Macca's production was pretty awful in the 80s and some of the 90s, too, in my opinion. I think it was with Flaming Pie that I began finding it listenable. Flowers in the Dirt, for example, I hated the production. Just awful, every bit as bad as Brian's bad stuff. But he had more good than Brian in his solo career, no doubt about that in my mind. As for percentage of good stuff, I'm not as sure. And frankly, I have no intention of doing the math! I like them both, generally.

I think "Hideaway" is the best song they ever wrote. That and "I Have Been Floated." Both on that album. Frankly, I find a lot of their alleged experimentalism (I don't think there's anything particularly experimental about it) tedious, but when they set their minds to pop, they were a great band. Wish I'd seen one of their reunion shows last year.

I actually just wrote about it on Alan's board. http://s3.excoboard.com/exco/thread.php?forumid=31674&threadid=410449  If you can forgive the lack of paragraph breaks (wine really does a number on keyboards), it sums things up.

I've been surprised that Pitchfork hasn't reviewed it yet. They usually do all the Beach Boys stuff, including reissue packages. (They did the singles box set, for example, and the 40th Anniversary Pet Sounds disc.) Whatever a person's thoughts are about Pitchfork, it would have been very good exposure to an audience that doesn't necessarily know who Dennis Wilson is, and might be convinced to check it out.

Lou Reed's The Bells

Thanks. As for the arrangements, I kind of intended to keep it simple, so I don't think I'd want to use the ending's instrumentation earlier. That was more just a change of pace.

I too like your version of "Where Has Love Been", Luther. I forgot about that tune. Looking forward to what you're doing with it. I might give the Imagination album a listen this week, one of my favorite albums actually.

I put the current--but not necessarily final--version on my myspace. Have a listen if you'd like. http://myspace.com/thebeaumondes

Nice rendition of 'Where has love been' Luther, it sounds sort of Beatles-y to me, I like the upbeat outro too - this is exactly what I mean! I'm not normally too fussed on peoples renditions of BB stuff but in this context its really interesting.

I've been messing quite a bit with it this afternoon, so expect something else before long. Same basic track, but significant changes to the "You've Touched Me" section.

I guess I skipped some of this thread--did anyone say Wilson never put out some crap? I highly doubt it. I think most everyone would admit that he's been pretty uneven at best. But I think you're overrating McCartney there, too. He's had more than his share of garbage. More good and more garbage, because he's put out so much more. I consider most of his work as being pleasant throwaway music.

Most of what I've read is along the lines of "it's pretty, which isn't a surprise because of course Paul is great with melodies. nice enough." I've heard some of it, and that's my opinion, too. It sounds nice enough, but not "serious." I don't want to knock him or sound elitist here, but it's not really the work of a composer skilled in that type of music. My understanding is that he uses other people to arrange the works, sort of the way the Beatles did with George Martin decades ago. And to me, a huge part of composition in that type of music is arranging, understanding the instruments at your disposal, their ranges, their tonal colors, the general technical aspects of them to ensure you write appropriate parts (not impossible ones), etc. The music I've heard sounds more like "lite classical," music using traditional orchestral instruments but not necessarily for much more than easy listening. Again, I haven't heard all of it, so I don't pretend to know everything about his work. But those are the impressions I've had, and from those reviews and stories I've read: that generally, this "classical" music is more likely to impress pop fans than classical (I hate that word, actually, but it's the most understood one) audiences.

I beleve that Macca's classical works are well regarded.

By whom? Pop fans and critics? Certainly not by classical critics.

Iron & Wine, The Shepherd's Dog.

I did this today. http://www.sendspace.com/file/7kl05i

It's just he way the human race has been doing it for centuries.

Well, the segment of the human race that we're more familiar with. Certainly not all humans. (See: Indian Hindi) But yeah, enough on this topic. And back to the idea of Al adding some new egg shakers and background vocals to "Come Go With Me" so he can finally get a proper mix released in 2016.

But there is a "graphic nature" of any process that deals with disposing of a dead body. Isn't it graphic to remove blood, inject chemicals, apply make-up, set out for display, then put into a box and place in the dirt? That's graphic--horrific, even. But we're more used to it. How is a box in the dirt better than a bag in the ocean?

I don't think there's anything disgusting or disrespectful about it, either. Human beings are a part of this natural world we inhabit. We die and our bodies decompose, rot, go back to the earth--call it whatever you like, but that's what happens. (Slowly if you're embalmed or mummified, but it happens no matter what.) There is a certain beauty in becoming part of the earth again that actually flows through many religions and philosophies. It's gross to us because we don't want to die at all. But we do. I can tell you this: I would prefer that my body be simply left in a remote place (obviously you can't leave a guy out in the street: THAT is gross!) rather than filled with chemicals to make me "look alive" and left out for show and then put into some kind of fancy box and then into some concrete box in the dirt below that. Of course it's illegal in the U.S. to leave someone to return to nature that way, but if I had my way, that's what would happen. Shallow grave in the backyard, fine by me.

BW has no access to that sort of exposure.

I think Capitol records counts as access to exposure. Whether they use their resources to get it is another thing altogether. But he absolutely does have access through them.

If I could join in, I think I'd like to try "Where Has Love Been."

Last summer everytime I went to a bookstore or Starbucks they were playing Memory Almost Full so I highly doubt if Brian's camp can get that kind of guerrilla marketing going, but with the right marketing campaign I think it can do very well.

Well, it helps that McCartney is now signed to the Starbucks label. Talk about exposure. And I believe Barnes & Noble cafes are run by Starbucks.

No kidding! It's not like the Starbucks staff thought, 'hey, I like that McCartney album, let's play it!' Talk about a sweetheart deal for Macca.

One question: Is it even possible in 2008 to come up with a groundbreaking album like Smile would have been? Or did 50% of Brian's genius profit from the fact that they were first and still had the whole Pop Music landscape to discover and could easily do things nobody did before? What if TLOS would have been the follow-up to Pet Sounds?

Sure, it's possible, but it's by definition going to be something we can't predict. And I'd guess it won't come from the likes of a Wilson, Dylan or McCartney, but a young person. And fans of those older school artists--many of us around here--may well not enjoy or appreciate that genius. We'll call it noise and wish for the good ol' days...

Still, if the idea is longevity, it seems like nitpicking to say a guy whose career is now at 35 years is much different than one whose career is at 40, for example. And he is about the same age as those other "legends," if I'm not mistaken. (Even though he looks old enough to be their father.)

I think it sounds great, even if it doesn't shatter the earth.

That is the sad thing for Brian Wilson, and the hard thing sometimes for me in being a fan. When he does something that sounds good, people complain incessantly about what it's not. Nobody in any art form, I would venture to guess, has ever done 100% brilliant, earth-shattering work. No one. I say take the great ones and run, and if you can add to it with some good stuff, great. That's how I see TLOS. It's good, and I enjoy it more than any of his real solo work (BWPS being obviously mostly not solo--or at least of the solo era--work). I don't think it's groundbreaking. I don't think it's genius. But I think it's really nice. I like it. That isn't something to insult Wilson about. It's something to say "thanks, here's my $25 for the CD/DVD set."

^Tom Waits is very nearly of that era, even though he wasn't known as early on. And he has done very interesting work pretty consistently. I'd argue more consistently than anyone else of that era, including Dylan.

I thought you meant releasing the album, which considering the work has already been completed and performed to generally very good reviews, I couldn't see any risk. But now that I see you meant taking it up in the first place, yes, I agree with that. He'd have had a lot of egg on his face had he had to cancel the shows.

I think it's a great risk for him to put this out

I don't think there's much of any risk at all. He's a guy with nothing to lose, having been basically nothing but a commercial failure in terms of albums for 30 years or so, and whose critical response has been mixed. With this one, we all already know what's on it. Plenty of people will bitch no matter what; others will praise any fart Brian passes. It will be mostly unnoticed other than in the Mojo magazine set. The music itself is pretty close to irrelevant, actually: the same thing would happen around it. And as for his reputation, it's set in stone and nearly unchangeable. We've been getting almost the same stories and interviews since I became a fan a decade ago, with the major difference being that Smile went from being unreleaseable to being released. No, I don't think it's a risk. That's the best thing: he can pretty well do whatever he damn well pleases (at least in theory).