You can see how much of that song lives in the harmony arrangement — nearly all of it.

Why has Brian needed help finishing things since the late 60s? That was when he became severely mental ill and was received the first in a series of treatments that damaged his brain. No more and no less.

The concept that some nefarious outside forces are hiding or obscuring Brian’s great work is bullshit. I have been fortunate enough to know folks on his orbit — as have many here — and everyone would be thrilled if he created a bunch of masters on his own. He has the band, money, and record company interest to do so. The fact that he hasn’t — beyond the great work he’s actually done with collaborators — proves the point.

I think it’s pretty clear that Brian hasn’t been writing for some time. It’s okay. He’s 79. If he wants to stay in the game by recording something, this seems decent enough. I’ve heard pre-pandemic reports from the studio, and I think it’s safe to say he’s not interested in producing band sessions right now.

It seems like Murry's musical influence on the Wilson trio has been overstated, and Audree's understated. Murry was definitely the one Brian was trying to impress, but as far as actual passing on of skill, Audree was clearly the better singer. It would make more sense to assume that Brian, Carl and Dennis learnt to sing by listening to her, not their dad.

Murry was the songwriter, though. That was arguably more important than anyone’s singing abilities.

Overall though, I love this topic. The women in the Wilson saga have often been overlooked (or vilified if they’re noticed at all). They clearly were and are essential.

Almost certainly Brian playing, likely with melody overdubbed (or perhaps done by Darian sitting alongside him at the piano?). He's done the two-piano thing before, back on the "Songs Without Words" release of "This Isn't Love."

(You can listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPGWHBQhT9Q)

This GOK is simple and a bit wonky technically, which points to the big man himself on the keys. I also suspect it was recorded at home, or close to.

Really exciting, and precisely what a lot of folks on this board have suggested for ages.

That's the quote! I don't see where it says they used the ELTRO in 2004.

If you cannot extrapolate that from "when we were doing Smile again in 2004, people who heard it thought about HAL" then... I dunno. I'm not the only person who interpreted the text this way. We'll have to agree to disagree.

If you're going to tell people who haven't read it that it was 15% of this, and 1% of that, and 80% of this...it suggests you actually did tally all that up, or that you know more than the average fan about how the book came together in order to give that much detail. Did you, or do you?

All I did was read the Wikipedia articles in the mid-2010s and cross reference them with the thousands of interviews, books, and articles written about the Beach Boys. From this, I found that various topics in the book were summarized with verbage that was particular only to the Wiki articles. I also noticed that a lot of claims and observations that had only been printed in the form of unsourced Wiki statements were reprinted in the book. So I guess, yeah, I do know more than the "average" fan?

It's not too different from the astute fans who read My Own Story and realized that some sentences were copied almost verbatim from, say, Goodbye Surfing, Hello God. Thus, I take issue when anyone claims that I Am Brian Wilson should be elevated over My Own Story.

Big claims require extraordinary proof. Either provide documented examples or take down these posts. They’re shockingly disrespectful of Brian and his co-author. The fact you have been unwilling to do so thus far suggests you’re not able to.

Anyone else while listening to Dennis' "run, run, river run" portion think, wow, the backing track is essentially the main vamp for "Heroes & Villains!" 


Love and merci,
Dan Lega

And it turns into a proto River Song just a minute or two later!

For a post-C50 show, Brian sounds excellent! The rest seems to have done him good.

O also, is that really Brian taking the lead at the beginning of the alternate version of “Don’t Go Near The Water”? The part about how the water “killed” his dad. Weirdly crazily awesome.

Despite the fact that Al thinks that Brian sang that, it's Al singing it.

Sure sounds like a reedy voiced BW to me. Any particular reason you’re so certain about it being Al? His other vocals on the tune sound wildly different.

I don't know -- this strikes me as one of those situations where what fans want to hear and what's actually there is a bit different. The song is fairly pedestrian, Brian's arrangement is sparse and plodding, and it sounds more like a demo than a finished track. I mean, I read the coverage in the BW fan club when he recorded the tune. It was a Wrecking Crew reunion! Tony Asher was co-writing again! Blah, blah, blah. But it ultimately sounds like five or six people in a room, gritting their teeth through a song that hasn't set any of them on fire. I'm glad they had the opportunity to do it, but objectively speaking Joe Thomas turned the track into something far more sparkling and listenable. Was it pure, undiluted Brian Wilson? Nah. But it's still better than the original, and it features far more in the way of harmonies and vocal arrangements.

I know, I know, this isn't the consensus view. But how often has Brian worked with Tony Asher since 1996? How often did he record with Hal and Carol? On the other hand, how often did he work and record with Joe Thomas? Clearly, he preferred the later. And the recorded evidence suggests he got better results that way, too.

Yeah, the first version of Everything I Need was flat as a pancake. Lifeless and listless. Joe Thomas worked with Brian to make it somewhat releasable to mass audiences.

The truth hurts in this case, I’m afraid.

Brian’s new tag on Caroline, No is inspired. The backing vocals are tight and excellent.

The country backing tracks are a bit too anonymous for my liking.

But definitely, overall, not as bad as some say. Too bad there won’t be a 25th anniversary edition with the volume two tracks added (SOS, In My Room) and some vocal-only bonus tracks. I could really go for that. (Also the stunning Colin Raye Winter Wonderland.)

There’s no single best way, but all the advice here is good. For me personally, I started with Pet Sounds, followed with a one-disc hits compilation, and then bought the 1993 boxed set. It’s five discs and really suggests the amazing, brilliant sprawl of the music. It’s not perfect, by any means, but I was hooked by that.

You can find it online starting around $25, which is an awesome deal if you want a physical product.

There's no question that Sunflower sounds different than earlier BB/BW records. But it's beautifully recorded and intentionally mixed.

I don't think it sounds worse by any definition, but the sound world is distinct. The matrix plays a role, but the vocals are processed differently and sound a bit thinner at times. But again, this seemed to be part of the plan, and nearly everyone in the group was singing and harmonizing differently. (The This Whole World backing vocals, for instance, sound a lot like the mid-90s wall of Brians from the Paley sessions and elsewhere.)

Surf's Up, on the other hand, has always had some acknowledged sonic issues.

George repeatedly expressed his dissatisfaction with the sound of ATMP. He did so both privately and publicly. His dislike for reverb and preference for a dry, vocal-forward sound can be heard in most of his latter-day recordings. It only makes sense that Dani, whom he worked with intimately in recording Brainwashed, in reissuing ATMP in 2000, and in co-writing his last released song, would supervise a remix that fulfilled his father’s intentions. And I trust Dani more than a former session musician in communicating George’s wishes to his audience.

We’re all ignoring the “You Only Live Twice” inspiration for the TWGMTR hook. 

TWGMTR (the song) is a situation where I suspect Brian contributed the title and not much else. And yet, that title is the song. He clearly deserves a credit, given that the entire piece is built around it.

For reference, Scott Bennett did a similar thing with his solo track "No Wrong Notes in Heaven," which is based on a Brianism, and Wendy and Carnie did so on their song "Miracle," built around BW blurting out "Am I a fool to expect a miracle?" He gets co-writing credits on both, and he deserves to.

"No Wrong Notes": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTTSVYg6P3M
"Miracle": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOf_359m_sA

Yet, to take alternate examples from the same dang records, the song "Shelter" on TWGMTR (the album) seems to be almost all written by Brian. The chorus could be Joe, but the rest of its weird little sections sound very much like something BW would cook up. Likewise "Everything I Need" on the Carnie and Wendy album has music entirely by Brian. That's why the subject bedevils folk here at times -- there's no single way that Brian writes songs, even at the exact same points chronologically.

My question to those who say that it was Joe Thomas who wrote most/all of the new songs on Imagination/TWGMTR/NPP is -

Where are all the other great Joe Thomas songs that he wrote outside of his involvement with Brian?

I am sure that Thomas had input into the creation of this material, perhaps to help 'start Brian off' as it were, but there are some fine songs on those albums and I have never heard of any other songs/ albums with lots of fine songs with a Joe Thomas credit minus BW.

This goes for much of the Bennett and Paley material as well. It's pretty clear that Brian played an important role in writing all of the tracks that he's credited with co-writing. Might it have just been contributing a title and a couple of lyrical lines? In some cases, sure. Might it have been writing much of the music and lyrics? In other cases, absolutely.

I give up. Who?

I miss Carl, but 2.0 might be the best of these.

I'm vibing with the concept of the pop vocabulary, now that you've explained things more. That is, that the tradition of Hollywood and jazz and all sorts of recordings in California created this rich vein of music that was partly expressed by artists, but also (or even more importantly) by producers and arrangers. And how this very particular semi-orchestrated sound was hugely dominant and influential for a time but then faded. I also wonder about the ways in which it went underground or survived even after its pop moment was past -- in soundtracks and even commercial session work.

If we're talking about the little chanting piece Brian created based on TLOS, it is on the album.

It's just a hidden snippet after "Southern California." About 20 seconds or so. I've timestamped it here: https://youtu.be/E3taL_EbgTg?t=250

I feel as though “authentic” is a rather fraught word in this context. Many artists continued to create orchestral pop through the 70s, 80s, 90s and beyond. And while I understand the concept of grafting on out of context instrumentation, Brian himself tacked on Lawrence Welk-style strings to the Surfer Moon before developing a more integrated sonic vocabulary.

There’s also an element here that seems to overlook the work of folks in Philadelphia who created sumptuously orchestrated tracks in the mid-70s, along with disco, which was likewise often carefully arranged for large ensembles. These weren’t movements created by white dudes in California, but does that make them less “authentic”?

It varied, and that's okay.

Was it like the '60s? Nope. Was he coherent and contributing? Sure.

Some projects, he spearheaded the songwriting. On others, he played more of a support role.

Ditto for production and arranging.

The main point is this -- no one (with the possible exception of Landy) ever shut him down or muzzled him in the studio. When he had something to contribute, his band and everyone around him rushed to make it happen.

It's also true that Brian has recorded a fair amount for his own enjoyment, bringing his band together to play covers, and those pieces have never been released. I recall being told a wild story about him recording an ... unusual .... take on Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man back in the oughts with electronic percussion.

For that matter, those lucky old son recordings aren’t precisely demos either — fairly sure that elements from those made it to the final album as well.