Pet Sounds I think was a wonderful title, as the contents were Brian's "pet sounds".

I'd change Shutdown Volume II to Filler Volume I.

20/20 was a perfect title (20th Capitol album), loved the eye chart!

MIU should have been Jai Groovy Dev.  Or the Frown Sessions.

Carl and the Passions to We Give Up.

LA to Gentle-fans You've Just Been F**ked!

The Beach Boys to Hey!  Remember Us??

Sunflower to "Good Weed, Man" (An Offering of Stash).  Concurrent group name change to Marijuana Boys would have helped sales considerably, surprised Reilly didn't think of that also!

Well, Capitol and the Boys got a hit album out of Still Cruisin, so lets not feel like either entity got taken.   The Boys did turn in a half an album of new material, so I guess those tracks could have been up for consideration as additional singles.  Wasn't one of the other tracks from Cruising also released as a single after the title track? Island Off Japan, or some such title?  Beats me, I never bought the thing anyway.  But still, yeah, a pretty lame-o release it was, with the second-half "these are songs that were in movies" narrative or conceit, which was of course silly nonsense.  I may remember Wouldn't It Be Nice was in Shampoo, but hardly ever think of that factoid when I am playing it.  In fact, that is one song I skip over with some frequency anymore....just heard it too many times.  I find it rather curious that it has been lauded so highly of late....not that it is not musically fine, just seems a little odd, even back in the day folks were saying GOK should have been the hit side over here.

Carl's albums were definitely disappointments.  Bland, MOR snoozefests.  I was also perplexed by his lack of involvement in actually playing on the albums.  I remember reading a critique article on the BBs in an old Crawdaddy which stated he never did really develop into the guitarist he could have become.  I would have to agree with that assessment, especially as he could not be bothered to play on his own albums.  Be kinda like buying a Dave Davies album with none of his playing on it.

His white soul act had also worn out its welcome by then.

It's just too bad that the Boys didn't do a cover of Surfer Bird for the Party album.  That could have supplanted B.A. as the single.  How would you like them apples?  I too actually prefer the "long" version of the song, especially the big over the top finale, which strikes me as pretty funny.  (ok, I'm easily amused).

Actually, I think Hully Gully would have made a nice follow up single to Barbara Ann.  Heck, maybe the Boys could have destroyed the impending Age of Aquarius and ended the war in Viet Nam with that one two punch!

Better yet, B.A. followed up with Hully Gully, followed up with Surfer Bird!  Take that, Beatles!

Favorite Barbara Ann memory.....driving in a car with my parents in the early 80's outside of Tucumcari NM.  The local AM jock played the long version of B.A., including the ba bah black sheep have you any wool part, and my mother smiling over that part of the song.  O do think that may have been the one and only time I ever heard that version on the radio.

Also on that trip, I heard "Living with a Heartache" on some AM station from a little town in Colorado.  I call that song "Living with an Ear Ache".  Probably one of their most duff tracks ever!

Brian definitely should be higher than #12.  I'd put him in the top four, with the Beatle team, Stones team, and Dylan.  Oh and since everyone seems to be kicking in with an oddball choice, Neil Diamond!  Just for the heck of it.

I think "what's wrong with Beach Boys fans" is since we are dealing with a largely defunct group, sometimes there is not much else to do but backbite and nitpick on each other.  Also I do think it is kinda lame to blame most of Brian's problems on Mike, just as it would be lame to blame Mike's problems on Brian.  I don't personally think that Smile was going to be some harbinger of a new creative upswing for Brian, post-Smile.  I think, with Smile, he had pretty much taken his sound to the limit, experimentation-wise.  I think Smile would have been somewhat successful chart-wise, but that their path and fate was largely sealed just by the changing times in music.

But the music done after Pet Sounds through Holland by this group was mostly fantastic and sorely under-rated.  In that sense, while I enjoy listening to the Smile Sessions, I never do it with the sense of we were deprived of further great music because it was not released in its time.  Because we weren't.

I don't really know why there is such harshness between Beach Boys fans.  Doesn't seem to exemplify the Love and Mercy wishes of one Brian Wilson.

NPP is a nice little easy listening album.  No world beater, but always pleasant to hear.  Didn't care for the She and Him tune or performance.  Also didn't like the Kacey Musgraves track, it is too sing-songy and the vocal is way too in your face.  I REALLY like Whatever Happened, being an old coot and all, find it quite wistful.  Didn't really notice the lack of a bridge until someone noted it on here.  I do have the distinct feeling that this album was probably mostly arranged and fleshed out by others....don't have a real problem with that, as I just don't have that high of expectations of Brian at this late date.  But did really enjoy most of the songs Brian sang leads on and was pleased by his participation vocally in some of the guest artist tunes, though with the exception of Our Special Love, which to me sounds like maybe the greatest boy band song ever written and I don't mean that in a negative sense.  That song really should be covered by a boy band immediately.  Oh, must also say I don't consider Blondie, Al and Dave to be guest artists in my comments.  Saturday Night sounds like it should have been in some cheesy eighties movie...I guess it is ok for what it is attempting to do, but don't care for it.

I think my personal measurement metric for the guest artist songs is, "would this sound like a Brian tune if Brian were singing it?".  I couldn't really say that about On the Island or Saturday Night.  Though I actually liked Runaway Dancer a lot (go figure), but I was never in to dance music much so it sounded "newer" to me than it does to others likely.

Also for the most part really like Bri's vocals on this album.  He still struggles with singing in the lower register, but by now I guess you just have to accept the sour with the sweet, as this seems to be something that isn't going to change at this late date.

Still really wonder though why this couldn't have easily been a BB's album.  How hard could it have been in this day and age to get Mike and Bruce et al vocals on most of these songs?  Maybe by the time they split all the money it just wouldn't make sense.  Does Brian even make a profit on these solo albums?  Not that it matters I guess, he's plenty rich anyway.

An old Mojo article from early 2000's claimed Brian's net worth was $200 million.  For what that is worth.  Sure seems like it would be more than $75 mil to me.