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right up to the point where the writer threw in "Kokomo".  Argggghhh!

http://jazztimes.com/articles/26443-brian-wilson-gershwin-at-the-beach

Jim

And then there's this quote:

"The legendarily reclusive Wilson’s recorded output has been sparse, to say the least, in recent decades."

I guess a dozen albums over the past twenty odd years isn't enough to qualify as an active recording artist, not to mention that the "reclusive" Mr. Wilson has been traveling the world and appearing in virtually every media platform in the last decade.

I know, it's hard to kill the legend...

I never get how these guys got through grammar school.  I'm not one to be picky about how people write, and I certainly make enough mistakes, but count the commas in this next sentence.

"He would, as the driving force behind the Beach Boys, creators and perennial custodians of rock’s breezy, surf-washed California sound, emerge as the poster boy for clean-cut, WASP-y, all-American, middle-class privilege and easy self-confidence."

A comma makes you go off into a tangent, he goes off into 7.  He throws in 6 hypens while he's at it.  I guess they just do that sh*t because they can.  I think it hurts the review, makes it more of a pain to read. 

“Nothing But Love” is not only more formidable but also overflows with Beach Boys redolence."

Moron. How can one be so utterly naive or indifferent to the basic rules of the English language?


"Wilson is no jazz vocalist, not does he pretend to be; and he occasionally exhibits the tendency, so common among rockers who make late-career forays into classic pop and show tunes, to sing a little too loud."

Apart from the inherent stupidity and superfluity of punctuation, what's all this sh/t about 'late-career forays into classic pop'...? What on earth does this half-wit writer think Brian Wilson was doing for most of the 1960s.

By "classic pop" he means standards -- Gershwin, Cole Porter, the great American songbook.

Mr. Wilson, a famed recluse, once spent his entire life in bed and was so fat. ITs crazy. Now he's back and he has gray hair but he's sing the song. And it sounds great

Geez, give the guy a break.  You don't have to know every waking detail about Brian Wilson to form an opinion about his album.  The name of the website is jazztimes; not BrianWilsontimes. 

The problem with this sentence isn't the punctuation but rather its overblown language and overuse of adjectives. All of the commas and hyphens are used correctly. The commas are needed to set off the appositive phrase (creators and perennial custodians...) and to separate the adjectives. As for the hyphens, when two adjectives are combined to describe a noun or noun phrase (e.g., surf-washed describing California sound), it's called a unit modifier and requires a dash between them. (I don't really see the need for the hyphen in WASP-y, though.)  Don't make me come out there and diagram the sentence!  :police: 

I'd like to see Brian's reaction if this guy interviewed him and asked, "How does it feel to be a creator and perennial custodian of rock's breezy, surf-washed California sound?"  :lol

I wasn't saying that he incorrectly used the punctuation or the hypens or the commas or whatever.  Like I said, I'm no one to lecture on grammar. 

The whole problem with the sentence is that he structured it that way.  It's just crazy to write things so overblown... no sentence needs 7 commas and 6 hypens.  If you get to the point, you're way off mark and it's no longer interesting to read that crap.  Ultimately I agree with you, that's the same point I was getting at. 


AGAIN, though, as i often say, it's probably not necessarily his fault, but his editors. 

The entire sentence works very well for me, and is properly constructed from a grammatical standpoint.  I think it's important to remember that very few reviewers are members of the Smiley Smile Message Board (and its equivalents) and should not be expect to be.  As irritating as it can be to encounter reviewer inaccuracies, I don't think any of us would want to read album reviews which were written exclusively by ultra-fans (sorry about the hyphen, but it makes sense in this context  :))  who, as a condition of writing a review, (sorry again about the commas, but, once again, they make sense here  :)) were required to be totally conversant in the many historical details and finer nuances of the artist(s) in question.

'Scary. Have anything with you? Uppers? Downers?'

From his profile: 'After long stints at TV Guide and Inside Entertainment, Loudon served as the founding editor-in-chief of the Canadian edition of Hello! magazine. He is currently executive publisher and editor-in-chief of Marketing magazine, the Canadian equivalent of Advertising Age..'

In other words, he should know better. Try reading his other articles on the site - they sound as if they were written by idiot too.

Its not just that he doesn't know very much a bout Brian Wilson, its that his writing is so crass and moronic.

'So, with so many oars simultaneously pulling in the right direction, why didn’t Sommers star rise higher?'

It's so bad it almost attains a kind of greatness. Gah... ::)

man, you fanboys are harsh. The review was fine.

You don't need a comma before the word "but". The word "but", as a conjunction, does the same job within the structure of a sentence as a comma. A very common error. Normally you would also have been better to have had your comma after the closing bracket of the bracketed phrase rather than before though, given the nature of the phrase within those brackets, it could be allowed.

Why the administrators allow such disregard for punctuation and don't delete posts which are clearly so disrespectful of the English language, I doesn't know.

that that is is that that is not is not that that is not is not that that is that that is is not that that is not.

Punctuate the above sentence :)

I'm doing a degree in english and I can barely READ that sentence!

I'd rather puncture my own brain. Hurts less, that's why.

"The legendarily reclusive Wilson’s recorded output has been sparse, to say the least, in recent decades."

You don't have to be a Beach Boys fan to be able to know that this simply isn't true. Just type in "Brian Wilson" on Wikipedia and within seconds you'll know that he's been touring all over the world and that he released nine studio albums in the past 22 years. That's not a sparse recorded output! In fact, you won't find many major pop acts who have released nine studio albums since 1988. Madonna, Paul McCartney, Red Hot Chili Peppers, U2, Rolling Stones, Sting, you name 'em: none of them released as many studio albums since 1988 as Brian did.

I don't think he needs to be a superfan.  I'm just saying he should write in a more user friendly way.  Just because you CAN write a certain way doesn't mean you should. 

"Brian Wilson, once thought insane, largely because of drug use, which in the 60's was often deemed harmless, largely because of their widespread availability and the unknown long-term side effects (after all it had only been mainstream for a few years), has returned, after a long hiatus, although at his age why can't he take some time off, to bring us a new album, although new isn't really new when the artist he's covering, as many artists make cover albums late in their career, died early in life, and hasn't been writing since the thirties"

I mean that's an exxageration but why break up the flow so much?  That's just all I'm saying. 

I am with Ron. Style is a beast entirely different from correctness.

what????

One of you guys should leave a comment on the Jazz Times site (about the distorted info, rather than about the writing style).

Darn, I overlooked the 'once spent his entire life in bed and was so fat' bit first time about. Hahahahaaaaaaaaaaa.... I can testify I saw him in London 2 times.  What the heck is going on?

The review sounds like a fractured translation.   Possibly translatified by George W.

Perhaps. Read this text first, and then guess how it came into being:

"Brian Wilson, the ultra-celebrated, genius-mastermind behind the Beach Boys and legendary recluse, has reemerged from his bedroom, triumphantly, after a mega-long layoff of 3 years, to bring us a new album of all new reinterpretations from one of America's greatest songwriter's, George Gershwin."

Hey this is easy, can I be a pretentious, music journo butt-monkey too?

[Perhaps. Read this text first, and then guess how it came into being:

[/quote]
Sounds like an auto-translatifier.

Sounds like an auto-translatifier.
[/quote]

...is the right answer. I fed the Rolling Stone review through Babelfish and made it German, and then back again to English.

PS in Holland a defendant was set free because of a procedural error in court, recently. Turned out that statements of this foreigner (Latvian, I think, or something) had been translated with Google Translator, and then used officially, because the certified translator wasn't there in time...

Actually it sounds pretty pompous.  Possibly Ghost Written by Barack Obama's speech writer.

OH SNAP!!

We need a thread for translating BB's lyrics using Google Translator.  I just translated "they'll eat their words with a fork and spoon" to simplified Chinese and back to English. I got "They will eat with a fork and spoon their words."  ???

I love the "baby-full-grown-male Känguru George Gershwin" description of Brian.

Then it would be full of bad ideas and empty promise.

Jeesh, I was terribly close to using google translator for one of my college spanish term papers - sooooooo glad I didn't.

The first career save for an aspiring young person by the Smiley Smile Dot Net Message Board is now official. I drink to that!

Guys...can we PLEASE leave the political comments out of this?!