Have the mono mixes of Are You Experienced? and Axis: Bold As Love ever been issued on CD at all?

It's definitely gotta be "Smart Girls", hands down. That song is the embodiment of every rock fan's stereotype of what they think rap music is but actually isn't. Quite rightly, it's a complete and total embarrassment.

I don't think people here understand that sampling doesn't have to be -- and almost never is -- just one melody that gets rapped over unchanged. Here's an immortal example of excellent sampling: "Jessica" by Herbie Hancock sampled for "Shook Ones, Pt. II" by Mobb Deep, which was created by Havoc, also one of the group's rappers. Clams Casino is another producer these days that is untouchable, his three instrumental mixtapes -- from 2011, 2012 and 2013 respectively -- are all stellar. It's not as if these things take no effort to think up and actually make happen since beat-makers aren't usually just using one sample; often it will be very many, sometimes hundreds. Of course, you have to keep in mind that after the Biz got sued for sample clearance in 1993 this basically made sampling financially prohibitive for a lot of labels and artists because the costs associated with clearing samples are often ridiculously high. You might then still be able to make a sample-heavy album like It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back or Three Feet High And Rising these days but the costs would be so much more because all the samples (many of which might not be able to get identified even by the people who made the beats!) would need to be cleared. I think that's a damn shame but it has for better or worse forced hip-hop beat-makers to be inventive in different ways, sampling or otherwise. This song is everything I love about Danny Brown, and the beat is absolutely insane: "ODB", which I think was produced by Paul White but I'm not certain. It was very unfortunately left off his last album, Old, because they couldn't clear some sample.

There had better be a scene that's 20 minutes of Brian playing the "Shortenin' Bread" riff, and an accompanying 20-minute-long version of it on the soundtrack.

I, too, like being elitist about music and looking down on other people for their tastes and preferences!

the captain knows what's up. This forum's antipathy towards hip-hop is incredibly annoying too.

The Beach Boys are pretty corny -- maybe admitting that is my unpopular opinion? -- so I can totally understand why most people my age (early-to-mid-20s) don't really like them, whether or not they're aware of their more "artistic" material like Pet Sounds or Smile, and whether or not their favourite band is influenced by this group and makes mention of this. (To say nothing of even more obscure albums like Friends, Surf's Up, Wild Honey and so on.) At the same time though, I obviously like them a lot and can at times appreciate, tolerate, or even share in that corniness. Smiley Smile and Love You are two of my favourite albums, ones which I will sometimes think are better than their aforementioned artistic high watermarks. (Another unpopular opinion, surely...) Some people can't, which is fine too. I've tried to get people into them before and more often than not it hasn't worked out so I've pretty much stopped trying. I like them and if I can get people into a couple of their lesser-known songs, as I've have with "Celebrate The News", great! I don't really mind though if this never happens. I mean, really, as much as I like songs about birds flying around windows with lovely but rather fey arrangements... I'm not really surprised many people think otherwise!

Sorry guys, Ye has legit musical talent apart from his grandiose personality, which I think is more funny than off-putting anyway. I understand that virtually nobody here likes hip-hop but Kanye is still a major force in that genre even if he is also a pop star as well where his appeal may be more divisive and perhaps limited. Kanye isn't anything close to an amazing rapper but he's an excellent producer and beat-maker and that's where I suspect his legacy will rest, even before he had a solo career. There's so much good hip-hop happening these days and I honestly think that is one genre where the mainstream performers are often just as listenable if not fully as good as those in the underground.

Dennis doesn't need defending, his music and legacy speak for itself.

I never understand comments like these. Obviously this isn't true if some people dislike his music! And I do not think a legacy is something which "speaks for itself," rather a legacy is something created, maintained and defended (as well as the converse) by critics and historians.

Do you figure out if a performer has (co-)written their own material before listening to them or, if you hear a song you like by some performer, once you find out that they didn't (co-)write it themselves do you go, "Oh, well, I suppose I can't listen to this any more!" and cast them away? I'm confused as to why this should be considered a "strike against them" beyond your personal preference for that being the case.

edit: Which I should say, is not a bad thing. You are free to have your preference be what they are obviously, I just don't understand why they should also be universalised for pop music in general.

I used to care about "authenticity" in music too but I don't any more since I think it's sort of ridiculous to expect every performer to be good at every other aspect of music-making too. No one minds when someone doesn't produce their own material, do they? Or mix or engineer it? And no one minds if someone doesn't write their own songs, or provide instrumentation? Do you like anything Motown put out in the 1960s? Most of that, with some exceptions, wasn't mixed or engineered or written by The Supremes or whoever else... yet nobody minds! (Of course, that The Funk Brothers get their proper credits is important but not the issue we're discussing here.)

I don't care who does what for a single, album, or anything else. I'm becoming more inclined towards something like a radical subjectivity when it comes to musical tastes and preferences. I didn't like Danny Brown when I first heard him using his high-pitched voice but now I can't get enough of him -- and his beats, which he doesn't make himself, are fire. I think artistry is as much about knowing what you're good at and being selective and collaborative as it is about having your own vision. Isn't this why we like Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys, after all? Do we really care that it's not The Beach Boys playing on the majority of Pet Sounds or Today!? Maybe some people... but not the majority of us, and especially not causal listeners.

These threads are tiring and it invariably begins and ends with people going, "Music today sucks, it was so much better in ___" which isn't even fucking true. Come on folks.

I said this in the album review thread but I've come to enjoy 15 Big Ones a lot more now that I listen to the album for its sonic textures and arrangements and not necessarily as a collection of songs. If I did that, then I definitely would be disappointed by 2/3 of the album, and I was for the longest time since that's what I was doing. Now, however, I notice the really cool blending of synth and guitar tones on the main riff of "Talk to Me" or the sheer power of entirety of "Just Once in My Life" and so on. Actually, I think that album is really interesting for how Brian combines synthesizers and guitars in his arrangements throughout. That and "Pallisades Parks" really cooks, I love that song!

I do honestly think it's a shame this won't be offered in a lossless format because the entire point of lossless encoding is a 1:1 copy of the source material, which this material is incredibly deserving of: I don't mean to say I can hear a difference between a file encoded in FLAC compared to MP3, just that MP3s have some data removed from them (the higher ranges that humans can supposedly not hear but I think should be preserved nonetheless) and if you were to re-encode (transcode) them, then you'd be losing even more data. This wouldn't be the case with losslessly-encoded files. Also, I'm incredibly glad "Thank Him" has finally been released!

I don't know if I posted this before but I think "Stevie" is a monstrous song. Those drums (and horns?) are huge! I wish it had been officially released, then or now.

Didn't most people say he was drunk when he made that speech? I didn't think he drank alcohol but I guess that's easier and more publicly polite than saying Mike Love can be a real asshole sometimes.

I offer y'all "Just Like Christmas" by Low from their 1997 EP Christmas. It's a good'un.

Limiting myself to just one song choice, I gotta go with...

Brian: "Please Let Me Wonder"
Mike: "All I Wanna Do"
Carl: "Time To Get Alone"
Al: "Honkin' Down The Highway"
Bruce: "At My Window"
Dennis: "I'll Bet He's Nice"

I never listen to Surfin' Safari or anything after Love You. It's not so much that I forget their post-1977 output so much as I choose to avoid it because it's almost uniformly terrible. I do genuinely forget about their debut album as well as Party!, the "live" albums and 20/20 (even if that album has some of their most stellar songs on it). Stack-O-Tracks is awfully forgettable too.

Listening to "Who Knows What Love Is" by Strawberry Switchblade makes me think of how lovely a Beach Boys cover could have been. Maybe Carl on lead with Mike, Brian and Bruce doing background vocals?

guys i'm 12 and love real music like beach boys not puke like katy perry LOL AMIRITRE

Danny Brown's Old, on track two now. sh*t is fire already, goshdarn. "The Return" with Gibbs, fuuuuuu.

Nice to see this thread is still going! I forgot one, "Universal Frequencies" by His Name Is Alive, from Stars on ESP (4AD, 1996). William Defever, the group's mastermind and sole constant member, said during period interviews that this song was his attempt to write a sequel to "Good Vibrations".

"Universal Frequencies" by His Name Is Alive

I hope it's something ridiculous like...

Surfin' Safari
Pet Sounds
20/20
15 Big Ones
L.A. (Light Album)

This is a really fucking good pop album: Keep It Safe by Wild Ones. My favourite track is "Paia" but there isn't a weak song in the bunch I reckon.

I'M GETTIN' HUNGRY
HUNGRY FOR MY KINDA WOMAN
I'M GETTIN' HUNGRY
SOON I GOTTA FIND ME A WOMAN
I'M GETTIN' HUNGRY
SEARCHIN' FOR A PRETTY GIRL

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