The Smiley Smile Message Board

Doesn't The Beach Boys Love You strike you as a continuation of modular composition?

That's very interesting. Never thought of it that way.

Could you further explain what you mean by this? Any discussion about Love You is a great discussion :-)

I was about to ask the same thing.

I love this album.

Sounds like a subject I could warm to! Good call, Bissonic.

Oh, and welcome! :=)

Now that you mentioned, some tracks can be seen as modular. Johnny Carson, Airplane... However, for me it's always been adult version of Pet Sounds. Adult yet child, whereas PS was between those two, young adult.

Don't see it as modular.  The songs seem to have been written as complete songs, demo'd that way by Brian, no switching about of parts from one song to the other.  don't know if they were RECORDED modular like Smiley Smile and some of Wild Honey was, recording parts of the song and editing them together rather than performing them all the way through.

I would agree with this. As much as I'd wished for our new member Bissonic to have kickstarted a 1,000 page discussion thread that would have put the Hoffmannites to eternal shame, I really don't think Love You was constructed in a similar way to SMiLE.

The music on Love You is not modular composition.

Agreed. I’ve seen Pet Sounds as the start of a series of albums about Brian’s life:

Pet Sounds - young love
Friends - young adult, has children, starts real life
Love You - 10 years into parenthood but nostalgic about the past
No Pier Pressure - old man, trying to recapture youth with young artists, ends it with a “last song”

I feel like these are 4 of Brian’s most personal albums. Most other albums he did were for something else other than himself, but these four feel like Brian opens up his inner most thoughts, no matter how ridiculous, and shares them with the world.

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Never looked at it like that, but great observation

I'd take it back to All Summer Long. Chuck Today in too.

I think I left it at four albums because it's a more concise "story", but since there are no rules those albums definitely work too. From adolescence to old age.

Good observation!

The Beach Boys Love You is a train wreck. And we can't look away.  :o

I do see Pet Sounds, Friends, and Love You in that succession. NPP, not so much. From his solo career, BW88 came closest to being another of those biographical records - all IMHO.

You'll have a very Lonely Summer........IN HOSPITAL!!

 >:D

Yeah, I can get that...and BW88 sounds more like Love You (I’ve at least always thought it was like Love You part II mostly due to the synths and quirkiness of some songs). But I chose NPP for two reasons:

- because of how honest the song ‘I’m Feeling Sad’ is
- tracks 11-16, from Love to anxiety those songs all seem like Brian is really singing about himself (including the Ruess track where the singer talks about just sitting at a table in a corner on a Saturday night).

With BW88 Brian wasn’t really able to be honest about his life thanks to Landy. But in ‘I’m Feeling Sad’ Brian admits to the whole world that he parks himself in a recliner and feels depressed. Even in the upbeat ‘Sail Away’ he sings about his “so-called life spinning out of control”. Idk, it’s definitely up to the listener, but aspects of NPP feel more autobiographical than BW88.

Surely TLOS fits this criterion also?
Oxygen, Goin Home etc
Although Mr B did do much of those lyrics

I’ve always thought of TLOS being a biography of California, and not really about Brian (excluding MAD, which is one of Brian’s most personal songs).

Exactly!  :hat

Bumping this Love You thread for the sake of making people aware of this fun little EP with a Love You-connection:

https://surfschooldropouts.bandcamp.com/album/surf-school-dropouts-love-you

"Surf School Dropouts pay homage to the iconic synth sounds of the classic 1977 'Love You' album by the Beach Boys. The EP features four Surf School Dropouts originals rearranged and partly re-recorded for a 'Love You' feel."