I don't know if ironic is the right word, but it's odd that there are those posting theories about art being free in discussions against intellectual property and copyright law, yet I think the big reason why this particular artist got involved in a legal dust-up with Van Dyke was because he was selling his art!   If this guy had offered it for free as an online wallpaper or something, or had done the work as a fan tribute and not hung the canvases in a gallery for sale to the public, maybe it wouldn't have been an issue.

It definately would not have been an issue. The artist uses the term "inspired by", yet in actuality, they are named after Van Dyke Parks' works and feature his words prominently. Had they not done so, would he have got his work in a gallery where they are on sale for thousands of dollars? I don't believe so. It's cheap, lazy "art" that is using a canvas and the painter's "artistic" pretentions as a means of profiting from someone elses hard work. If I made a short film featuring a several shots of flames and soundtracked it with the BBs 'Fire' and called it 'Fire' - then offered it for sale, does anyone think that is classed as fair use?

Heroes and Villains: Smile Sessions version - many more interesting fragments and ideas in this version.

Vega-Tables: Smile Sessions version - as above.

Fall Breaks and Back to Winter - I do love Fire but it's the organ and the "Bom-bom" bass vocals that do it for me.

She's Goin Bald - always loved this one due to the group vocals.

Little Pad - Not keen on the opening but as soon as that slide guitar comes in it is heavenly.

Good Vibrations - It's basically the same song, but I'd go with the original. Not too much of a fan of the "humbedums" but I do like the extended outro on the new version.

Wonderful: Smile Sessions - The Smiley version does nothing for me.

Wind Chimes: I love the Smile chorus. I love the marimbas and the vocals. I also love the group vocals on Smiley and the outro in particular. It's a tie.

I Just Wasn't Mad For These Times.

The instrumentation, the arrangement, the harmonies, the layers of vocals, the electro-theremin and woodwinds in the break. Perfection.

"Rock rock roll, so bad I turned over..."

I am also not keen on the cover, it has too many cliches all at once. However, a friend posted a link to the pitchfork thing and also one to this: http://thequietus.com/articles/07520-quietus-albums-of-the-year-2011

There are a dozen albums with far, far worse covers on that page that have not been mentioned by pitchfork. Maria Minerva for example.

Sounds interesting. One thing I've never understood is why the bass just drops out all of a sudden towards the end of the track while the other instruments are still playing.

I cannot believe how much people grouse about the 'whispering winds' fly-ins.  They've been lowered like one step.  The intensity of some of the complaints about those vox, which are easily one of the more subtly and transparently deployed fly-ins/alterations on the box, kind of make these arguments seem less credible overall.

Da-Da on the other hand...yeah, those sound like chipmunk noises.  At least they're down in the mix.

The whispering winds vocals sound a bit odd. There's not much pitch shifting gone on, but it sounds a bit wooly. Only a minor gripe. The Da Da scatting has been shifted to such an extent that it sounds like a couple of schoolgirls, not at all like the Beach Boys. It should have been left off. I could handle it if the track it was taken off was in the same key or thereabouts, but it was way off.

I'm still trying to figure out how an "official release" of the Beach Boys contains altered vocals that hardly even resemble the Beach Boys. I really think that in 5-7 years a lot of people, including the compilers, are going to have regrets about many of the decisions that went into this project--the sort of things that i think might have seemed like a good idea in the short term, with disregard to the long term effects. I think time will prove that a straightforward raw sessions (the very thing that Linett and Boyd said would have been the undesirable alternative if there was no BWPS) would have been the best approach. I think, packaging aside (and that's a HUGE aside because the packaging is of the highest quality), history is going to look at this set as a bit of a blunder and a great missed opportunity. In a few years, Joe Public, and the need to meet the demands/expectations of that market, won't matter in the least. The public has a way of "catching up" with things that went over people's heads initially. People would have eventually come around and caught on to a raw sessions sort of box set (or abridged version) without the aid of the disc 1 estimation. And integrity and accuracy would have still been intact. Mark my words.

I'd like to know what it is that you find so objectionable.

'an "official release" of the Beach Boys contains altered vocals that hardly even resemble the Beach Boys'

?

I just don't get it.

I agree that Mark Linnet or his assistants were guilty was some pretty sloppy editing (I do hear the things on your list on the other thread, but so far I'm not that bothered by them, though I agree its a shame) but I don't understand how you can love the box but hate its contents.

Please explain.  

I imagine he's talking about the Alvin and the Chipmunks treatment applied to the flown in vocals in Da Da. I think they were right to experiment and try such things but the results were so poor I don't know why they didn't discard them immediately. Flown in and manipulated to hell just for the sake of it.

Well, the 2004 one has more instruments in it, the clarinet in particular, and a bigger, more sweeping feel.

Yes, but it doesn't sound as nice as the original. I'd like to hear this version but oron keeps telling me I have to wait 2 hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds to download. It doesn't count it down though, so you wait three hours press refresh and then it tells you to wait another 2+ hours. Not to sound ungrateful, but why anyone would chose to upload onto a two-bit site like that given the multitude of other superior sites out there, I cannot comprehend.

Does this news not also open up the possibility that there were other vintage lyrics given to Frank Holmes when he did his original artwork besides the ones we know of?

Wonderful is Brian's 66ish vocals, with the backing track from the 2004 version instead.

Ah, right thanks. Can't understand the point of that one myself.

Bruiteur has posted his edits elsewhere on this board, so it's probably fine to post these links to Barnyard, Great Shape and Wonderful.

http://oron.com/qcxlb2ls4ib7
http://oron.com/m6whllytlpll
http://oron.com/kx8j21oko13j

I'm now updated my own edit with his Great Shape.


Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys - SMiLE
The 3971 Edit
by Tygerbug

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=UY3IFI00
314.82 MB FLAC

Where did Bruiteur upload this Wonderful track and what actually is it. I cannot get that oron.com site to ever let me download anything.

I could have seen Brian scoring films...that's  what Run James Run was all about.

What exactly is "Run James Run"? Never heard of it before.

Working title for the track Pet Sounds.

Excellent work, thanks.

When I was about 7 years old my friend's dad had a little portable record player and the two records me and my friend found to play on it were Johnny Cash Live at San Quentin and Smiley Smile. I loved it then and I love it now. I still think I prefer 'Fall Breaks And Back To Winter' to 'Mrs O'Leary's Cow', it has a quality that I've rarely found in any other piece of music. I love the organ sounds, I love the intro to 'Getting Hungry', I love 'She's Going Bald' and I adore 'Little Pad'. It's a fantasic album.

I've always loved the cover for Smiley Smile. Fair enough, it's a massive Rousseau rip off, but I like Rousseau and I like the Beach Boys, so it's a great mix. It just fits songs like Fall Breaks and Little Pad too.

That new little melody that Brian sings sounds awfully close to that the descending stand-up bass line in the chorus. Could he simply be singing it like that because he had been listening to take after take of the bass playing that line? Or, is the bass line there in the chorus track as an "echo" of the melody that was supposed to be heard in the verse section?

That's what I said elsewhere. It's a counterpoint to the string bass or vice versa. It may be that the newly discovered vocal melody was to be sung over that bassline, echoing the lyrics of the verse which may have been as they were recorded for BWPS. Lots of "may haves" in there, I know, bt it's a possibility.

What is the song that you hear right at the beginning of I'm In Great Shape? The piano melody. I can't for the life of me place it. I know I'm going to feel like a gigantic dumbass once somebody says what it is. Ever have one of those brainfarts?  

Yeah same question over here as well!

The start of that sequence really works man going into the siren vocals .

--

The isolation is very good although of course things become very difficult when the vocal becomes significantly lower in level.

It's part of the track "Heroes and Villains Part 2", 21 on the second disc of the box set. And it does work very well as an intro to this (although the woo-woos are among my least favourite Smile vocals, they do not offend me used here to bridge the two parts)

When Linett made the comment about BWPS being the "template" for the new Smile release, I was bitterly disappointed for a time, because I thought they were going to create a Purple Chick bit of horribleness.

But as it turns out, I'm very, very happy with what they did.

One of the few exceptions is the "woo woo" at the end of Worms.  To paraphrase Al, that's not part of Worms.  It shouldn't be there, and of course is used in H&V, where it belongs, just two tracks earlier.

I agree with that. While not sounding half as dreadful as on BWPS, it is just wrong. I can see why it worked for live shows but it does not belong on this track and pretty much the first thing I did was to chop that off and replace it with the bicycle rider fade.

[but I know nothing about them]

The Flaming lips, I lump them together with bands like Phish and Black Crowers, 80s/90s hippies, stoner/slacker guys who'll smoke a joint before doing a tv-interview. This kind of thing........but I know nothing about them

That seems quite apparent when you lump them in with those other bands that are nothing like them. Have a listen to The Soft Bulletin (or Zaireeka if you have four CD players handy).

Not musically! Image, drug use, fanbase etc...

That's far off the mark too though.

[but I know nothing about them]

The Flaming lips, I lump them together with bands like Phish and Black Crowers, 80s/90s hippies, stoner/slacker guys who'll smoke a joint before doing a tv-interview. This kind of thing........but I know nothing about them

That seems quite apparent when you lump them in with those other bands that are nothing like them. Have a listen to The Soft Bulletin (or Zaireeka if you have four CD players handy).

I've had a listen to most of these experiments with the "new" Worms melody and it is wierd (unless I've missed one) that nobody has tried placing them over the part that Brian is pacing when he demonstrates the lines. He sings over the decending line (is it played by Lyle Ritz on the string bass? I cannot check at this moment as I'm using my speakers to play a film for my son) at the end of the "Rock, rock, roll, Plymouth Rock roll over" part. Maybe the verse melody in BWPS was a period melody and this snipet was a vocal that repeated (possibly only some of) the lyrics over that descending bass line just before the chorus.

 It starts at the same time as the BWPS melody starts. This is obvious from the demonstration. It's been playing in my head constantly for a week now.

I'm not sure. It depends on how it's been edited I suppose but to me you can take it as him following up the previous take by directing Lyle Ritz (who he mentions specifically in the same bit of dialogue) on how to play the part at the end of the section or you can take it as him guiding the whole band on the speed of the whole section from the beginning. Maybe it's due to me repeatedly listening to the preceding take followed by the dialogue while others have been listening to the dialogue followed by the next take. It'd probably shed more light on it if we could hear the whole unedited session.

The descending bassline is the same rhythm as the vocal line on the final take and serves as a counterpoint to it.  

I've had a listen to most of these experiments with the "new" Worms melody and it is wierd (unless I've missed one) that nobody has tried placing them over the part that Brian is pacing when he demonstrates the lines. He sings over the decending line (is it played by Lyle Ritz on the string bass? I cannot check at this moment as I'm using my speakers to play a film for my son) at the end of the "Rock, rock, roll, Plymouth Rock roll over" part. Maybe the verse melody in BWPS was a period melody and this snipet was a vocal that repeated (possibly only some of) the lyrics over that descending bass line just before the chorus.

I definitely remember reading in several places about the clarinet line. I'm sure the Priore book mentions it, but I thought there was another interview too. Maybe just the Priore book. It certainly sounds vintage and I'd be stunned to discover it was written in 03/04.

Child Is father Of The Man - fascinating to discover from the sessions for version 1 of Child, that the part that I previously thought was a bridge (the quick tempo bit that goes up and down the scale) was initially the verse part. Anyone else surprised by this information?

Yeah, I'd read it was a vintage part but not that it had only been heard on a bleed-through. A search found this:

From Domenic Priore's Smile book: "I think Look had vocals intended for it, by the way Brian reacted to it and the way he came up with the melody; working on that song was something like the experience I had with Do You Like Worms. When I was able to listen to multitracks of the song, there was bleed through on the tape. That's where I got that clarinet line from, and Brian was quick to sing the melody, based on that clarinet line."

Thanks, I did not know anything about the Chickering. Was this instrument confined to use in Brian's home studio only?