The Smiley Smile Message Board

Also, Lana Del Rey cancelled on him!  So that's why they weren't on the album as they were originally slated.

http://pitchfork.com/news/58994-brian-wilson-says-he-cut-frank-ocean-from-his-album-because-frank-wanted-to-rap-not-sing/

 ;D

Good for Brian because Rap sucks... :lol

except for "Smart Girls."

Totally agree Rap is just bad poetry with background music

Good. There's quite a lot of hip hop that I really like, but rap just doesn't belong in pop songs.

Not surprised he's not familiar with Kanye West.

I really like Lana Del Rey but I don't mind the collaboration not happening. I just think NPP features some very lame guest choices (Nate Ruess and the Capital Cities guy come to mind) but I wouldn't expect a 2015 BW solo record to feature some actual rapping by Frank Ocean either. I think he's a remarkable artist though.

So I guess Brian had no idea that this guy standing about two feet away from him was one of the biggest stars in the world!

(http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd120/hipsterrunoff/photographs/a02080da.jpg)

Nor Alan, to judge from the photo.  ;D

Frank Ocean 's great so it's a shame Brian wasn't in to him.

I'd like to hear Frank Ocean singing with Brian Wilson, but imo BW's right not to let him rap on a BW track. Regardless of merit, it would stick out like a sore thumb on the album.

Is it confirmed that a recording with Frank wasn't made, though?

Why did he want to rap on it? I can't see the artistic purpose behind that. I love rap, I love the Beach Boys, but when the twain meet, dear God...

Al did an interview I think sometime after the C50 ended when someone asked him about keeping up with modern trends and I believe his response was something akin to the fact that they've been successful doing what they do so they are going to keep doing that. 

I also remember someone on this forum at the time mentioning that Brian or Mike should start twerking on stage to keep up with the times.

 :lol oh hell yeah. Bruce should do some twerking. It'd give him a break from the mic adjusting & put those shorts of his to good use.

These guys are effing in the 70's, so I figure they should just do whatever they want to at this stage musically, and more importantly, they should be into whatever they want to be into.

I've always kind of dug that Brian lives in kind of a musical vacuum. I love that quote from a few years back where someone asked him about "new" music he listens to, and he named that 80's song "Take My Breath Away." It showed he doesn't go out of his way to listen to "new" stuff, but that he also still has an ear for random melodies and songs he likes.

Back to Lana Del Rey and Frank Ocean: While I think it was confirmed (or guessed) some time back that Ocean never actually did any recording (not sure why his name was so strongly floated if they hadn't even gotten Ocean to find a song he wanted to work on), I somehow got the impression that Lana Del Rey had already done some recording work on "Last Song." Didn't some of the articles imply something along the lines of "There are two version of the song", rather than "two versions of the song are planned."

I'm wondering of she put down some sort of vocal, and they called her back to do more work and she canceled on the session.

It's funny; I had no interest in hearing Ocean, but I thought Lana Del Rey (who I have very mixed feelings about) was *potentially* the most compelling guest on Brian's album. Would have been interested to hear her sing a BW tune. At the same time, I remember saying way back that if "Last Song" was even half as epic and poignant as it has been implied, then I would definitely want to hear Brian tackle it on his own too.

Kanye: R-remember when you recorded Surfer Girl?...That was awesome!

Brian: Al, get rid of this guy.

Brian himself told Rolling Stone that he was working with Ocean & Del Rey last year:

http://www.axs.com/news/brian-wilson-silences-haters-says-he-s-working-with-frank-ocean-lana-d-12087

Facts:

Frank Ocean rapped on "Special Love," though the track remains unfinished and will not make the album.

"Last Song," the album's centerpiece, is a heartbreaking ballad that was recorded in two versions – one with a haunting vocal by Del Rey and one with Wilson's lead vocals. So the version with Lana will not be used, at least on Brian's new album.


Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/brian-wilsons-girl-powered-lp-in-the-studio-with-the-beach-boy-20140718#ixzz3VbgOd1oU
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook



Shoot, you'd thing Frank would bend just a little to record some real music with a legend.   Ocean doesn't realize that recording at Ocean Way with a Beach Boy would be step forward in his career!

Hell, even a cover of "Smart Girls" even with alternate lyrics, wouldn't be a bad thing.

I suppose, also that the use of the word "cancel" by Brian may not mean actually canceling a studio session, but rather "canceling" the inclusion of the song, or canceling the artist in question.

It's not impossible that Lana Del Rey's management decided against the track, and that was what their "canceling" meant.

I'm not terribly upset with not hearing either track. "Our Special Love" didn't do much for me anyway in its eventual released state.

It will be interesting to hear "Last Song" to try to figure out how good of a fit Del Rey would have been.

Or maybe Lana will release the version with her on it in the future.

I was very much looking forward to Lana's contribution, not at all to Frank's.  I'm glad Brian doesn't see the need to be over diplomatic or PC.  Dude wanted to rap; I didn't want rap, so we cut him.  Classic Brian.

Or perhaps it's just not aimed at you. What, in your vision of the world young teens growing up in late 20th/early 21st century urban environments are supposed to relate to Surfin' Safari?

Exactly. It's all relative. I grew up with hip-hop and I really enjoy it to this day. I don't expect people to understand it, but don't bash it because it's not your taste.

Good news! Brian made 2 great choices. Never cared for either, they are too depressive. Why would I listen to depressive voices? Music, after all, is all about lifting mood.

Glad someone else gets it.

Music can be about lifting mood, but it certainly doesn't have to be. Art has many uses. No need to limit it.

I was really excited to hear Lana sing on a Brian track, such a bummer it didn't happen but at least She & Him did.

I can't stand Ocean or DelRay.

I can.

I think this is going well. The internet is great.

Another fine contribution.

You're welcome. I figure it was as good as its predecessor. Maybe slightly better, as it wasn't wholly negative. But I'll expound because the world is dying to know.

I'm not a huge Lana Del Rey fan at all, but I do appreciate that there is a mood to her music--a compelling one. It's a little creepy, it's wholly artificial, but I don't care about that. I'm not sure I'd have liked the results of a collaboration, but I'm sure I'd have been interested in hearing them. (An A/B test would have been fantastic in that respect.)

As for Ocean, it's even trickier to see how exactly he'd have worked, especially knowing--or at least strongly suspecting--that it was "Our Special Love" he would have been on. (I think it was just referred to as "Special Love" or something in the press. It could have been different, but presumably not.) And I will say this, I don't see where him rapping over the Velveeta that song turned out to be would work at all. But of course, it might not have been that song once it was done with Ocean. Beyond that, though, it might have been interesting had he sung and helped write/produce rather than rapped, in that he's not really a rapper any more than BW circa 1967 was a Baldwin organist. Earl Sweatshirt, one of the better rappers on this earth, good-naturedly mocked Ocean in a relatively recent interview (I'm thinking within the past year) along the lines of "Frank thinks he's a rapper now, everybody wants to be a rapper." But Ocean's voice and other musical talent might well have been a fascinating collaboration.

Or a shitty one. Like Bob Dylan's and Paul McCartney's were.

But I think if nothing else, Ocean is really talented and Del Rey has a certain amount of "it" factor to make something interesting--good or bad--happen. Which is better than trying to yet again recapture the perfect wood-block, bass harmonica blah blah blah.

You've just described 90% of music since the dawn of recording technology.

http://www.inquisitr.com/1978648/lana-del-rey-rejected-special-lament-song-by-brian-wilson/ (http://www.inquisitr.com/1978648/lana-del-rey-rejected-special-lament-song-by-brian-wilson/)

The Lana song was recorded but didn't make it on album due to her people strong-arming.

Oh, so now Lana has "people"?! Who are these alleged "people" that "strong arm" Lana to the degree that she can't make her own decisions? I've never met them. You're stripping Lana of all of her agency. How dare you call yourself a fan.

Amen. But worse is the logic. You can't judge the genre by what isn't a genre-wide characteristic, but rather is a qualitative assessment of one element of the genre--an element that is qualitatively different across each artist. Does jazz suck because it's bad sax-solo squawking over a rhythm section? Well, not when the sax player is Johnny Griffin or Wayne Shorter or Charlie Parker. Does basketball suck because it's bad shooters ruining the point guards' assist totals? Not when Kyle Korver is on the court.

Certainly a person could take good poetry and put it over background music, right? Shakespeare over beats? Would rap then magically have become good?

It's ok to just not like something without going to the trouble of illogically insulting it.

Ha. Semantics. Her people did the strong-arming. One would assume it was on her behalf.