The Smiley Smile Message Board

Buried in a post from a week or two back on Facebook from Mike (a birthday greeting to his son), he mentioned his son did the photo for the cover art for the "Reason for the Season" album.

Mike's tour dates late this year are dubbed the "Reason for the Season" tour, and mention has already been made that he was recording in the last few months.

So I guess we can presume that in the next few months he's putting out an album of holiday songs titled "Reason for the Season."

I'll forego pitching a better album title, as that ship has presumably already sailed.

I can only hope that Michael Lloyd either isn't in the producer chair, and/or either way they lay off the autotune. Everybody will be better off for it.

As-yet-unconfirmed song titles:

Away on a Surfboard
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Surfer
The 12 Surfer Girls of Christmas
The Little Surfer Boy
Frosty the Hodad
All I Want For Christmas is More of Brian's Songwriting Royalties

 :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol

I wouldn't mind a new Mike Love solo album. I really hope the vocals are less processed this time around, but either way, I will give it a listen.

Bruce referred to it as a family affair, so thinking there may be some Christian and Ambha input.

It looks like Mike will be bundling his holiday CD with "Beach Boys" ticket sales coming up. The blurb below has accompanied recent ticket announcements. I think this one is for a show in December:

This band has birthed a torrent of hit singles and sold albums by the tens of millions, but its greater significance lies in the fact that The Beach Boys’ songs have forever changed the musical landscape, profoundly influencing countless performing artists to follow. The Beach Boys have continued to create and perform with the same bold imagination and style that marked their explosive debut over 50 years ago. The Beach Boys found through their music the key to unfading youth— and they made copies for everyone. To these guys, the beach isn’t just a place where the surf comes to play: it’s where life is renewed and made whole again. Each ticket includes a CD copy of frontman Mike Love’s new holiday album, Reason for the Season.

I have asked this before, but can Mike put a valuation on each CD (say 25bucks) and claim it as separate that value from the ticket revenue? In my thinking, if he can do this he can create revenue exempt from the licensing payments to BRI

So if it was 60 bucks a ticket, and he sells 2000 tickets, each with a CD bundled with a value of 25 dollars, he diverts 50k from ticket sales by classifying as cd sales. It would be a great scam, and also over the course of say, 30 shows claim he had sold 60,000 CDs!

Highly doubt it.

On the reverse side of things, on the chart/sales side of things on the CD, when CDs are bundled with a ticket (as appears to be the case here), where the customer doesn't have a choice to buy the ticket *without* the CD (meaning being able to buy a ticket *less* a stated value of the CD), those sales *aren't* counted in chart tabulation.

Assuming the above is true, then for the purposes of selling the ticket, a value of *zero* is being placed on the CD. It's essentially being thrown in for free as an enticement to buy a ticket. Therefore, I'm guessing he wouldn't then separately be able to say to BRI that there's a value ascribed to the CD within the ticket price.

If that sort of thing was allowed, then I think artists paying for a license to tour would start churning out a cheap memorabilia item to throw in when a ticket is purchased, and they would just arbitrarily ascribe a super high value to the item.

For all we know, even if Mike started trying to *sell* CDs alongside a concert ticket, that may or may be allowed under the license terms.

There was some discussion of this sort of thing last year when "Unleash the Love" came out. Other things came up. For instance, only under pretty strict terms can sales be submitted to Neilsen/SoundScan when CDs are sold *at* shows at the merchandise stand. They can't be discounted more than a certain amount (50% of MSRP), and I believe such sales have to manually be submitted via a form.

Glad Mike is finally putting out solo cd's, enjoyed Unleash the Love, but i am a bit tired of heritage or oldies acts doing Christmas cd's. I guess they're considered an easy sell, but how often do any of us play them? Yeah, once a year at Christmas - and then i'm more likely to reach for one of the classics - Spector, Elvis, Nat King Cole, or, yes, the Beach Boys.

So The Beach Boys are touring one of their members solo albums this Christmas and the solo BB are touring The Beach Boys Christmas album. Only in the BB world.  :-\ :lol


On the other hand,This is the first time he has done an album without working love into the title . I’m shocked

That is actually a very funny observation. BRIAN WILSON is touring THE BEACH BOYS album and THE BEACH BOYS will be touring the MIKE LOVE album.

It’s a strange world :listening

But if BRIAN WILSON is THE BEACH BOYS, doesn't that mean that THE BEACH BOYS are touring THE BEACH BOYS CHRISTMAS ALBUM? And where does that leave MIKE LOVE?

As I mentioned in another thread (http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,26020.0.html), Scott Totten was said to produce the sessions that took place in Traverse City, MI (via https://www.instagram.com/p/BlYwXzsHXu4/). Not sure if that means Scott is helming the entire project or not. Could very well be another Lloyd affair, especially considering Lloyd produced Mike’s new single, which apparently grew out of these Christmas sessions (https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/hear-mike-love-hansons-buoyant-new-rendition-of-beach-boys-its-ok-715177/).

 :lol

The exception I would Make is Brian's Christmas album, which, I think is absolutely phenomenal! I could do without the remakes, especially "Little Saint Nick," but "The Man With All The Toys" has some nice enough additions to it.

Album recorded in july, out in november and scott produced five of the tracks

Hey Steve, Rocker was enquiring after you. Message him and put his mind at rest (maybe you have already). ;)

Just saw this message  ;)
Great to see you back, Steve!

Hello Steve! :)

Reason For The Season https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GW1DKNP/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_bvfNBbGCSX4FT

Track Listings
  1. Celestial Celebration
  2. Finally It's Christmas (feat. Hanson)
  3. Little St. Nick
  4. Must Be Christmas (with Ambha Love and Christian Love)
  5. Jingle Bell Rock
  6. Alone On Christmas Day
  7. Reason For The Season
  8. Do You Hear What I Hear (with All Love)
  9. Away in a Manger (with All Love)
  10. Bring a Torch (feat. Hayleigh Love and Brian Love)
  11. O Come All Ye Faithful (with All Love)
  12. O Holy Night (feat. Ambha Love with All Love)

" All Love "......is what ? The family?

Perhaps the Al Jardine secretly partnered up with Mike and decided to add an extra L to his name to celebrate?

Yeah it was not that funny to me either but I sincerely tried 😆

“The” Al Jardine?

If it's a family band name, it betrays Mike's constant use of puns in his album names.
Some alternate, unused ideas he could've used:
 
Southern Drawl Love
AllLove Oil
LOL Love
Richard Moll Love
Gee, Mike's Nephew Kevin Sure Is Tall Love

AlLove Oil!!! :lol

I like Christmas music. Definitely would like to hear it.

Well it is a Long Tall Kevin
His uncle always wears a cap (His Bald ass uncle always wears himself a hat)
Well it is a Long Tall Kevin

:lol

“Well people look at him and say
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelllllllll is that your cousin?”

 :lol All the love in Texas....

Here's a song from the upcoming album, Finally It's Christmas:

mikelove.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/02-Finally-It_s-Christmas-v3.mp3 (http://mikelove.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/02-Finally-It_s-Christmas-v3.mp3)

It sounds pretty good overall, although Mike's vocal sounds fairly tired compared to Unleash the Love. But it's a relief that the sound is not compressed weirdly just as the Disc 2 of Unleash the Love.

If everything on the album like this, I'm all for it.

It's a cover of a song by Hanson(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nJ3U5dzvPs), and the recording above features Hanson themselves.

You know what; I've heard worse!

You know, it's amusing to watch Mike Love try in vain to become relative again and then have it largely ignored. Thank god it's not coming down the pike with the Beach Boys name on it. The song? Didn't like the teeny bop song from Hanson and Mike's take is equally awful as well.

I'm actually pleasantly surprised. The song isn't anything mind blowing, but it's fun and the production sounds much better than Unleash The Love (disc two specifically). I'm not expecting this record to be a masterpiece, but I'm certainly looking forward to hearing it and adding it to my collection.

Sorry guys but in my opinion that sounds terrible the song and the vocal.

Sounds good to me, no noticeable auto-tune to my ears!

I never knew such name Hanson. This is 1st I hear about it. It'd be good to hear song links posted by Wata' but again, the Internet is slow.

Very challenging song for Mike to sing at this point in his singing career. Presume it was recorded in 2016 looking at the link. Song never really seems to go anywhere and probably would have been better sharing more lines with the Hanson fellas.

I would guess they uploaded it to an old existing folder without really thinking (although I have no way to know).

The resemblance of "Finally, It's Christmas" to "The Spirit of Rock & Roll" is quite strong.

Good ear

My coworker thinks "Finally, it's Christmas" sounds like the Waiting for Guffman "Stool Song":

https://youtu.be/Vsan7soCFsU

Stool? That describes the production on Unleash the love

 :lol :lol :lol

Ah yeah, the Beach Boys.... when you have the opportunity to record new Brian Wilson compositions you rather go cover friggin' Hanson.

Ah yes, but Mike gets to be in charge! Obviously a factor that means more to Mike than the alternate scenario you've mentioned.

I hear autotune-ish stuff going on with this new track. Sounds very synthetic and processed still like the "Unleash" stuff.

I think Mike may be hitting that Paul McCartney-ish wall of not really being able to grind out a truly good lead vocal in the studio, even with time and studio effects (autotune or otherwise). His voice sounds pretty thrashed in terms of tone and timbre on this new recording. I would imagine part of this is that his voice is shredded a lot of the time due to over-touring (and indeed he seems to record these studio projects during downtime between tour dates).