The Smiley Smile Message Board

I know lots of people tend to knock MIU album.. but I actually (overall) dig it, and think it's underrated.

It’s got a few relative clunkers, but to me, nothing that’s really super bad, just a few mediocre/cheesy tracks like Winds of Change and Kona Coast, and those are still sort of listenable. Most Beach Boys albums tend to have a clunker or two, that's just the way it seems to always have been.

I think that, despite lame lyrics on Matchpoint of our Love, that the song is rad and the music (and Brian’s vocals) transcends the lyrics. Hey Little Tomboy is embarrassing but I dig it as a guilty pleasure.

Tracks like Sweet Sunday Kind of Love, Belles of Paris, and My Diane I find to be very underrated tracks in the BB cannon. I dig the production and little late ‘70s flourishes, and good Beach Boys harmonies and vocals are definitely to be found on this record.  Maybe it's something I can only appreciate as a hardcore fan of the band, but I'll defend a good portion of the record as being pretty solid, compared to its reputation.

They've done worse for sure but there is only one really good song on MIU and tellingly it was a leftover from the year before "My Diane". Lots of the backing tracks to my ears sounds like The Carpenters on a really bad day.

I honestly don't think you need anything other than My Diane from this record. Hey Little Tomboy is the only really offensive thing on it, but it's just really dull. I prefer L.A out of the twofer.

I realise this is an appreciation thread, so I'll try and say something nice too  ;D

Erm....

It is as you say, quite well produced - they were obviously going for the polished soft-rock thing, and if you dig that (and can look past the snooze-inducing/horrifying matierial), there's a lot to like. And the harmonies are mostly still there. Oh, and Come Go With Me is the best of Al's misguided covers during the later years.

Love My Diane and Pitter Patter. Don't mind Wontcha Come Out Tonight and Winds of Change.  The 15 BO tracks belong on 15 BO.  The rest is painful, to put it mildly, though Al's production does a decent job of smoothing things over.  Adding Winter Symphony, Lines  and the big band numbers from Adult Child (roughly from that period) at the expense of Tomboy, She's Got RhythmMatch Point and Kona Coast might've helped. Just. Wouldn't have sounded like MIU, of course, but it would've had several substantial BW tracks.  Wouldn't have minded if they could've found a way to add the Double Rock Baptist version of That Same Song...

Fantasy worlds...

I'd like it more if I could buy the twofer for a decent price, but...

amazon.com  176,80 USD

amazon.de  not available

amazon.uk  58,99 GBP

amazon.fr  not available

No way...  :'(

Granted, you most likely wanted it in hard copy, but here's the link to the Mp3 version:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000TDFKZI/sr=1-2/qid=1285796932/ref=sr_1_2_digr?ie=UTF8&qid=1285796932&sr=1-2 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000TDFKZI/sr=1-2/qid=1285796932/ref=sr_1_2_digr?ie=UTF8&qid=1285796932&sr=1-2)

The vinyl is currently at $5 on ebay...

I used to hate on MIU and would trash it relentlessly, but then the twofer with LA came out and I'd catch myself popping in the CD and getting ready to skip straight over to "Good Timin" but if I wasn't quick enough I'd get Brian yelling at me "Last night I went out Disco dancing" and I'd be hooked and have to listen to all of MIU!

Now I love the album!  ;D

Sweet Sunday Kind of Love is my favorite from MIU, especially the bridge...

a long time ago, when i first for the MIU/LA two-fer, it was around christmas time and I had gotten sick, and I listen to that cd over and over...now it just reminds me of being sick...but it really comforted me.

WHen I first got the MIU/LA twofer, I loved the MIU album. I listened to it constantly. It was actually one of my favorite Beach Boys albums. I still really like it. The only real clunkers are She's Got Rhythm and Hey Little Tomboy. Actually, Hey Little Tomboy has a great track to it, if you can get past the weird lyrics. Carl sounds great on it. Something tells me that the song would be more popular among the fans had Dennis sung(sang?) it. Sweet Sunday Kind Of Love just might be Carl's most underrated song. Overall, I'd give the album 4 out of 5 stars.

Doing a quick perusal of Amazon US, (which means I may have easily missed something), it appears the only original material BB albums not currently available as US CDs are MIU/LA Light, Still Crusin, and Summer in Paradise.

As far as MIU is concerned, I absolutely loved listening to most of it when it was released in Sept 1978.  I played the album constantly at home, as well as the cassette copy I made for the car, where I left off She's Got Rhythm, since I considered BW's vocals to be a virtually unbearable listening experience, and Hey Little Tomboy, which was such an embarrassing song that I didn't want to take the chance of any passengers hearing it and asking how I could possibly be a Beach Boys fan.  After listening to the cassette while driving toward the beach during a camping trip to Big Sur, I was surprised, while walking down to the beach, to encounter Al Jardine's ranch, with a sign "Jardine Arabians" indicating its presence.

So, 32 years later, what do I think of the album?  Well, there are still a number of songs I really enjoy, with my favorites being Kona Coast, Woncha Come Out Tonight, Belles of Paris, and My Diane.  And, with the exception of the two songs on the album that I've always found irritating, I still like the rest of the album.  In fact, I just popped the MIU/LA Light CD into the car to listen to tomorrow on the way to the Padres vs Cubs game.

'Winds Of Change' is part of that beautiful Golden late-BBs era. I include 'Lady Lynda' and 'Sumahama' and 'Baby Blue' and 'Good Timin'' to this. These were very mature songs but with that same zest for life and love as their early stuff.

There is wonderful wisdom in these songs and I am so happy to have and enjoy them.

Who can not love 'Winds Of Change's coda with the gorgeous strings, harmonies and that snare drum. This is a beautiful song. Beautifully arranged and performed by all. Give it a go!!!

The Winds Of Change coda taken straight from When I Grow Up. Same thing with Kona Coast taken from the ending of Hawaii. It kind of shows you how badly they wanted the new album to sound similar to albums made in their hit making days.

Ha! Same thing happened to me, only it was a Donovan album....I LOVE the music, but I'm always reminded of the time I got really sick any time I listen to the album....  :(

I only heard this album when the twofers were re-released and it actually got a good review in Q magazine (praising it at the expense of LA). I've liked it ever since, mainly perhaps because I think it makes the best of what it has better than any other BBs album of the era. For that I give a lot of credit to Al's job producing the vocals as, with Carl only making cameo appearances, fans might have expected it to be the worst sounding album in terms of vocals that the band had ever released.

Al's voice in particular sounds great on Pitter Patter, Kona Coast, Winds of Change and Come Go With Me. Mike also doesn't sound too nasal and Brian turns in his best performances of that era (except on She's Got Rhythm). Dennis's voice is used to good effect (although I guess it was recorded earlier) and the sequencing of his and Carl's contributions gives the record some balance.

Hey Little Tomboy certainly should have been omitted and Peggy Sue is a nothing cover but on the whole a decent album.

I disagree with you about Peggy Sue. Actually, it is one of the better tracks performance wise. It has Brian written all over it too. The arrangement and instrument choices are very close to a Love You type track. The refrain alone, which is terrific, is worth the listen. This one is anything but a "nothing cover..." as you call it.

Each to their own. I don't think that a song having Brian all over it was a guarantee of quality at this time though. And I would say it sounds more like a 15 Big Ones track (for obvious reasons) and that isn't that much of a complement. It's still better than many of the covers on that album though.

Huh??? I thought the 2-fers were still in print!!!

Thats exactly what I did in my agony  ;D

I actually wanted the real thing with booklet and original CD but I missed buying it before it went out of print.

Same experience many times.   But I don't really LOVE the album.   ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::)

The refrain on pitter patter ruins that song.  Too bad.

I read on another thread that they may be reissuing all this stuff soon, what with the 50th coming up - hence why some are going out of print and stores don't seem to have them anymore. But this also may mean there isn't much of a market for albums like Friends and Sunflower in the general population....

But it's such a SWEET refrain!

i like the album if only for brian's vocals. i also quite like winds of change: while over produced the melody is pretty special imo.

WOC is very good. It's been often vilified, for various reasons. The overproduction, the quotation of 'when I grow up' in the end... but the melody is arch. I think Mercury Rev should record it.

I appreciate that it led them to make the L.A. album in reaction to it!

I do agree Winds of Change is an underrated cut.  I find the track very moving.  A little cloying for the band perhaps, but taken on its own terms, quite lovely.

I enjoy the production, it's far smoother than 15 Big Ones or Love You...though we all love that quirky Love You sound

Shame it was written in 1975 by two guys in King Harvest.  ;D

Glad for this thread...I pulled it out of the iphone ipod, the 2-fer style so I forget what belonged with which album...You are correct, the car is the place to listen to this one!! The vocals are stupendous, even if some of the songs are not critically acclaimed...frankly,
I would buy  Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (I was a Kindergarten teacher in my "other life") if they recorded it. 

Some of those that I love: Lady Lynda, Baby Blue, Winds of Change, Goin' South, Good Timin', Belles of Paris, Full Sail, and even Hey, Little Tomboy (Brian's and Mike's vocals.) Even disco-ey Here Comes the Night is kind of funky to hear all these years later...

In the car this stuff sounds to me like a brand new album.  It is very cool to have some new BB stuff to listen to.  Good car speakers make all the difference.  I don't think I even listened to MIU/LA since before Carl passed away, so it is really special to hear him sing from "heaven."   

There are some nice calming music there, especially Carl on Goin' South...really remarkable.  Thanks again for this thread...I am paying better attention... ;)

Yes, I stand corrected  ;D

To be fair, good song and quite a delight to sing live.

Was this ever meant as the title for the album?  Seems I thought that  at one point, from listening to some WB promo cassette that had, If I remember correctly, WOC and Pitter Patter,  but didn't mention MIU.

I recall it being referred to as Winds Of Change for a short while

Yes, it was even reviewed under that name (by Crawdaddy, if I remember rightly).

I enjoy both M.I.U. and the Light Album, even though the former may not be among the group's more artistic offerings from the seventies. Very lightweight, but still it contains a couple of top-notch BW compositions.

It's amazing how different L.A. sounds from the three albums that came before. I can see why many fans would criticise Bruce Johnston's production on this, but for me it still works. It's a very melancholic album and the overall sound really seems to fit the mood somehow. If only it could've contained some more Brian songs... "Good Timin'" clearly is my favourite tune on this one.

MIU might not be a "knock it out of the park" winner, but it's fairly consistent in it's production and songwriting.  Sure there's a lot of referencing of past glories (the Kona/Hawaii tag, "won't last forever") but I find these references to be somewhat bittersweet and rather tastefully executed, especially in comparison to the shameless nics that the Love/Melcher collaboration would mine in the 80s.  Worth it more than anything though is the closing trilogy of "My Diane", "Matchpoint" and "Winds of Change".  Call me crazy, but this ending absolutely works for me.  I could listen to the fade-out of "Matchpoint" on repeat until the cows come home.  MIU: not a great album, but sometimes it sure hits the spot.  MIU/LA is one of my favorite two-fers.

and by california feeling also....

"I enjoy the production, it's far smoother than 15 Big Ones or Love You...though we all love that quirky Love You sound"

Part of the charm of these two albums is the sound.

I rate MIU as an A, a 94 out of 100.  To me, it is the last great Beach Boys album.  If I had to go to a desert island with only one album, and I were given a choice between MIU and any album recorded in history by any other artist aside from the BBs/BW/DW/Spring/Flame, I would pick MIU.  "My Diane" alone clinches that decision for me.  "Matchpoint" is simply the sweet, sweet icing on the cake.  MD is one of my top ten tracks of all time; just can't get over Denny's vocal.  He and Brian teamed up to plumb the depths of anguish in the sweetest, most heart-rending way.  Matchpoint is just a little behind, certainly in my top 20 all time.  Yeah, at first it sounds a little like a late 70s TV series theme song ("starring Brian Wilson as The Musical Genius"), but the middle eight takes it into the special relam only BW could find.  And I heartily agree with whoever said they could listen to the outro on repeat forever.  It's just a beautifully constructed song.

The whole album is very nicely produced, with magical moments in just about every song.  In contrast to most folks here, Winds of Change is my least favorite track.  Aside from WOC and Peggy Sue (which I can tolerate), I really like every other song, especially SGR (what is wrong with Brian's falsetto there -- sounds great to me), Hey Little Tomboy, Wontcha Come Out Tonight, and Sweet Sunday (magical Carl vocal).