Personally, as someone who watched IJWMFTT recently, I thought Carl was lying too. Just the way he said it, it didn't sound very enthusiastic, just him being able to read the room. (You dont go on a documentary about someone and trash their work, you don't admit to disappointed fans you're part of the reason something didn't come out.) Carl, I think, was kind of more Mike-like than a lot of fans give him credit for. I think he was shrewd, commercial-oriented, not a particularly gifted songwriter and "political" (IE fake, strategic). Something about him kinda rubs me the wrong way I can't totally put my finger on, like he was just as entitled as Mike but had better PR.

The “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times” film is a good film for getting vibe/sense of Brian at that time period, and for getting some sense for things that had happened in the past. But it’s something like 70 minutes long, and Carl Wilson is in it for all of a minute or two. I don’t think we know enough about Carl Wilson to reach any of these conclusions, and his scant interview comments in IJWMFTT are certainly not enough to even *vibe* anything much, let alone make any broader judgements.

A dude wrote a biography of Carl several years back and had very little to work with; Carl didn’t give a lot of interviews, and to his credit, he cultivated relationships with people around him such that they are not willing to talk in much detail about him beyond simple fond remembrances.

I don’t think Carl was *anything* like Mike personality wise. I do think Carl, especially in later years, kind of just acquiesced and let Mike kind of run the band. Carl apparently didn’t side with Al in the late 90s when Al complained that Mike wanted his (Mike’s) company to run the Beach Boys tours. I don’t think Carl had any particular moral failings; I think he got either lazy or, or put more sympathetically, lost the energy to keep things about the band a bit more progressive. The setlist got very stale *with* Carl in the band in 1996/97. He was willing to let Mike run the tours. He didn’t think Brian would be able to do a “Pet Sounds” tour with the band. Most of these things are simply a case of things being different in the mid-late 90s. We don’t know if Carl would have gotten on board for more progressive setlists in the 2000s had he lived. Brian’s solo tours obviously would have been proof that Brian could handle touring, and touring full albums. We don’t know how Carl would have reacted to that.

I don’t think Carl was some sort of shrewd player like Mike. I think he was just sometimes diplomatic and sometimes passive, and those traits are often useful and then sometimes problematic.

Agreed.

A small glass of wine is more than enough.

A small glass of wine would go good with Sunflower or Beach Boys 85. The Beach Boys Love You requires something like ...well, the best option would be ear plugs!

[What's important is, the extenuating circumstances of this one artistic compromise does not mean those other slights from the guys never happened.]

If Carl and the other Beach Boys were against the SMiLe music as being uncommercial, how the f*** did they find Smiley Smile acceptable? "Hey, we're gonna have a hit single singing about Vegetables with just a bass guitar for backing, and someone chewing on carrots"? It makes no sense to me. How on earth is the "Little Pad" a potential hit? Where are the fun in the sung songs, the cars, the bikinis? The only angle that works on is, "well at least we don't need an orchestra to reproduce this stuff on stage".

Forget SMiLE, that's the least of my complaints--I even made a point to blame BRIAN for its death if you'll recall. SMiLE was an unfortunate perfect storm, where Mike's conservatism (as a songwriter AND political I'd argue) paired with Anderle's intelligent but unwise BRI legal maneuvering (he should've waited a month or two before pushing Brian--it's not like there was a deadline for this corporate posturing) and VDP's independent career needs (I "blame" him for leaving the first time, in Dec, rather than defend his work but by April I'd take the Warner deal and bail too, absolutely) combined in the increasingly frazzled, paranoid, avoidant, irresponsible, incomprehensible, drug-addled mind of an overgrown child who could barely handle the mounting pressure and responsibilities even with everything else going perfectly let alone all these snags at once.

My main criticisms, which you're conveniently avoiding to address this strawman argument, are the fact that they forced a home studio into his house he couldn't even use without THEIR permission. (So, all the extra expectations of productivity and other people coming and going in YOUR HOUSE at their pleasure, but none of the benefits for you). Also trashing his later efforts, from Til I Die to Mount Vernon, to 15BO to the original Love You to Adult/Child to the Paley Sessions and even suing him during BWPS to piss on that moment of happiness. It's also having him beat up, stalked and physically intimidated by the likes of the Love cousins and Rocky. It's that every primary source (Hutton, Marilyn, Anderle, Vosse, etc) and secondary source (Leaf, Gaines, other authors) say the guys berated him publicly and beat him down. It's that Carl, as I perceive it, is lying decades later in the Don Was documentary rather than own his mistakes. You can't sidestep my whole argument for a cheap "gotcha!"

As for why they recorded Smiley despite it being less commercial (I agree) how should I know? I've been combing over every source there is systematically and can't find an answer. Best I can determine is they were so overdue for a new album (6 months when the work even started on it) there wasn't time to start writing new songs--it was just "what songs do we have and how can we bang them out in the home studio?" I think the decision to record in that weird funky style was absolutely Brian's--he was trying to salvage what he could from SMiLE without the modular style or Wrecking Crew (which was getting annoying: having to book studio time, getting flak for touching the console, for Brother Records they'd have to pay the fees themselves, they were getting criticized for not playing their own instruments, plus Brian legitimately thought other people had listened to the tapes without permission...). When one looks at the change from this context it makes sense, plus I'd argue the radical departure to a minimalist sound was Brian wanting the lack of progress in his sound to appear deliberate not desperate. What's important is, the extenuating circumstances of this one artistic compromise does not mean those other slights from the guys never happened.
 

I don't know where I have ever dismissed Brian's talent; his record was almost 100%  before Smile (I knock off half a point for whoever thought Ten Little Indians was a good followup to Surfin' Safari). Even in later years, the best songs on Beach Boys albums were often Brian's - whatever they could coax out of him.

You sarcastically accused me (or people who share my misgivings) of saying the other guys would've been pumping gas. I said that wasn't true but emphasized that, yeah, they wouldn't have had a career in the record business long enough to even get to make the Carl-led Ricky/Blondie albums without Brian. Hence, they owed it to him to give his material a shot (or, out of gratitude and with respect for his wishes, tell him it's ok to go on and produce Three Dog Night & Spring exclusively or whatever else he might want to do).

Dennis is loved, worshipped, adored for his songwriting, but I don't belong to the cult. I like/love about half of the songs he contributed to Beach Boys albums - Little Bird, Be Still, All I Want to Do, Slip On Through, Got to Know the Woman, It's About Time, Forever, Cuddle Up, Only With You, Baby Blue. That's a pretty good list right there, but I like Carl's songs ever more - Long Promised Road, Feel Flows, Trader, Good Timin' (yeah, he wrote it with Brian), Angel Come Home (sung by Dennis), Full Sail, Keepin the Summer Alive, Livin' with a Heartache, It's Gettin' Late, Where I Belong, Maybe I Don't Know - those are some of my favorite Beach Boys EVER. I know I am supposed to be unbiased, objective; but all I know about music is what I like and what I dislike.

Fair enough, I'm the opposite. Different strokes.  One thing I like about Dennis is he was always in Brian's camp, from the famous SMiLE quotes to as late as his drunken ABC appearance "he's the reason we're all here!"

Yeah, Dennis was always in Brian's camp; Carl was not.

Zenobi speaks the truth! Because, as we all know, once Hendrix and Cream etc took off, the only thing that mattered in rock music was HEAVY, 15 minutes of guitar shredding, someone screaming like a banshee, someone pounding on the drums, amps that go up to 11.

I never "did" any drugs. Who needs drugs when you can just listen to the likes of Smiley Smile and Love You?  

It would take some really hard drugs to make Love You enjoyable listening.

If Carl and the other Beach Boys were against the SMiLe music as being uncommercial, how the f*** did they find Smiley Smile acceptable? "Hey, we're gonna have a hit single singing about Vegetables with just a bass guitar for backing, and someone chewing on carrots"? It makes no sense to me. How on earth is the "Little Pad" a potential hit? Where are the fun in the sung songs, the cars, the bikinis? The only angle that works on is, "well at least we don't need an orchestra to reproduce this stuff on stage".
I don't know where I have ever dismissed Brian's talent; his record was almost 100%  before Smile (I knock off half a point for whoever thought Ten Little Indians was a good followup to Surfin' Safari). Even in later years, the best songs on Beach Boys albums were often Brian's - whatever they could coax out of him.
Dennis is loved, worshipped, adored for his songwriting, but I don't belong to the cult. I like/love about half of the songs he contributed to Beach Boys albums - Little Bird, Be Still, All I Want to Do, Slip On Through, Got to Know the Woman, It's About Time, Forever, Cuddle Up, Only With You, Baby Blue. That's a pretty good list right there, but I like Carl's songs ever more - Long Promised Road, Feel Flows, Trader, Good Timin' (yeah, he wrote it with Brian), Angel Come Home (sung by Dennis), Full Sail, Keepin the Summer Alive, Livin' with a Heartache, It's Gettin' Late, Where I Belong, Maybe I Don't Know - those are some of my favorite Beach Boys EVER. I know I am supposed to be unbiased, objective; but all I know about music is what I like and what I dislike.

In recent years, there seems to be a trend among some fans to think/say "Carl wasn't as good as people said he was" - meaning, "he didn't always support Brian 100%." Because that's what certain fans want from the "other" Beach Boys. Brian (and to a lesser extent, Dennis) was the real talent in the group, and the other guys should have just done what Brian told them to do without question. I mean, those guys would all be stuck in Hawthorne pumping gas if not for the genius (except for Dennis, who would have become an alt/indie star).
I guess it was inevitable that this would happen. For many, many years, we heard nothing but good things about Carl - how kind and thoughtful he was, how supportive he was, how he kept the warring factions from killing each other; "Carl was the rock that kept the Beach Boys together".
Well, maybe Todd Gold's portrayal of Carl as an uncaring drunk in "Wouldn't it Be Nice" was true. That's not how I see him, but maybe I'm guilty of putting him up on pedestal.

Smiley all the way. Some can't adjust to the very stripped down instrumentation; IMHO, this one serves to focus my attention on the exquisite vocals. I'm sure the album sounds wonderful on marijuana; I wouldn't know, since I don't indulge.
Love You is an album that I'd have to be on heroin to enjoy!

Love You is a joke. Brian got totally smacked out, along with Dennis and Carl, and occasionally Mike and Al, and foisted this amateurish batch of recordings upon a world that was expecting Summer Days and Summer Nights, Volume 2. A majority of record buyers rejected this horriblly sung kitchen sink production with kindergarten lyrics, but a very small but very LOUD cult insists to this day that it's Brian Wilson's greatest work.

Finally seeing this now and I vote 5

Getting an illuminating Brian interview is like pulling teeth most of the time. You either get defensive one word answers, lying (I burned the tapes), saying whatever will make the interview over with faster, avoiding questions to just talk about or play what he wants (that funny Shortenin' Bread clip that's become something of a meme) or what seem like revelations that you find out he's contradicted later (still can't prove if he "canonically" listened to POB or not). So anyway, that all said, this documentary is kind of a miracle. It came out at the perfect time too, when Brian was free of Landy but the Melinda PR machine hadn't been established yet. This feels like honest, unfiltered Brian speaking his truth. He even references the Arthur Koestler Art of Creation stuff albeit briefly which has mostly seemed a forgotten facet to his ethos in the post-SMiLE press stuff.

I love the black and white film, giving this an "Indie Movie" vibe akin to Clerks. It's like one of the coolest art-world developments of the 90s (the Indie film scene) talking about its 60s equivalent (the folk/psychedelic rock-prophets). Very cool meeting of two of my favorite trends in media. I vastly prefer this presentation to the more "manufactured" David Leaf film, where (among other misgivings) he's got everyone talking in front of these obnoxious SMiLE promo materials, the camera never moving nor the subjects. This is much more visually appealing camerawork and blocking--something you'd watch even if you didn't already have a baked-in interest in Brian. The film itself is a work of art, not just a conduit for information.

I'd heard a lot of this info before but this is probably the definitive presentation of these stories. The way Brian describes Mike calling him up asking if he wanted to write a song about JFK together was adorable. As a bona fide Smile-fanatic first and foremost, when I read about Mike it's almost always in the context of his flaws and antagonism; sometimes it's nice to remember that at the end of the day these guys were family and expressed their grief together creatively that night.

Excellent review, Julia. I need to watch it again, being the 30th anniversary.

Maybe next year they can introduce some Sweet Insanity songs into the shows.

I guess I've been lucky. I only saw Stamos with the band once or twice, and that was back in the 80's. It wasn't enough to ruin the show for me.

So what else is new? We all know Mike sucks; and Bruce blows.

The mists of time have caused people to forget a lot of good work Landy did with Brian. Someday in the future we'll probably get an honest telling of the Melinda years.

Feel free to elaborate but i always thought Landy saved Brian from himself only to suck him dry.

As for the truth coming out about the Melinda years, I doubt it. Not because I dont think some shady stuff happened but I doubt theres anyone left who could even really tell that story. I think if nothing else Melinda was heavy handed and misguided in her management of Brian's career but its taboo to say for many reasons. I wouldn't accuse her of any worse than that with what we now know.

Yes, I do think Landy saved Brian's life, but then Landy himself got way out of control. Brian should have been on his own by 1988, but Landy made it clear he wasn't ever going to let go.

The mists of time have caused people to forget a lot of good work Landy did with Brian. Someday in the future we'll probably get an honest telling of the Melinda years.

Confirmed: they did ALL of Love You except Mona, Lets Put Our Hearts Together and Love is a Woman.

I have no words... this is the greatest tribute to Brian imaginable.

Way to go Al Jardine Pet Sounds Band! 

Uh, no, the greatest tribute to Brian would be to play some of the GREAT music he created, not this train-wreck era of Love You.
I will never get what people hear in this material. It's embarrassing. It's juvenile. It never should have been released.

I'm guessing that Julia is not a fan of Brian Wilson solo.

I don't get the hatred for this album.  I really don't. Maybe Melinda was the catalyst for the teaming with Joe Thomas; so what? Melinda was the hero that rescued Brian from the clutches of the evil Dr. Landy. I think it's a great album. There aren't any tracks I have to skip over. A worthy followup to Orange Crate Art.

I remember there was a site (Ear Candy, I think it was) that had a parody page advertising a "Mike Love Presents Smile" back around the time that BWPS came out.

Yup!

I’m still waiting for Bruce Johnston Presents The Slim Shady LP…


except Bruce doesn’t “drop” the mic, he merely adjusts it

I DO think Mike should write new lyrics for Smile, record and release the album as Mike Love Presents Smile - everytime I see "BWPS" I think "Brian Wilson's Pet Sounds". For that matter, Mike could redo PS as well, make it more positive. "Caroline, Yes" for starters. "Wouldn't it Be Nice"? "It IS Nice"! "Heroes and Villains", of course, would become "Blondes and Brunettes". And in the interest of staying on top of things technology-wise (like Summer in Paradise atttempted to do), he could record the entire thing on an iphone with NO REAL MUSICIANS.

So is there a physical release for these songs or just online streaming/downloading?

I've heard Crumple Car already, that's not a new song per say, it's been around for at least 20+ years, maybe even longer. Its ok, nothing special.

I don't know what a crumple car is, but I used to have a band called Per Say. People would look at that and say "percy?"

I find it weird that we're discussing using Paley sessions stuff on a Beach Boys album, when it wasn't even deemed usable for what became Brian's next solo album, Imagination.

Really can't stand the host after the David Mark's "interview". Seems highly exploitative and unprofessional.

Enjoy it. I'll read the comments. Don't wish to support this guy.

Me, neither. I listed to both interviews with Marks, and that was too much.
Both the exploitive nature of the interview, and the host constantly begging for money.

I still don't get the hatred for this track. If it was a new Brian or Dennis track being unleashed, people would be praising it to the skies; but alas, it's one of those lesser Beach Boys.
I've got an idea for a compilation: "The Beach Boys' Greatest $#it", featuring songs from the solo albums of Al Jardine, Mike Love, and Carl Wilson. Gems like Pisces Brothers, Bright Lights, Waves of Love, and The Grammy.

If a Carl or Dennis collaborator, seemingly one who only wrote a few songs with either of them, then released a version of a song they wrote with Carl or Dennis where the lead vocal was either autotuned or otherwise processed into oblivion, mixed and arranged cheaply and poorly, if not possibly enhanced with A.I., all on the most mediocre song you could imagine, I would have no problem saying it sucks.

Indeed, the few scraps of Carl outtakes that have surfaced over the years have not been so great, such as that "This Is Elvis" song or that "You Oughta Know" demo.

"You Oughta Know"? Unfortunate title for a song.
"do you think of me when you fornicate with her" lol