I suspect it was a bit too smooth and sweet for their direction at that time. For Surf's Up they were focusing on mature or socially conscious material (mostly), then they went rootsy for the next two albums.

Also, despite some experimenting, it seems like they ultimately decided against releasing songs that had been written for them by others (Sweet and Bitter etc)

I think they just played it cos they'd played it on stage with the Grateful Dead, and they were trying to play on the hip connection.

I agree that Audree and Murry weren't responsible for their sons' success. I do however simultaneously believe that they may never have had the idea/incentive to become musicians had they not had two musician parents.

It seems like Murry's musical influence on the Wilson trio has been overstated, and Audree's understated. Murry was definitely the one Brian was trying to impress, but as far as actual passing on of skill, Audree was clearly the better singer. It would make more sense to assume that Brian, Carl and Dennis learnt to sing by listening to her, not their dad.

Definitely agree with HeyJude - 'Bob Dylan couldn't sing' is a bizarre misconception that's somehow taken hold in popular thought. Much like 'Ringo is a bad drummer'. At his peak, Dylan was in tune, evocative, and technically strong - i.e. you can hear that he's projecting his voice and using resonance in a way which we'd consider 'correct' in contemporary western singing. He sounded like a professional vocalist, in other words. Sure he was never gonna be Stevie Wonder, but he used his instrument to its full potential. Jan and Dean did not; they sounded weak and amateurish.

Side question - when did it come to public knowledge that 'Never Learn Not To Love' was a rework of Manson's 'Cease to Exist'? Was it as late as March 1970 when 'Lie: the Love and Terror Cult' was released, and if so, how long did it take people to pick up on the connection?

Imagine Carl's frustration having just spent a year producing 3 different versions of Sunflower just to get a record that would satisfy Warner Bros, only to have it flop because of Dennis' uncomfortable associations.

I wonder if the exclusion of Dennis songs from Surf's Up was partly a damage control thing? Maybe Dennis, voluntarily or otherwise, started his solo career with Daryl because his songs being included on subsequent Beach Boy releases would be a commercial risk. CATP and Holland he contributed songs again, but only two per album, whereas he'd had three on 20/20 and four on Sunflower, plus several B-Sides and Slip on Through being a single.

It's interesting that Dennis' momentum as a songwriter didn't slow down regardless of all this. He was writing some of his most transcendent & joyous material in a period that should've been his most tumultuous.

I'd be very surprised if this is actually Brian playing, it sounds nothing like his piano style (he virtually never does LH chords RH melody like this, he prefers to just bash out chords with some bass movement). Even the soft legato feel just doesn't sound like Brian to me at all - he's not that kind of pianist.

If it is Brian then it's done with layers of overdubbing imo.

Looks like plenty of Hollywood figures have downplayed their involvement with Manson. Mike is unique in that he incriminates Dennis while attempting to exonerate himself. I don't think anyone really believes that Mike would have shown up to Dennis's house at that point in time without the intention of sleeping with some Manson girls.

It's alarming that Dennis, Gregg and Terry seemingly went to such lengths to conceal their degree of connection to Charlie; false testimony, failing to contact police when it was presumably obvious to them that the murders were done by the family. I guess just another example of the elite being shielded/covered up for, the sort of thing we still see to the present day.

Re: Hollywood blackballing the Beach Boys - would this go some way to explaining the extent of Sunflower's chart failure? It also would seem to explain why they were forced to focus on the UK and Europe as their primary market for a couple years.

Somewhat unrelated, but it strikes me as increasingly odd that Bruce was still close with Terry Melcher throughout the 70's. Bruce purports to have always been this clean-cut guy, but it seems like Terry was the opposite - it's interesting that their relationship never appeared to sour.

Yeah, Mike and Dennis were pretty out there at that time - there's an anecdote of Mike picking up Craig Smith and going out for a drive where he ran a red light on purpose before getting pulled over by police. I don't know if Brian was that interested in Manson or Craig Smith on the occasions that they were at his house - more likely he put up with them. Marilyn didn't like having them around.

I'd agree that Charlie for Dennis was a new friend & collaborator in the same way that Stephen Kalinich had been. Charlie was 'hip' and had an authenticity about him which probably increased Dennis' desire to bring him into the songwriting fold. Similar to Mike and Craig Smith - Mike seemingly wanted to use Craig's 'Salesman' as a Beach Boys track in '71.

It's amazing to me how a new mix can breathe so much life and vivid colour into music one is well acquainted with.

Nitpicking but the Sunflower and Surf's Up albums themselves were just remastered, not remixed.

And yet I still can't fully make out what Carl's singing at the end of "All I Wanna Do", lol. It's clear that the beginning bit is "If you get lonely in the night..." Anyone decipher what follows?

It's 'If you get lonely in the night I'd come and be with you'

Anyone know why the Surf's Up album pops up as "Remastered 2009" instead of 2021?

Seems to be an error, it's definitely a new master. It's probably meant to say 2019.

Bit torn on the new master of Sunflower - the added treble makes the tape hiss really audible on some tracks (probably a gain staging issue from the time it was recorded, of course not really something you can fix just by remastering). It's a brittle sound overall. Funny sounding record down to the way it was engineered I think - it's got a bit of a brittle, plastic-y quality to it at times.

Clearly there was enough good, unused material in 68-71 that they could easily have made a third album from it (before moving onto new material for Carl and the Passions).

What would this third album have looked like for you? Doesn't have to be chronologically after Surf's Up, it could go before Sunflower or in between Sunflower & Surf's Up. Can include songs that had been non-album singles or B-sides but not album tracks as of 1971.

Mine would be something like this (in a hypothetical world where Dennis and Carl are able to get past their differences and Dennis agrees to release his solo songs as Beach Boys tunes):


REVERBERATION (1971)

Side A:

1. It's a New Day
2. Sail Plane Song (not Loop De Loop - Sail Plane is an amazing piece of atmosphere and psychedelia, Loop De Loop is juveline and grating)
3. I'm Going Your Way
4. Baby Baby (imagining a version with Dennis & Carl doing serious vocals)
5. Susie Cincinnati
6. Won't You Tell Me (arranged like Brian's organ demo but with a proper vocal take - just a short side closer)

Side B:
1. Big Sur
2. San Miguel
3. Sweet and Bitter
4. Hawaiian Dream
5. Barbara
6. Awake (but in a lower key so Brian's vocal doesn't have to sound so shrill)


I've tried to make it as commercially viable for 1971-72 as possible, following up on the underground success of Surf's Up. Excluded Sound of Free and Lady because these had been released by Dennis & Daryl Dragon in late '70.

Resurrecting this thread since it's relevant again.

The acapella solves it - Carl's line is "If you get lonely in the night I'd come and be with you"

Wowee. Perks of living in Oceania

Highlights for me so far:

- All I Wanna Do acapella
- All the Dennis stuff. I'm Going Your Way, Barbara, & It's a New Day new mixes sound great. Behold the Night, Hawaiian Dream - stunning!! Baby Baby was slightly disappointing though.
- Won't You Tell Me demo with organ with Brian vocal is actually beautiful - that arrangement works great on its own (in a minimalist way like Be Still), and the original lyrics are better.
- Til I Die alt lyrics - obviously not superior, but interesting to hear.

Wonder if the 2019 mix of Going Your Way with the double tracked lead vocal will be available again? Surprised it's not on the set - maybe it'll be on a 'leftovers' type digital release like Sunshine Tomorrow 2.

Yeah, it seems entirely likely to me that Manson was unconsciously operating as a CIA honeypot, with the goal being to compromise prominent liberal Hollywood figures.

I guess my main question was really just - what more do we know about Dennis' involvement than we did before.

Haven't read it yet, but listened to the Rogan podcast.

So the compromised Bugliosi made up the 'Helter Skelter' motive on CIA orders + the trial was rigged in favour of the prosecution. Terry Melcher was in on this and gave false testimony to cover up that he saw Manson after the murders (also benefiting the prosecution by substantiating the idea that Manson was trying to intimidate Terry with the Cielo attack).

I'm not clear on what was in it for Dennis and Gregg Jakobson - like Terry, Gregg lied under oath in support of the Helter Skelter theory. What further involvement did they have than what we already knew about/what did they need covered up? Or was the possibility of minimising the PR damage for the Beach Boys incentive enough?

Re: Brian's thin vocals - that's just how his voice sounded at the time, not a mixing issue but a performance one.

That all being said, and I'm no photo expert, I wonder if some additional attention is coming to this newest publicity shot because it's extra aggressively altered/photoshopped/processed.

The de-saturated look, the shirts looking like they were drawn on after the fact, the spacing/staging, etc. are all extra difficult on the eyes.

But I guess one positive is that it is, unto itself, truth in advertising.

Looks to me like it's a bunch of individual shots that have been comped together hence the awkwardness.

Really poor graphic design from a company that can certainly afford better. I do feel a bit bad for Mike insofar as he doesn't realise how tone deaf he is with his self presentation these days.

As far as "Won't You Tell Me" goes, I assumed that it was a collaboration between Murry Wilson and Rick Henn. But then comes the Rolling Stone article and you have Brian saying what he said. Anybody know what's up on either of these or will we just have to wait for the set and scour the credits?

discussed it a little a page or 2 back.
a couple of us are glad Brian is now claiming credit for it, while a couple others seem sure that Murry wrote it and Brian is misremembering. appears that it's being credited to both Brian and Murry in the liner notes.

I've been revisiting the song (which i love) since the announcement. the chords, harmonies, melody, lyrics, not to mention Brian's sheer investment in singing the thing, all point to him indeed having written it. and now we have Brian saying he wrote it entirely. doesn't seem like a thing he'd forget or falsely take credit for.

at any rate, I'm ecstatic we're getting 2 separate versions of this gem of a song.

I dunno... To me the whole vibe of the song just doesn't say Brian at all. The tempo and feel, the uneven numbering of bars, the slightly clunky chord changes. Plus more than anything else, the melody and lyrics just don't feel Brian-esque at all to me - the melody is too on the nose & doesn't feel complete/organic in the way it flows and resolves.

The lyric is weird too - quite over-elaborated in its subject matter and trying too hard to tell a story, whereas Brian tended to keep his lyrics quite basic. It's also quite a conservative lyric which is another thing that leads me to think Murry - would Brian in '70 really have written a song about pleading a girl to tell him if she's a virgin? Really if we compare to Brian's other songs from the time, it makes little sense. He was well into the lighthearted, slice of life sort of bag at that point. Won't You Tell Me just has such a sense of grandiosity and taking itself 100% seriously which doesn't match Brian's style at the time. Even Brian's 'serious' songs of he time like Our Sweet Love orTil I Die are much more subtle and idiosyncratic.

To me, Won't You Tell Me as a complete package definitely has the slightly awkward, adult contemporary tinged vibe of Murry attempting to write a Brian style song. Still, I guess we'll never know for sure. But I can entirely believe that Brian would be misremembering here. The man has written hundreds of songs - it's not unreasonable to suppose that the details of a song which was scrapped five decades ago are a bit hazy to him now.

Why has Dennis not been recognized after all these years and decades?

PoB's acclaim has increased a lot yeah. I suspect the issue is that many of Dennis' strong songs were never released, and those which were released were mostly on 20/20 and Sunflower, both of which are barely known outside fan circles. His impulsive nature and short attention span also mean that many of his best fragments/song ideas were never finished properly or fleshed out to their fullest potential.

Early 70's really were a weird time for the band. Dennis was trying to do white soul but the band went for roots-rock instead before jumping on the nostalgia train. All this meaning Dennis' efforts to go in a more contemporary direction never really landed like they should have, mostly because the group never really followed through or continued in that direction. The closest they got was highlighting It's About Time live in '71.

I do tend to wonder if Slip on Through and Sound of Free could have been successful singles in 1970 if they'd had the proper promotion/backing. Both strong, commercial songs which wouldn't have been out of place on radio at the time.

Al is at least a very talented singer who's lead vocals scored the band one of their relatively few number 1 hits. He was also essential to the harmony stack (although that's true for all of them except Bruce imo).

In any case, there's no doubting Al and Bruce were both highly derivative as songwriters.

Plenty of other Beatles song have similar lyrical content too - e.g. the string of songs Paul wrote about his relationship strife with Jane Asher in 1965. You Won't See Me, We Can Work It Out, I'm Looking Through You - all are quite accusatory and self pitying despite the fact that most of their issues in reality stemmed from Paul's infidelity. Issues of toxic masculinity have only become a mainstream concern fairly recently, so it's not entirely fair to judge earlier work too harshly through that lens. Within reason of course - songs overtly glorifying abuse are definitely offputting, as are those which sexualise underaged women.