The Smiley Smile Message Board

Seriously, why does it sound so spectacularly awesome on the bootlegs and yet so thin and lame on the MIC version...??? What have they done to it?

Loved the set up until this point. This my only gripe so far.

My beef has nothing to do with it being thin ... More that the mix tries to Spector-ize Brian's production by making it sound too big and echo-y and sweeping ...

I get the idea, mind you. It might even be what BW wanted ... it just doesn't quite mesh with the one-man band sound to my ears.

I've heard that Phil Cohen loves the mix  :lol

Came in here to say this is my favorite thread title here EVER (BEST EVER, MIKIE). That's all, carry on.

Yup. I loved hearing it on MiC. I have never heard the boot though. I loved how big it sounded. It's infectiously good, the way Brian arranged it and performed. In fact, I think it's among my favorite tracks on the whole set.

It's a good thread title!  Maybe the best thread of the month, but not the year or that I ever saw on this board. The grammar/spelling ain't right either.

This sounds pretty good, actually. I dunno about thin, but there's definitely echo added. Wider expansion on the speakers. Twould fit on 15 Big Ones or Love You without question. Seems like the chorus has been brought up in the mix. If it was intended to be Spectorish it......I dunno maybe more mono. But I like the expansive sound here - have no complaints. If it's thin anywhere, it's the lead vocal.

Damn good production effort by Brian Wilson, the one man show for this one.

Ha! I didn't catch on to that... I get to used to skimming thread titles. Shame on me.  :police:

Yes, very clever.  :lol

I disagree, I think it sounds much better than the bootlegs which always sounded too muddy to me, the MIC mix is so much clearer.

There are a lot of instances in the box set where I wonder if some far out artistic liberties were really taken by BDW, or if it's a retcon by Linnet. Either way, it works here.

Lots of retconning. More successful on some songs than others.

I've wondered the exact same thing. I'm kinduva 'purist' I guess. I'm trying to do an A-B comparison on the stuff that's been booted to see but......it ain't easy. Just like the Smile Sessions. Is Linett taking liberties or does it have Brian's input? I'm thinking it's the former and Brian (and the band members) are buying off on it. Hard to say. This goes back to the days when Linett was involved with "finishing" Loop De Loop with Al.

Yes, there was heavy amount of 'tweaking' done on this and 'Sherry She needs Me'. Oddly, both sound suspiciously similar to  revisions I uploaded and shared with others about two years ago, right down to the pitch correction used (poorly) for parts of 'Sherry'.  I mean, I had to do a double-take as I thought I was playing 'my' versions at first. I'm sure it's just coincidence (great minds think alike!) but similar enough to give me pause for thought.

I felt the same way on my initial listen of the MiC version, but I've come to enjoy it.

Had they just improved the sound quality and nothing else, it would have been perfect!

Actually, that was Steve Desper. Linett wasn't involved with the initial release of the Endless Harmony soundtrack.

Ah, OK. That's right, Desper mentioned going over to Red Barn to finish it. But again, the track was messed with long after it was initially recorded and who better to help Al than the guy who was originally involved with recording it back in 1969.

Agreed. Desper worked on a couple of things on the Ultimate Christmas compilation too, IIRC. Too bad he hasn't been involved more in the BB reissue world ... he's still got it!

Is there anything vintage about Sail Plane Song? It feels like a modern attempt by Linett to polish off a demo into a real song by adding lots of effects and I'm not really sure I like it.

It was released on the Endless Harmony soundtrack back in 98, and Mark wasn't involved in that project. (At least not the first CD issue with the horrid orange cover.) All of the instrumentation is on the original, but the mix is new and rather ... um ... experimental. Panning and reverb effects at the end. Can't imagine that was Brian's intent, but it was certainly Al's with Loop de Loop.

Oh I mean compared to the EH version, is there anything vintage about this new mix? I know that the basic track is vintage.

Unless Mark or Alan say otherwise, I would wager money on the answer being no. Seems like they really wanted to give the impression that all the studio tracks on the first five discs were finished -- which means futzing around with the things like Sail Plane Song that were really just demos.

Other tracks where that seems apparent (to me) are things like We're Together Again (with a magical new string section), all the Smile stuff mixed in 2011, the tweaked Goin to the Beach and YSAM, and remixed 15BO tracks (after all, that's the one BB album where everyone agrees the original mix totally sucks).

That's how it seemed to me too, and again, I'm not so sure how I feel about that sort of revisionism

It's cool for collectors, who have all of the originals. I don't know about first-time fans. It makes the band seem more together than they actually were ... part of BB fandom (for me) has always been listening to and picking apart the odd, rushed mixes of great songs.

I don't like messing around with their songs like this. It's like that 'Special Edition' version of the Exorcist where they've added in all this stuff that wasn't in the original and messed around with the soundtrack and basically just screwed up a classic. Give me the original! And the same goes with the BB's.

As for YLTLF, I don't think the heavy echo on the vocals is the problem, it's that those amazing synths - so prominent on the bootleg - have been blended into the mix and thus lost all their power. That first chorus should hit you like a sledgehammer, but on the MIC version it doesn't. I just cannot even begin to fathom why they would do this...

It's because the technology now exists to do what would have been unthinkable 10 years ago, and they just couldn't help themselves. This "mucking about" was necessary for TSS, but not for this box. The remixing and effects I'm not so bothered about, but autotuning historic recordings. NO!

Because of your screen name, I read everything you say in Bruce's voice. I'm not coming down on you, it actually amuses me.

I'VE WANTED TO TELL YOU FOR SO LONG. ONE MIGHT SAY OH SO LONG.

Do you imagine him wearing shorts and smiling too?

In the MIC mix of YLTLF that I have heard, the whole bottom end(bass frequency) drops out during the bridge and never returns. The version I have heard is only an mp3 though. I was just curios if it's my copy, or if it happens on the actual MIC set.

I'm far better looking.


Oh and just listened to Sail Plane Song - what on earth...??? WHY??

Though there is perhaps an 's' too many...

Strongly disagree that it was necessary for TSS.

Well, it was necessary for the disk 1 album construction, which in turn was necessary for making the thing marketable beyond us diehards.

Strongly prefer the remixes on the first edition of the Endless Harmony CD. The California Girls remix on the revised disc is quite noticeably out of sync where the first edition is fine. For the most part (with exceptions) it seems that with each subsequent release the quality of the stereo remixes goes downhill. That said I haven't heard the Smiley remix yet (I know, I know) which seems to be well received.

I didn't mean for this to be so long, but I this post sort of turned into my review of the box, so here goes:

I have two criticisms of TSS:

1. Poor organization. For such a large boxset with so many disconnected, unique snippets, the organization makes things all the worse by not being straightforward enough. On The Pet Sounds Sessions things were handled so much better, with session highlights as one track, followed by the master take as a second, distinct track. TSS on the other hand is all over the place, with master takes appearing as the final take which closes off several minutes of session highlights. And then you also get instances where My Only Sunshine and False Barnyard are both combined in a single lengthy track. Then there's the annoying way they handled vocals, as you don't get clean a capella tracks like on The Pet Sounds Sessions that include all the existing parts you get these weird gaps in coverage where you have the finished Vegetables fade appearing in mono on disc one, and then the stereo vocals and the stereo track separate. Finally, only further exasperating things, is the sequencing, which I feel should have been chronological by session date throughout rather than based as it is on their speculative disc one track sequencing.

2. Sound. This has, over time since purchasing TSS, noticeably affected my enjoyment of the set. The disc one reconstruction is a mixed bag in terms of the versions of the songs they cooked up, but what makes it more or less a non-starter for me is the indulgence of the compilers in reverb. The lucid minimalism of the original tracks is ruined. I really feel Brian was attempting to use negative space on the Smile material in sometimes radical ways, and you get a major reduction in instrumentation as the project goes on. Given the unfinished nature of a lot of the material the compilers can perhaps be forgiven for trying to fortify the sound, but they take it much too far at times and the excessive, and unpleasant, digital sounding reverb they drench the tracks in just suffocates them. The stereo portions on the following discs suffer less from this, but overall the mixes are just so "hot" that it's genuinely fatiguing to listen to some of them. Disc two, the Heroes sessions is the worst offender, with some of those tracks just feeling unbearably loud and bright to the point where I actually occasionally prefer listening to unmastered bootlegs. The WH Surf's Up is another good example.


MIC isn't so bad as all of that, and to me WIBNTLA in particular sounds very restrained, softer, more mellow etc. On things like Why though there's an instantly fatiguing feeling to the presentation, and I agree with people here that on YLTLF it's almost inexcusably bad. However, saying that, it definitely doesn't totally spoil my enjoyment. I think it's far better than nothing, considering that though the bootleg has its distinct charm in the case of YLTLF, the fact that the quality is so poor, and there are things on it like the left channel cutting out completely at times makes the MIC version undeniably superior despite its flaws.

Again, I'm fairly disappointed by this release. WITBNTA, the alternate Meant For You, Where Is She?, My Love Lives On, Why, the two versions of California Feeling (let's be honest though, the demo is really primarily a novelty...), a couple of upgrades like Sound of Free and YLTLF, the Be With Me Demo, and I guess Barnyard Blues, these are the tracks I consider essential additions to my collection. There's a real "big-whoop" feeling among the other rarities and bonus material. I've had Mona Kana for a long time in relatively good quality on bootleg and it's a mostly uninspired track that I very rarely feel an urge to listen to. The instrumental tracks of DGNTW and TM are nice I suppose, but generally uninteresting, poor choices considering how many better choices anyone who spends 5 seconds thinking about it could probably come up with. There's one "new" stereo selection from Wild Honey, which of the ones to yet appear in stereo is actually the one that's already been circulating for some time. There are completely undesirable, bottom of the barrel selections like Da Doo Ron Ron, some dubious remixes of things like Rock and Roll Music, a slightly improved version of It's Over Now, which is a nice though certainly lesser song I doubt I'll listen to much more than I already do following the upgrade it receives.

I mean, sure, there's decent stuff here, some absolutely essential material appears here for the first time, but given the frustrating issues with the mixing and mastering, the overabundance of material everyone has already purchased several times (like on 50 Big Ones last year...), the poor selections of rarities and the fact that there's maybe a disc worth of material among the six included really worth having, and the fact that the thing is, there's no other way to put it, overpriced, I'm very satisfied that I elected to not purchase it.

I have so many things in my collection of boots that still need to be released, and a lot of it exists only in poor or very poor quality. There are really solid, original songs like California Slide. There are things like the decidedly more enjoyable early version of Santa Ana Winds. In the space allocated on disc 6 for material that already appeared on TSS, you could have probably fit in Brian's Love You demos. The list goes on and on, and that's only things we already have available to us in one form or another on bootlegs. Given what a treat something like Where Is She? and the extended Meant For You are, many of us are left drooling at the thought that the vaults still contain lots of little gems like these. We get all sorts of tantalizing bits, reports from insiders and privileged fans about some of the yet uncirculating material, hints dropped by Mark and Alan themselves about things like a deluxe reprinting of Friends with bonus tracks, I mean, few of us ever really dreamed something like the Wild Honey Surf's Up was out there until it suddenly appeared out of the blue.

Give the fans what they want already, either a definitive rarities box, or a deluxe reprinting of the catalogue with extra discs attached to each entry containing relevant unused material and outtakes, and possibly a contemporary live show here and there. I think it would additionally be a cool, and given how things were executed on TSS and MIC, even a prudent idea to recruit Desper in particular to oversee the mixing and mastering process, at least on the albums he was involved with, given especially the fact that he could then also restore those releases to the HD stereo he's demonstrated in his videos.

I agree 100% on the original EH mixes... I've never heard a better "Kiss Me, Baby." And I'll just add that I have heard the Smiley mix and I'm among its big fans. That was really well done.

Not to be a contrarian but I don't buy this idea that anything other than a BWPS recreation would not appeal to the casual fan. The non-hardcore fans did just fine with the 30 minutes of Smile on GV box. Sorry if this is drifting off-topic  ;D

They should have kept that relegated to the single and double disc limited versions. Those were the economy versions actually designed for the "casual" fans afterall. I never listen to disc one of my TSS, and it could have been better spent both filling in some of the final conspicuous gaps TSS neglected, and giving all the sprawling, fragmented session material more room to breath, and they could have included the fully sequenced version of the album on the vinyl still.

The biggest missed opportunity though, and really what I think would have been not only much cleverer but also more generous to the fans and more in the spirit of Smile itself, is that they didn't just release the multitracks. Even after TSS you still have fans here jumping through hoops doing extractions and fiddling with a lot of painstaking editing to put together their own versions, and given that there was no way TSS would have ever stopped speculative fan recreations of every kind, it seems like it would have been preferable to just finally unlock the multitracks and give the fans the best building blocks possible to make the whole thing easier...

Chris, I'm playing devils advocate to some extent. I tend to agree with you. I do accept Mark and Alan's line though that the BWPS sequence is the only BW sequence we have, so it made logical sense for them to follow it. The execution however is not perfect, sorry Mark and Alan if you read this. I would guess that a lot of us think we could have done better, some of us maybe could.

Fishmonk, not just Smile. I think the Beach Boys should be the first band to release their entire catalogue, online, as mulititracks. The Beatles Rock Band debacle shows how easy it could be. Given the depth and intricacy of their tracks and vocals, it could be the first and final statement in how pop music should be put together.

TSS though, yes, trying to appeal to too many demographics. Still love my box though.  :)

There's plenty of bottom end on my copy (toms + synth bass), although the deeper synth parts do come and go during the song. Maybe that's what you're hearing?

As far as added and/or too much echo/reverb on the track in the thread title, or any track for that matter, this has been by far the most disappointing aspect of most of Linnet’s post-“Pet Sounds Sessions” work on the band’s catalog, especially the stereo remixes.

I don’t know how much of the reverb is added at the suggestion/direction of Brian, and how much is just Linnet’s preference, but sometimes it’s simply out of control. The stuff like stereo remixes of “Please Let Me Wonder”, “You’re So Good To Me”, etc. are drenched in far too much reverb, and seemingly fake digital reverb at that. But even if they’re somehow using old-fashioned analog reverb, it’s still excessive.

I suppose I understand adding some touches of it to not make something sound completely dry and dead. For instance, if you compare “Da Doo Ron Ron” on the MIC set to the “circulating” version that has been out there for a while, you’ll see the old version is pretty much bone dry to the point of sounding rather sterile. They’ve added some noticeable reverb to it for MIC. Now, I personally would rather have the 100% bone dry version, but I understand something like this where a touch or reverb might be advisable or at least tolerable.

The 1996 “Pet Sounds” stereo remix was marvelous, I love it. So I’m not sure what happened starting with the 2000 re-done version of the EH Soundtrack, and then on to “Hawthorne, CA”, and so on. The “Smile Sessions” wasn’t as bad as some of the other stuff, probably partly because at least some of those recordings are inherently kind of cavernous and murky to begin with.

I preferred Andrew Sandoval’s relatively short-lived stint working on the band’s catalog. The ugly original cover art notwithstanding, that original 1998 version of the “Endless Harmony Soundtrack” CD has far superior stereo remixes of “California Girls” and “Kiss Me Baby”, sounding fresh and opened up as a latter-day stereo remix should, but retaining the warmth and subtle reverb found on the original mono mixes.

Fishmonk, some of the stuff you say makes sense but some of it is just kinda cranky.

For instance, as far as The SMiLE Sessions goes, obviously they woulda needed one disc with the songs in a completed-as-possible state. It just had to be that way. In my opinion, there needed to be good quality, Beach Boys versions of "Do You Like Worms" and "Child Is Father Of The Man" out there, amongst many others. In my opinion, it is revelatory to have those songs in a nice, cleaned up versions with as many of the elements of the recordings as they have. They couldn't just put session material out there. It wouldn't be feasible.

However, I do agree with you that they should have put the master backing tracks on their own track rather than having them on the same track as the session highlights, since the "finished" backing tracks should be made easier to access, a la The Pet Sounds Sessions.

And then as far as complaining about the "poor selection of rarities", I think that is off-base. I think they actually gave us most of the best stuff that was in the vaults. I mean, sure, maybe there's stuff that we don't know about, but judging by what we've heard from boots and whatnot, the stuff they gave us here is probably the best. We got "Where Is She?", "(Wouldn't It Be Nice To) Live Again", "California Feelin'", "Soul Searchin'", "You're Still A Mystery", "Barnyard Blues", "Back Home" from '63, "My Love Lives On", and more. All of those, in my opinion are better than whatever else is out there on bootleg. And let's face it, while they is likely still a wealth of good-to-great Denny material still unreleased, there probably isn't as much quality unreleased 1962-1985 Brian Wilson material.  Seriously, what is left that's worthwhile? "Stevie", "My Little Red Book", "Awake", I don't know what else. Maybe stuff like "Sweetie", the "Baby I Need Your Lovin'/Gimme Some Lovin'" medley (if it's somewhat complete), "Smokey Places", and "Little Girl"? I suppose the piano and vocal version of "In The Back Of My Mind" would also be pretty awesome, but who knows if they'd release it.

But yeah, I would really like if a rarities set came out, but I just don't think it's likely. I'm happy that we got The SMiLE Sessions and Made In California, and I feel like that has cleansed my palette for whatever new stuff Brian has coming out soon. I'm excited to look towards the future for him and Al, and maybe even the whole Beach Boys group again at some point.

Nope, on my version the bass totally cuts out, and it sounds like somebody turned the treble up as far as it would go. It may just be a bad copy I have. The last twenty or so seconds sounds like it's echoing through a tin can.

This is so disappointing because the bootleg version of YLTLF is so powerful! Unfortunately the only version I can find on YouTube is at the wrong speed; for those you've not heard it I strongly recommend getting hold of a copy of the 'Rockin' Rarities' bootleg album, on which is a version of YLTLF played at the right speed, with the awesome synths to the fore and without all these awful echo fx.

Upon further listening to the MIC mix, it seems as though the vocals and backing track are slightly out of sync. It seems as though the backing track is a little faster, and the vocal seems to lag half a beat behind at times.

After comparing the bootleg to MiC, Linett's version wins for sure.

The reason why it sounds "fuller" on the bootleg is because it was sourced on a fucking cassette tape. Don't like that there's not enough bottom end? Do what the bootleggers did and fiddle with the EQ. Hate the clarity? Play this video at max volume while listening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJc63mV_rfM

i have all unrealized beach boys mp3s porofessionslly pressed to vinyl for added warmth and then trasnser back with PC MIC JACK to wma (awesome bill gates way to go your my stickybutt)

This is totally not how it is on the actual CD, you have a dodgy rip of it.

I can't actually believe you thought that they would master it like that, though? Seriously?

What i think is so cool about the YLTLF bootleg version is that the verses are so dry and up close and then the chorus explodes into a bigger, more expansive sound. But here, the whole song sounds "big" from the beginning, so it loses a little something. I don't think the MiC version sounds bad necessarily, i just wonder why. And obviously not just on this song but many others on the box set. Why are they doing this? Better yet, how? How can anyone be comfortable taking artistic liberties on historical recordings? Linett and Boyd are not producers of the original recordings, they shouldn't be making some of the production calls that they appear to be making (unless Brian has been specifically instructing them with some of these calls -- doubtful though).


I don't understand why that really great little organ fill that's heard on the EH version is missing on SPS on MiC. WTF. Why?

f*** knows....

That's the question of the day.

And playing with his mic.  :-D

Yup. That was the spotify rip that was making the rounds last week.  :lol

I'm a completest. It's just who I am, I just have obsessive compulsive tendencies within my personality. When I search for "The Beach Boys" in my media player, the result, and though this is hyperbole it's perhaps truer than I'd be willing to admit, causes physical distress to my being:

2414 Songs; 4 Days, 12 Hours and 41 Minutes; 9.5 GB

And this of course doesn't include solo material, not to mention improperly tagged tracks. My collection has become like a jumbled length of Christmas tree lights, a thread so knotted and tangled physical laws appear to be violated by its existence and the possibility of straitening things out again feels beyond astronomical.

To gather together all the material out there, all the demos and unreleased and unused recordings available on official releases you have to get the twofers, you have to get Hawthorne, CA, you have to get Endless Harmony, you have to get the Good Vibrations Box, and the Pet Sounds Sessions Box, and the Smile Sessions Box, and the Made In California Box. And stereo mixes of some of those albums you already bought? Well that involves getting a whole other series of more recent reissues that don't contain the bonus material collected on the twofers and are generally just a worse value. To make matters worse, the 50th anniversary releases have raised some unanswered questions about the future availability of all the material that wasn't reissued.

On top of all that I think you also under estimate both the quantity and quality of material that has yet to be issued at all. I myself have a hard time figuring out sometimes what is and isn't available, but from the Love You/Adult/Child era for example there's a whole glut of stuff, "Lazy Lizzie", "We Gotta Groove", "Marilyn Rovell", all of Brian's demos from the period among other booted material. Even some of the stuff from Adult/Child isn't available, "Everybody Wants To Live", which is a really very strong track, and what about "Lines"? Has that been released yet? Maybe not a perfectly realized idea, but that brilliant little progression Brian teases is one of those great, unexpected moments of genius I've returned to a thousand times. Collecting all that stuff, along with things like those really low quality alternate mixes found on a boot like "Brian Loves You" totals up to a whole cd, and when you consider everything currently circulating (which is beyond mortal reckoning), and add to that all the likely to exist recordings that came out of sessions listed on AGD's site, and then add to that the further probable existence of substantial outtakes, unused material, and even entire recordings whose existence has remained so far unknown, I really don't believe anyone can honestly say "Made In California" was scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel in terms of significant rarities.

Frankly the problem with "Made In California" is that what the band actually *needs* is an official catalogue entry to bring some order to the chaotic universe of Beach Boys' rarities and bootlegs, and what "Made In California" is, "A Career Spanning Box Set"^TM, is in fact totally unnecessary and redundant. "Made In California" is just a mixtape a friend or significant other hands you that, though clever and meticulously conceived, possesses little lasting value as a "statement" or definitive representation of the band's output. Personally it has taken me years to come to appreciate many aspects of the groups musical personality and style, and considering the existence of mp3s and already existing, more manageable and specialized mix tapes focusing on those aspects individually, what's the use of this sort of set? Sure many bands put releases just like this out on a regular basis. The last few years has seen a noticeable uptick in such commemorative, career spanning, legacy boxsets hitting the market, but is anyone actually well serviced by this particular species of release besides the record labels and bands putting them out? A new fan will focus in on a very small chronological leg of The Beach Boys career, he'll listen to "Made In California" and just wade through the majority of the tracks, skipping things like "Brian's Back" no matter what infinitesimal degree of merit diehards have assigned to them through untold hours of careful deliberation.

The truly casual music fan, the older adult listener who works and raises children, who spends a very limited amount of their free time listening to music purely for enjoyment but who rather desires only something to put in the car cd player is, frankly, unlikely to radically change a lifetime of preferences and purchasing habits to exhaustively "explore" the band's obscure back catalogue and is just better serviced in every way by one of the numerous conventional greatest hits packages that already gather up the material he or she can probably be expected to want. And the more serious music listener who has the personality profile diehard fans tend to have, who takes the time to explore over the course of a number of years a much wider cross section of a band's output, well he'll undoubtedly gravitate to the Pet Sounds, and Smile material based on the reputation of those releases, find a few deeper cuts that suit his tastes from somewhere during the home studio years, buy the albums those songs were originally found on without really finding a lot to sink his teeth into elsewhere, and in several years by the time he's worked his way back around to the band's lesser, more flawed, unpopular, and critically maligned work, will have long since passed the point of "Made In California" being of any use.

I mean, I think the idea that this release is particularly suited or ideal for anyone, for any consumer demographic or segment of the music listening public is really an illusion. And I think that criticism is easily extended to every such release put out by classic bands in the last few years. The "Career Spanning Box Set" is obsolete. It's an attempt to put out a single product for the highest price that will appeal to the largest cross section of potential buyers as possible, meaning they give every type of buyer just enough to ensure a purchase, but are so dispersed in their focus and hedge their selections so severely, the majority of what they contain is of little interest regardless of who you are. In the age of mp3s this approach is paleolithic, which is the reason so many releases of this nature seem to be coming out, because it's now or never and it's better to scrape whatever money you can out them while you're still able.

In my particular case, they didn't put enough on there to entice me, they didn't cross the threshold of desirability required for me to shell out the cash. I bought "The Smile Sessions", I'm glad I did, I don't regret it and on the whole was satisfied. The day it arrived though, the first thing I did was spend a good hour or two ripping the five cds to my harddrive and tagging the all the tracks. And then the cds were put away never to be listened to again. Why did I bother to buy the physical product? Because I love The Beach Boys, I like buying things they put out and it was fun taking part in the excitement. To me, The Beach Boys are an organization I actively want to support with my purchases, because I want to give them something in return for what they've given me, and to that end, I wanted to buy "Made In California" too, because I like being able to buy Beach Boys releases. What I find frustrating and disappointing, is that I simply wasn't able to justify doing so this time around. The project was ill-conceived and tone deaf. It missed the mark plain and simple. Like I said, there was no need for a "career spanning box set", regardless of the fact that's what "Made In California" is, that doesn't change the fact there wasn't really any *need* for such a thing to begin with.

What there was a need for, and what every fan, no matter how reserved and contented he makes himself out to be today, initially felt the 50th anniversary was in fact the perfect opportunity to finally do, was a dedicated, official overview of the confusing world of the band's unreleased recordings. Is there any fan who hasn't said at one time or another something along the lines of: "they left more genius stuff on the cutting room floor than most bands recorded in an entire career"? It's so often observed in reviews and commentaries about the band to border on cliche. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's not only been one of the most surprising things I've gradually discovered about The Beach Boys, but in fact one of the distinguishing things about them that really colors my feelings of affection towards them. An exploration and celebration of that aspect of the groups career is long overdue, and it's what the band's catalogue actually needed and what the fans actually wanted. That type of release would have made a bigger splash as well. When The Beatles put out their reissues Pitchfork devoted an entire week to exclusively covering them. A rarities release, something a little bolder, a little less bland, less routine than another "career spanning box set", would have probably at least gotten a wider critical hearing than it has, and it would have brought to light and put stage center one of the truly special things about The Beach Boys that just isn't understood by their larger general audience, that they were a prolific group that compensates a thousand times over for the numerous missteps and missed opportunities littered across their career with an undercurrent of completely unreleased recordings that not only augments but actually completes their artistic canon, that renders them comprehensible on a entirely different level and without which The Beach Boys simply aren't The Beach Boys. As a thousand times before The Beach Boys zigged when they should have zagged, or released something awful while a masterpiece languished unheard, "Made In California" is the result of over-deliberation, excessive, unwarranted caution and commercial paranoia, and the characteristical flaw of the group once more repeated of doing something "safe" and unexciting when something head turning and satisfying would have made all the difference.

Truly your loss. A lot of great stuff there, regardless of the business decisions behind the package. For me, it was an easy thing to justify: Some three CDs-worth of unreleased / rare / remixed material and a cool-looking package. I understand it's still expensive for a lot of people, though, and I'm shocked the price didn't come down further.


Please don't try to speak for every fan. It's impossible to do, and it overstates your argument beside. I doubt most Beach Boys fans care about those things at all, frankly. There is a subset of super-enthusiast fans who do, but that's not at all the same thing.


This is confusing two very different things. The Beatles reissues were the much-delayed revamp of their back catalogue and included no rarities. An overview simply made sense -- much as Pitchfork gave several BB albums an overview back when they were reissued in the early 2000s.

As for a general box vs. a rarities box and critical reception, it's hard to say. Given that the rarities collection you're talking about is entirely hypothetical, it's a difficult argument to make either way. I mean, would critics really fall over themselves in praise of Lazy Lizzie? As good as much of the band's unreleased stuff is, I would argue that the very best stuff has come out.


Perhaps. You really should give the set a listen. MIC is many things, and has its share of flaws, but I'd hardly call it safe.

That being said, your comments on the state of the Beach Boys catalogue are spot on. It really is surprising that so little effort has been made to unify the recordings in some manner. I've long thought we needed to simply have two-disc reissues of all the albums, in stereo and mono, with each album including abundant rarities. You could then collect other odds and ends in a multi-CD rarities set. At that point, you could simply make a boxed set that included all the individual album releases, along with the rarities release, and be done with it. I guess you'd have to keep the PS Box and Smile Box in print though, simply for completeness' sake.

When I said it is what fans in advance of the 50th were expressing a desire to buy, I guess I was unclear that I was excluding "fans", as in the people who if pressed would admit to liking *a* Beach Boys song, or who will indulge in the band's summertime cheese factor and tap their toe along to "Surfin' USA" and "I Get Around" annually. To me the word "fan" suggests the core audience of something, the individuals who have a pronounced, committed appreciation of a thing over and above what's ordinary. Like you say, we're the only ones who knew the 50th anniversary was imminent, the only ones who expressed any desire to purchase product released for the occasion and the only ones who had any expectations or preferences as to what those releases might look like, so what I meant was, even the people who are now presenting themselves as the picture of satisfaction around there parts at one time fantasized about a rarities comp. And you're case in point, we've all at one time or another speculated or wished for a substantial archival rarities comp, and none of the people who hoped for something like that a year or two ago, no matter how contented with MIC they are, can honestly say, if given the choice between MIC and a six disc rarities box that totally dispensed with any pretence of "career spanning" overview of stylistic essentializing, if told they could put down $130 and buy one or the other today but not both, that they would pick MIC?

Well, sure. But that was never a choice that was offered to us. And it just seems peculiar to me to talk about how superior an imaginary thing is to the actual thing we have. I mean, of course it is. We can imagine it to be whatever we like!

I don't know if it's that peculiar. This is the core of the argument that keeps repeating itself here over and over. The number of speculative releases that can be imagined is infinite. It includes possibilities like a cassette only commemorative reissue of SIP, or a one hundred cd box set containing "Ding Dang" repeated ten thousand times in succession. Of that infinity of possible releases only one could become actual. If instead of MIC, a deluxe package of Mike Love's solo albums was released instead with a bonus dvd containing video records of his best meditation sessions would you say the same thing? That it doesn't matter how many unambiguously superior releases *could* have been put out for the 50th anniversary, there's still no sense in criticizing "Mike Love Not War: Portrait of an Artistic Genius" considering its what we're stuck with? Wouldn't you be justified in that case to wonder if better decisions couldn't have possibly been made? If there were not perhaps other recordings that should have been given priority over the unessential ones? Wouldn't you perhaps be justified in saying "this isn't worth $130".

A perfect or somehow ideal release will never be possible, but is what should always be aimed for. It's not necessarily that I think there was a better, ideal release *possible* that's causing me to criticize MIC, but rather the fact that the line that stretches from such a release and eventually terminates in MIC takes me somewhere too far beyond the circumference of my expectations. I'm like The Uncle for Goethe's Meister, I collect things, like Beach Boys releases and songs in order that the completest *idea* of the abstract, synthetic whole can emerge from within. Presiding over a well curated collection, filling in the gaps and watching a sharper and sharper image of the whole appear is a joy. And I think I'm not alone, when even you sense that there's a gap of some size or shape a comprehensive rarities box is required to plug, you aren't just idly hoping and letting your imagination carry you over the moon, you're intuiting or grasping a real idea that you've established in your understanding by means of acquiring and ordering the parts that your collection consists in according to a form, not arbitrary, but determined by the innermost nature of the idea itself. To comprehend the infinite fullness of the idea in the conformity of your collection to a law determined by it of necessity, you intuit how to progress nearer towards it, like the artist who feels his way through creation, knowing somehow what's still missing and what simply isn't right, you know what the idea demands to further its fulfilment. These releases have to fulfil a need felt by fans, they have to offer something and possess some value to warrant purchase, and how far they go in satisfying the needs I feel have yet to be dispensed with determines that value for me. MIC simply doesn't have enough value, for the distance it takes me, for the portions of the marble shell it promises to chisel away, it's just not enough for the price.

Sometimes, in limiting an infinite number of possibilities down to one, an inability to strike upon the best among them is excusable, sometimes it is not. Sometimes the whole is so obscure and still so far from being grasped a wider range of potential outcomes can satisfy us. But MIC is a case where there was a clearer sense, a much higher degree of confidence as to how to proceed, where the need was better understood and the way to meet that need fairly obvious. It was a case of painting the sky on the empty portion of the canvas green, where it's not that the criticism is a subtle one about the nuances of what shade of blue happened to be ideal, it's rather one about the fact that green was chosen when any shade of blue would have been better.

Ummm...

Yeah... Love You in mono... that would be interesting. Sunflower too...  :)

Love You in mono would be AWESOME.

Oh, you know what I mean. Stereo and mono for albums where it's an option. Sheesh!

Hard to imagine cool cool water in mono! should pretty muddy.
Please let Sunflower in stereo .

Great, and fair, overview of the set that pretty much echoes my thoughts.  Also agreed that the perfect reissue plan is right there for Capitol to use.  Albums with a second disc of unreleased tracks/demos/live tracks from the time.  Either that or a multi disc rarities box.

Mustn't grumble though, and thankful for all that the 50th anniversary has given, a world tour, TWGMTR and MIC :)

Reduce treble, and fold down to mono and this is almost salvaged! Now if there was only something to do about all that digital reverb...

My only issue, and keep in mind this going off of spotify rips, is that there was far too much 2013 fakery going on on too many of the tracks where it wasn't warranted, and done poorly.

It is my hope that one day a "purist" is appointed to handle the Beach Boys catalogue and future reissues -- someone who will make it a point to present the music in the most faithful way possible with no interference or their own personal artistic liberties, someone who understands that they should be in the backseat, playing as minimal a role as possible, when presenting historical recordings that they had nothing to do with originally. You'd think that would be a given.

I agree.

I thought beginning around 2000 with the '70s reissues, and sort of culminating with the Smile Sessions, that the group were on their way to being held in high regard as ARTISTS again. Yet the 2012 reunion and the new box sort of seems to be going in another direction. What's Jack Rieley up to these days !?!?

I personally believe that it's better to present unfinished recordings as unfinished, i.e. historical documents. I think that revisions tend to be more dated to the period in which they were revised than they seem to be at the time.

I've always thought it would be cool to hear a Chuck Britz-style 60s mix of Pet Sounds, Today, etc. from the final 8-tracks, done all analog, on old gear ... then again, that's revisionism too !

I think these posts are a little bit harsh on the people in question. Especially as with some of the songs their aims seem to have been just to make them sound as polished as possible. I agree that I don't like some of the mixes on this set and they have gone too far with some though.

Here's my opinion. Brian, Al and Mike are still with us, and if they approved these versions, then they are canon to me. I don't compare this to stuff like sometimes what goes on with the Hendrix material or the posthumous 2Pac or Michael Jackson or whatever. Honestly, the most offensive edit from any of the recent Beach Boys related projects was how the people who did the Pacific Ocean Blue reissue inserted an unrelated piano piece into "Album Tag Song". Dennis was not here to approve it and therefore this kinda thing makes me skeptical, whereas all of Brian's material that might sound a bit different from boots on MIC was approved by the artist himself and therefore is cool with me.

I agree. Some of these reissues/releases have actually detracted from my listening pleasure; it's supposed to work the other way. I know that sounds insensitive because of the Honored Guests but the truth hurts sometimes...

Yeah, heaven forbid someone should put reverb on a Spector cover.

Yeah, except it's nasty digital reverb, the same stuff that's slathered over a lot of the 60's stereo remixes. Makes me want to tear my ears out, and will instantly date these mixes to the pro-tools era. We'll look back on these mixes like we look back on duophonic. Why add fake effects that aren't on the tapes? I just don't get it.

Face the facts, fellows: Recorded music is unnatural by its very definition.

Everything is an effect. Recording itself. Multitracking. Echo. EQ. Some of this is done in an analog domain, and some of its is done digitally. Sometimes the digital stuff sounds different. But it's all down to personal preference -- why do we accept that Brian stopped using real bass players in the 70s and replaced them with Moog keys? It's artificial. It clearly doesn't sound like a real bass. But enough time has passed that we can accept it as what it is -- simply a different sound.

Mark L. isn't replacing any mix that has ever been done. He's simply offering new perspectives, using new technology, approved by the surviving members of the band. The kind of analog bias paraded here has far more to do with snobbery than it does with anything musical.

As the question was posed earlier in the thread, and I agree: How can anyone be comfortable taking artistic liberties on historical recordings?

And I don't think it's being too harsh bringing the issue up or by the way it's being addressed here. It's a legitimate concern. I'm somewhat of a purist myself, and while I appreciate fan mixes (some add positive attributes to the original recordings), when altered, they are no longer the original recordings! I use to think Mark Linett was selected by Brian because of his ability to bring existing original recordings up to the current standard technology(s) while maintaining the integrity of the recording without altering it. Of course there has been minor compromising (as needed) since Linett took over engineering duties on Beach Boys recordings years ago, and there have been questions about how narrow some of the stereo mixes are and significant additions to the Smile mixes, etc. but overall he's done a great job. I started wondering with some of the tracks on TSS, but some of the things on MIC go beyond the "threshold" at times, and he's often taken obvious artistic liberties. Like fan mixes, some add good things to the recordings, and some are questionable. The amount of reverb and other effects (for example the live recordings) and the panning just don't seem necessary. Just my opinion. I think Sail Plane Song - not only has it been released before in demo form - should have been left alone. The '65/'76 Sherry mashup - still not quite sure about that one. And listen to the YouTube version of YLTLF and you tell me which one sounds better to you. I've given examples of discretions taken on another thread, and I'll stop here. Just wanted to chime in and....well I want to accentuate the positive with this box set, but at the same time wonder what happened to keeping things as close to the original as possible. Up until now, I don't question Mark's Linett's abilities, but now..........well, could I do better? Probably not, but........  

Because they are, for the most part, not mixed, or at least mixed professionally, and not mastered at all. You're basing your preference for these things off of (sometimes) really shoddy work done by bootleggers. I guess you still have your hissy cassette dubs recorded with all the faders up though. I'd rather hear a mix.


Mark and Alan put some reverb on Brian's vocal to a Phil Spector cover! What an unprecedented move! Such a good reason to fire them.


For full disclosure in the threads sake, I listened to MIC on a good system and thought it was really bassy throughout, so, er, nyah. And don't base yr impressions off bloody spotify rips....

It's really not snobbery - it's COMPLETELY musical. I like a lot of the new mixes on the set, and some of the edits. I'm not a analog purist by any stretch of the imagination. But the digital reverb just sounds bad. I don't give a sh*t if it sounds "natural" or "unnatural" or if it's classified as an "effect". It sounds bad, like duophonic sounds bad. There's a reason why they spent so much time building those echo chambers back in the day - you can hear the difference.

.... they built echo chambers in the mid 20th century because the reverb was better than Pro-Tools?

Dude, you know what I meant. I wish I could say I like listening to it. I don't. I guess I'm glad someone does. The end.

I got the real deal here, Hyper. The original MIC CD's. I don't do Spotify, nor did I download any FLAC/Mp3 files (yet). And I have a pretty good audio system in addition to my PC system, so I'm not pulling my observations outta my ass.

My last observation wasn't directed at you - I mean, you've probably got two of these, right?  ;D

I think a lot of people were basing their initial reactions to the box to mp3 streams, spotify, etc due to lax delivery - i mean, some people here thought this track lost all bass frequencies because that's what spotify did - and that's colouring their thoughts as they get the box proper, so I think the entire premise of this thread (and calls to fire Mark & Alan!) are ridiculous.

Also, should have put a smiley on that post picassosson, was only joking  :)

Ultimately, I would rather see the compilers take risks and fail occasionally than play it safe and produce a boring product.

Right. If it becomes a 'well I prefer the bootleg mix' thing, well... you still have the bootleg. And they are still easy to find in the internet era.

I'll base my final judgment when I get my box this week (thanks guys!) but from what I've heard the only things that really bug me are Sail Plane Song, Sherry, and YLTLF, the latter mainly due to sounding like my fan mix a little too much.

Sorry this is so long, but i feel there's a lot to say in response to what i see as dismissive replies.

I understand that being in Mark and Alan’s shoes must be tough. What they do isn’t easy. They must have a lot on their shoulders -- a lot of conflicting interests to balance, a lot of executive types to answer to, a lot of people to make happy, and a huge responsibility to honor the historical recordings of a legendary band of whom they’re fans. Speaking only for myself, i do think there are tracks on MiC where they’ve done a great job, but their heavy hand in other tracks raises issues that i feel can’t be ignored. I would think this is the place to talk about such things. Beyond this box set and the Beach Boys in general, i think this is an interesting and worthwhile topic anyway. The issue is much broader than (digital) reverb -- dare i say it’s a philosophical quandary that is no stranger to history and art.

So, taking the seemingly straightforward topic at hand here of reverb -- it’s not so much the use of reverb itself, but the absurd amount of it, instances where the “room size” sounds gigantic, where the sound is bigger than what’s on the original recording. Put aside YLTLF for a minute. There’s this idea in recent years of presenting certain Beach Boys recordings as much bigger sounding than they actually were. The 2009 stereo mix of Don’t Worry Baby is just so over the top. And i hate to sound like a stodgy purist, but that is undeniably an all time classic that’s being tampered with there, unlike say, a previously unreleased Spector cover that never went anywhere (which still doesn’t make what they did to it excusable, in my opinion). I don’t think i’m alone in thinking of this as sacrilegious. I thought this idea of offering an alternative perspective is in the fact alone that these recordings were originally mixed in mono and are now presented in stereo. Why is there a ridiculous amount of reverb on the stereo Please Let Me Wonder? Is it being now in stereo not enough of a new take on the song? Is the idea not simply to separate the elements so as to get a better look at what was there all along? How does loads of extra reverb factor into that?

On the topic of unreleased and unfinished material: Imagine coming across a tape in the archives of a song that was left in an unfinished state, whether it’s a demo or it’s missing vocals/overdubs or it was finished but never mixed and mastered. What do you do? It’s really tough to decide what you think might have been done back then had the original creators gotten around to it. And by tough i mean impossible. There’s just obviously no way to know. So, do you try to present the recording in a way where you allow what’s already there to speak for itself, say, letting the discreet tracks sit conservatively in the mix? Or do you take an active role and try to make the song sound the most presentable according to your idea of what is most presentable? Say in this hypothetical example you come across a recording where there was no reverb at all printed to tape, and say this recording in question is particularly dry. I can understand adding a little reverb subtly because you have deduced (even though this is already a risky conclusion to make) that the likelihood is that there would have been some reverb added had the song been finished (or, hell, even just because you think it sounds good and improves the recording). But the issue here is that it’s gobs and gobs of reverb to the point where you are significantly coloring the production and changing its overall sonic character. The reverb itself is now a distinguishing, even prominent, part of the production. There is a big difference between applying a little reverb to, say, avoid having a “dead” room sound, and drenching the entire recording in what sounds like a hall setting on a plug-in. I just don’t think that the latter is anyone’s call to make but the original producer, and that’s the crux here.

There’s also the issue of panning (as part of the live mix). I’m not fundamentally opposed to panning...when it’s someone’s own music and their call to make as the producer of the music. But this is not Linett’s or Boyd’s music, they are not producers of the original recordings. I think anyone in their position should be taking a backseat here, presenting the music in as neutral a way as possible (i.e. conservative mixes). Panning across the stereo field in Vega-Tables and H&V? Adding a hokey reverb on just the word “wise” in the stereo H&V? On an official archival release? I don’t think anyone should be given the agency to do this sort of thing.

What’s weird is that i would think Alan Boyd, as a film archivist and Beach Boy fanatic, would be coming from a similar place. He’s often been described as “one of us” -- frequenting this board for years, always attuned to the hardcore fan base, even friends with many here. Is this a case, as Wirestone suggests, of the compilers not playing it safe? Or does this maybe hint at the possibility that Capitol execs stepped in to make sure that this box set was geared more toward casual fans who, say, might have a hard time swallowing a few barebones demos, unfinished tracks, the occasional off key singing, or the idea that The Beach Boys didn’t always sound enormous on record like Spector’s wall of sound? Maybe Sail Plane Song in its stark demo form wasn’t seen as marketable (despite it having appeared on the Endless Harmony compilation). Perhaps the compromise for including something as risky as the California Feelin demo was to touch up some of the more off kilter stuff. 

Apologies for rambling. And none of this is personal.

Misfits 'Static Age' 1977 mix (not released until 1997):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTqz8VbWFiw

Same track, 1985 mix:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vlTBA8fSoY

Whoa, didn't think I'd find many Misfits fans around these parts. It's interesting, though, in that the '85 mixes were Glenn's work where as the originals were not (while probably having his input), which is kind of the opposite situation.

There are a couple cool things I like about his mix/additions (particularly the harmony vocal on "Static Age"), but overall, yeesh. I really don't care for them, the super-reverbed mixes are very ill-fitting for most of those songs. I think he was just into that sort of production and mixing style at the time. Sounds great on November-Coming-Fire, but here? I can't get into it.

I do agree with a lot of the things that you're saying. But we don't know what directives were given to the compilers of this set.

It may be that they were asked to make Sherry and YLTLF sound as 'normal' as possible. And I would hope that they would much rather have included a genuinely unreleased song rather than their butchering of Sail Plane Song.

I would say that seeing the number of different mono and stereo mixes (from so many different years) on this compilation is preposterous though.

Dude called Brian Wilson didn't (well, at least not that much) back in fall 1976. My 1983 cassette copy was taken from a safety master, and sure it's hissy, but it sounds... better.

I see both sides of ths argument and lean one way or the other on a song-by-song basis, but I'm curious, was the version you have a final mix? Or the bootlegged version we have?

Not that that makes it okay to take liberties etc. and like I said, I see both sides, but I do think it's relevant and above all else, just curious.

Wouldn't that alienate the casual fans who this box was designed for?

Was it?

What are you?

I just hate the amount of qualification that goes on around here, that you have to do, out of obligation, so that people won't jump on you. There's just too much "Mark and Alan are great, no offense to them, i really appreciate..." that you have to do in order to make a valid criticism. And even then it's never really enough. Honestly, I've never met either of them, and I'm unlikely ever to do so. Why should I be worried about hurting the feelings of complete strangers like this? I mean, how is it even possible for my comments to be personal about this. I know absolutely nothing about them besides what they've done with The Beach Boys. They've both received what I feel are their dues here since I've been posting, and fans have always been generous with their praise. I doubt either of these guys is so thinned skinned that any of the number of genuinely thoughtful attempts at nuanced feedback that have appeared here in the last week could in any universe be taken personally by them. They're professionals, and that requires an adult detachment on their part from their work. No more sugar coating.

Do some of these mixes, both on TSS on MIC, affect actual listening enjoyment? Yes. Some of these mixes compare unfavourably to much more shoestring ones done by people like seltaeb. Does that mean these mixes are unlistenable? No. I don't enjoy them nearly as much as I'd like though all the same. They're very bright and unpleasant to listen to on headphones, they sound less dynamic, that is the open spaces get crammed with too much reverb and create an unpleasant feeling, they just don't do the songs justice.

It's a genuine question. And as one of the print reviews in another thread states, 'This set was most decidedly not aimed at the casual fan', a valid one.

Same version as has been booted down the years, just better quality. Brian did the song in one day, top to bottom and I assume he mixed it too.

The set was designed to be exactly what it is - a "career-spanning" box set. All the hits for the casual punter, classic album tracks for the heavier fan and hard-core rarities for geeks like us. The set was aimed at the widest demographic that was possible. I'd have to say, it's succeeded.

The product had to arrive and the reviews get out for people to realise this?

When I heard 'Made In California' box was being prepared for release I immediatly thought this was going to be a huge gratification fest for all the long time hardcore fans. Instead the day the tracklist was released I immediatly felt "Hey, this isn't offering me enough yet it offers the casual fan who has just been saturated by TWGMTR, C50 tour and 50 Big Ones"

What does this set offer the casual fan? Everything. But does that mean that casual fans will actually buy it? There was never a guarantee of that and there was no chance that MIC was gonna be the new GV box. I think much of the market is still saturated by the GV box 20 years later. Also, many of those who bought back then would still be part of the target market. Many didn't feel there was enough incentive and also the box arrived a year after the tour (unfortunately they could never have done anything with this).


MIC is good, but I'm not seeing it being a big seller.

Ehhrm, could we please go back to the original subject of this thread...
W, Thank you... ;)

One big question is how the BB could go from grand releases and productions
in the early 70's - Sunflower, Surfs up, CatP, Holland, Concert - to mediocre/lousy
productions just a few years later. Just once in my life and Yltlf really deserved/-s better.
Imagine the Wrecking Crew playing on those tracks... Why did the BB choose/allow that
"low budget" production???

This is a genuine question AGD and not meant sarcastically but do you say it has succeeded based on sales (or pre-sales) figures?

Wasn't taken as anything but a genuine question: I'd say it's succeeded in fulfilling its remit. As for sales... no idea, but, as with TSS this is more a prestige project than one designed to pull in serious bucks. I doubt it'll cover the overall cost, even though a substantial portion of the tracks needed little if any work on them (2012 remasters and so on).

Because Brian was back. Also, "YLTLF" is a 100% solo BW track.

.

Ah, I was wondering about where the mix came from! Obviously it's a bit different if there was something approximating a finished mix. Still no reason to say Mark & Alan are bad at their jobs and should be replaced by 'purists' like some people here. It's some reverb on a vocal.

I actually have a soft spot for Legacy of Brutality because I had that cassette in high school! Static Age (as an album) now sounds "90s" to me! ha

One might point out that Brian's mixes for 15BO were pretty slapdash, and that by the time of Love You, his mixes were rejected in favor of a revamp by Carl.

How odd. I appear to have stumbled into a Misfits forum, and I don't know the first thing about them. Or care.  >:(

Wadn't the Misfits a movie with Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable? 

I don't know or care about the Misfits, but at least one of the posters above referenced it back to being a progression from their BB fandom. On topic enough for me.  ;D

The problem with being a "purist" and trying to stick with the original historical recording decisions, is that the biggest of those historical recording decisions was not to ever release the song.

Cheers,
Jon Blum

 :lol

Heh, thought you might given you're a few years older than me, but wasn't sure. I heard both right around the same time and the Legacy mixes were cool as far as a different and interesting listen, but I do prefer the originals (even if, in a sense, many of them are kind of not the originals).


Andrew, my man, I don't get your occasional "YOU MUST ONLY SPEAK OF THE BEACH BOYS IN THIS FORUM." Yes, folks should try to stay on topic, but Donny brought up how drastically different mixes can be over the course of just a few years, referred to a different band and it got a whopping two responses total before you came in. Like everyday life, conversations will become derailed and, erm, re-railed again. There have been instances where it got out of hand here, but a couple posts referring to a similar incident (i.e. being somewhat relevant) are pretty harmless, I feel. Above all else, it's awright, everyone will live.

P.S. Maybe you should care. ^_^


That's the thing - you sound uncertain and you admit Brian recorded the song pretty hastily. There's a good chance that considering it was done pretty hastily, what we had before was not a final mix and was just done that day (if it was actually "done" at all). I guess I'm just kind of playing devil's advocate, here. Basically, if there was never a final mix, that may be cause for concern by any number of the camps involved - Capitol, Brian, Mike (considering his heavy involvement), Mark and Alan, EVIL MELINDA, EVIL JEFF FOSKETT, OH M GOD etc.

Just sayin', that could be why the song was remixed. I can't imagine the song ever got a final mix back in '76. Final mix in '76. lol lol get it. But yeah. I was never really attached to this one nor do I have the original booted mix on this computer, so I'm not really familiar with the differences. I'm not sayin' you lot are wrong in that the booted mix sounds better, just trying to say this might be why the remix was done. I imagine a lot of recent releases never had a proper mix done back whenever.

Slightly relevant: A minor thing that bugs me about the new mixes that I haven't seen anyone else mention is the ending of "Where Is She?", the fade ending that is obviously a re-edit of the first verse with some additional percussion.

Re-using parts on a new mix doesn't bug me terribly outright (although it can), but in this instance, it really doesn't make much sense. Brian spends forever telling us of how vulnerable and uncertain he's feeling. Where's his lady? Good lawd, how's he gonna get through this? And suddenly - she's coming home! She's missed him, too. D'awww, that's adorable. Situation resolved. The actual song ends nicely.

AND THEN. New fade ending. Brian starts wondering where she is again. Over and over. What? What happened to the resolve? What happened to her coming home? What happened to the nice ending, something of a big finish? It feels like an attempt to help flesh out what was likely a demo (sonically, it reminds me a bit of "Sail Plane Song"), but it doesn't really work due to the reasons I just stated and would've been better off without it. Just my opinion, it's kind of a minor thing, it could've been a Brian decision and, unlike a mix I don't care for, lopping off that ending is easy if I really wanted to.

Maybe he got so stoned that night that he forgot where she was :lol

Really?

You're right. That's a great point. I've now changed my mind -- unreleased songs should never be released. Glad that problem's solved.

What do we talk about now?

 Yep. Last film ever for both of them. Montgomery Clift was near the end of the line as well.

The Misfits.

It's not the most terrible point in the world. You want a purist in there? We should never have heard Soulful Old Man Sunshine because Carl specifically didn't want it released. To pick one example. Alan disagreed and it came out on Endless Harmony. Is he not a purist?

You are talking about the two people who are employed to sort out The Beach Boys vaults, and get it past the bastards at Capitol. They have just given us the 74 Cali Feelin' demo unadulterated. And WIBNTLA (by god, do I hate that acronym), which they've been trying to do for at least six years.

And because they put some reverb on a vocal you want them fired? Come on.

(Wouldn't It Be Nice To) Live Again [Insane Clown Posse Remix].mp3

I agree...I'm not happy with some of the edits but I'll gladly take that since I now have CF74, which was on my bucket list.

How about 'conservative' vs. 'liberal' artistic decisions on an archival release?

The way I see it, MIC seems to have a general vibe of 'updating' or 'modernizing' The Beach Boys' recordings. This feels like an extension of the reunion album last year ... presenting the group in a current context (not saying this was an intentional or conscious decision on the part of the producers). The Good Vibes box of '93 seemed to take the conservative approach of presenting the group's body of work as a historical document. There were plenty of remixes or newly mixed songs, digital edits, etc. there ... but it didn't seem to come off that way to listeners, because it was done in an understated manner.

I typed what I did before...and then I heard the pitch correction at 1:10 on disc six's Surfs Up 67....followed by a dodgy edit

If it were up to me, I would leave Brian's original mixes -- of released material -- untouched. There's a good case to be made, at least for things like the big hit singles, that the mono mixes represent his final artistic statement.

I like the stereo mixes, but I far prefer them being presented in a context like the Pet Sounds box or the reissues of last year. That is, alongside the mono mixes so that listeners can have a choice. Basically, I love stereo as a fan -- but I'm unsure about it as someone who values the history of these recordings and respects the original producers' intent.

I quite enjoy this new set, and I'm not a stickler for analog processing or anything like that. But for something like California Girls, you can't escape the fact that Mark Linett's stereo mix of that song is not what became a hit.

Again, this isn't something I feel super strongly about, or judge Mark harshly for doing. (You can even argue it adds value to a set like MIC for a hardcore fan like me.) But if I were compiling the releases, I would lean toward mono.

Edit: And I know this conflicts somewhat with my earlier post about preferring the compilers take risks. But I kind of prefer both things, and I am conflicted about it. Because I enjoy cool zoomy stereo effects, but then I hear that Good Vibrations mono mix, and damn, it just sounds perfect.

This is spot on. Very well said. Glad you mentioned the Please Let Me Wonder stereo remix -  that one is slathered with reverb. Like "opera house" mode on an AV receiver. Sounds closer to Getcha Back than anything from 1965. Miles away from the excellent mixing on the Pet Sounds box. Reverb aside the mix is so narrow it might as well be a mono. Shut Down on SOS is worse....witness the massive phasing in the intro.

In addition to this, I'd love to hear more 'works-in-progress' or alternate/demo mixes, etc ... like, actual vintage mixes MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE! The vaults must be filled to the brim with this stuff! It's cool to hear this stuff with the original echo chambers used, the effects chosen, etc. ('You've Lost That Lovin Feelin' has dry verses and echo/delayed choruses -- there was a conscious effort there. This is a certain kind of dynamic ... I'm assuming Earle Mankey mixed that one). I mean, I think the Badman book mentions something like 30 different mixes of 'Add Some Music' were done in one sitting. And there's the mono single versions of 'Add Some Music', 'Never Learn Not to Love', etc. We have vocals-only, track-only ... but no works in progress and a limited number of vintage mixes. Something like the 'from the Vaults' disc is clearly designed as a disc of demos, alternates, etc ...

My fantasy future release is a 4-LP box set:

BEACH BOYS' BURIED TREASURE:

Disc 1 - Lei'd In Hawaii
Disc 2 - Adult Child
Disc 3 - Paley Sessions
Disc 4 - Bootlegger's Bankruptcy (all the coolest unreleased/weird tracks, 'Stevie', 'Carry Me Home', cocaine sessions, vintage alternate mixes, etc.)

Beach Boys hip and critical cred fully restored for all time.

^ I'm with you. Won't ever happen, but I'd kill for that one.

I have listened to Please Let Me Wonder about five times in a row and I can't hear any excessive reverb at all. The track is untouched, the vocals have a nice spread to them....


I don't know what to make of this thread  :lol

After reading that post, I too went back to listen to the stereo PLMW. Didn't hear anything that off about it. Odd.

I would appreciate it if you stopped oversimplifying and putting it in such aggressive terms (i.e. “firing”) because that is not how i’ve expressed it. I am not that crass or presumptuous. I simply stated a desire to one day see someone else be given the opportunity to take a stab at the catalogue and bring a new approach. Or even the current personnel adopting a different approach could work! It is not that i desire for anyone to be FIRED. It’s about having some alternatives. What is wrong with that? Do we all need to be uncritical fans of everything? This has nothing to do with business practices and how well one can finesse a corporate record label, so no need to feed me the “be grateful for what we’ve been given” bit. I’m talking solely about engineering here.

And it is most certainly not, as you keep dismissively suggesting, because of reverb on a vocal (even with this i think you’re deliberately missing the point -- you think the reverb on YLTLF is on the vocal alone?). I am not going to actually enumerate the reasons why i feel this way. There’s no point in that, but suffice it to say that it’s not because of a single minor issue with this release alone. I am entitled to generally not be a fan of one’s work after evaluating pretty much all of it over many years. You are being reductive here and i think you know it. I’m thinking it would take something as blatant as applying a heavy flanger effect to an entire mix for you to see where i’m coming from. How would you feel about something that extreme? Where's your arbitrary threshold for these things? Again, the issue (at least the one issue in this thread) is about drastically coloring a production decades after the fact.

Regarding your other point, which was building on Jon Blum’s, i initially put the word purist in quotations because it’s a relative term, and therefore kind of meaningless, and it’s generally used disparagingly, which i don’t necessarily align myself with. At any rate, what i meant was a “purist” approach to the sound and presentation of the music and production. As Donny said, and i have already said this too, taking a “conservative” approach rather than an active, artistic one. I’m not talking about extra-musical issues like whether or not something that was initially unreleased should stay unreleased to honor the artist's original decision and for the sake of staying “pure.” That is a whole other can of worms (even an ethical issue). Come on. Does this really need to be explained?

Just re-listened to "YLTLF" on the box, then A/B'd it with the version we've all known for decades. No comparison. To people like me who've lived with the track for over 30 years, the box remix is close to unlistenable. Brian did use heavy Moog bass and he didn't record it in a grain silo.

And if we're talking historical accuracy here, compare with the Love You recordings. Is there ludicrous amounts of reverb all over those ?

^ I was just thinking that earlier -- if you're gonna do a remix and add reverb, why wouldn't you go for the type of reverb that's characteristic of the records of that era, i.e. 15BO/LY? Further, why strip the dynamics that seemed to have been deliberately created with the dry verses/echo choruses? The only thing i can think of is that it's a Spector cover and, you know, Spector = THE WALL OF SOUND, MAN. But there's nothing from that period of Brian's productions that has that approach to room size. I can't even think of an example from when Brian was at the height of his Spector influence and using the Wrecking Crew in the same studios where he used reverb that big. It also just sounds so glassy and cold, the antithesis of the warmth of the echo chambers that this is clearly trying to emulate.

I agree. It's one thing to add reverb... it's another to add  a huge amount of digital reverb which didn't exist when the track was done! No offense to Mark, whom I respect, but it sounded a bit amateurish. I'm not entirely convinced it was his decision, personally. One positive aspect... due to the increased stereo separation there are a few newly heard parts...either that or there were other parts recorded that weren't on the boot for whatever reason.

You must be on kinda friendly terms with these guys right? If and when you next speak to them, please question them re YLTLF at the earliest opportunity, because it's the one decision on the entire box that just completely baffles me and for which I can think of no justification whatsoever, and I really want to know why they did it... They really have just ruined it. Hence why I started this thread.

The stereo 'Please Let Me Wonder' sounds fine to me ... much prefer the original mono of course.

I think the MIC version is fine, really.

+1

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if Alan and Mark never grace this board again with all the negative and borderline insulting comments thrown their way.

I'm glad I didn't live with the bootlegged YLTLF because I also think it sounds fantastic.

I haven’t scanned every comment on the remixes on the “MIC”, but simply saying one doesn’t prefer some of the remixes or the remix style is not some sort of vicious attack that warrants running away from this board. I don’t think Boyd or Linett have posted much here in ages. I hope they do of course.

I am not really a purist. I LOVE stereo remixes. I think many if not most can agree that one reason to do stereo remixes, especially when we’re talking about 60’s material previously only available in mono and previous mixed using bounce-down tapes, etc., is to open the mix up and allow for more things to be heard, both vocals and instruments. The problem with adding a lot of reverb/echo is that this partially (or in my opinion sometimes completely) nullifies the effects of mixing in stereo to open things up. It mucks everything up. Every one of these mixes is different. The new “Country Air” remix is pretty good I think. The stereo remixes of things like “Please Let Me Wonder” or “You’re So Good to Me” have such an over-the-top amount of reverb added, I was stunned when I first heard them on the “Warmth of the Sun” compilation. I literally thought I had hit “Opera House” on my digital receiver. That is not hyperbole. I was really disappointed with some of the recent stereo remixes on material from this era, because the idea to me was to open the mixes up since they were sometimes a bit muddy due to how they were mixed from bounce-down tapes. But it’s also not hyperbole to say that the original mono mix of “You’re So Good To Me” literally has more clarity to me.

The fact that we’re also getting in some cases a lot of reverb added to later-era recordings that didn’t suffer some of the technical limitations of 60’s mixing suggests to me that it is a pattern running through a lot of the work of some of these engineers. I just don’t prefer it, and don’t really understand it. The 1996 “Pet Sounds” stereo mix was awesome, and that was all Linett. I don’t know what happened. I’m willing to entertain the idea that Brian sits in and asks for tons of reverb; he certainly adds it to some of his solo stuff too. But some of that solo stuff is engineered by Linett too, so I’m not sure who’s creative decision it is.

I would call it "constructive criticism". 

Can't remember reading any personal attacks toward them. One guy supposedly called for their firing but I can't find the post.

There is much reverb on the Spector produced original. Perhaps they wished to capture the essence of that in a way? A bad choice by the producers of the box certainly.

Alan Boyd posted here two or three days ago.

Is that a problem?

Should people not share their thoughts in fear that it might scare two adult men, who should be considered fragile creatures ready to quit their business in the face of any negative commentary, from perhaps visiting this webpage? Thou jest.

It's called respect. Sheesh.

No, it's called opinion.

Been listening a lot to the live tracks. Unnecessary reverb has been added, especially to things like Wild Honey. That echoey reverb DOES NOT do it justice. I hope to hell that if they ever issue a BB live set (i.e. Carnegie Hall/MSG/Luxembourg/Nassau/Michigan/Hawaii) that they will not add reverb to it. Just take out the excess hiss if you have to and just leave the rest alone.

People should of course be able to share their thoughts, although it should be done respectfully as Wirestone has pointed out. I'm surprised they weren't scared off after seeing your 'Mono Smile Sessions ruined the Beach Boys legacy' thread.

Yes, I saw his comments regarding “You’re Still a Mystery”, and I hope he comments more. He has been an extremely sporadic poster for many years now. I would be too if I were in his position. I totally grant that. I probably wouldn’t post at all. Maybe a blog or something that doesn’t involve an always potentially sketchy back-and-forth.

But I also don’t think we should refrain from constructively analyzing and opining on one of the biggest BB-related releases in recent times because some of those involved may at some point post or may have been turned off from the board some time ago because of the nature of discussions. I’ve been reading and posting on boards for, yikes, at least 17 or 18 years now, and while I love to see “insiders” post and be a part of online communities, I’m not a fan of what often happens when some fans immediately shift gears and don’t breathe a slightly negative word within miles of the “insider.”

It has happened on this board before. People had a discussion going about Cowsill and how he sounded on “Wild Honey”, then Cowsill posts, and immediately it’s nothing but congratulatory posts about how awesome he sounded on that song. I dig Cowsill, and if I like his vocals I’d love to have the chance to tell him so. But there is often in these situations a bit of an air of “um, no, forget what I said before, everything about you is awesome!”

I haven’t been agreeing much with AGD in a while, but I was glad that he was able to say how awesome this set is while also pointing out something he may not like about it, in this case the mix on “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feelin’.”

Sorry but I think it's been documented that Bruce looks at this board from time to time. Considering some of the stuff that has been written about him on here, I'm not sure that Mr Linett or Mr Boyd have anything to complain about. They do their work in public and therefore must expect positive and negative criticism.

The thing is, I don’t think Boyd or Linett or anybody in that position should come on here and start debating or “answering” for their work. If they can converse here, and perhaps explain stuff or just comment on anything at any time, that’s great. But I don’t expect them to start debating or justifying their work. But I also don’t think we should refrain from discussing and potentially being critical of something they worked on. That’s the whole point of forums like this.

Very true. But I'll tell you what. I would love for them to address some of the issues that have been brought up here. And I can pretty much guarantee that they would get a lot of praise and positive feedback compared to the negative issues brought up. I would like them (specifically Mark) to come on here (or his own website) and answer some of the questions and "what for's" being brought up on this board. Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think either of them talked about the ins and outs of compiling the Smile Sessions box, so I don't think there's a very good chance they will talk about MIC. Sure wish they would though!

Interesting point.

I think that That Lucky Old Sun is perhaps the one anomaly in BBs-related releases engineered by ML where reverb is applied so sparingly to the point of being unnoticeable.

Because it was co-produced by Scott Bennett, who doesn't stand for that kind of thing.

The Lucky Old Sun demos are rather reverb-y though   :-\ (Scott produced those right?) Don't wanna take this too far off topic, and I've said it before, but I think the defining strength of the Midnight's Another Day demo version is the deeper and richer reverb, on the vocal in particular.

I'll also add that I don't listen to many boots, so am blissfully unaware of the Loving Feelin' boot mix...might seek it out for curiosity reasons at some point though, once I've got to know the MIC version.  :)

Here you go, Sam.  Off of Dumb Angel Rarities Vol. 4:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeMhUNd439s&list=PLZTIUg7PuwVCmXaHS3m2Q4TL7TyzXbID7

Thanks Mikie. I definitely like the MiC version better... Perhaps it's a case of first impressions being lasting impressions?

I like 'em both. But if you're use to hearing the bootleg version all these years, then that's your reference. The MIC version doesn't sound like the booted version, but it's a matter of preference. I'm with whoever said that Brian was evidently satisfied with his '76 version and left it alone afterwords. So to me that's the definitive version. Why mess with it?

To me the boot version sounds unmixed and lacking something (dimension? completeness? Not sure.) Where the discrepancy comes, I think, maybe in expectations. I really don't think MiC is intended to be an academic release (ala discs 2-5 of TSS). But what do I know? (nothing). I do like the nakedness of Brian's vocals on the boot version, but the MiC version (for me) opens it up wonderfully into a whole new dimension.

That sounds like it's been slowed down in comparison to either the MiC version or the other boots I've heard.

Yeah, you're right. I have the song on another boot and it's a little faster.

Like I say, I like both versions, but the MIC version lacks that powerful oomph when the chorus comes in. It's just missing something.

one thing I noticed is that the synth bass on the MIC version lacks bite and sounds rather tinny in comparison.

Listen to the sound of the drums on the remix compared to the mono mix.

I think we're hearing lots of different things. I prefer the mono mix, but I don't think there is excessive reverb on the stereo. The original mix is dark and passed through multiple generations of tape and console. There's lots of masking and other things going on, and the sound is very different ... but it's not a reverb level issue in my opinion. Possibly the EQ of the reverb and/or the type of reverb used is different.

Ooh, no, no, no. This has been slowed right down. Someone please upload the version from Rockin' Rarities (I would if I knew how). The bootleg version that's played at the right speed is where it's at - seek it out people. Last time I looked Rockin' Rarities was on Ebay UK for £10.

I've always found it sadly ironic that four of the five main actors from that movie (Monroe, Clift, Gable, Thelma Ritter) died relatively young while the last remaining is Eli Wallach who is still alive at 97.  He even still appears in movies sometimes.  Good for him though.

Okay sorry, back on topic.

Here you go. Knock yourself out finding a better version on these boots:

Rockin' Rarities
BB Demos & Outtakes
Brian Wilson Sessions Vol. 3
From The Vaults
Landlocked/Adult Child
California Feeling
Adult Child
New Album

There's also my version that's been floating around... ;)

Where can we hear your version? Would sure like too.

I'm gonna be perfectly honest and say that A: that's my video and B: I slowed it down thinking the tape transfer was too fast. I even sorted out the different speed at the beginning. MIC tells me I was wrong on both these points!

Can't ya upload it onto YouTube without slowing it down to help spread the gospel of the bootleg version?

Gimme a sec

Edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4h9hIJkgrQ&feature=youtu.be

Aaaaaaaaand there's the route of the problem. Got taken down. Happy days.

I'm a bit late to this discussion but...The overdone reverb on some songs (YLTLF, Wild Honey Live and It's A Beautiful Day) were a bit of a let down.  These should be definitive versions but instead I'm now thinking we need reverb-free mixes (which I'll go out and buy!) of these things and other stuff.  Having heard the boots has probably clouded my judgement but I think if someone is going to remix it should be the 'best' version.  Off course 'best' depends on the listener!  Overall, I love the boxset but it's still not being critical of Mark and Alan by disagreeing with their choices.  I like the edits of things like "She Says That She Needs Me", and love hearing stereo versions of previously mono only tracks.  As far as I'm aware Mark and Alan get paid for their work.  It's nice to be grateful to them for their hard work but some posters are making out they are doing it for free (if they are I apologize!).  So we can comment on their choices without getting personal, and I'm sure they have also said what a great job they have.

This is very true and I share your sentiment 100%. Why Linett chose to add reverb to those tracks is beyond me. Even after hearing the boots to some of these tracks, it didn't really cloud my judgement - the reverb just sounded so out of place. Especially like "Wild Honey" where it sounds like Blondie is singing into the Carlsbad Caverns. The live Rhonda sounded great - thankfully he didn't dick with that one!

We need a live box of early 70's stuff with NO REVERB added.

Just wanted to say that despite the liberties taken, it's great that this song was released. What a cool performance by Brian. I'd love to know more about the circumstances that led to its creation. The same goes for Sherry. They may be ragged but they're magic.

I think it has less to do with "snobbery" (speaking for myself here!) and just wanting to enjoy the sound that we've come to "expect" from Beach Boys releases.  Clearly certain aspects of the MIC really upset a lot of people.  A lot of it upsets me, whether or not Linett is trying to offer us new perspectives on tracks doesn't really concern me.  I didn't buy the box set to hear HIS interpretation of what the Beach Boys sound like in the digital age.  I bought it because I've always loved the sound that Brian as well as the band produced during their career.  Digital doesn't bother me, heck it's made my life a lot easier in terms of recording, editing, etc. but digital does bother me when it's used to such an extent that I feel uncomfortable listening to the results.  "Sail Plane Song" has offended many people on this board and I don't blame them.  It sounds sh*t to me!  That's the bottom line, I don't care what Linett was TRYING to do, I don't even care whether or not Brian, Mike, Al and Bruce gave the go ahead on such a sonic atrocity but it doesn't smack of anything "good".  I respect Linett but I really think the liberties taken simply because a person CAN are completely unnecessary. 
I agree with you that it's all personal preference.  But I don't think that comparing Brian's move from recording bass on guitars and uprights to Moog has anything to do with this.  These are mixes that were put together by people that I admire and who really got me seriously interested in a career of recording and production and these mixes don't deserve to be "tinkered" with simply because we're living in a digital age or because an individual wants to put their personal touches onto them.  These recordings are of a time and deserve to be treated with respect.  By all means, sort out things like "drop outs" etc. but don't start changing the overall sound.  If a listener goes home and thinks, "Well, I don't think there's enough bass or treble on this so I'm going to turn those up on my graphic equalizer." then by all means, but when I buy a box set containing music by a legendary group like the Beach Boys I expect to hear their mixes, no matter how bad some may be. 
This isn't a personal attack on you, by the way.  I think I just had to say my bit about this.  I'll go back to being quiet again! 

I guess I should be grateful because I have never heard the booted version of 'You've Lost That Loving Feelin' so it never lost that loving feelin' for me.  :3d

This kills me... I wish people would stop directing people to this link. I don't know why this version of the bootleg has been slowed down so much, but the version I've got on Rockin' Rarities sure doesn't sound like this! Seek that out, people - and you'll discover why us YLTLF fans were/are so disappointed with the MIC version.

Weird. Your post says it's quoting me, but I never posted any such thing.  ???

As I said earlier, I corrected my varispeeded mix of the boot but that was blocked from the world.

The We're Together Again string section is vintage, only the mix is new.  What was tweaked on Goin' to the Beach?  The vocals are vintage.

lol @ "magical new string section."

Also, "Goin' To The Beach" had the guitar/sax solo added recently because one was never recorded in 1980 on an otherwise finished song. I don't find an addition like that wrong. I'm just glad someone didn't add a guitar solo to the supposed "guitar solo" section of "Live Again" which is, in fact, not a guitar solo section at all.

What if a song went unmixed? Or if only a reference mixdown was made with the intent of doing a proper mix later which never ended up happening?