When the vast majority of the material they're playing is 40+ years old and the composer's role seems primarily to be showing up for performances and reading from the teleprompter, it gets easier to call it a covers band.

[At Fillmore East]

Can't imagine how anyone who's heard At Fillmore East could "despise" the enormous talents of the Allman Brothers Band...hilarious to me. Incidentally, Duane and Gregg Allman made their first significant appearance on a stage warming up for the Beach Boys in Florida in 1965. Later I think the two bands connected once or twice at the Fillmore East or West...

       Glad I can amuse you. But I didn't question their talents, either. I just can't stomach listening to them (no matter who they opened for in 1965).

I think you'd have to include the early "Back Home," at least. Is the first "Big Sur" that old, or was that nearer "Surf's Up"? Then of course there's the big batch of tunes from this era that were released on later albums and compilation albums.

I agree that personal lists make more sense. To pretend there is such a thing possible as an objective "greatest" list is ridiculous. Surfer Joe complained about Allman Bros. being too low on the list, for example; but there's no way in hell I'd put any Allman Bros. on a list, ever. I despise them despite their talent. On the other hand, my top 500 would definitely include some NWA, which earlier was complained about. It would also without question include another half-dozen or so hip hop albums I think are brilliant. (Although not the Biggie or Eminem mentioned earlier.) This thread ought to be moved to General Music Discussions, by the way.

I liked it. But what I didn't like was how dry the theoretical presentation was. What I mean is, the musical breakdowns were more quantitative than qualitative. Lambert lays out chord progressions, and sometimes compares the chord progressions of Song A to Song B. But he doesn't get into those chord progressions in the way I'd like; in the way that a good music appreciation or music history course does. But I do like that he's at least musically knowledgeable, as opposed to something like Gaines' book of musical illiteracy.

Honestly, the multi-thread drama over a bassist and drummer leaving what amounts to a cover band has me baffled. Jim and Bob are great--I loved the music they played. I don't doubt that they are, as many people have said, great people, very nice. But for whatever reason, they moved on. Until I read quotes from them saying they were abused or mistreated or something, frankly, it isn't a big deal at all. People join and quit bands constantly for a lot of reasons. Who cares? And if you care because of the quality of music, keep in mind that this band plays almost all old music, music that the current players are trying to recreate more than anything else. We know Mike D'Amico can do the same, and so can some huge number of other professional musicians. It isn't Lennon leaving McCartney.

It's funny that this thread begins with something like "I know these lists don't matter," etc., and yet it goes on to take issue with the choices. Make your list: while I don't know your taste, I'm certain I'd mock it. And you could do the same to mine. Are we all so desperate to have our own taste reaffirmed?

I wouldn't worry about BW's finances just because of the U.S. having its troubles. It seems to me that in such times, the poor get poorer, the middle class become poor and the rich, well, they might get a little less rich. I think he's got enough cash on hand to cover the rent...

Maybe Blondie: you make it big locally, regionally ... then come into a band when they're really going into a cool sound; get a chance to sing with some great singers; add a unique dimension to the group that creates a new live sound for them; get to record with some great recording minds (C. Wilson and S. Desper especially); tour the world; and then after you've left, you get a little gig that almost certainly pays pretty well, too. The Rolling Somebodies.  Much as I'd love to be in their shoes for some high points, there's no way I'd choose any of the Wilsons.

Everyone on here that's saying the Beach Boys had a lotta filler on their albums and that the Beatles were more consistent etc. are joking right? Every album the Beach Boys made all the way through Love You was at least decent. Everything leading up to Pet Sounds was incredible and even after when they got more experimental they were still making masterpieces even if their records weren't commercial hits in the US. Americans in the late 60s and early 70s just bought into all the hippie garbage while the Europeans were eating it up. If the Beatles hadn't have gotten all the press and publicity and George Martin producing their music they wouldn't have been nearly as big as they were; ya gotta give Brian Wilson credit for doing it all, Lennon and McCartney would have been nothing without George Martin. It just boggles my mind how this is supposed to be a site dedicated to the Beach Boys and there's a lotta fans on here undermining their music...

               (Sorry for no lines between the quote and my post ... a friend spilled wine into my computer and "Enter" no longer works. We're drunks.) Anyway, that post is ridiculous to me. First of all, whether we're on a Beach Boys site is irrelevant. What, we can't try to be objective? We have to forsake other interests? If the Beach Boys are my second-favorite band, do I have to find a new site? Are we paid advertisers? You get the idea ... I say what I want to say, where I want. I'm not "undermining" anything; I don't pretend to be that influential.             Second (again, apologize for no line break ... damn wine), the Wilson = Lennon/McCartney/Martin/etc line is irrelevant, too. We're not saying "which individual person is better than which others?" We're talking about the general opinions of bands compared to how they are perceived, period. The end result is all we're discussing, and it isn't better or worse for having been the creation of one person versus three, four, five or however many.            Third, I enjoy how you act as if your taste somehow mattered more than others'. You say the Beach Boys had no filler. I say they were more filler than not on almost every album. So maybe YOU must be joking, right?

If the only changes in the band are Hines and Lizik are removed, from a musical standpoint I'd give that a big "oh well." They're both very good, but neither is anything near irreplaceable. As previously mentioned, if Sucherman replaces Hines, he's just taking his old job back. No big problem there. And while I enjoy Lizik's playing, I don't think it's much of a problem to find a bassist to handle the lines. He's not writing songs, he's not singing ... someone else can do what he does. If there were some sort of unseemliness involved in the quitting/firing/parting, I might say something else, but nobody has much (anything?) to say on that, so why speculate? Musicians join and leave bands all the time. It's not that big a deal. As Prof. Harold Hill said, "There's always a band, kid."

I love the vocal melody, so I have to pass on that comment. In fact, it is in the same general vibe as another one I think you specifically noted not liking, the guitar-and-vocal waltz. I like both of those melodies a lot, thinking they well-fit a certain kind of traditional music vibe.  But I agree with you about the vocal performance. On one hand, I didnt want it sounding polished at all and so I didn't want to work hard on it (going for the aforementioned half-ass sound). But the result is just that it doesn't sound very good (as opposed to drunkenly charming). And the low part is out of my comfortable range. The more-centered guitar (the one playing arpeggios) was almost percussive, really plucked hard and also EQ'd oddly.

[demos]

I would imagine--and hope--the final product would sound different! The demos are demos.

I know that. I was referring to Andrew's statement, which ended in an emoticon that suggested he had some kind of insider info that told him the songs would be different in a bad way. As in, they're putting a sax solo on Midnight's Another Day because the adult contempo producer of the moment is now involved.

My comment wasn't specifically aimed at you; more the topic in general. And I believe we've got a deleted post now in that area that was more my point of contention originally.

[demos]

I would imagine--and hope--the final product would sound different! The demos are demos. If it were to be released with out of time drumming, bad MIDI sounds, half-fleshed out/pre-show arrangements and the full Brian-and-Scott choir, it would be a ridiculous waste of time. I won't say the demos aren't spirited. I won't say I wasn't happy to hear them. But they are demos. It's really just not even the same thing. I'm not talking about big-name outside producers, or over-slick sounds. I'm against both ideas. I'm talking about professionally engineered recordings by talented players who are making an effort to do a good job (as opposed to a pair of talented guys getting their ideas on "tape" [I assume it wasn't actually on physical tape...] so the band members can learn their parts).

In some ways they are thought of as a 'novelty' act (their quirky songs) ...

Freddie may have not been as blatantly political as Lennon, as 'real' as Cobain or as whatever the appeal was of Jim Morrison

I think it's true that Queen is--at least in the U.S.--seen as a novelty act in part. Their songs were funny, camp and all over the map; it's almost like Weird Al Yankovic, but if he weren't admitting he's kidding. I am not sure Americans know quite what to do with Queen ... and to me, the answer is easy: enjoy their music.

And that leads into the second phrase I quoted above. One thing I absolutely LOVE about Queen was their willingness to be a pop band. As Freddie sang, "I don't want to be the president of America." It makes no sense to me that people expect something other than music from musicians. They're looking for philosophy, wisdom, depth of meaning, and occasionally they can find it. Other times I think they probably manufacture it in order to believe it's there. But sometimes it's just music. Sometimes they are just pop songs, funny, sad, joyous, sexy or whatever--just pop. You won't go to heaven for listening. Queen were great for that reason. In fact, I wish they had never done "Is This The World We Created?" because it seems trite to me. I'm sure they meant it, but sometimes I'd rather hear "Bicycle Race," where the jabs are clever.

Kurt Cobain's death did nothing for me. I am not proud to say it, but the part of it that saddened me most was that I knew he'd be immortalized for certain then, rather than to fade out as I think he would've. I was never impressed with his music, and I have a hard time buying the anti-establishment sentiment of someone signing big-money deals with major labels, or posing for Rolling Stone covers. Frankly, I found him to be boring, tedious and probably a hypocrite. Lennon's overt politics, too, bored the hell out of me, and were usually accompanying bad music. Queen mostly avoided that tedium by making music that was meant as music. Not music-as-wisdom. Not music-as-politics. Music.

SJS, you're right about the way those albums--the 70's ones, anyway--sounded. They were just immaculate, so clean. So clear. So amazingly good sounding, almost from the get-go. Roy Thomas Baker, and later the band themselves, were really skilled at capturing sound on tape.

I always assume all sax on all pop records was played by Satan himself.

I just posted "My Intentions," which is almost certainly one of very few songs ever to open with the line "Dance with me, you syphilitic tramp," at:

http://myspace.com/thebeaumondes

Not-tuned guitars and banjo along with some half-assed melodica and bass? Hell yeah.

Well, I don't know if you'd love to hear from me, but yes, I'm a Queen fan.

I won't stop you.

Admittedly. But one is a more substantial group. What it comes down to is that there is no objective measure for the quality of pop music. Simple as that. Which is why we all waste our time here debating the unwinnable debate.

How would leaked demos affect eventual sales of material?

They won't. Anyone that's curious enough to download demos is probably a fan and will get the official thing anyway. I'm sure that even if they'd put all the demos on BW's site as free downloads, it wouldn't hurt the sales of the album the slightest bit.

That was my point.

The only one of those I think might have ended up close, if it existed, were Smile. To my ears, that's Beach Boys fandom saying that.

I think that songs like Maxwell's Silver Hammer...I mean, it's cute, but I just can't listen to it, the melody is lame, it's all gimmicks and forced humor. Eh. Let It Be...I don't know. I just can't get into it, I like half the songs, the others always seemed kind of lifeless to me. Give me She Loves You any day over Get Back.

Agree on MSH. And on SLY over GB. By far, actually.

I enjoyed the tune.