The Smiley Smile Message Board

Shocking, proves good music still get's heard

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7016065220?Former%20Beach%20Boy%20Brian%20Wilson%27s%20New%20Single%20Makes%20Waves%20On%20Adult%20Contemporary%20Radio (http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7016065220?Former%20Beach%20Boy%20Brian%20Wilson%27s%20New%20Single%20Makes%20Waves%20On%20Adult%20Contemporary%20Radio)

Even better, #1 Most Added at Adult Contemporary radio

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/brian-wilson-single-what-love,922380.shtml (http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/brian-wilson-single-what-love,922380.shtml)

Seems like he should promote the song by performing it live on upcoming concert dates, and perhaps his official website should say something about the single.

Does anyone know how much of the song Brian wrote?

A very pretty melody and Brian sounds good.  I'm concerned that that was the best video footage the could get of Brian?

I just heard it on the radio this afternoon. Almost wrecked the car I was so surprised.

"The celebrated musicians all went back into the studio to recreate one of their all-time hits as well as record a brand new song. The new album will give fans a fresh take on timeless classics while offering an up-to-date example of the musicians' artistry that represents pop, rock, folk and jazz."

"brand new song... fresh take... up to date..." - is it just me, or is someone seriously bending the trades descriptions act here ?  Someone needs to have a sharp word with 429 concerning their copywriting department.

Don't get me wrong, I'm delighted for Brian, and I do like the song... but it ain't new.

Really, how old is it?

Came out in 2007. 

Recorded at Oceanway fall 2006, released on the 180 Music CD New Music From An Old Friend February 2007 - the CD was only on sale in Target stores, but you could also (and still can) buy it on the 180 website. This 'new' version doesn't have the tracks by Carole King, and has an extra Stephen Bishop number... but that aside, exactly the same as the 2007 release.

By Brian Wilson standards, that's new. I mean, in a 48-year career, a two-year-old song is new.

Good question...there were 3 credited writers. One thing, though... it's a 99.9% certainty that Burt Bacharach did not write the lyrics.

The song always sounded more Burt than Brian.  Not a bad little tune though. 

That is precisely my complaint from our original thread on this reissue. It's great they are reissuing it and it's great that it seems to be getting promotion and airplay. But do they have to lie?

When has any promotion concerning Brian in his solo years ever been truthful?

Not his fault, his people milk him for everything he's got

FYI (For Your Indulgence):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OjnJBypWdA

I liked the "behind the scenes" footage.  What studio is this?

Hmm hasn't been lighting up anywhere near me. His management could use some help in terms of getting back with some folks who actually want to promote him  ::)

It hasn't in Columbus Ohio as far as I can tell.  I called Sunny 95 last night and requested it, but they never played it.

Brian says he wrote the verses and Burt wrote the choruses.  The other dude wrote the lyrics.

Assuming it was shot on location, Oceanway.

Thanks c-man, sorry I had it backwards everyone.

Well technically it is a new song.  The Target release was limited.  This is a national release. 

Heck, never mind Brian -- plenty of established artists sit on songs that long.  A bunch of songs on U2's album from February 2009 were recorded in June 2007.  Half of Paul McCartney's "Memory Almost Full" (2007) dated from around 2003.  It's not the '60s any more, where "Let It Be" taking over a year to go from first studio date to release was extravagant... sitting on things for a while is pretty routine.

Cheers,
Jon Blum

I'm glad that this song is getting a wider audience through a re-release and some airplay.  I've always enjoyed it and thought that it slipped through the cracks when it was released.

Its a nice song. Brian's voice has sounded better in recent years then it did 5 or 6 years ago! I just wish that BWPS had the vocal quality of TLOS. Do you think Capitol has something to do with cleaning up his vocals?

Wasn't this recorded before he signed to Capitol, though?

You're missing the point - this is not a new release, despite what the 429 press release will have you believe.

I think the vocal quality has to do with band members or producers pushing BW. On WLCD, it's Phil Ramone. On TLOS, it's Scotty Bennett.

Yes, AGD, but does it really matter? At all? I think it's time for you to meditate.

Historical accuracy matters. In everything. That's why some regimes burn books.

Thank you for the clip, but man, is Jeff Brian's legal guardian?  ::)

What difference does it make if they promote it as a new song? What else are they supposed to say? Check out the new album "What Love Can Do"  featuring the lead single which was written by Brian Wilson a few years ago. Who cares? Just be glad he's actually getting promotion for a single.

Yeah - fall 2006.

Yeah...esp when it was originally released BEFORE TLOS.

Can't speak for anyone else, but for me it's the principle of it.  I value honesty over all else.

Andrew, with all due respect, this is just pop music and it is  just a pop song, not the Taliban.  In the great scheme of things, it's just not that important.  I can't get myself worked up over the fact that this record company is promoting this as a brand new release. I reserve my ire for far more deserving targets. 

Yup, just music, no argument there - but it's a quirk of mine, goes back to grade school and something that happened to me. Indulge me. Better still, ignore me.  ;D

That high note in the chorus doesn't really sound like him, does it? the to-GEH-ther.... or at least, he hasn't sounded like that since Imagination

Accuracy does matter whether or not the subject is pop music, because the issue is truth in advertising. No, the year of recording (or original, limited release) of a single pop song might not matter. But do P.R. firms deserve leeway to say whatever they want, whenever they want, because they're hired to make "the message" as exciting as possible? Say, cigarettes don't cause cancer and Vioxx is good for your heart? Extremes, sure. Same concept, though. It's all always a matter of degree.

There are alternatives to saying either "brand new" or "recorded in 2006."

I get Andrew's point... in fact I've got it umpteen times on this thread now!!!!

But Luther's gotten to the heart of the matter:

"Who needs Vioxx when you've got What Love Can Do - the all-brand-new cancer-curing hit 45 from hip n' happening BRIAN WILSON! At record stores now  - we're sure to have sold a million units when it was originally released"

It's just a pop record. Asking for honesty in a music biz PR blitz (did Bob Dylan REALLY run away from home hopping freight train to freight train?) is like asking my 85 year old grandmother to break dance. It's not gonna happen. I don't really care how the company is promoting Brian's record. The fact that it was previously releaed should not have any beaiung on one's enoyment or displeasure with the track. This is benign compared to what the tobacco industry got away with for years. To even compare the two underestimates the former.  Do PR firms deserve carte blache in spreading their message? That's not for us to judge. PR is what it is. You can allow yourself to be sucked in by it or you can choose to ignore it.

Every time I have seen Andrew complain about how clueless the Blooeys and the people here about its release, I get a little upset. To many people, IT IS a new record - the damn thing was never publicized that well in the first place! (I never found it in any Target stores I visited). I'm willing to forgive the less rabid fan's lack of knowledge.  That's all I'm asking.

Yes, it is benign in comparison. To compare the two doesn't underestimate the former because you have no idea how I estimate the former (and a comparison doesn't typically have two equal parts ... I said as much in my post). Yes it is for us to judge. Yes it is what it is. And it's basically the business I'm in, so I pay quite a bit of attention to it, good and bad. (Filthy racket for the most part, by the way.)

As for the blueboard stuff, doesn't even matter to me. That was the first board I took part in and I still think it's fine for what it is. Sure, the consistently positive tone of such longtime members is surprising and not my thing, but whatever. Irrelevant to my side of this discussion.

I hear Mike is retaliating with a new single called "What Wilson Can Do", tagged for graphic language and content. Flipside is "This Isn't Wilson".

On the more positive side, Mike has also written a song about Carl, called "The Good Kind Of Wilson".

Nicely put. Good Vibes was new to me in 1976 when it was re-issued to promote 20 Golden Greats. It turned me on to the most amazing music I've ever heard. If WLCD does the same for some folks, then they can do/say what they will if it has that result.

So am I. Also happy to see tha many people are pushing the "chill out" button as well.

Heck, to me Imagination is still one of Brian's "new" albums.

That's missing my point -- far as the world is concerned, it's new enough to qualify as new.  Even if it's been sitting around for a while, even if it was released on an obscure, barely-distributed album a year or two back.  Songs that have been sitting around like that are fairly routine.

Seriously -- when "Sail On Sailor" was re-released and did better than it did the first time around, was your first reaction to complain "but it's not new"?  When the audience finally discovered "Come Go With Me" three years after its original release on a contractual-obligation album sank without a trace, was that a problem?  Or is the more important thing that people are getting to hear a cool song they've never had brought to them before?

Cheers,
Jon Blum

If you wanted truth in advertising, you were out of luck with the Beach Boys from the moment Capitol had four non-surfers posing with a surfboard.

It's absolutely not the same concept as tobacco advertising, because there's no capacity for harm.  Kinda like there's no way to equate this with book-burning, because there's no fact that's being destroyed or suppressed.  They're marketing the release of a new single and album; the fact that it was available in a limited way is a footnote to that.  Which can be acknowledged when it's necessary, but in the case of this press release, it's not actually necessary.

Cheers,
Jon Blum

I've got a mate named Andrew Pixley, he's a television historian.  He is the go-to guy for accuracy and detail, whether you want to know how many people complained to the BBC about the shocking horror of "The Quatermass Experiment" in 1953, in which order the episodes of "The Goodies" or "The Prisoner" were made, credits of writers and directors across the industry, whether actors got sacked or left of their own accord, even which studio day specific scenes of "Doctor Who" were made on.  The stuff he's brought to my attention has been delightful, informative, surprising, and an utter joy to the list-making, sense-making part of my head.

So I get the accuracy thing, I know what a delight it can be simply to get the truth in order and out there, and that's why the Bellagio site is so great.

But you can't lose your sense of humor or perspective either.  These details are important for the history books (and no one's burning them), but not so much for the packaging of a single.

Cheers,
Jon Blum

When I hear what is supposed to br a "new Brian Wilson song" I immediately begin to think this represents how he is "doing" NOW.  We all watch his progress, don't we?  So this "new" release is  a bit of a scam to hard core fans.......or is it?   Seems people here were all over this immediately.  So no one was scammed for long.

As for promotions of "new" releases and how they are hyped to the distributors and public, I have an original Billboard  magazine that includes a mention of the sale of the BB catalogue to IRVING music and a take on how Woodstock will profit eventually from record and movie sales.  And hype on the demand that will ensue upon release of various releases of the day, both new, stale, and putrid.

Some of the hyped material became classic but most was just trying to sell records by artists under expensive contract to record companies.

The Rolling Stones have been releasing held back and warmed over material for 30 years and no one made much of it.

I think my point here is that good music rises to the top like cream despite hype or misrepresention of its birth or timeframe.

Do you like this song?   Why was the release delayed?  Does it matter if the song is good?

Folks, AGD is AGD, and that's why we have the excellent Bellagio website (thanks also to c-man and others, of course). So, take the good and the bad of the equation. Though, personally, his bickering about the WLCD PR campaign doesn't bother me at all. It's just a thread in a message board.

Yeah, but this is just a message board about just a pop group. So you're allowed to make a really big deal out of things like these here. That's what boards like these are all about.

There are some great points of view above.  But I'm with AGD on this.  It's very easy to say 'available, widely, for the first time" or something like that. 

Is this important in the big picture of things happening in this world we live in?  No.  But it's so easily possible to get things right if the people involved would only do so.  It wouldn't or shouldn't change sales.  If the readers are fans and didn't know about it they're going to buy it anyway.  If they're not then it doesn't matter.  Just a thought.

Isn't it possible that the PR person who wrote the press release was just misinformed and didn't bother to check the facts? Brian's management says it's "new" because it's in wide release-- "We need a press release for Brian's new single." And all of a sudden it's "brand new." Brian's management sees the error but figures it's not a big deal. It's brand new to most people. They never anticipated that the Smiley Smile people take such a personal interest in Brian's songwriting habits that they'd nitpick over this.

I mean, if this is the kind of deception the insiders have been hinting at over the years, I'm not too worried.

I think it's quite simple: true or not, "new song" sounds a heck of a lot better in a press release than "some three year old song that remained practically unnoticed until we decided to give it a publicity boost".

So has it hit the Billboard AC Chart?

Except that... in this instance, Brian's 'management' (and I use the word in its very loosest context here) have yet to say word one about this (re)release, as far as I can see. So... business as usual, then.  ;D

It's not just that I want truth in advertising, but that I want truth in everything. Any individual example of its absence may not be a big deal in and of itself, but to me it's something important and I am disappointed when others don't agree with that. But I understand that others don't agree with that. So, such is life.