The Smiley Smile Message Board

Holland for me. The album where the Carl helmed band really delivered a cohesive lp and blueprint for a 70s relevant Beach Boys. So sad they couldn't build on this on subsequent albums. I think the seeds were there in C&TP too, but it's too patchy, let down particularly by the dirgey Dennis numbers.

I'm probably in the minority, but I actually prefer So Tough, but Holland itself is a great album too. I think it's because of it's uniqueness in the catalogue I treasure it, and allows me to trick my non-beach boys liking friends into enjoying something!

Holland by leaps and bounds and I'LL EXPLAIN FURTHER LATER, OKAY.

ASSHOLES.

Holland all the way. I love C&TP apart from Make It Good which is awful. They had better stuff in the can at this point.

Holland. CATP is just too patchy.

There is a striking small element in the Holland work, for me; in fact it is an ever so tiny snippet on the Pied Piper EP. It lasts probably 5 to 10 seconds, it's the 'Through The Misty Night' vocal tapestry. For nigh on 40 years now, I am plagued, nay tortured, by its potential. I always think: this, dear Boys, could have been the way towards gorgeous melodic pop structures in your collective adulthood.

That was not meant to be. Not that I don't like Love You, mind, but well... a man can dream...

Holland for obvious reasons. CATP a huge letdown at the time.

While I do realize that 'Holland' sounds more like a group effort and is a step up when it comes to that, I simply enjoy the songs on 'Carl and The Passions' more. 'You Need A Mass Of Help', 'Cuddle Up' and 'All This Is That' are among my very favourite Beach Boys songs; 'Marcella', 'He Came Down' and 'Here She Comes' are good songs and 'Make It Good' along with 'Hold On, Dear Brother' would rank somewhere in the decent territory.

Holland.  CATP has three great songs and some decent ones. Holland is just great.

All bits of music on the Mount Vernon And Fairway EP are totally, totally brilliant. Like, Smile fragments level of brilliant. I'd like to have seen them developed into full songs, but it was seemingly beyond Brian to develop them further at that point - I have to imagine that's partially why he opted to develop them in the context of the fairy tale thing. The results of him further developing "Better Get Back In Bed", "Lazy Lizzie", was pretty dreadful, although that was a couple years later. Still, maybe it was for the best.

The "Radio King Dom" part you speak of is indeed probably the best fragment among them, although like I said, I think they're all great.

I agree that Holland is by far the better album - one of the greatest (and certainly one of the most under-rated) of their career! - however you've so, so very wrong re Make It Good. It's an absolute gem!

In complete agreement. Got to admit, i've been a little unsure of some of your posts in the past, but reading this i thought: Now this guy likes the good stuff! From the very first listen i loved Mt Vernon, and yes the musical segments are all utterly terrific. They leave you wanting more, which is a good thing! The Beach Boys, unlike so many other more self-indulgent groups, almost always knew that less was more.

Nice call, cheers for that!

Carl and the Passions all the way. It's up there with Love You and Sunflower as my favourite, and make it good is my favourite track on it.

I think the consistency appeals to me. There isn't a 'student demonstration time' or 'beaks of eagles' or even 'tears in the morning'. Everyone turns out great material, and it flows together really well. Holland is great, but lacks both a Dennis vocal and is kind of Lo-fi, soundwise. Whether you like them or not, the recordings of the two Dennis numbers of CandTP are spectacularly ambitious productions. Can't think of one track recorded after them that was so progressive and such an attempt at stretching out.

I accidentally voted for Carl & The Passions, because I'm a moron. I meant to vote Holland though. So take away one from Teh Passions and give one to Holland. Makin' it gently.....

I love em both but So Tough might as well have been titled Too Short!

Each to his own I guess but I think it's the worst song Dennis ever made.

Yep! You indicated that already!

Not really a song though, is it. More of a magical two minute tone poem. I love that about it- just does what it came to do and then departs, without any concessions to 'normal' song structure, or any pointless repetition.

Holland of the two, tho I don't love it. Passions would win for Dennis's two incredible tracks, but the Ricky and Blondie and Maharishi Mushhead Yogi Bear crap weighs it down too much.

*will cry tears of butter if the latter refers to "All This Is That"*

I don't wish to shove my iconoclastic opinions down anyone's throat. But, I'm the only hardcore BB fan that I know of that can't stand that song. I didn't like that Jai Guru Dev stuff when The Beatles did it, and I don't dig the Boys doing it either. And it always chafes me when rich rock stars preach about the relativism of reality. Hey Mike and Al, my old busted-out Honda is relative to your sailboat, let's trade!

Definitely Holland.  Passions has some good songs but it sounded like they were almost trying too hard not to sound like themselves.  And while I think they've written good songs too, it's the Chaplin/Fataar numbers in particular that just bring the album down.  They're not bad songs but they're not particularly memorable either and they go on for too long.  And the strength of the opening track and Marcella, both written by Brian, shows how much they depended on him.  Of course, I also love All This is That and I think Cuddle Up is very nice too but there was just something off.

Holland was the band both trying to update their sound while simultaneously still being able to sound like the Beach Boys.  Again, the bookending Brian tracks, Sail On Sailor and Funky Pretty set the bar high but there are some real gems from the other guys.  The California Saga is a lot of fun and had a rare ambition from Al and Mike, the song California alone is definitely a favorite.  The Trader is one of Carl's best compositions and Leaving This Town showed Blondie and Ricky fitting in much better than they did on the previous album.

But then there's Mt. Vernon and Fairway.  Should this be considered a separate work from Holland?  I'll mention it anyways.  Beautiful music, that's for sure.  The "Fairy Tale Music" from the Good Vibrations box set makes it absolutely sublime.  The story and the narration on the other hand falls completely flat.  And knowing Brian's mental state at the time, his "performance" as the Pied Piper is extremely hard to listen to.  And Jack Rieley was not the right voice to finish the job either.  His singing on Day in the Life of a Tree sort of worked but his narration here just sounds way too awkward.  And the story itself?  Well, it's childish and cryptic and as an admirer of Brian's eccentric side, I can appreciate it but it doesn't warrant repeated listenings.  But whoever had the idea to edit it into "Fairy Tale Music" gets big points because that not only made it for better listening, it's also really cool.

Had Smile had been released, a full length, Mt Vernon and Fairway like production pulled off with a decent narrator and song developed properly would have been a pretty cool/logical evolutionary step for The Beach Boys to take imo. I can just imagine Brian inspired to do it after witnessing the Moog showing off at Monterey  :3d

I don't think there's a single bad song on Carl & the Passions, but the highs are higher on Holland.

I don't think My Vernon should be considered a seperate work to Holland, it was packaged and released with Holland, it's part of the album - personally i'd have liked to have seen it as the centrepiece of Holland, maybe kicking off side 2, after Trader and before Leaving This Town. It's a genuine masterpiece! (Who is it writes the Holland 2-fer sleeve notes? I seem to recall he dismisses Mt Vernon with a ''the best you can say about it is that it's weird''. Total rubbish!)

Tom Petty

CATP is great but for me Holland is a clear 10 out of 10, not a single weak moment on the entire LP (and that does include "Mt. Vernon and Fairway", which I think is really moving in a way that only BW can accomplish). The singing is absolutely fantastic and I love the way the background vocals were mixed on some of the songs (especially "California" and "The Trader" I think, the humming on "Big Sur" is beautiful as well!).

Holland is much stronger than CATP.

I know that the band members have spoken about CATP being recorded in a piece-meal way and it shows. The 2 Blondie/Ricky songs just don`t belong on a BBs album imo. If they could have cut those and included Out in the Country and 2 or 3 other odds and sods that they had lying around then it may have improved things.

Holland hangs together well to become more than a sum of its parts. Sail on Sailor has never been a favourite of mine but the California Saga is nicely amibitious and Trader, Big Sur and Only With You make for a nice threesome.

Note: Big Sur should have stayed in 4/4 meter (as on Landlocked).

I bet that would have changed Holland more than just the replacement of one track would theoretically indicate.

As just a collection of songs, CATP is a good album. I'm with RangeRoverA1, Make It Good is the only weak song. Holland has a great feel to it. It really captures the imagination while listening to it. I always feel like it takes me on a voyage. It's very cohesive for an album written by so many composers. Holland has always ranked in my Top 5 Beach Boys' albums.

Make It Good is weak? Do you folks like Dennis Wilson at all?

I think it is one of the most intense things I have ever heard, let alone from The Beach Boys. It is a brilliant piece of work.

There's chocolate and there's vanilla. We can all like different things and get along. I am not a huge fan of Dennis' work, but I do appreciate the passion that went into his creations. Cuddle Up is beautiful and substantial. I get the intensity of Make It Good, but it's not much of anything else, in my opinion. It's very unique and I can see how fans of Dennis would lap that up. Just not my cuppa.

Yep, it's the absolute standout on the album for me, better than anything on Holland and up there with Til I Die and Surfs Up imo.

I'd find it easier to make a case for it being in the top 5 Beach Boys tracks they ever did than 'weak'. Folks are entitled to their opinions and all, but that's a humdinger that has me picking my jaw up off the floor every time I read it. Similarly thinking 'got to know the woman' is the weak link on Sunflower. WOW.

Holland it is for me:

EVERY song is a knockout. The California Saga, Leaving This Town, Trader, Steamboat, SOS, Only With You....and ending with the cosmically beautiful Funky Pretty.

With absolute stone cold classics like Marcella, YNAMOHTSA, All This is That, and to a lesser extent, He Come Down, CATP blows Holland away. I don't get the love for Holland; it's depressing bland cover mirrors its depressing bland sound. Even Sail On Sailor to me is one of their most overrated songs. Speaking of overrated: Dennis Wilson. Holy smoke his songs are boring. Other than Slip on Through which is probably my favorite opener to any BBs album (Little Bird's ok too), he just bores the hell out of me. Count Make it Good, Cuddle Up, and Only With You in that category for sure. zzzzzz..... zzzzzz..... And his stuff is way too intense - almost embarrassing. Strike that. Definitely embarrassing.

Anyway, yeah, CATP all the way baby.

CATP more openly reflects the fractures existent in the band as the rest of the boys jockeyed for position, and Jack Reiley tried to push his agenda (aligning with Carl in an attempt to broaden out the band's sound). Brian was just at the beginning of his "act out" phase, consorting with Tandyn Almer--the man who should have played the Pied Piper on "Mt. Vernon and Fairway," because that's just what he was at that time: a bad influence on someone who was already showing intense symptoms of emotional distress. As a songwriting team, however, they were pretty darned good. "Mess of Help" is arguably Brian's most underrated song.

If there was any place where "Wouldn't It Be Nice to Live Again" should have appeared, it was as Side 2, Track 1 of CATP. Hell, they could have just made it an all-Dennis side--but the band politics would never have allowed something like that to happen.

Holland is a good record, but it, too, is quite episodic and more than a bit lugubrious. I like Dennis' original of "Only With You," with its rougher but still tender vocal, over the official version with Carl signing it.

These albums both reflect an interesting but indeterminate movement in the band's career, one that they would have had to resolve somehow in order to move forward. When Reiley was fired, Carl backed away from songwriting, and Brian went further down the rabbit hole. The only viable songwriter they had in late 73-74 was Dennis, and they were disinclined to circle their wagons around the band's court jester. Hence they were ripe for the revival/career entrapment that came out of that round building in Hollywood called Endless Summer.

Based on that perspective, I don't personally find it productive to rank these records in the usual way. This was one of the key points, maybe THE key point in the band's career, and these two records reflect both the opportunity and the dilemma that co-existed at that time.

I don't hate it by no means, but I happen to like everything else on CATP more. Hard to explain, but I always feel like I'm left hanging when it finishes. It seems to build up, build up, then... goes nowhere.

Strange that Brian provides all the rockers on C&TP, a style that is not usually his forte.

I'd rank the tracks,

Mess of Help - 5
Here She Comes - 3
He Came Down - 3.5
Marcella - 4
Hold on Dear Brother - 4
Make it Good - 0
All This is That - 5
Cuddle Up - 4.5

Sail on Salior - 5
Steamboat - 4.5
Big Sur  - 5
Beaks of Eagles - 5
California - 5
Trader - 5
Leaving This Town - 4
Only With You - 3.5
Funky Pretty - 4

Agreed!

 :o ??? >:( ....But I respect your opinion nevertheless.

That's not hard to understand at all- it makes perfect sense. Make it Good has much more in common with oh I dunno...Schoenberg or something than anything Beach Boys related. Every single thing about it is like classical music bar the lead vocal. I can understand anyone who is largely into pop being a bit fazed by that, but I think it's genius.


Mum? MUM!!!! The nasty man put a zero next to one of my favourite Beach Boys tracks! WAAAAAAAH!  ;)

You nailed it. Pick a random segment of the most beautiful symphony one could find, add a Dennis vocal. Color me nutty, but that's great with me. If Brian did anything like that, everyone would cream over it.

I so massively disagree with all of the above i can't even be bothered arguing... I'm just very glad indeed that i don't feel the same way coz, boy, to get Dennis' music is such a wonderful and endlessly rewarding pleasure. 

I can't get into "Make It Good", but I certainly don't find it bad and can appreciate it and understand why people think it's as great as it is. And hay, it very well could grow on me - I'm still regularly finding songs in their catalog that are somehow only now making a connection with me, several years into being a fan.

Dennis' arrangements (not necessarily songwriting) aren't far off from some of the stuff Brian was doing in the mid-60s. "In The Back Of My Mind" is extremely fitting for Dennis considering the direction he went, for instance. Brian wrote it, though, and thus I've never heard anyone call its heavy use of strings and the bits of "intensity" in spots anything other than great, stunning, brilliant - whatever, never "embarrassing".

Calling Dennis' work "embarrassing" is a bit much for me.

oh my god, a Make It Good backing track would be the greatest thing since sliced pie*.

*which, being a dessert, is better than sliced bread

I went for CATP because it is quite simply the most played BB album I own. People object to material like "Here She Comes" or "Make It Good"? f*** em. Those are masterpieces to these ears. The whole album is playable and memorable. Holland on the other hand has that California Saga thing which is quite forgettable. "Sail On Sailor" is one song that I am soooooo burned out on (not to mention I didn't care for Brian singing it when I saw them on this last tour). I do love "Trader", "Steamboat" and "Only With You" but the versions of both "Leaving This Town" and "Funky Pretty" are way better on In Concert. Actually "Only With You" from that 1972 Carnegie Hall recording is better than the studio version but of course the DW solo version on POB set brings a tear to this man's eyes.

And "Cuddle Up" was the last song played at my wedding to wind things down.

Future Twofer votes:
15 Big Ones / Love You
MIU / Light Album
KTSA / BB '85

Holland is my favorite BB album, and quite possibly my favorite album by anybody. CATP is in my top 5, so it's close, but...

Holland for me but Make it Good is a fantastic song IMO. Surprised there is not more love for it.

CATP-ST for me. I find Holland kind of boring after the first listen. Carl And The Passions, although it doesn't flow well, is a great collection of great songs.

"He couldn't fine it, he couldn't fine it ..."

My vote had to go with Holland.  I think both make up a fascinating period of the band with a significant change in sound and sheen (complete with the go-to songs to stump anyone who isn't a hardcore BB fan), a peak in democratic creativity, and a last look at the band before things started to unravel in many respects.  Much of Carl and the Passions has a nice harder edge to it, and although lacking cohesion at times it's a very good crop of songs all around.  I just think Holland represents the perfect blend of those elements with a Beach Boys-tinge to it, being easily one of their most consistent and cohesive efforts to my ears.  And out of all the twofers, this is the only one where I can definitely claim there's not a single song I really have any issue with.

The Trader
Steamboat
Marcella
Sail On, Sailor
You Need A Mess of Help to Stand Alone
Only With You
Funky Pretty
All This is That
California Saga: Big Sur
California Saga: California
Leaving This Town
Cuddle Up
Here She Comes
Hold on Dear Brother
California Saga: The Beaks of Eagles
He Come Down
Make It Good

I've been listening to "So Tough" a lot, lately. I love "Mess of Help", "Marcella" and Dennis' songs. I don't mind "All This" and "He Came Down". But as a whole the album is too random and herky jerky. The Flame tracks don't fit in. Sounds like a musical spin-off episode.

I think Holland is a pretty solid album. There aren't any songs on it I don't like, really. Even the motherfucking bird poem track (not slander, I mean the mother eagle mates with her son...gross). The Flame contribution (Leaving This Town) is a favorite of mine. Synth solo is sound of a group in key with the times, not the looking back with love stuff that came afterwards. Like Steamboat, love Only With You, I'm okay with Funky Pretty, dig Big Sur regardless of whether it's 3/4 or 4/4, enjoy Trader. I like the whole record.

Holland.

I never really understand what people mean when they say this. I think it flows amazingly well, and the fact there are two songs each from four different 'teams' gives the record a beautiful symmetry. There are Flame tracks on Holland too.

Holland and Surfs Up both have much worse sequencing (SDT stuck in the middle/all of Brians songs bunged on the end/EP awkwardly shuffled into the sleeve etc), and it's not like any seventies Beach Boys record post Sunflower sound like they were recorded at the same time, using similar techniques.

The one thing I would say, is that my original UK pressing of c and the p sucks, audio wise. Really murky mastering. Judging by the cd, the production/mix is as good as Sunflower

yeah, Cuddle up is SOOOOO quiet on my original UK pressing.

I wonder if the US is any better? Could explain even more why it got dismissed at the time.

"Hey guys, heres our new album! We mastered it through a sock and issued it as a twofer with the best sounding mono pressing of Pet Sounds!"

Is yours the two-fer version then? I was wondering if that sounded any better, but obviously not...

So was I! Anyone know?

I love those lists of yours, TTGA, they are always so interesting in the context of these 2-fer discussions. And moving "Mess of Help" up that list is just the way to make me love 'em even more... As much as I love Dennis' work, can't quite see "Steamboat" this high, I can see it right under "All This Is That." One of my fave I-Tunes playlists for the BB's has the sequence "Marcella"/"SOS" (instrumental version)/"Mess of Help." Rock the casbah with the boys!! Definitely whets the appetite for a full-on rock record from them...can they pull it off??

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All bits of music on the Mount Vernon And Fairway EP are totally, totally brilliant. Like, Smile fragments level of brilliant. I'd like to have seen them developed into full songs, but it was seemingly beyond Brian to develop them further at that point - I have to imagine that's partially why he opted to develop them in the context of the fairy tale thing. The results of him further developing "Better Get Back In Bed", "Lazy Lizzie", was pretty dreadful, although that was a couple years later. Still, maybe it was for the best.

The "Radio King Dom" part you speak of is indeed probably the best fragment among them, although like I said, I think they're all great.
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What is "Lazzy Lizzie"?  Is it "BGBIB"'s remake or something? I've always enjoyed the BGBIB bed part. I think it's one of my favorite parts. Carl's vocal and the keyboard part supporting him. Not to mention how they transition out of his vocal part.

Lazy Lizzie is a song written/demoed by BW in the late 70's - Love You/Adult Child era. It used the Better Get Back In Bed bit as it's chorus with new lyrics/verse. These lyrics are about cruising for schoolgirls. It's a crap song.

I love both albums, but gotta go with Carl And The Passions: "So Tough".

Why? You can blame the California Saga for me choosing against Holland.

Holland is just more a solid album all the way through IMO

Holland.

I'm not surprised at all that Holland is beating CATP. Still prefer listening to CATP, however.

The only bad songs between the two are He Come Down, Steamboat, Big Sur (The unreleased version is so much better) and The Beaks Of Eagles.

Maybe it's because of the lack of Dennis on Holland vocally, I don't know. But to me, CATP will always be better than Holland.

Quite close but Holland wins it for me.

Carl and The Passions is a great album but is too short and some songs drag on forever.
Holland is just amazing. Each song creates a mood. Even Beaks of Eagles is great.

Holland----purely because i listen to it all the way through.

At the risk of being banned, I think So Tough would have made a great single: "Marcella" b/w "All This Is That"...