Well, I think it was more just having to deal with Landy in general that kept "Sweet Insanity" from being released. That hideous "Brian/Thank You" song didn't help either.

The best thing about "Sweet Insanity" is the energy level Brian brought to his vocals which I think sounded great. But apart from the misstep that was the remake of "Make A Wish", I think Brian improved on all of the "Sweet Insanity"- era tracks on GIOMH. If the vocals weren't all they needed to be, certainly his production and arrangements of the backing tracks far outshown the tacky, processed feel of the "Sweet Insanity" versions.

I respectfully disagree, Roger...I think Don't Let Her Know is 20 times better on Sweet Insanity. Notwithstanding the vocals, which are undoubtedly better on SI, the GIOMH instrumental track is blah and unfeeling. The real trumpet solo instead of the flute, the strings pulling you in from the start...I really wish he had left Sweet Insanity alone. As a whole, it ranks right up there with BW '88 for me.

You want to hear what Landy got out of Brian?  Listen to those Sweet Insanity boots.  Nothing good from '88 came from Landy's involvement.  It was completely in spite of him.

The second cut of Sweet Insanity is a better overall album than anything he has released since. When he re-did some of the tunes for GIOMH, they became sterile. "Don't Let Her Know" (with its sweet, luscious backing vocals), "Water Builds Up", "Someone To Love", and "Rainbow Eyes" are among Brian's best solo songs, including the Paley stuff. "Country Feelin" and "Make A Wish" are pretty good too.

Whether or not Landy gets any of the credit, in hindsight, Sweet Insanity should have been tweaked and then released (the reason it wasn't was Landy's insistence that "Smart Girls", a total piece of crap, stay on the album).

Jeff Lynne's production techniques are far more meticulous than BW's. Whether it's better or not is subjective, but according to this Recording Engineer's book I recently bought, Lynne's compression obsession is noted. He's pretty much Phil Spector without any reverb as far as his kitchen sink productions.
Some other trademark Lynne techniques....listen to any ELO song or Lynne production post 1976 and you'll hear them.

Background vocals are the same volume as the leads

Barely any reverb (if any at all)

That notorious drum sound (I love it, actually)

Acoustic guitars (usually 12-string) used nearly as percussion, as they are played without any strumming variation and used to punctuate the snares

As with the metronomic acoustics, very metronomic rhythms

No hi-hats

Big "falling down stairs" drum fills, usually ending with timpanis. Often flanged or hard panned.

Slide guitar, vocoders, "Oh Darling" esque staccato guitar lines...

Can anyone add to the list?

Jeff Lynne is probably my production hero. Say what you will, but his style is immediately identifiable...his 80's stuff is a bit dodgy though (i.e Tom Petty's "Learning to Fly" is ultra corny and too 80's." Lynne seems to have gotten back to the Abbey Road/White Album style of production. Underrated pop-genius in every aspect.....maybe except the fro and the giant sunglasses...

NICE POST! I would add the often used descending electric guitar line, usually on the low E or A string, as the verse is turning over (BW's Let it Shine; Del Shannon's Walk Away; GH's Cheer Down, etc.) 

The dry vocals really work. I think he literally uses NO vocal reverb, just an occasional slap back echo (Don't Let Go, Stormy Weather, etc.)

I am a Lynne fan bordering on Lynne freak...

A great example of a modern waltz (3/4 time) is I'm In Great Shape from BWPS.  It is a distinctly different feel from 6/8. Another thought I had  - Let's Go Away For Awhile starts in 4/4 and shifts into 6/8. It's like two different tunes in one.

What about For No One, I Me Mine, Dig A Pony (or even Revolution #9  )?
Happiness Is A Warm Gun goes through all sorts of funky time signatures, too...

I'm sure there's more, those were just off the top of my head
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For No One is straight 4/4. I Me Mine and Dig A Pony are 6/8 (I Me Mine being 6/8 in 2). Baby's in Black is also in 6/8.

I think "Your Summer Dream" (one of my all time favorites) also is a 6/8 song, is it not? (and maybe "keep an eye on summer," too?

Yep, you're exactly right. A favorite time sig of the young Mr. Wilson. Note also "Summer Means New Love"...

  We say something like Surfer Girl is in 6/8 but you could easily write it out to be in 3/4.  I personally don't know if that would make any difference in how the sound came out, but it would still work. 

It would work written in any time signature theoretically, it would just change the entire feel of the song. Surfer Girl in 3/4 becomes a totally different song. Lit (bam bam) tle (bam bam) surf (bam bam) er (bam bam)...you could work it out in 5/4 if you want to...I do a version of "My Favorite Things," a traditional waltz, in 5/4 time. Gives it extra jazzy edge.

6/8 and 12/8 are siblings of a slow swing. Play a 12/8 beat and take out the middle beat of each three, you have a swing. It is hard to differentiate between slow swing and 12/8 - when we have a substitute drummer and go into "At Last" or "Unforgettable" for examples, I can call the beat as 12/8 or slow swing, and it works. But I can't call it a a waltz (3/4 time).

We're splitting hairs, but it is a true musical discussion between knowledgable people.

Re 3/4 v 6/8, sometimes there IS no difference unless someone wrote it down and thus made it what it is. PeteS and Chris Brown are both correct, but sometimes a person could notate the same thing either way without one being "wrong."

To put it in basic terms, a 3/4 time tune would have snare hits on beats 2 and 3 of every bar (like Friends). A 6/8 tune only has a snare hit on beat 4 of the 6 (Surfer Girl, Kiss Me Baby, etc.). The latter being quite common in rock, the former being somewhat rare. The two are totally different feels. There is always a difference between the two.

Most of Lennon's best work...including the wonderful single"Instant Karma"......

Most notably Plastic Ono Band and Imagine (with scenes from the studio peppered throughout the movie of the same name).

Listening to POB is interesting when one considers that Spector, the master of the wall of sound, was asked to produce an album that never had more than Guitar or Piano, Bass, drums, and lead vocal. It could have been done on 4-track. This is part of the reason why the album works - Spector tried to make this minimalist instrumental approach sound like a wall of sound.

Lastly, don't count out "Zoom", which is a Lynne solo record posturing as an ELO album. Came out in 2001 and has some lovely melodies and arrangements.

Agreed, Moment In Paradise and Stranger On a Quie Street are among his best work ever IMO.  I can't say enough great things about ELO.  Love 'em!

My personal faves from Zoom are Ordinary Dream and A Long Time Gone (with George Harrison on slide geetar)

Armchair Theatre is FANTASTIC. "Lift Me Up" is one of Lynne's best.

Every ELO album has redeeming value. "Out of The Blue" has nary a bad tune on it. The Concerto for a Rainy Day is unbelievable. The haunting yet beautiful vocals on the album cuts on "Discovery" blow my mind (Need Her Love, Confusion).

ELO's filler is better than most group's prime cuts. Lynne is amazingly talented. His production style is a dry, for sure - he says he likes the "voice in the ear sound" - no reverb to be found. But his arrangements are truly awesome.

Lastly, don't count out "Zoom", which is a Lynne solo record posturing as an ELO album. Came out in 2001 and has some lovely melodies and arrangements.

I can't believe no one has mentioned "Airplane" for Mike - that is far and away is best, in my ever so humble opinion.

Trying to pick Brian's best vocal is like looking through a drawer full of diamonds. Just can't do it.

Mark - I recently noted you did some co-engineering and mixing on Del Shannon's Rock On!, one of my favorite albums of all time...

A question...I see you worked with Mike Campbell and not with Jeff Lynne - it is obvious that Jeff Lynne uses the same sampled snare sound for all of his recordings, which seems to make whoever is drumming totally irrelevant - it all sounds the same, whether it is Jeff himself playing (like on his recent "Zoom") or Ringo Starr...

it seems Campbell did the same thing - the Campbell productions seem to have the same basic sound...can you comment on that snare sound? Is it a trigger Lynne brings to all of his sessions? Or does he mic the snare and dramatically alter the sound later?

Del's voice is so fresh and solid, it was truly a tragedy. How was he at those sessions? Anything you can give me would be great. I am a great admirer of your work with BW and elsewhere.

Peter - thanks for that great post.

Hi Eric,

MAny thanks for that -  but the link doesn't seem to work...

worked great for me

I remember reading Badman's account, as we know not always perfect or free of plagiarism, but it states under "Musicians present" during the Smiley Smile seesions...Al, Brian, Carl, Dennis, sometimes Mike, but never Bruce. Just from memory, anyway.

It's an ongoing debate.  Go Wallabies!

The "debate" was memorialized in the brief film that played before Brian's shows in the summer of '99...I remember Brian and Mike together, must have been taped in maybe '97 or '98 - and Brian says Fun Fun Fun was written in Australia, and Mike says "No, we wrote that in Salt Lake" - then Brian says "No Mike, I think your mind is getting senile!" - which drew great laughter and applause from those of us in the Calvin Theater...

"goin back to our roots" --- how many times have we heard this?

-15 Big Ones
-Brian Back era

weren't those two one and the same?

The issue these days is most of the popular music sucks. People who enjoy rock and roll, like me, are stuck listening to our albums from the 70's and 80's. My last concerts attended in the last 5 years were: Brian Wilson (three times), The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Billy Joel & Elton John, KISS, Poison w/Cinderella & Dokken, and Steely Dan.

I am a fan of people making good music and me enjoying it. I've also seen Aerosmith 3 times since 1991 and have been to several Steve Miller Band shows, and 2 Ringo and his All-Starrs.

Today's music is sh*t and we have to leave it to the experts. Keep rocking. 

What? No "Okie From Muscogee"?

Or "As shole From El Paso", for that matter.

Yeah, Kinky Friedman!

Thanks, Sebastian.
And to everyone else, may I point out that Sebastian agreed with me not one whit regarding the "Laurie-gate" incident and heaped much scorn upon me for my role in it. He has been no stranger to laying me to waste with great force when he has felt I have been wrong. I have felt his scorn as much as Rerun or Chuck ever will. So, favoritism again has nothing to do with it.

I just like the cool sh*t you write about music, personally, Ian.

I read these threads occasionally, but don't respond, as I believe this board is a great escape from everyday life (mine happens to be as a litigation attorney who argues for a living).
Anytime anyone wants to get caught up in the crap going around these threads, just take a step back and read what's going on in the Congo and around the world, and thank your lucky stars you are priviledged enough to be online daily and not drinking mud and watching your children die from disease.
Everyone should just chill and put on All Summer Long, A Hard Day's Night, and maybe BWPS and enjoy life while we have it. Have a cigar and appreciate the good sh*t.

Well, of course, Brian came up with "Girl Don't Tell Me" after hearing "Ticket To Ride", right? No one can deny that. The genius was in coming up with an even more appealing melody line to the verse than the Beatles did. The production is much more modest, but the wistfulness of the song is true to its lyrics whereas the Beatles' melody and vocal arrangement seem to be at odds with the lyrical subject matter of their song. So, in a way, Brian's rip-off is an improvement on the original.

Sorry, no. Ticket to Ride has it all over Girl Don't Tell Me. They're both in the key of A, and they both have "hi-hi-hi" in the chorus, but that is where the comparison ends.

And the arrangement of Ticket to Ride is not at odds with the lyrics! Quite the opposite! Ringo's cutting-edge drum pattern, suggested by Paul, is about tension and yearning, and gives the song that atmosphere.

And as far as the lyrics go, the line "I met you last summer when I came up to stay with my Gran" is a great example of how they just don't hold a candle to Ticket's lyrics. 

 That's what's so fascinating about the Shut Down II-Pet Sounds period in general.  Each album, you have the retreads, the big steps, the one-offs...it's never boring.  An exciting time.

I'll give you that one! In 3 years, Brian did more than, arguably, most others have done in a lifetime.

Hope you are enjoying your new position.

Fortunately, musical progression isn't judged by the number of chords used in a song or if there is a key change.  Name one song the Beach Boys did that sounds like Girl Don't Tell Me.  It's a sound Brian hadn't tried before, and for me, that's the kind of thing that makes SDSN a step forward.  An expansion of the vocabulary.  Perhaps that's why the album seems disjointed to some people, it's a feeling-out record.  But even when Brian's feeling out where he wants to go, he's going forward.

I of course respect your opinion and all you have done - but I disagree about Girl Don't Tell Me. A sound that Brian hadn't tried before - true. Acoustic guitar, simple chords, no harmony vocals. I don't think it's a step forward in the traditional sense, but I guess if you subscribe to the make-it-simpler-and-that's-more-complex school of thought, then it is a step forward. Like Some may consider Smiley Smile a step forward off the original Smile material. I just don't.

That album isn't a step backwards; as has already been asserted, the sound and musical complexity of the tracks was an advance from the previous album.

No, it wasn't. "You're So Good To Me" is a simple rocker, and the chords and arrangement would have fit well back on Shut Down Volume II. "Then I Kissed Her," as far as covers go, is nowhere near "I'm So Young." "Girl Don't Tell Me" is a nice song, don't get me wrong, but there is nothing musically complex about it. It doesn't even have a signature Wilson key change throughout the whole tune, and the chords don't venture outside of A-G-D and E, with a quick minor chord gracing the chorus. "Girl From New York City" and "Salt Lake City" match up with "Good To My Baby" and "Don't Hurt My Little Sister" as not quite filler but not quite classics, either.

"Let Him Run Wild" and the opening of "California Girls" are the only musically complex parts; the bridge of "Summer Means New Love" is sweet, but not much different than anything Brian had been doing. "Help Me Rhonda" is an improvement upon the original, but how many albums repeat a song from the album before? Maybe ones that are hurting for truly fresh material?

I believe it is a sidestep, not a step backward, and is more of a holding pattern disc with a few gems. Had "Little Girl I Once Knew" made the album, it would have strenghtened it considerably, as that is complex and forward-reaching. One of BW's best compositions.