BrianC: I actually edited down my longer post because I worried it was too defensive, and I don't want to say other people have to feel the way I do, or that they're wrong if they don't. Particularly on a subject as subjective as "catchiness." After all, a song can be "catchy" in many ways -- I can remember a lot of Bob Dylan songs, but not many of them have distinctive melodies. It's the lyrics, delivery, arrangement, riffs, etc., that make them stick in your head.

But since you asked -- I just listed out the songs and what about them appealed to me melodically, hook-wise and otherwise. I like a lot of what is going on. In some cases, the songs are quite dense with hooks -- there is stuff going on in the melody, arrangement and playing all at the same time.

Morning Beat -- A strong, funky riff underlies the song, and a pictorial bridge catches the ear.

Good Kind of Love -- An old fashioned pop tune, with two choruses for the price of one.

Forever My Surfer Girl --Intriguing harmonic twists and turns, all in a surprisingly sophisticated song. A touch of Bacharach here.

Live Let Live -- Nothing else need be said. Yes, it's a cousin to Sail on Sailor, but that's a great song to be a cousin to. The "heartbeat" chorus is one of my favorite modern Brian moments.

Mexican Girl -- Controversial among fans, but I like the spirit of the thing. It's something so dorky it could only come from BW. The chorus perhaps falls a bit flat, but the studio recording peps it up.

California Role -- A pastiche of sorts, but an appealing one. It also nicely incorporates the 'roll round heaven' refrain. An ironic song of sorts -- in 1967 "Good Virbrations" lost the record of the year Grammy to the old-timey "Winchester Cathedral." 40 years later, Brian finally gets around to having a megaphone lead vocal in one of his songs.

Oxygen to the Brain -- Aural crack. Perhaps the catchiest song on the record, and shamefully overlooked because of the familiar subject matter. Several pure Brian moments here.

Midnight's Another Day -- The most noted song on the album, and certainly the most dramatic. The performance, lyrics and arrangement are nearly perfect. The melody itself isn't catchy per se, but the melody isn't the point.  It's all about the buildup and release of emotional tension. I ultimately wonder if it's overpraised. Not because it's bad -- it's excellent -- but because all the kudos can obscure other strong songs here.

Goin' Home -- The return of the indelible Shortnin' Bread riff. Again, a song with two choruses -- the second being the most frequently quoted of the album.

Southern California -- First you had Love and Mercy. Then you had Your Imagination. Now we have this tune. All related, but the addition of the bridge has made me a believer.

I find the songs quite strong, really. Surprisingly strong, and with little recycling. But different strokes, I 'spose. These are mostly not what I would consider big, pounding charismatic songs (Goin' Home magnificently excepted). They are somewhat gentler in tone and character.

This isn't the way I read it.

The Wikipedia entry:

HDCD encodes the equivalent of 20 bits worth of data in a 16-bit digital audio signal by utilizing custom dithering, audio filters, and some reversible amplitude and gain encoding; Peak Extend, which is a reversible soft limiter and Low Level Range Extend, which is a reversible gain on low-level signals.[1][2][3][4]

HDCD encoding places a control signal in the least significant bit of a small subset of the 16-bit Red Book audio samples (a technique known as in-band signaling). The HDCD decoder in the consumer's CD or DVD player, if present, responds to the signal. If no decoder is present, the disc will be played as a regular CD.

In itself, the use of the first bit in the dithered least significant bit stream does not degrade the sound quality on a non-HDCD player; it only decreases the signal-to-noise ratio by a minuscule amount. HDCD Peak Extension, if chosen in HDCD mastering, will apply compression to the peaks which will be audible in playback on a non-HDCD system which does not apply the approriate expansion curve.

HDCD provides several digital features, which the audio mastering engineer controls at his/her own discretion. They include:

    * Dynamic range compression and expansion, with which virtually 4 more bits of dynamic range can be added to the musical signal.[citation needed]
    * Precision digital interpolation filtering with multiple modes of operation, which can reduce alias distortion and temporal smearing, resulting in a more natural, open, and accurate sound reproduction.[citation needed]

Well, I just checked with the man himself (he's quite easy to reach by e-mail and always very polite), and yep, he wrote 'em both. The lyrics were revised for the movie specifically -- which is pretty easy to tell.

Because they've bought and fallen in love with the idea of this crazy genius who could and did do it all, a one-man-band and production team. You know, the Boys go out on tour while Brian would write, arrange, engineer, perform, produce and mix records for them. It wasn't ever true, obviously. But it's a really enticing story. And once people are in and start realizing that he's just a really great pop musician (as opposed to a god or at least superhero), they get pissy.

Luther: This is an excellent point. The Peter Ames Carlin biography is great in the respect that you come to the understanding that Brian is in many essentials the same guy today as he was in the 50s, 60s, 70s ... People have a lot invested in their understanding or conception of the Brian of any particular era. But he's always required other high-caliber creative people around him, and he's always been a somewhat frustrating guy. Why couldn't he keep making hits? Why did he retreat to his room? Why did he fall under Landy's "spell"? Why were his vocals so oddly phrased? Why did he allow Melinda in? Why has he recorded 50 versions of "Proud Mary"?

These are not separate questions. These are all the same question -- "why isn't Brian doing what we want him to do?" And Brian has often stubbornly done -- or refused to do -- what folks think is best. Sometimes it's to his detriment, sometimes to his benefit.

I don't think any of this detracts from his incredible range of abilities -- for I think Brian combines talents as producer, arranger, player, songwriter and vocalist in a way that is seldom seen in pop (which lends itself to overstatement as a result. Brilliant? Yes. Music incarnate? Um ... Probably not.) His work in the 60s was without a doubt touched by genius. But he has never worked in a vacuum. And he has never claimed to. Yes, he clearly needs more help these days to create songs and recordings. But he has been canny in the last 20 years to choose to work with largely sympathetic collaborators (yes, even Joe Thomas to an extent) who have helped his music stay largely how I think he wants it to sound.

Why bring in that instrument suddenly? Does Brian play that too?

Of course. Along with the violin, cello and double bass. How else could he have string sections? He overdubs himself!

Me too, for what it's worth.

Re: Proud Mary. I would guess we have at least four versions in the can.

1.) The early-90s Landy recording. I've heard a bad quality casette of Brian playing this to a journalist.
2.) The mid-90s Paley-Was recording. This is the best-known.
3.) Joe Thomas said they cut a version in the late 90s while working on Imagination.
4.) A Bennett-Wilson version?

Wow. What's funny is, I bet they all sound pretty much the same.

I wouldn't put it past him, that's the funny thing.

Jeff -- I bet that "Oh Mi Amor" is the Spanish ballad.

I was surprised that someone (at another board) suggested the songs were lacking depth.

There is certainly a freshness and ease to this material, but that doesn't mean (to me) that it's shallow at all.

I think that --

Good Kind of Love
Forever She'll Be My Surfer Girl
Midnight's Another Day
Goin' Home
Southern California

-- Are all substantial and meaty tunes, with a lot going on. Love the melodic twists and turns of FSBMSG, and "Goin' Home" has two different choruses! There's real sense of adventurousness and sense of playfulness in these tunes.

No question, though, that the arrangements and Paul Mertens' orchestrations take it all to a different level. But that's the case for Pet Sounds, too.

It's because TLOS is a piece. With a beginning and end. The bonus tracks should not be part of the main issue.

That being said, it would be nice if they could be separately purchased on a bonus EP or something. Actually, my guess is that Capitol reissues the album next year in a super-deluxe edition with all the bonus tracks and a full concert DVD. Bet you anything.

As for the different track listings (16, 17 or 18 tracks) those are all the same album. Bet you anything. Some of the brief snippets are being listed in different ways.

I'm just excited to be getting all this extra BW music.

Five new tracks?
Three new Brian comps?

Hot damn!

The bonus tracks are meant to drive people to the stores -- or to the iTunes store, too. The latest McCartney album had some of this, too. There was a different bonus track for each of like four or five retailers.

I'll go first, having heard the album through supernatural means.

Brian sounds like he's genuinely having fun.

The band is just a *tad* looser than previous studio outings, and it makes a difference.

Goin' Home kicks some tail.

I am sorry for anything I've ever said or implied about Scott Bennett. He is -- and this is a compliment -- like Joe Thomas with taste and talent. He knows how to get good performances and songs out of B-Dub. He has helped create perhaps the best *sound* for a solo BW record ever. It's out of time -- it has some burbling synths straight from Love You (really!), soaring backing vocals, skillful and sympathetic playing, and a dash of chamber orchestra. It reminds me a bit of Friends mixed with Sunflower -- but not stoned, if you know what I mean.

And Brian really brings his A game. He cares about this record -- or he sounds like he cares -- like he hasn't since "Imagination" (at least vocally) or BW88 (songwriting wise).

And the fact that Van Dyke and Scott and Darian all worked to help him out -- this album is special. It's not perfect -- and we'll be getting to those imperfections soon enough, I'm sure -- but it hangs together like nothing else since Love You, at least (BWPS not counted). If this is Brian's last, he should be proud.

As a final note -- there is one appearance of the "wall of Brians" on the record. But it's a charming one.

If you want to know how Brian really writes, read the liner notes of the twofers -- which came out at roughly the same time.

A real quote (from the Stack o Tracks intro)

"Wouldn't it Be Nice" was recorded with two accordions. That gave it a unique sound. This tracks is one of my biggest accomplishments ever. It rocked along and it even slowed down toward the end. This is called a mentally handicapped person."

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) -- Brian Wilson sits on a plush couch in his living room, smiling nervously.
On the Beach Boys visionary's back porch, his family's 15 pooches yip and scramble over each other. Inside, photos of his children with wife Melinda Ledbetter -- 11-year-old Daria, 10-year-old Delanie and 4-year-old Dylan -- lace the walls.
The two-story house, snuggled deep into a gated hillside community in Beverly Hills, is immaculately clean, with beige carpeting and marble floors. Housekeepers tidy up downstairs. A swimming pool overlooks the sun-drenched valley below. It all resembles a postcard.
"I'm happier now than I was a year ago," Wilson says in a recent interview. "I started exercising and I started eating more of the right food and I started feeling better. I just get up in the morning and say my prayers."
Gangly and tall in a pinstriped dress shirt, his graying hair swept back into waves, the wizard songwriter and composer behind such '60s Beach Boys hits as "Good Vibrations" and "California Girls" stares with sharp blue eyes, frequently fidgeting.
A lot has changed for the historically reclusive Southern California native, who speaks with a slight slur, a result of his drug-abuse past and medicated journey through mental illness.
He is a second-round father at the age of 66 (musician daughters Wendy, 38, and Carnie, 40, from his first marriage, tour as The Wilsons). Following 2004's long-awaited rock opera "Smile," and a 2005 Christmas release, he has a new, ambitious solo album, "That Lucky Old Sun," due out Sept. 2. He is touring behind the material, pushing through years of stage fright.
"I think the new album is just as good as anything the Beach Boys ever recorded," says Wilson. "Playing these songs live, I feel proud. You know that funny feeling you get in your stomach, like, 'Oh my God, this is sounding great!'"
Two years ago, he says, he recorded 18 songs then chose 10 last year for Capitol Records/EMI. He came up with the album's lush orchestration and music, while 43-year-old bandmate Scott Bennett scribed the lyrics, with colorful narrative interludes by Wilson's longtime collaborator Van Dyke Parks.
The outcome is a blend of uptempo pop and piano-based ballads. The title track, a cover of Louis Armstrong's "That Lucky Old Sun," flows into the bouncy anthem "Morning Beat," setting the album's tone.
"Van Dyke Parks, Brian and Melinda thought this should be a love letter to Los Angeles. At this point, Brian was 65-years-old and it just felt right to embrace his legend and be a bit nostalgic," Bennett says.
Songs such as "Forever She'll Be My Surfer Girl" touch on Beach Boys melodies while "Mexican Girl" adds a dash of salsa flavor. "Midnight's Another Day" and "Oxygen to the Brain" reference Wilson's dark days in the '70s and '80s, when he receded from the spotlight into isolation, drugs and weight gain.
Wilson calls "Midnight's Another Day," which skirts on a solitary piano melody, his favorite song, "kind of introspective, kind of how I feel around people."
The album's last song, "Southern California," reminisces about co-founding the Beach Boys in 1961 with his late brothers Carl and Dennis, and ends the album on an uplifting note. Wilson sings, "It's magical/ Living your dream."
"Yes, Brian had a rough time of it, with his mental health, but I would kill to have the kind of catalog he does, and tour everywhere with his brothers like he did," says Bennett, who confirms that Wilson "is on a heavy dose of antidepressants."
Regardless, Wilson has hit a creative stride in his life.
Inspiration comes at night when he sits down alone at his Yamaha synthesizer and grand piano in his purple-curtained music room.
"When I go to the keyboard, I feel holy, like an angel over my head. I feel very holy. When we did (the Beach Boys hit) 'God Only Knows,' I felt holy about that too. A godly something comes through me," Wilson says, motioning with his hands. "I'm always thinking about melodies. The melodies come from my brain, and my keyboards. I play a really pleasant keyboard. It sounds so pleasant it makes me want to write melodies."
But life as a busy dad and touring musician can be overwhelming. Wilson describes a house full of kids and dogs as "very loud" and "a madhouse." He frequently goes to a nearby park and takes walks.
"The kids make me feel a little jumpy," he says. "Sometimes I want to get out of the house to get away from my kids but I love my kids a lot. I love my kids. ... Quiet time comes around 10 at night when I go to sleep. It's peace of mind. Things run smoothly at night. During the day, things are more rough."
Later on, when Ledbetter comes home with their small son Dylan -- floppy-haired, barefoot and wearing a Hawaiian shirt -- Wilson brightens. He's quieter when it comes to daughters Wendy and Carnie, who both live less than 10 miles away.
"I don't talk to them very much. I used to. I recorded with them at one time, but I don't talk to them a lot," he says, explaining that the women are "really busy."
Questions about the Beach Boys' current status get lukewarm response as well. Wilson, who also formed the band with cousin Mike Love and then-school friend Al Jardine, split with most of the group's surviving members years ago amid legal squabbles. Love and later Beach Boys bandmate Bruce Johnston tour as the Beach Boys Band, while Jardine has his own Endless Summer Band. Wilson stresses the subject's touchiness.
"We don't want any publicity about me getting back with the Beach Boys, cause I don't want to. They're not my group anymore. That's Mike and Bruce's group now. I'm on my own, and I would rather do that than go back to the Beach Boys," he says.
Wilson, though, clearly loves performing Beach Boys tunes as well as his own solo work, even with nightly stage fright, which he says he works through by getting neck and shoulder rubs, and praying.
At a taping days later for Yahoo! Music's Live Sets, Wilson is joined onstage by his nine-piece band, including Bennett and members of the Wondermints, who have played with him for 10 years.
Tentatively at first, Wilson claps his hands and directs the group in rousing, harmony-filled versions of such Beach Boys classics as "Help Me Rhonda" and "I Get Around." Wilson later sings from the new album.
When asked during a Q&A session his biggest regret, he doesn't mince words.
"The drugs I took which kind of messed up my mind. The LSD, the marijuana, the cocaine," he says, to audience laughter.
Wilson isn't letting his past stop him from throwing his ambitions forward.
After "That Lucky Old Sun," Wilson says the unreleased songs he recorded, including a slow, smooth version of "Proud Mary," will form another album. He gushes that "the only person I really want to work with is Paul McCartney." He would also like to record "a rock 'n' roll album inspired by Phil Spector's type records, a really hard rock album that really rocks, with big orchestration, the whole bit."
Yet, he also views his future gingerly, as day to day.
"I look forward to today," he tells The AP. "I never look forward to the future because I think to myself, 'What if there's an earthquake, what if I die or someone I love dies?' I get those kind of thoughts all the time. It's 'oof' to my head."

If you hear the TLOS demos, that would give you a basic understanding of what Brian contributed arrangement-wise, I think. Obviously they are recorded with Scott, but the two were collaborating on them -- and you can hear basslines and basic accompanying figures, etc. When the band got the demos and rehearsed, things became fuller, but most of those basic arrangement touches were preserved.

Brian has always said, for what it's worth, that he can't hear the entire arrangement in his head. He has to start recording the songs to get a better idea of how to put them together. And he has always had help -- from the 60s onward -- in that department. (What do Brian's solo arrangements sound like? Try Love You. Then, subtract the synths. Viola! You get the TLOS demos.)

The third mixer is apparently a Scott confidant -- plays on the Dotted Line album.

Although, I have to say -- from the samples I'm pretty pleased with the mix we did get.

AGD posted it a couple of days ago.

Music -- Wilson
Words -- Bennett

http://www.amazon.com/That-Lucky-Old-Brian-Wilson/dp/B001BN732I

From 98-99 or thereabouts, written for the Pet Sounds mailing list.

Mike Ignored
A Sincere Appreciation

I wholeheartedly agree with those who defend the torn and tattered flag of the Mike Love Nation.  Too long we have sat idly by, allowing those with little understanding of the greatest of all Beach Boys music to dominate the discussion with mean-spirited bashing. For what does hate accomplish, when confronted by the good cheer that imbues Mike's lyrics and performances?

Stalwart defenders of Dr. Love (for he no doubt deserves a doctorate in the romantic arts) have pointed out his lyrical contribution to the group, his graceful singing voice, and his lithe onstage dance moves.  I recall watching the 97 tour with my father and he making sport of the fact that Mr. Love (in his words) danced “as if the villagers were chasing him.” My father, of course, fell into the same trap as the elites on this list, ignoring the incredible feeling and passion that imbued Mike's jerky hip thrusts and Caucasian movements.  His dancing touched my soul, and the memory still lingers on within my brain, haunting my waking hours like some kind of strangely beautiful phantasm.

Yea, but I have barely scratched the surface of the artistry of Mr. -- no, Dr. -- Love.  No one has yet mentioned his instrumental contribution to the group's records.  Where would Shut Down (or Shut Down Pt. II) be without his robust saxophone bellows, so endearing in their single-notedness.  His streamer-bedecked tambourine added peppy sparkle to the band's seventies shows, and what about his stint as onstage Theremin player, long-remembered by aficionados as the time that “the little ribbon synth sang with the voice of ancient prophecy.”

I've listened to mindless repetition about Carl Wilson's skills as a surf guitar player -- but all have pointedly ignored the fact that the one album God has net yet seen fit to grace us with is an all solo-saxophone instrumental recording by Mr. Love.  What bliss that would be—hearing honked repetitions of notes over and over and over again. Mike’s embrace of the sax's noisy joy makes him a player to be loved and placed alongside such jazz greats as John Coltrane or Sonny Rollins.

So let you doubters be gone.  I have let the artistry of the great Michael Edward Love fondle my innermost soul.  I am all the richer for the fondling.

I once wrote an extensive essay on the topic of Mike's creative contributions -- including his brilliant yet minimalist interpretive dance moves (since replicated in style if not spirit by his cousin) and his spirited sax and theremin playing. Imagine the instrumental sax/theremin album Mike could have produced in the late 60s, when he was at the top of his instrumental form. It brings a tear to the eye.

Thankfully, he was able to rebound in the 1970s with some of the tightest, classiest songs ever written for the group and his scintillating offshoot -- Celebration. I must find that essay. Mike not only is the Beach Boys' front man, after all -- he has a creative spark that cannot be quenched.

But you didn't cover Mike's creative rebirth in the late 90s, recording cover versions of Beach Boys tunes (as featured on the NASCAR disc). While they may have lacked something of the organic warmth of the 60s recordings, these tracks more than make up for it with the interpretive grit and fire that Mike has gained from years of not only singing these songs, but living them.

This is a great topic that I'm going to revive for kicks.

I just picked up the Curt "California Music" CD from Poptones that was released a few years ago (they also did the Gary Usher "Symphonic Tribute" to Brian release). Brian is credited as one of the list of the producers inside (along with Usher, Melcher and Johnston).

But I'm only aware of him working on the WDFFIL cover (which oddly isn't on the release) and Jamaica Farewell. Did he actually have a hand in anything else that's on the CD?