Awesome. Everybody that has ever mentioned "the automatic tuning software" has had the equivalent of a "kick me" sign applied to their back. A wonderful step up for the board. I'm proud.

"Target exclusive" ?  Hardly - those tracks are on the Japanese release and the UK version I've ordered from Amazon.

Target (and Best Buy, Amazon, Toys R Us, etc.) do a zillion exclusives, from movies to toys to even food. When they mark it exclusive, it obviously means exclusive among US retailers, and often only exclusive for a specific period of time. I've heard of many cases of US "exclusives" that are available by the truckload in other countries.

For US customers anyway, the Target version will be moderately and perhaps extensively cheaper too.

If you have means (logistically) to buy the CD, then of course that's what should be done.

I just find it interesting that this topic comes up in a thread that has links to YouTube, which is a place that is FILLED with infringing material that EVERYBODY looks at and listens to. Yes, when Brian's own VEVO channel posts a video with a track from the new album, that's legit.

But technically, just about everything on YouTube that isn't from an official source or someone's home movies is probably copyright infringement that simply hasn't been enforced. I'm sure this debate has been had all over the internet for probably 15 years or more, but at what point is streaming a YouTube video that is not licensed/sanctioned so terribly different from downloading the album?

Is the argument specifically that not buying Brian's CD is being frowned upon, or is it the infringement involved? What if you download a leaked copy of a CD before release date, but then also buy the CD when it comes out? What if you own every Brian/BB music and video release ever put out, and then you stream something on YouTube posted by a random person? Those things are technically infringing as well.

I'm not defending anyone downloading the album illegally, and/or not buying the CD. This is more just food for though.

Cool to hear her talk about working with Brian. I kind of wish there was more info/substance to the story, which basically amounts to "he doesn't like some stuff, and then he likes other stuff", and he tells you this.

To those who aren't familiar with Brian, they may not have been picking up on the most interesting aspect of the story as it pertains to his personality, which is that he is unfiltered in the literal sense.

Hey folks. I'm trying not be too overbearing and try to shoehorn this into a bunch of threads in the main forum, so I thought I'd just mention that my Beach Boys Opinion Page ( http://beachboysopinion.blogspot.com) now as a Facebook counterpart ( http://facebook.com/beachboysopinion ). The idea is just that I sometimes I end up not updating the blog as often because I post here, so I run out of steam and motivation to post very similar stuff on the blog. So I thought doing more quick bits (news, quick opinions, etc.) on Facebook would make it easier, and I can still have the blog for longer-form reviews and pieces and whatnot.

Since the Facebook page is a "Page" for a website and not a personal page, I can't do friend requests and all of that from the page. So if you can take a peek and recommend to other folks if you feel like it, that would be great. I'd just like to get the idea that someone is reading it other than myself. Writing purely for myself is sadly and shockingly not the most boring thing to do, but if others find anything interesting about it, that's about a million times better.

For those who are interested, as I said, I'm hoping this will all make it easier to do a lot more posting, as I know I haven't been updating the blog as much for several months.

He did a short "Barbara Ann" with Brian and Mike in 2012 on his show.

And during that segment, he seemed so awe-inspired by the idea of his voice being part of a three-part harmony. I'm totally not big on feeling like I need to get on stage with these guys, and "Barbara Ann" isn't exactly my favorite, but it would be fun to sing a three-part harmony with those guys just for a few seconds.

I suppose, also that the use of the word "cancel" by Brian may not mean actually canceling a studio session, but rather "canceling" the inclusion of the song, or canceling the artist in question.

It's not impossible that Lana Del Rey's management decided against the track, and that was what their "canceling" meant.

I'm not terribly upset with not hearing either track. "Our Special Love" didn't do much for me anyway in its eventual released state.

It will be interesting to hear "Last Song" to try to figure out how good of a fit Del Rey would have been.

Agreed about the blu-ray - given the recent advances in the quality of television screens, I currently see the DVD format like I saw VHS 10 years ago...very outdated.

Regardless, as long as the sound is good I'm very much looking forward to this either way. Thanks for the heads-up!

I think the sound should be good. As I've mentioned in other threads, I have several other "Soundstage" DVDs and Blu-rays, all done Joe Thomas, and they sound great. Plus, while the fidelity on YouTube has limitations, the clips from the show on YouTube sound just fine as well in terms of mix, and there doesn't seem to be any overt post-production trickery or anything either.

something weird with the zip code field at the site

Yep, something is glitching out on the site it seems.

No big deal; it seemed like a lot of info to have to enter anyway just to be "notified" about a future release.

Not terribly surprising considering they put a lot of "Soundstage" shows out on DVD, but the website for the "Soundstage" show mentions that you can "reserve" (meaning simply joining a mailing list to be notified when it's available) the DVD. It has artwork for a DVD cover, so I'm thinking it's likely to happen.

Note that the "No Pier Pressure" cover behind the DVD appears to just a case of the website offering the CD for sale as well ("bundles" I would think are likely as well).

The site also mentions, again not surprisingly, that the DVD will feature "bonus" material.

I hope a Blu-ray release happens as well. It would be a shame to shoot the thing in HD and only put it out in SD on DVD.



The little bit of info is here: http://interactive.wttw.com/soundstage

These guys are effing in the 70's, so I figure they should just do whatever they want to at this stage musically, and more importantly, they should be into whatever they want to be into.

I've always kind of dug that Brian lives in kind of a musical vacuum. I love that quote from a few years back where someone asked him about "new" music he listens to, and he named that 80's song "Take My Breath Away." It showed he doesn't go out of his way to listen to "new" stuff, but that he also still has an ear for random melodies and songs he likes.

Back to Lana Del Rey and Frank Ocean: While I think it was confirmed (or guessed) some time back that Ocean never actually did any recording (not sure why his name was so strongly floated if they hadn't even gotten Ocean to find a song he wanted to work on), I somehow got the impression that Lana Del Rey had already done some recording work on "Last Song." Didn't some of the articles imply something along the lines of "There are two version of the song", rather than "two versions of the song are planned."

I'm wondering of she put down some sort of vocal, and they called her back to do more work and she canceled on the session.

It's funny; I had no interest in hearing Ocean, but I thought Lana Del Rey (who I have very mixed feelings about) was *potentially* the most compelling guest on Brian's album. Would have been interested to hear her sing a BW tune. At the same time, I remember saying way back that if "Last Song" was even half as epic and poignant as it has been implied, then I would definitely want to hear Brian tackle it on his own too.

Having finally given the song some good listens on the good headphones, I can't find a bad or offensive thing about the song musically. I do think the song is very, very simple. It's impossible to hate a song like this, but it is the simplest of three of four chords over and over on the verses.

Little bits of the vocal arrangement are more interesting than the song itself or its chords.

I like the idea of things sounding different from song to song on this album, and I'm in in no position to say Brian needs to write chord progressions on the magnitude of "This Whole World" every time. But I'd say "Guess You Had to Be There" does teeter on the verge of blandness.

I think "Sail Away" is head and shoulders above anything else we've heard, and that song as well as "The Right Time" and even "Runaway Dancer" have more interesting chord changes and arrangements.

This debate has been going on in one form or another since Imagination. Whatever program it is, whatever you want to call it, it's more than likely that some sort of pitch correction software has been used on some Brian Wilson recording of the past 17 years.

The question is, what do you do about it? What real contribution does it make to the discussion to start going back-and-forth about the technology's use? All the pitch correction in the world cannot make a bad performance good. If that were the case, GIOMH would be considered a great classic. It's a tool, one of an arsenal of tools available to modern recording artists.

If there was any indication that Brian was half-assing this record, or that Joe Thomas had secretly whisked the tapes away to Illinois to finish them without Brian's knowledge, that would be one thing. But by all accounts, Brian was as active and engaged in the recording of this album as any of his solo projects in the past quarter century.

So whatever is on the record is on the record. Brian liked it or signed off on it in some way. What we now need to do, is figure out a way to talk about the record and its contents without having every discussion derailed into a autotune versus no autotune versus insert pitch correction software name here debate.

Whatever was used on the Beach Boys record was, in my opinion, too much. This album though, sounds to my ears more naturalistic. It's still polished, and it still has a sheen. Again though, that's the choice of the artist. And the ultimate artistic intent and goal is what's worth talking about.

All good points.

I agree there is nothing on NPP on the magnitude of TWGMTR as far as wonky autotune-ish effects. I think it's quite possible that was in response to complaints from fans and spectators. Maybe Joe Thomas just *really* listens to what Burton Cummings thinks. 

We are indeed getting hung up a on lot of semantics. I would submit that a solution would be for everybody to acknowledge that some folks might think autotune is on these recordings, and to feel free to ignore such theories. Everybody just accepting essentially the simple idea that everybody has an opinion (and implicit in almost every post here is that it is just an opinion, even if it is stated in very plain language (e.g. "autotune is on that!")) would be far easier and more fair than asking people who think autotune is on a given recording to just *not* say anything.

It's so great to have someone who's in the know like Ray Lawlor being able to contribute to the conversation and even to set the record straight when needed. It's silly that people were projecting this BB50 theory on Guess You Had To Be There when it really crumbles under any close scrutiny.

It's not silly. It was just a theory, and one that actually made enough sense to be plausible. Why are people so worked up about it, and still giving Wirestone s**t about it?

This is a board that once had a thread about "What would the BB's be like if they had been born female?"

Wirestone, did you get the memo about the TPS report? Did you? Did you?

Does anyone think that were people passed out on the floor during BB50? (unless it was afternoon nap time for the old fellers) As I stated, the "theory" didn't hold water, and yet like wildfire, people were jumping on the bandwagon that the song was about BB50.  I'm guessing that some people were blinded by the thought they had new fuel for their Mike Love-bashing. That's my silly theory. P.S I think Wirestone's posts are pretty swell as a rule.

Brian's wife Marilyn also didn't literally "glow" either as far as I know (and hey, some still swear "Caroline, No" has nothing to do with her). Point is, I've seen *far* crazier theories than the one Wirestone offered. Interpreting lyrics is a minefield of subjectivity. Sometimes even the authors don't know wtf they're saying, or won't say.

I didn't for one second see an angle to bash Mike Love in Wirestone's comments. I understand why one might think that was possible, but I think that speaks more to people who have a distaste for negative comments about Mike Love looking for something to jump on, waiting in the wings for more evidence of nothing more than the possibility of something that could be interpreted as "Mike bashing."

Even if you thought Mike was a total d**k and thought Brian was writing specifically about Mike being a d**k in that song, that wouldn't negate the mere theory of the song being about C50.

One could say "I don't think Mike is a d**k at all, but it sounds like Brian does in that song!"

Can we compromise and please call it something else? Because that's not how autotune works. Autotune is pitch correction. It's when a vocal is tweaked to hit a certain note that the singer couldn't hit naturally. It is obvious most of the time.

That's not happening (as far as I can tell) at all on this track. You have an issue with some sort of effect, not autotune or pitch correction.

Whether any pitch-altering effect is at play is questionable. It may not be the actual "AutoTune" plug-in. It could be any number of plug-ins that incorporate pitch correction elements. But I don't think we're just getting caught up on calling generic tape "cellophane tape" instead of "Scotch tape."

I don't think it's out of line to question whether some sort of plug-in that incorporates some level of pitch correction/alteration/sustain might be at play.

Googling "plug-ins that sound like autotune" results in a number of *other* software suites that do the same or similar things, and can do everything from correcting one note to giving a sheen to the whole performance, to sounding like a robot, to turning one voice into a choir.

Every mention of these software suites notes that they are *standard* studio equipment now. I presume Brian has probably migrated exclusively to digital recording now (and even if he tracks stuff on analog tape, it's then dumped into ProTools or some similar program).

It all is too hazy to know WTF is going on. We can try saying something other than autotune (even though I don't think it's out of the realm of possibilities that the literal Antares program Auto-Tune could be at play) I guess. I don't know if that's going to help, though.

Anyone who's hearing autotune on the 2015 BW tracks so far make fools of themselves..

Ridiculous. Now we're calling people "fools"? 

[VERY WRONG]

I don't know if it's autotune, "Pro-Tools" (remember how everybody on this board used to complain about "Pro-Tools" on every song? Autotune is the new Pro-Tools), vocal gloss, reverb, vocal stacking, Kacey Musgraves sniffing helium, rats eating studio wiring or whatever, but there's something VERY WRONG with the vocals.

Sure, it could be due to the fact that this is a low-quality stream, I've heard that explanation a hundred times, and guess what: each time, that annoying effect could still be heard on the CD, less obvious but still easily noticeable.

That's apparently what needs to be done now. It would probably be easier to stop saying autotune (apparently even if it REALLY sounds like it to you), and just say you don't like the "sound" of it. Then, even when you say you LOVE the song even if you don't like exact mixing or timbre or ambience of the vocal, we'll see if people still jump down your throat about it.

It's so great to have someone who's in the know like Ray Lawlor being able to contribute to the conversation and even to set the record straight when needed. It's silly that people were projecting this BB50 theory on Guess You Had To Be There when it really crumbles under any close scrutiny.

It's not silly. It was just a theory, and one that actually made enough sense to be plausible. Why are people so worked up about it, and still giving Wirestone s**t about it?

This is a board that once had a thread about "What would the BB's be like if they had been born female?"

Wirestone, did you get the memo about the TPS report? Did you? Did you?

Since we can probably all agree that what she's singing isn't very hard to sing, and it's evident in live performances that she sings in key, why is it so hard to believe that they didn't have to 'autotune' her voice?  Autotune is a pitch correction tool.  If they're singing it on pitch, there's nothing to pitch correct.  

That a singer doesn't need autotune is increasingly becoming irrelevant, unfortunately. Many singers who don't need it have had it applied (and not just in the "sure, they might sound off here and there, but that's okay" way, but in the "they sing fine and autotune is still added" way).

It *is* being used as an effect on many songs. The subtext in the autotune discussion that it implies the singer sucks and needs a NASA supercomputer to fix their voice isn't really at play. That probably happens too. But it's also being used as trendy effect for fine singers. So at a certain stage, when someone says "ew, that sounds like autotune", they're not calling the artists' abilities into question. It's just a distracting effect for some. I repeat, I don't believe most people are calling the artists' integrity into question. It's more like a lament; this was certainly the case with "From There to Back Again."

If you hear it on her voice, she's luckily singing words, so each part of the song is easily identifiable as a word.  So tell me the word that's been pitch corrected with autotune.  

That's not how autotune always works. Yes, it *can* be used to do tiny fixes for individual words or syllables. But whether it's there or not, it's vividly clear that the people hearing autotune on stuff like the song in question are hearing it *throughout.*

To use the "reverb" analogy that has been used, if reverb is added to a lead vocal track from beginning to end and one doesn't like it, they can't then single out "one word" where they hear it. It's on the whole thing.

Ha! Do you realize how important it was for you to post that response Ray? People here love to spout opinions off as fact and unchallenged it would "become fact". Look at all of the " gee wirestone your right" within such a short time. It would have gone on for pages.

Thanks a million.

I think this makes a bunch of incorrect assumptions:

1. Wirestone was 100% certain WTF the song could mean
2. Folks reading his post would think he was 100% certain
3. Anyone or everyone here is dumb enough to take one person’s opinion and cite it as fact

To recap:

1. I got the impression Wirestone was offering an interpretation; one that was interesting and additionally helpful since we don’t have transcribed lyrics yet
2. Same as above, it’s painfully obvious it’s one interpretation.
3. While I acknowledge that some things on boards (or books) can be misquoted or attributed or misremembered after the fact, I don’t think everybody was getting ready to write a headline story that a song co-written by Kacey Musgraves is a clear tome about C50. The positive comments to Wirestone were, as I saw them, meant to commend an interesting interpretation.

Further, Ray Lawlor isn’t going to be here to tell us how every song was written. We’re going to have to guess. Most of us can wrap our heads around the idea that it’s all theories. To that end, Wirestone’s post was interesting.

I think maybe there’s some sort of weird problem lately here with interpretation of language. If someone says “oh man, that’s *totally* about C50!”, it’s sometimes just a use of language to provide enthusiasm or emphasis or surprise. And guess what? Maybe sometimes someone uses that sort of language and really literally means it! For that matter, someone might read Ray’s explanation and first-hand knowledge and *still* believe there’s another subtext to the lyrics. So what?

Again, inherent in anything we post here is that it’s opinion. Unless it’s something absolutely concrete like release dates or session dates (and even *those* can be debated sometimes!), everything else is ultimately some level of conjecture. Seriously. If Brian released a song called “Mike Love can shove the 50th Up His A**” you’d still have someone claiming Brian was just writing a song about a friendly reminder for Mike to have a 50th colonoscopy.

Can anyone point to a specific part of Kacey's vocas where they're hearing autotune? Because I don't hear it at all. She sounds multi-tracked with a digital reverb.

Someone else claimed it’s old-fashioned plate reverb. I think the use of digital reverb can be distracting as well (and too much of any echo/reverb isn’t to my liking sometimes). Is it considered crapping on Brian’s new album to talk about overuse of reverb?

I will say this: In my opinion, instances going back to the 60s/70s/80s of Brian double-tracking lead vocals with reverb *don’t* give off that autotune-ish sound in any way. So this creates a conundrum, because even some folks who advocate that Brian *isn’t* using an autotune will acknowledge that the way some of these vocals are tracked/mixed can make it sound a bit like autotune does (there was at least one poster some time back who claimed “From There to Back Again” does NOT have any auotune, and was accomplished entirely by multi-tracking Al’s lead and adding effects). So what’s the cause of that? A theory I posited a little while back is that an alternative to actually using autotune to give that “sheen” to a vocal that’s trendy these days would be to use other means (double tracking, strategic use of reverb) to give that same sort of sheen. Is there someone out there trying to get an “autotune-ish” sound without using autotune? I dunno. More food for thought, nothing more.

1.  Brian was one of the first to pioneer the use of new studio technology - always pushing the envelope.  Whatever the tools.  Decades ago he'd cut vocals in a lower key and speed them up to make the voices sound younger, something the Beach Boys have continued to do (California Dreamin).  All kinds of tricks at play in Smile and everything else.  While I take exception to auto-tune on the recent live album (the live version of Don't Back Down wins the award for the worst BB live recording ever), if it's at play here, I don't care.

 *If* Brian was/is using autotune, I would argue he's probably not “pioneering” the use of it. It has been in heavy use for 10-15 years now.

And that may well be a small part of the unspoken subtext of some of these debates on the topic. Some people feel that implicit in the use of autotune (or, on the other side of the debate, that implicit in the accusation of the use of autotune) is that Brian would in this scenario be a follower, using something that was initially used in the industry to cover up for mediocre singers and which has subsequently become an overused, trendy effect. Let me be clear, I’m not prepared to lodge such a complaint against Brian. I think the evidence is too subjective and circumstantial, and believe it or not, I actually *don’t* care that much about it. Brian has already proved himself a million times over. I don’t particularly care if he uses autotune for whatever reason. But because that’s how I feel, I also don’t mind my brain absorbing the idea and coping with the idea that he has used it, nor do I have trouble finding that something that is not to my liking, while simultaneously still enjoying the work in question.

While I would hope that if we all tried saying things like “it sounds like….” or “I think….” rather than “it is…” that it would eliminate the arguments/debates, I fear it probably wouldn’t. For me, I do make the assumption that most folks here weren’t there when the stuff was mixed, so I think it’s kind of implicit in any discussion that we know we don’t know much of anything for certain.

I just weigh all the available evidence accordingly, and given everything we know, I find it very difficult to eliminate the possibility of autotune to the point of not even raising it as a topic for discussion. I also weigh opinions accordingly, and also look at the internal logic of those opinions. Sometimes experts who know their s**t offer some very tenuous assertions in terms of logic. Anything to do with audio (to say nothing of music as an art) is almost painfully subjective; sometimes I’m amazed discussions can be had on the topic at all. I think we do pretty well here.

I also think autotune is a bit like those “invisible eye” 3D posters that became trendy in the 90s; I think some people simply aren’t seeing/hearing the effect. That makes discussion on the topic even more difficult and potentially divisive, as I suspect some who don’t hear the anomalies that result from digital pitch correction are still weighing in on the discussion.

I also don’t think those who bring it up are trying to flame or troll (or whatever the current lingo is). In most cases, they’re fans to the point of being interested enough to preview a BW track on the web and go to a message board and talk about it. It’s not a terribly popular thing to do apparently to suggest autotune. They seem to get criticism from multiple angles; there’s the “there’s no autotune because….” argument, as well as the “so what if autotune is on it?” argument, as well as the “I don’t know wtf autotune is and I don’t care” argument.  So I don’t mind if people have some b***s and stick up for their simple opinion. I also think sometimes what appears to be certitude (e.g “now *this* has autotune”) is more just a case of putting stylistic emphasis on what is inherently nothing more than an opinion. I know the person that says “this has autotune!” wasn’t there and doesn’t really know for certain.

Do we know, by any actual source, how much Thomas has had to do with the production/mix of this album?

So we have identified Thomas as the auto tune guy? Really? TWGMTR was executive produced by Mike Love. Produced by Brian Wilson.  I guess Thomas is the guy that steals the tracks in the middle of the night, gets no production credit and auto tunes the vocals? That makes sense!  All while Mike and Brian are in the studio together writing Little Deuce Coupe Part II !  Seriously, Ive read in several recording mags that as guy named Siedleman is touting that he recorded Brian or The Beach Boys. He goes in to great detail about what microphones he is using etc. Whats his story?

Mike Love, as far as I know, is the only member of the Beach Boys to actually ever utter the word "autotune" in an interview. To ever address the existence of autotune on planet Earth, and most certainly the only BB to mention it in relation to BB music. On one hand, I respect that someone in the band mentioned it... despite that, the fact is that I believe the context of when he mentioned it was most likely a lame underhanded dig at finding fault in Brian's new music (in order to downplay its greatness, since it doesn't have Mike Love on it). But I doubt that Mike would have ever objected to the use of autotune on his own vocals, especially if it meant having to do less vocal takes and less time in the oh-so-laborious-for-him studio.

Consider this: Your post is a lame underhanded dig at finding fault in everything Mike says or does. I doubt that you would have ever objected to any other BB member saying something that many posters here actually agree with him about. I'm so tired of this. Why don't you folks just create your own finding fault in Mike thread, discuss your issues there and leave the other threads, those that aren't about Mike at all, alone with that subject?

Not to derail things too much here, but are you familiar with the piece CenturyDeprived is referencing? Whether Brian has never been within a thousand feet of autotune software or if he uses autotune in the shower every day, that “interview” with Mike where he referenced autotune was most assuredly, in my opinion, a heavily backhanded, loaded statement. As I said at the time during discussion of that interview, it would be the same as Brian being asked about a new Mike album and answering “I’m sure it’ll be great, as long as Mike doesn’t reference old BB songs in the lyrics or reference surfing or beaches.”

In other words, it was an obvious dig based on previous criticisms of Brian’s (and/or Joe’s) work as well as probably contemporaneous, ongoing discussion of the song (“The Right Time”) in question.

Half of this board thinks they're the Sherlock Holmes of autotune. I couldn't give a tuppenny f*** if Brian wants to use modern effects, enhancements or techniques. He's Brian Wilson, I'm not, he knows what he wants his records to sound like. Do these people go to magic shows with the sole intention of figuring out the illusions too? Personally I like to be swept away by the song, it's content and so on. You know, what do the kids call it...er...enjoying it?

That’s a fine position to take. But as I said before, some people are saying “autotune is on it but I still like it”, and they’re being attacked for suggesting it might be there. So it’s turning into another semantics debate about whether it’s there, as opposed to whether we like the song. There’s room for all the discussions and debates, but strong assertions that autotune definitely wasn’t used tend to undercut the argument that it doesn’t matter whether it was used.