Asked if he liked BW 88,       Brian said ‘Yes’
Why?  Answer. ‘Cuz I wrote most of the songs....’.      Nuff said.

And FWIW, on the "rough mixes" version of "Rio Grande", you can hear Brian running the recording session.

Pretty wild to finally hear "Terry She Needs Me", since I knew they'd taken a stab at this song in 1987/88 for Brian's debut album, but I don't think it had ever circulated before this. Clearly, they didn't get very far in 1987/8! Still neat to hear.

IMO, "Sandy/Sherry She Needs Me" is the most inexplicable abandoned track in the Beach Boys' 1960s catalog. A gorgeous composition never quite brought to the finish line (even if "She Says That She Needs Me" gets close).

Related: The 2000 "deluxe" removed all of Landy's credits, but also omitted the album's dedication to Dennis and Frieda (if I recall correctly).

It makes sense the new 2015-ish reissues would have the correct mixes (and now that I think about it, someone *may* have confirmed this back when they were issued). Back in 2000, as I recall, Mark Linett prepared fixes for Rhino to put into production, but it was never confirmed whether Rhino went to the trouble of mastering it again with those fixes back in 2000, and if so, how to ID whether a 2000 CD is the old or new version.

I'm one of the people who sent my BW88 2000 reissue back to Rhino right after it came out and got the "corrected" CD, with the right mixes, right away. So it's been available for a long time. (How to ID a wrong vs. corrected CD, I don't know).

Gotta say I love the Brian Wilson album cover.

Me too (check my avatar)! It was this cover art, on the cassette, that got me to buy this album back in 1988, as a young teen with little disposable income... I liked the cover and loved what I heard.

And that's why I'm posting on this board nearly 30 years later. 

Here, I made it just for you: https://www.sendspace.com/file/0p9ue0

YOU ARE MY HERO. This sounds amazing! Thank you! I'm loading it to my Amazon Music Player as I type.

Honestly, I've wanted to hear this since 1996. (18 years!) When the PSS box was first being written-up (more than a year prior to its release), I emailed Mark Linett with questions and a wishlist of about a half dozen items -- one of which was this item you've created, a stereo remix of "God Only Knows" with the a capella tag (first heard on CD5 of the GV box). Linett responded to say that one item in my wishlist didn't exist ("In My Childhood", beyond the YSBIM backing track) but that I'd be getting everything else and would be happy etc. Well -- tonight Linett's message was 100% fulfilled. Thank you again!

On the PSS box, there's a version of "God Only Knows" with an extended vocal tag.

The tag itself is in stereo, but the rest of the track is an earlier, mono version with Brian on lead vocals.

Has anyone ever made a mix combining the stereo mix of "God Only Knows" with this extended vocal tag? It was (literally) the only thing I was hoping for on the PSS box that we didn't get.

Heroes and Villains, bonus track on the live album twofer.

Thank you! I forgot all about this one.

I know there are many unofficial recordings/compilations from this show -- while I've never gotten my hands (ears?) on one, I probably should eventually. The stuff that has been released is great, and sonically pretty unique in the BBs canon.

By my count, here's what we've gotten over the years from either the rehearsal tapes or the post-concert studio remakes:

1. Good Vibrations (Concert rehearsal) - on HAWTHORNE (also the GV 40th Anniversary EP)
2. God Only Knows (Live rehearsal) - from ENDLESS HARMONY SOUNDTRACK
3. California Girls (Studio remake) - from MIC
4. Surfer Girl (Rehearsal) - from GV box
5. The Letter (Rehearsal) - on MIC
6. Help You, Rhonda - from MIC
7. Their Hearts Were Full of Spring - from SS/WH twofer

What, if anything, am I overlooking?

Thanks!

Has anyone ever mixed "God Only Knows" using the 1996 stereo remix with the extended a capella ending? Seems like a natural fit.

I pieced together a backing track for the song (culling all the moments of vocal silence in the song and pieced those together). I LOVE this backing track.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9ZNDfp2Oyw

This is great!

I was really happy to get this track on TSS. A fun representation of all of the experimentalism of SMILE in the early days, before things got bogged done in endless tinkering with H&V and "Vega-Tables.

LOVE this mix of "Little Girl I Once Knew". Thank you!

For my wishlist: A good collection of 80s outtakes, and not just SWEET INSANITY stuff.

Likelihood of this happening (at least in Brian's lifetime)? Yes, very very very low...

Always liked "Doin' Time On Planet Earth".

Has this ever been released or even circulated in its entirety? I thought all we had the snippet that appears at the end of the 2000 BW reissue.

Always liked Let's Go To Heaven In My Car" and "Daddy's Little Girl" too. Ol' Gary Usher's kid played lead on "Let's Go To Heaven".

I like these, too -- was sorry "Daddy's Little Girl" didn't make it to the 2000 BW reissue in place of the "Night Time" backing track... tracking down the SHE'S OUT OF CONTROL soundtrack on CD ("Daddy's" only official CD appearance, as far as I know) took some time...

Agree with earlier posters that "Being With the One You Love" would have made a good album track. "Too Much Sugar" definitely belongs in b-side land, though...

Not really a new mix persay - but yeah, they used trickery to make it sound like the vocal is doubled. That tape is still missing, so it's not *the* doubled vocal as heard in the mono mix.

Thank you! I think I can resist replacing my 2001 PS twofer for now, but I suppose it is only a matter of time...

I heard this album before I had heard any BBs outside of the hits (...even before PET SOUNDS). Still one of my favorite albums ever, whatever its flaws, and even if it has taken me 20+ years to accept "Night Time" (my least favorite track)!

(So, anyone out there ever heard the "Terri She Needs Me" outtake from these sessions?)

I had heard that "You Still Believe In Me" was a new stereo remix that tried to use "audio extraction" to restore the missing doubled lead vocal... any truth to this?

FWIW, unlike (say) the missing bridge in "WIBN" in the original 1996 stereo remix, I never really minded the absence of the 2nd vocal in "You Still Believe In Me"; Brian's single track vocal sounds fantastic.

Believe it or not, I've never heard "Words and Music" aside from the excerpts on the 2000 Rhino reissue of BW88! Will have to track it down someday.

I've had BW88 on cassette, the original CD (twice -- once BMG, then "upgraded" to non-BMG), and the reissue (twice -- first with the wrong mixes, then with the right ones). I also have an LP copy with an autographed cover that, sadly, my wife won't let me display...!

The first Beach Boys album I heard was BEST OF THE BEACH BOYS VOL. 2, sometime in the early 80s, when I was 7 or 8 years old. It was a hand-me-down from an older sibling. I may have heard the ENDLESS SUMMER comp at some point too, but I'm not sure exactly why I bought a copy of BW88 on cassette when given the opportunity to buy "any album you want" by a relative at a local record store in the summer of 1988. I knew who Brian Wilson was, but didn't consider myself a BBs fan -- my strongest memory is simply liking the cover (which I still do).

Anyway, I was hooked by the album quickly, and it remains a favorite today. Yes, much of the criticism is fair -- the production is dated, it's overproduced in general, "Little Children" and "Night Time" are both pretty weak -- but to me the strengths outweigh the weakness. I love so many of the tracks on there -- "Rio Grande", "Melt Away", "Walkin' the Line", "There's So Many", "Let It Shine", "Meet Me...", etc. Great songwriting. And while I recognize the vocal quality people describe as "shouting", to me he sounds strong and focused.

Now, my impressions are no doubt influenced because I heard BW88 before I heard most of the BBs catalog! And the press in 1988 was very positive about BW88. I remember reading Rolling Stone's review saying "Brian Wilson's endless bummer is finally over" and calling BW88 "the best Beach Boys long-player since SUNFLOWER". I remember an evening news magazine/entertainment show interviewing Brian, who played a track from the album on the piano and then showed footage of a fit, energetic Brian running on the beach.

And finally, I remember reading in 1989 or so that Brian was working on a new album, to be called SWEET INSANITY, and spending the next few years searching the record racks for it when the opportunity arose. By the time I finally did hear it, in 1994, I'd already heard and learned to love much of the BBs classic (1960s) catalog, and learned the band and Brian's long and difficult history, and so I saw SI as a cynical, mostly empty exercise -- something I never saw in BW88.

Maybe if I had known more about Brian and his history when I first heard BW88, I might have heard it differently, too. But that's not the way things went, and it remains a top 10 or top 20 album for me today.

To finish a thought... I liked the 1995 IJWMFTT soundtrack although I was disappointed it contained no new material. But I LOVED "This Song Wants to Sleep With You" from the CD single -- I remember thinking, why can't we have an album like this? I vividly remember my crushing disappointment when I got home with my new copy of IMAGINATION in 1998... and even then it took a few days to figure out that 2 of the only songs I liked on the album were remakes of classic BBs tracks! It was clear to me then that BW88 would always likely be a fluke, both in how it was made and sounded, and it how I had grown so attached to it. There have been other BW albums I've really liked since then -- namely BWPS and BWRG -- but none equals BW88.

This is a great compilation. Like a lot of 60s acts (Beatles, Rolling Stones, etc), Brian didn't necessarily give away his best tracks, but nonetheless there is some stellar material here; I'd rate "Guess I'm Dumb", "He's a Doll", and "The One You Can't Have" as good as anything the Beach Boys did at their 60s  peak, both in terms of songwriting and arrangement/production.

Then there's a bunch of stuff that is good as most of , say, SHUT DOWN VOL. 2 or ALL SUMMER LONG, like "She Rides with Me", "Pamela Jean" (superior to its better-known cousin, IMO), "Tonight You Belong to Me", "Goodnight My Love", "After the Game", and finally a bunch of "interesting curios but not essential" (basically, everything else). Of those tracks, I like "Vegetables", "Sacramento", and "Shoot the Curl", but don't care for any of the Rachel & The Revolvers tracks and put "Thinkin' Bout You Baby" firmly in the "interesting curio" department.

If there's anything that doesn't really "fit" here, it's the two early 70s American Spring tracks. They don't feel like the 60s to me, although I am still glad to have them.

Agree with criticism that the STILL I DREAM OF YOU compilation is much, much more comprehensive, and I would have liked to see "I Do" included here, but otherwise I think this captures all of the best material on SIDOY, with great sound and good liner notes, too.

After all these years, is the best-fidelity circulating version of SI (any version) still considered to the Vigotone release of the 2nd version? This one: http://www.vigotone.com/vigotone/vigotone112.htm

Or has it been surpassed?

Thanks!

Neat idea!

Bruce's comment reminds me of something I've been thinking about: I think collapse of SMILE had as much do with the failure to find a single to follow "Good Vibrations" as anything else -- problems with the label, inter-band strife, etc. Brian was focusing on "H&V" and "Vega-Tables" as singles, but neither had a chorus to match the main hooks of "GV" -- "I'm pickin up Good Vibrations / She's givin' me..." and "Good, good, good, good vibrations!" The "Bicycle Rider" theme is majestic, but not catchy in the same way the hooks of "G&V" were. All of that work Brian did on "H&V" over many many months couldn't, in the end, circumvent this issue. It's an amazing song -- both in its "Cantina" and SS versions -- but it's far denser, and much less catchy, than "Good Vibrations" (or most prior successful BB singles -- "Wouldn't It Be Nice", "Sloop John B", etc). I think if SMILE had had a stronger, more obvious single (besides "Good Vibrations", already released), the story *may* have ended differently...

I don't know, I don't get either the "everything must be in stereo, even if it results in inferior quality" or "everything must be folded down to mono, even if it results in inferior quality" camps. Two or three mono tracks in your Smile mix won't kill you, and any sane set of ears would adjust in a couple seconds at the absolute most, I'd think.

And more than a few albums released c. 1967 mixed mono and stereo tracks, even on their "stereo" versions -- ODESSEY AND ORACLE and VU & NICO come to mind. There's nothing wrong with doing a modern SMILE mix this way.

I love the version of "Surfer Girl" on CD5 of the GV box, and I love the version of "Good Vibrations" on HAWTHORNE.

What's the most complete "collection" of this material -- specifically the rehearsals an the Heider overdub sessions?

Thanks.

Since I doubt anyone else will nominate it... "Rio Grande". If not his most complex BBs composition, probably his most complex solo composition.