beautiful Day" on TLOS.

I could see Brian sticking to some of the songs that really are about himself like Oxygen to the Brain, Midnight's another Day, and Goin Home. But I could see a good shared mike love vocal with goin home. Al on Live Let Live and California Role is a good call.

Jack Rieley on narrations.  ::)

I think that Mike could've written just as good of lyrics for TLOS! It is just a matter of Brian not wanting to work with Mike.

I don't mean to be controversial about this but I think Scotty's just as good a lyricist as Mike.

That's exactly what I said!

Interesting idea. Let me try and take a crack at a lineup:

1. That Lucky Old Sun-Mike Love on lead.
2. Morning Beat-Brian
3. Narrative: Room with a View-Al
4. Good Kind of Love-Al
5. Narrative: Venice Beach-Denny
6. Live Let Live/TLOS reprise-Carl
7. Mexican Girl-Mike
8. Narrative: Cinco de Mayo-Mike
9. California Feelin'-Al
10. Narrative: Between Pictures-Brian
11. Oxygen to the Brain-Brian
12. Narrative: Drive down Rodeo (made up track)-Carl
13. It's a Beautiful Day-Carl
14. Narrative: Looking up at the stars (made up track)-Brian
15. Midnight's Another Day-Brain

Are you serious?

Are you talking to me or about the idea of the Beach Boys doing TLOS?

I was addressing the whole thread.

Perhaps I should bold it? Or italicize it? Underline it? Put a strike through it? Make it glow? Put it in shadows? Make it ?

:)

...

David Marks singing "California Role"

Ooh! Moving text!

(Sits and watches it all day.)

This is another one of those "what if my dog pooped gold nuggets?...kind of threads. I mean if you really want to put some serious thought into this...TLOS is totally informed by the '60's, '70's, '80's, 90's, '00's...by Brian's past catalog...by Landy, David Leaf, Joe Thomas, Melinda...and all of ours and the media's post 90's perceptions of Brian. Its a reaction to the post BWPS market. Its not a retro sounding record and the compositions are completely conscious of the now. This record could not have happened in the '70's. What if Brian had written Little Deuce Coupe yesterday instead of in 1963? Maybe Jeff would have sang the high part...and maybe the car would have been a hybrid. Sorry...but actually considering this kind of stuff puts me in a cynical mood. I think what I'm trying to say is, for me, the premise is too flawed to take seriously.

Agree Jon!  I'm not a fan of these kind of threads either.  Like what if the Beatles had put "All Things Must Pass" on Abbey Road.  It is all so hypothetical now.

I'd much rather think what the present day Beach Boys would do with TLOS live in concert.   I think TLOS would have been a much bigger commercial success as a Beach Boys album but that didn't happen.

Just trying to have a little fun, a little friendly discussion, talking about the music. It is a BEACH BOYS message board. ::)

Sheriff, don't you know that having a lighthearted discussion about something so sacred could only lead you straight to hell?

  :).............>>:D

Exactly.

Unlike Brian Wilson 88, I don§t think that TLOS would have been better with the other Boys...it is too self-consciously "solo", it is too autobiographical for anyone to sing it other than Brian Wilson. IMHO. It just doesn't work as a Beach Boys album. It works as an album from the ex-leader of the Beach Boys.

I can see the Beach Boys in 2008 singing the vocals on TLOS. It is essentially a 'Brian' album no matter what, but...remember Pet Sounds?

It would just be good to hear them trade verses again. My opinion, of course.

But Pet Sounds was not self-referential, and thats what I mean. The concept of the Beach Boys having broken up is somehow IN the album itself.

NOw, Im not saying the rest of his output wouldnt benefit from other lead vocals, whether from his current band or other Beach Boys...I just think that that albums works better with Brian singing the leads.

Southern California makes no sense with Carl and Dennis still alive.

Jon, you're right in asserting that LOS is a product of the now. In every respect. From that point of view, the initial post makes no sense.

But there is another, subjacent element that could be inferred from this whole topic: that Brian Wilson’s solo music is Beach Boys music sung by others. Now that could hardly move a number of die-hard BW fans: after all, Brian is the Beach Boys and all that…  But it is still a sour reminder of their wrongness to some superfan-authors that to this day preach about Brian having within himself this incredibly innovative, ultra-original, never-ending cascade of masterful genius music that an evil environment insists in dampening.

There’s never been any of that. In the then and in the now, BW’s music, solo or not, is beach boy music.

If every hypothetical thread were shot down as pointless or stupid, we'd probably have about 10 threads on this board. It's just fun. For f***'s sake. Not everything has to be serious digging deep into the minutiae of who farted during which session. So people wanted to play 'what if?' Not the first time, not the last. I don't think it's a sin to say "oh, Mike would have sounded good on this song or that."

Shame on you for even suggesting such a thing!  I hereby sentence you to 6 straight hours of listening to SUMMER IN PARADISE on repeat mode!

Just kidding, really.  Have fun with it.  It's what the board's here for.  :)

Oh yeah...I'm with ya on that. He can't really get away from it because what he does that is so great( and what the Brian Wilson band does that is so great) is create or re-create elements of the BB's  bliss. There are cases of him attempting to artistically ditch the BB's...but they always find him because he literally cannot get away from his own blood and soul...Smile(the best parts have the BB's bliss)...Love You(The Night was So Young...hey they found him again). When Brian hits the mark there is no doubt that the sound is BB's in one way or another. Even a Day in The Life Of A Tree sounds BB's...it has an element of the back seat of Murry's car with a nightmarish twist. I think the premise of this thread mainly turned me off because of the '70's suggestion...TLOS being so incredibly un-'70's at its absolute thematic and stylistic core. But yes if we took the best or peak voice of every Beach Boy and inserted them into TLOS in their appropriate places...those voices would certainly not be out of place with this material. He writes for the spectrum that those voices inhabit at his creative core.

Right...so take your own advice and stop taking what you perceive as too much seriousness so seriously.

Don't take what I take too seriously as people taking things too seriously too seriously.

Seriously?

Seriously. So anyway, if Dennis had recorded Pacific Ocean Blue as a mid-80s rap-meets-rock album, I think the Rev. Run would have sounded good on "Rainbows."

It's like trying to get John Fogerty to stop sounding so much like Creedence!  Same principle.  He WAS the sound, even though the other guys had a place in it. 

"I think that Mike could've written just as good of lyrics for TLOS!"

Not by the late 70s.  Early, maybe, in places.

I'm gonna respectfully disagree with a couple of points.

First, TLOS could've absolutely come out of the 1970's, especially the mid/late 1970's. There are a half dozen or so songs that could be used to construct a 1970's TLOS - "California Feelin", "Good Timin", "Back Home", "It's A Beautiful Day", "Endless Harmony", "Proud Mary", some of Love You, and even "Mike Come Back To L.A." And, it's not just the lyrical content; the songs have a similar feel. It's not a leap at all to envision Beach Boys' voices over TLOS. I don't see Brian breaking any new ground with TLOS; some linking of tracks with some awkward-sounding spoken words. That's a good description of BWPS - or "Mount Vernon And Fairway".

Second point....To say that Brian "can't get away from" the Beach Boys' sound. Well, he could have. He just chose not to, or no longer has the ability to. By scrapping SMiLE in 1967, many people have written that Brian "gave in" to the needs and wants of the group, and gave up his own personal, artistic vision. But, if you take a close look at the songs that Brian actually contributed to subsequent albums, you will find that they are really "out there". Brian DID abandon the classic Beach Boys' sound, either intentionallly or unintentionally. He basically wrote and recorded whatever the hell he wanted - commercial or not. After listening to those songs for the past 40 years, we're used to them by now. But, when they came out, there had to be a lot of "what the fu--" moments. "W. Woodpecker Symphony", "Gettin' Hungry", "I'd Love Just Once To See You", "Busy Doin' Nothin", "I Went To Sleep", "A Day In The Life Of A Tree" (most of it), "You Need A Mess Of Help", and even "Love Is A Woman". Those are just a few examples; they are NOT Beach Boys-sounding songs. Oh, I love 'em all. They're all "Brian", but they're not all classic Beach Boys'.

So, where am I going with this? When Brian chose (?) to be a solo artist, and step outside of the Beach Boys, and create the music in his head, stretch out a little (his words, not mine), music fans were led to believe that we might get something different, something "out there", at least something uniquely creative. What we got were Beach Boys' albums. All of them.

...But the thing is, I don't see why that rules out wondering what it'd have been like if the Beach Boys sang on it now.  As in, if this were one of the reunion records some people are desperately holding out for.

Cheers,
Jon Blum

For me, that makes the game much easier. It wouldn't sound nearly as good as it does. Whatever they could do then, none of the sexagenarians sings anywhere near as well as the people in Brian's band. I know some of you think magic blend conquers all, but I don't agree--at least not after all these years through such strained vocal cords and with so few Wilsons.

Obviously a lot of people feel the opposite.

Hasn't Brian said that some of those self-pity lyrics in TLOS were Bennet writing about himself? Maybe Brian was trying to communicate something.  :-D

Well ...the premise stated by the thread creator was..."What if the BB had recorded "TLS" in the mid-late 70's?"...and that's what my post that you copied was responding to...just to be clear. Later down the thread I also commented about the BB's "voices" from whatever era replacing the voices on TLOS which is a much different thing. I like the name Jon...its a classic.

Hey, maybe that European (I think) web site devoted to all the hidden malignant and downright Satanic significance to be found in the BB's music was on the right track after all!!

 >:D >:D >:D

 ;)

Fair enough -- that's what I get for paging back and forth between the "fantasy BW solo" thread and this one too quickly.  :-)

Cheers,
Jon Blum

I love the idea (or the idea OF the idea) and think it's perfectly valid.

The Beach Boys were ALL great singers with unique, individual uneffected voices that really sounded like no one else. And when locked in harmony they were simply mindblowing.... As great as Brian's band is, they just don't have that same magic as vocalists. They tend to sound bland, charachter-less, and wimpy to me. This is probably not a reflection on their own talents but rather the massive shoes that they are (like it or not/admit it or not) filling.

Brian sound great, but not like he did back in the day, so having Mike, Al and Bruce (who still sound pretty much the same as they ever did, especially Al) singing would be amazing, and would have certainly given TLOS a special magic.

MAYBE in the studio, but I doubt they could have pulled it off live. I disagree with your characterization of the BW band vocals, they just have a slightly "lighter" blend than the BBs.  But regardless, to do what they do live I think was beyond the old BBs. Not that they didn't do some great shows, but the BW band is the best live band I (and many others far more musically skilled than I) have ever heard.

Isn't that kind of like saying Beatlemania is better than the Beatles?

I mean, Beatlemania might BE better than the Beatles in terms of all their harmonies being spot on and note perfect every song/every time and their playing might be more polished and tighter than the actual Beatles...... BUT.....

........ they're NOT the Beatles.

.... Brian's band is NOT the Beach Boys....

Just sounds like more longing for that original Beach Boys sound.    It would be really nice to hear Carl and Al back doing ANYTHING with Brian.   But that isn't to be.   Maybe Mike and Al someday soon before it is too late.

But I have to say, the TLOS band sure have a nice sound of their own that I have come to really appreciate.

please don't get me wrong, I LOVE Brian's band. I've seen him/them several times, and it's always an amazing experience...... but yeah, it really is just a bit of longing for those wonderful individual voices of the Beach Boys.

It would be more like that if someone from Beatlemania had put together and gotten released an unfinished Sgt. Pepper, and another one had gotten together with Paul and co-written a very solid album. As much as people want the Wilson band to be nothing but soulless, lifeless karaoke machines, it just isn't true. Everyone is entitled to his opinion over which is better, but belittle the other in the process isn't really necessary.

Didn't say they were. Don't want them to be. They have earned the right to be who they are.

Understood, but to claim that The original Beach Boys couldn't ever pull off onstage what Brian's current band does, is somewhat rediculous and is belittling to the original Beach Boys who actually originally sang all the parts that the current band are imitating (Yes, imitating: obviously TLOS being an exception) .... They are not soulless karaoke robots, but don't have the warmth or the character of The original Beach Boys. Carl (the greatest singer of all-time, IMHO) Al, Dennis, and (yes) Mike sounded like no one else in the world: the guys in Brian's band could be anyone in the world and you could swap out any one of them for anyone else.

It's not necessarily an insult, it's just that "thing" that seperates legendary bands/singers from others.

I don't think there is anything ridiculous at all about saying the Beach Boys couldn't perform as accurately on stage as Brian's band does. I've never heard anything to convince me otherwise. Unfortunately, there isn't a way to know for sure, in that the Beach Boys weren't able to perform live in an environment with quality monitors with which to hear themselves--at least not when they could sing anywhere near their peaks. But don't assume that just because they put the music on album, they could pull it off so well live--not in terms of accuracy. You can talk about the intangibles/imaginary stuff all you want and there is no disputing such things. But hitting the right notes: nope. Nowhere near as consistently good.

But it's rediculous just in principle!

I'd much rather listen to Brian, Carl, Al, Bruce, Dennis, Mike sing a little off than listen to someone do note perfect impersonations of them....

Hell, why doesn't Brian's band just go re-record the vocals on all the Beach Boys albums? They'd do a better job, right?

Sure, they might be "better" but they wouldn't be the Beach Boys.

No one in Brian's band can remotely touch Carl in terms of voice! Not even Brian!

There is nothing ridiculous about anything I have said, in principle or otherwise. And by hinting that anything I've said would imply that I think the band ought to go re-record Beach Boys albums just tells me this discussion may as well end, because you're not getting what I am saying at all.

Nah, it's like saying that McCartney's live band in the 2000s runs circles around the Beatles, because their Paperback Writer is spot on while the renditions in the 1966 world tour were a bit in the sloppy side.

Still, would anyone here exchange a time travel to the Candlestick farewell concert for a Paul solo gig in 2006? Step on, oh people who want to hear performances just-like-the-record!  :-D

No, it really isn't like that at all. And I don't think anyone said they necessarily want to hear performances just like the record. But I give up. Dennis was cute, Carl was an angel, Brian was a tortured genius, Mike didn't like to f*** with the formula, Blondie and Ricky added muscle to the live show, Bruce sucks ass and Al is short. Oh, and David was forgotten for a long time. There. Now I'm in lock-step with the orthodoxy. gods bless America.

I completely get what you're saying! I just don't agree with it. "Getting" a point of view and agreeing with it are not mutually exclusive.

Compared to the original Beach Boys, Brian's band has performed only a mere fraction of the stage hours logged by Mike, Carl, Bruce, Brian, Dennis, Al (in whatever combination).... These guys kicked ass and kept the Beach Boys a valid concert attraction (through all the ups and downs) while Brian was in bed. It's insulting and stupid and blind to suggest that they could never match onstage what Brian's band does nowadays. Who cares if no one in Brian's band ever falls out of key at any time? There's so much more personality, authenticity, and history in what the original Beach Boys did, falling over drunk.

I'll bet any of the guys (or gals) in Brian's band could certrainly sing the hell out of "You Are So Beautiful" and blow Dennis away note-wise, pitch-wise!

Right?

If that's what you want, go for it!

Ok, how isn't it?

"But I give up. Dennis was cute, Carl was an angel, Brian was a tortured genius, Mike didn't like to foda with the formula, Blondie and Ricky added muscle to the live show, Bruce sucks ass and Al is short. Oh, and David was forgotten for a long time."


uh, no!!!!!

They WERE the fucking BEACH BOYS!!!!

No, you don't get what I'm saying. You're proving it further with every post. See, I didn't say that it's necessarily better to be note-perfect. Neither did I suggest the Beach Boys were an inferior band (which their body of work would easily refute, as much as I love the Wondermints...). All I've been saying is that 1) the Beach Boys didn't sing as accurately live, on stage, as the current band, and 2) the current band is nowhere near as faceless or soulless as they are constantly ragged on for being. That's it. I'm sorry I don't believe in the magic that some of you seem to, the undefinable quality (it's called "nostalgia" by the way) or blend that the old band had. The band--bands, really--was (were) great. But it wasn't Jesus, Buddha, Ganesha, Odin and Zeus up there: it was just a bunch of different guys over the years. They weren't a singularly angel-touched band. They were guys who sang well, played all right, wrote some great, a lot of good and some dogshit songs. Sometimes I think the post-Beatles breakup Lennon interviews should be daily required reading for everyone.

It isn't in that I never said the current band runs circles around the Beach Boys. Never even implied it. If anything, you could have said something like "Paul's band is more technically accurate than the Beatles were," which may be true (although not paying attention to McCartney, I have no idea). The judgment calls are all your (that's plural--southern y'all, spanish vosotros) doing, not mine. I'm not talking about technical differences, not qualitative ones.

Why on earth are you a Beach Boys fan? Or are you just a Brian fan?

Either way!

????????

No, I love the Beach Boys. Along with the Velvet Underground, Beatles and Tom Waits, they're my favorite band ever. But fandom doesn't have to equal worship. There's nothing wrong with cool-headedness. I can love (and I'm making these numbers up, which is hopefully obvious) 15%, like 50%, feel ambivalent toward 20% and actively hate 15% without the latter 15% affecting the positive 65% at all. It's not an all-or-nothing life. We don't all have to be little David Leafs.

That wankfest by a bitter dude who thought way too much of himself? No thanks. If I want real myth-debunking, i go for National Lampoon's "Genius is Pain".

Yes, it's a wankfest. Yes, he was bitter. And yes, he thought way too much of himself. That said, the myth-busting is valuable. (Fits right into my theme of the moment of 'it's not all or nothing.')

Ok, fair enough. Goin' around in circles is making me feel dizzy anyway.  :-D

"We don't all have to be little David Leafs."

haha, low blow!!!!!! ;)


Ok, ok, I'm of the opinion there was a wonderous magic there between the Wilson Brothers and Al and Mike that can never be replicated, just as the magic between John, Paul, George, and Ringo will never be replicated!

Call me a fanboy!!!!!!

I'd agree with you if Mr. Lennon didn't point fingers at everyone who had been part of his life... but himself.

I'd agree that the music they made can't be replicated. But it's not magic. And other music can be made, should be made and deserves to be heard without the specter of both what was real and what is mythological casting an absurdly large shadow. In the case of certain bands who shall remain nameless (literally, actually), that's hard to do when one considers whose material they're doing most of the time.

Which part don't you agree with? Mythbusting being valuable or that particular batch of it? Regardless, there's something essential about hearing someone say such things bluntly, whatever his other sins.

That particular batch. Saying such things bluntly is alright with me, but when everyone else is wrong and you were always right, why bother?

What the hell, Luther? You were going on and on about sacred cows, and now you're going out of your way to defend that wankfest. You really need some 'Genius is Pain'.  :)

Don't make me quote Mick n keith: "It's the singer, not the song"!!

Of course it's not magic as in some Warlock in a castle somewhere stewing a pot of pig's feet and baby hearts, but music IS alchemy to a large extent. To make music, one has to manipulate the elements (air, electricity, ect) and the human soul/mind/heart/body and combine it all into something that gets pushed through wires and tubes and splatters itself on a vinyl record or a CD or MP3 or be sung/played out through speakers n mics, drums, guitars on a stage..... There's nothing wrong with being touched in a deep, spiritual way via communication through music.....I mean, I could drop quote after quote from Brian and Carl and Dennis blathering on and on about such things.... Of course, one can take a more academic remove and say it's all by and by and anyone can sing play and touch the world just as much as the Beatles and The Beach Boys did, but it's simply not true and not half as fun!!!!! I mean,  IF the Beach Boys music has touched me in such a profound way (assuming I'm not the only one)......  just what are the real chances that it has NOTHING to do with the individuals who wrote sang and played on the records and performed onstage????

I'm not defending anything except the practice of bringing things down to earth.

The song may be nothing without the singer, but the converse is just as true, all that "sing the phonebook" bullshit notwithstanding.

Hmmmmmmm, yes, the converse is indeed true, but I can listen to (and frequently do) Carl sing "Livin With A Heartache" over and over again and get so much joy out of it, the damm song might as well be "God Only Knows'!

There's no accounting for taste. And I don't mean that as an insult.

haha! no offense taken!!! my fingers actually hurt in shame while typing the sentence regarding Living With A Heartach!

Beach Boys = way better singers on record
Brian's band = way better singers live

Just my opinion anyway

IMO, one of the main reasons Brian's band sounds so "impressive" compared to some of The Beach Boys' incarnations is because of the numbers. Compare the number of voices singing in Brian's band to the number of "singers" in the Beach Boys' band(s). I don't mean to oversimplify, but sometimes, quantity can overshadow quality. In this case, it certainly hides mistakes and highlights important parts of songs.

They are certainly bitter, but the Playboy ones I have in paperback and read frequently. I don't like the short shrift he gives Macca every now and then, but he does give Paul his due every now and then. I think his thoughts on most of the Beatles songs are spot on and his honesty is the exact opposite of the BS most entertainers give. That said, I do have to agree with some statements that John was more mature at 25 than 35. Hope I don't sound wishy-washy  :p :lol

You know I don't care if my everybody shouts about what I am going to say, I'm going to say it. The blend of Brian's band's voices, to these years, surpases the blend the Beach Boys had without Dennis. NOT on the covers of BB material like "Breakaway" or "Fun, Fun, Fun," but on Brian's new stuff like "Lay Down Burden" on the Roxy album or "Midnight's Another Day" or something like "Love and Mercy," it's ten times beter than the post 1977 blend the BB had (knowing that Dennis passed on six years later). This is one of the main reasons why I'm so-so on a BB reunion; WITHOUT pro-tools, autotone, delay, echo, reverb windex and a very creative producer Mike, Bruce, Brian and Al probably wouldn't have the spine-tingling texture that Darian, Scott, Nicky, Probyn, Taylor, Foskett, Nelson, Mikey, Paul and Brian have on stage (even if Brian's flat sometimes). You can call be Blue, you can call be a Brianista, I don't care! I like their vocies better. However, if Carl or Dennis were still with us, I'd be all for it. Just needed to get that off my chest.

With that I'm making a swift exit of this stage and shouting "Goodnight, everybody!"

Fair enough, but I'll be dammed if I can listen to Brian with his current band and single out a single member's individual voice, whereas, even while locked in the most intricate of harmonies, Dennis/Carl/Mike/Al/Bruce/Brian all sounded very unique and strong as individual voices which made their blend special, and what made them THE BEACH BOYS! Yell all you want that it was ALL Brian..... It was not.

Maybe Brian's current band are technically better singers than the BBs, but does it really matter? Pavarotti blows away everyone in the world singing-wise if we want to go down that rabbit-hole!

That's 10 against 4; that's my point. You can hide a lot of clunkers and bring out a lot of interesting notes with 10 singers.

 WITHOUT pro-tools, autotone, delay, echo, reverb windex and a very creative producer Mike, Bruce, Brian and Al probably wouldn't have the spine-tingling texture that Darian, Scott, Nicky, Probyn, Taylor, Foskett, Nelson, Mikey, Paul and Brian have on stage (even if Brian's flat sometimes).

[/quote


This begs the obvious comment: WITHOUT pro-tools, autotune, echo, windex.... The mere four Beach Boys (not including Brian) recorded all those great albums we love and performed tons and tons and tons of great shows. Sure, they had some vocal help from Billy Hinsche, Bobby Figeruroa, ect..... but can you make out any of those guy's voices on live recordings? No, but you can sure tell Mike, Carl, Brian, Al, Dennis, Bruce....

I agree the Beach Boys all have something special that no one can replace. Even when the group was together, nobody sounded as good singing Sail On Sailor as Blondie after he left, Brian's sixties and early seventies parts never sounded the same without him there.

There is much to enjoy about Brian's band but no none of them stand out like any of the Beach Boys at least to me. I have only once gotten to see a band with all the original members and that was Black Sabbath. There was just something kind of organically right about having them all there. It's not nostalgia for me because I am 32, it's just that the feel is right.

As far as the Beach Boys doing what Brian's band does, there are less people so in a way they couldn't. Yet (and this is important) they did have the talent to do it just as well. I saw the 93 box set tour and they were doing music ever bit as complex and faithful as Brian's solo group. Plus you had the real guys singing it. Solo l Brian is the easily the best but I saw Mike and Bruce with an orchestra and they were inspired. The Here Today with Mike doing his original lead knocked the hell out of Brian's solo version. So the talent was/is there. Sadly the Beach Boys from 1976-97 rarely did a setlist that showed that talent off properly so that is where they fail compared to Brian's group.

You have a good point there, I admit.

Except the BB live shows had a lot more than 4 people.  And in the studio they used lots of echo, reverb, and multiple overdubs, etc.

I can easily pick out Darian's voice, it's very distinctive. I'm CERTAIN you can often pick out Taylor and Jeff without any difficulty. I can usually pick out Nick and Scott easily. And Brian of course... But there are times when the BW band's blend is so precise I can't tell who it is for sure.

The BW band can't ever have the same place in history as the BBs, since they weren't around. They can't replace your memories, nor should they. But for me, who's seen both bands live a number of times - the BW band can do things even the "augmented" BBs couldn't approach. That includes performing TLOS live, which was responding to the original subject of the post.

Very well put!


The original post was asking what if the Beach Boys had recorded TLOS and I started all the fracas by saying it would have been better with the Beach Boys, and my only real reasonaing was that it would have been better simply because it would have sounded like THE BEACH BOYS, which, alas, Bian's band does not sound like.... They have their own unique sound (Taylor helps this in a major way) which I think is really special and impressive., but they're not the Beach Boys. It's not a matter of who's better and can pull off this or that on stage vs who can't, it's just a by-product of being a Beach Boys fan rather than just a Brian fan.... We can't go back in time..... Though I do think the original Smile tracks with The Beach Boys singing is better than the 2004 version!

You just can't beat Carl!!!!!!

Good points about picking out Brians band-members voices but to be fair The Beach Boys all sang leads on record so the listener knew what they sounded like. Most of Brians band do just get lost in the mix on stage.

I also think if you were to ask Jeff and co in 1999 what they would be doing in the next 10 years I doubt they would have guessed the BW gig would have lasted this long and recorded, so called, new material. From memory the band was put together not to sound like the live Beach Boys but to replicate the band on record. Hence the high numbers on back up vocal plus the skilled musicianship.

I guess to make a real interesting vocal mix on Brians TLOS and SMiLE albums he could have got some Mike, Carl, Dennis, Al stand-ins and multi tracked them as he did in the old days but the intention was to tour those albums so it made sense to keep the recording in-house I guess. 

Brian's band is great to be sure.

But, lead vocals aside, the vocal sound on Stars & Stripes beats the hell out of  the 'Mints & Co. The mature BBs, with Matt and Carl, well recorded and rehearsed, still had this matchless blend.

And with all the "studio magic" that people around here constantly, publicly abhor. There's a lot more going on there than some guys standing around a mic.

Definitely, the difference in the Nashville film of the natural singing during a rehearsal of "I Can Here Music" and the filmed shots of the backgrounds for almost every shot are immense. Judging by Youtube clips, anyway.

There is a place for all of them. You can't really compare The Beach Boys and Brian's mind really.  Brian's band is not made to replace The Beach Boys. They are not trying to be The Beach Boys at all. They are just replicating the sound live and paying homage in their own way. I don't understand the attacks on them, as I think they are exceptional musicians and great people (well, most of them anyway.) I can't even imagine myself The Beach Boys doing this album lol.