But, again about the WP sessions. I know why they were not released. It's too obvious!

"DON'T ****  WITH THE FORMULA, BRIAN!" This is not commercial, and will never climb the lists!

And no need to guess who said that. IT WAS A COLLECTIVE, as always.

Simplistic? Maybe, but often truth is simplistic.

Brian, Andy and maybe Don Was vs The Rest of the World.

But I thought nobody tells Brian Wilson what to do?

Also, since we're quoting Paul:

Egypt Station hit #1 and stayed on the charts for 8 weeks (compare that with TWGMTR hitting #3 and staying on the charts for 8 weeks), his response to Egypt Station's placement:

"'Oh, oh, wait a minute, hey guys.' I announce to everyone, 'We're number one.'

So that party that evening, that was special, because we had a real great reason to celebrate. … We danced the night away, baby."

So Paul McCartney found reason to celebrate his chart achievement (clearly if charting the first week isn't an achievement for these legacy artists, surely he knows there's no reason to celebrate?), yet, like you, I figure he knows what he's talking about.

I can't find the interview, but there's one where Paul McCartney relates how he was told his compilation "Pure McCartney" had made it to like number 10 in the charts. He goes, that's great, how many copies did we sell? His people tell him, like, "2,000". He goes, man, we used to sell that in an hour, not in a week.

Paul knew chart placement doesn't mean anything these days.

It doesn't matter. There are two kinds of people who showed up to those BB reunion shows. Hardcore fans like all of us here who bought the record Day One. And casual  fans who don't care for any new music they release and only want to hear the hits. Even if the band had stayed together, there's no audience for new music from old acts beyond the hardcore fanbase. Paul McCartney, in a recent interview, talked about this :

You’re missing the third, most important group of all… the new fans (mostly around college age) who were just getting into the band from TSSand were excited at the opportunity to see the reunited lineup for the first/only time.

Yes, that's the young, hipster, music-nerd crowd I was a part of myself 20 years ago, when I got into Smile. They show up at Brian Wilson concerts, read Pitchfork and some of them probably come here. I include them in the hardcore fanbase.

It's also worth noting, as Wirestone alluded to awhile back, three months after the TWGMTR album was released, there was no band to support it.

It doesn't matter. There are two kinds of people who showed up to those BB reunion shows. Hardcore fans like all of us here who bought the record Day One. And casual  fans who don't care for any new music they release and only want to hear the hits. Even if the band had stayed together, there's no audience for new music from old acts beyond the hardcore fanbase. Paul McCartney, in a recent interview, talked about this :

"I’d like to do a whole show of new songs but that’s for the anoraks in the crowd, that’s for the deep fans. Most of the people who come and see me, who have paid good money, have brought their mums and dads, who have travelled a distance… I’m not so sure they wanna hear the deep cuts. I think they want Beatles stuff mainly, Wings stuff, and maybe some of the new stuff. I force some of the new stuff on them. I know which ones people like because you can see it all light up, all the phones recording… when you say you want to do a new one it’s like a black hole!"

Where are you getting your statistics for this? Were there any demographic studies done of the concert goers that year?

I'm going by what Paul McCartney says about his own audience: I figure he knows what he's talking about.

It's also worth noting, as Wirestone alluded to awhile back, three months after the TWGMTR album was released, there was no band to support it.

It doesn't matter. There are two kinds of people who showed up to those BB reunion shows. Hardcore fans like all of us here who bought the record Day One. And casual  fans who don't care for any new music they release and only want to hear the hits. Even if the band had stayed together, there's no audience for new music from old acts beyond the hardcore fanbase. Paul McCartney, in a recent interview, talked about this :

"I’d like to do a whole show of new songs but that’s for the anoraks in the crowd, that’s for the deep fans. Most of the people who come and see me, who have paid good money, have brought their mums and dads, who have travelled a distance… I’m not so sure they wanna hear the deep cuts. I think they want Beatles stuff mainly, Wings stuff, and maybe some of the new stuff. I force some of the new stuff on them. I know which ones people like because you can see it all light up, all the phones recording… when you say you want to do a new one it’s like a black hole!"

http://www.bellagio10452.com/sales.html

Info taken from the web. Reposted on bellagio. Data is ten years old now but it has sales figures you were asking about.

Are those numbers shipped or sold-through? Some of those seem surprisingly low.

I've been trying to find the data on how many copies of the CD were sold, but it seems to be harder to find than I imagined. I guess that would settle the debate as to whether a top-5 showing means anything.

To get back on topic, I became a fan of the BB in the early days of the Internet, when the "Paley Sessions" tended to be talked about as a kind of "Smile 2", another instance of BW coming up with great, quirky material that his know-nothing entourage and clueless record company suits thought wasn't "commercial" enough.

So I eagerly downloaded the whole thing, and, yeah... Some of it was fun, some of it was ok, but by and large, it wasn't as good as its reputation.

A top-5 album is a top-5 album whether the artist is 75 or 20.
[/quote]

Yes, but a top-5 album is not a top-5 album whether the year is 1970 versus 2012, and whether the album remains in the top 5 for 20 weeks or stays there for one week before dropping out of the top 200 altogether.

You say it's diminishing the accomplishment. I'm saying there is no accomplishment to diminish: it sold the minimal number it was always going to sell. They have a fanbase of about 20,000 people worldwide that will buy a new album in the first week. Millions more like their old music but will not buy or listen to any new album they put out.

It reminds me of the old spin Sony Music put on Michael Jackson's Blood on the Dance Floor album. "It's the best-selling remix album of all time". Some fans still use that factoid all these years later. Sounds good, until you remember remix albums are usually niche releases, which means of course a major MJ album promoted as a real new album will be the best-selling remix album of all time by default. Record stores still sent back unsold copies to Sony by the truckload.

Why didn't "Unleash The Love" go top-5 if it were a case of the calculations behind the album charts and the diehard fans coming out the first week to binge on buying the album? Obviously more than the diehard fan base bought TWGMTR, otherwise it would have hit the charts around 78 or something instead of number 3.

Mike Love solo doesn't have the same diehard fanbase as the Beach Boys with Brian Wilson.

The latest album by the Who opened at number 2 on the US Billboard 200 chart. McCartney III similarly opened at number 2. Rough and Rowdy Ways, by Bob Dylan, opened at number 2. Blue & Lonesome, an album of blues covers by the Rolling Stones, made it to number 4.

So all we're saying is that, when one hears "the album was in the top 5", it needs an asterisk where people are reminded that it doesn't mean the album resonated with the record-buying public, had commercial success or had songs that got into the public consciousness. It just means that the fanbase bought it, which in this day and age is enough to get a top-5 showing for one week if you're an old, established Sixties band.
 

Just some perspective to consider: We're having this discussion about who would listen to "old" music in a year when Kate Bush and Metallica have had songs hit either the top or near the top of the most downloaded or streamed songs, and it's not people over 50 streaming those songs. It's mostly teenagers who watch Stranger Things. The Beach Boys' own California Dreamin climbed up the sales totals charts thanks to that show too, at this point it's among the most popular songs in the band's catalog, again thanks to that show.

More to the time before and shortly after TWGMTR, The Ink Spots of all groups saw a resurgence in sales thanks to the Fallout and Bioshock game franchises which used their music prominently. Again the main audience buying these songs from the 1940's was...teenagers and people in their early 20's.

In 2007, Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" was used in the Soprano's final episode, and immediately rose to the top of the download charts. Now the song is pretty much ubiquitous at weddings and events (and karaoke nights) whereas before it had been relegated mostly to pre-programmed classic rock radio playlists. And kids, yes kids, know all the lyrics.

Kids this year were buying and listening to "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins because of the Top Gun reboot.

Generally whenever you see a song start spiking in sales or when you hear teenagers talking about an old song that seemingly reappeared out of nowhere, it was either in a viral TikTok meme or featured somewhere like a video game or a TV show.

In the past year there have also been many reports in the media about "old" songs and albums outselling new music. The same classic albums that were stalwarts on the charts are still outselling a lot of new releases, especially in the vinyl market, as younger listeners buy the same albums for their collections as their parents and grandparents had done.

I just think the notions expressed about "old" music not being listened to by the kids should be reconsidered, not specifically in terms of the TWGMTR album but in general. If a song gets placed in a key TV show or video game (or movie), and the song isn't pure crap, chances are it too will go viral and younger listeners will add it to their playlist or even buy the vinyl if available.

Just food for thought. The music business shifted radically as we're all aware over the last 20 years, but the way in which it shifted (and how it affects the so-called 'charts' of old) still seems to be a mystery to those who used to control the music business. And trying to determine what "kids" listen to by suggesting they don't listen to old music is an opinion that could be reconsidered.

Not to mention the way various numbers posted by "modern" music could possibly be manipulated and controlled by various algorithms the same way Twitter numbers and stats were manipulated to show more followers and engagement for various accounts than actually existed. Or how YouTube created algorithms to manipulate viewer engagement and visibility for some accounts while burying others, which also led to artificial tallies of views and engagement numbers.

Yes, but those are all examples of old songs, of old hits, getting another 15 minutes in the spotlight through their use in a popular TV show on on some TikTok kid's channel. There are no recent examples that I can think of a NEW song by an old artist having any kind of commercial impact.

[/quote]

How is the bolded portion of this reply true? If The Beach Boys released a single in 2012 that was catchy as heck and took everyone by storm, being played on the radio nonstop that Summer, streamed like crazy (maybe even picked up and put into a movie), it’s definitely within the realm of possibility that they could’ve had a hit single. The simple fact is that they didn’t, but that doesn’t discredit the artist merit of that album! I love it.
[/quote]

Even if they’d released something as good as Wouldn’t it Be Nice or California Girls, there’s no way what you’re describing could have happened. Radio won’t play music from 70-year-old musicians, boomers themselves are not interested in new music from old Sixties stars, and no young person will be caught dead playing/streaming music from old geezers.

Not only that, but production issues aside, it was the best album quality wise since the early 70s with no real clunkers. That’s an accomplishment in and of itself.

It's in my top 5 of the best Beach Boys records, because all of the songs are good, and it works wonderfully, thematically, as a "summer" record. It's as good as could be hoped.

But being in the top 5 of the Billboard album chart in 2012 doesn't mean much, aside from the symbolism of it. How many copies do you need to sell to get a top 5 record? 20,000? Almost any name band or artist from the Sixties -- Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, the Beach Boys -- is guaranteed that many sales in the first week, especially since boomers are one of the last demographics to buy actual CDs. One should not think these days, from the fact that a given record gets in the top 5 or top 10 in the first week before falling out of the charts the following week, that it had any kind of commercial success beyond the fan base.

I can get piano-only versions of all of those songs for free on Youtube, played by random people, some of whom are better piano players than Brian. I can't get excited over hearing again those songs I've known by heart for decades, just because they're performed on the piano by their composer. I's really bottom-of-the-barrel, in terms of creativity.

If you ever enjoyed a Brian show since 1999, you owe Melinda Wilson a debt of gratitude.  The idea of her being the BB vetsuon of Yoko Ono is insulting and misogynistic (to both Melinda and Yoko).

How is it misogynistic? Just because they're women they can't be criticized?

I have the California Music CD, it's kind of OK. Love their version of Jamaica Farewell.

I love this CD, it's got great production throughout. I don't know if there's any BW involvement on it (I don't think so), but this is the great Curt Boettcher's last hurrah. Be aware though that some of the songs are disco -- but it's quality disco.

RE: why does brian still tour...i heard an interview with him and was asked why he still tours and he said “it makes me money and it makes people happy”
Sure we will never know but id be curious how much money he has.
In the wilson project he said he was down to 150k or so.
Plus the lawsuit he lost, plus his band has like 12 people in it so he obviously doesnt make as much per show he could. I wouldnt be suprised if he doesnt have as much as people think and his expenses are high and he wants to make sure he is set for retirement when he cant tour anymore.

Brian Wilson has enough money that he could literally say "f*** it" and do whatever he wants wherever he wants for the rest of his days. The touring and the reactions from the audiences inspires him and he enjoys doing it - Some of the more exotic stops on recent tours like Israel and New Zealand were highlights where he loved playing there. He has said numerous times that once the show got on the road, several decades ago at this point, he discovered he actually enjoyed performing live after pretty much shunning it for years, and with audiences willing to see him and musicians who are perhaps one of the finest groups of musicians playing on the road in the past two decades, he's still doing it.

I'm not trying to blast the comments or the commentator in a personal way by saying this, but if there is a notion out there or if people are trying to say Brian is touring because he needs the money, they are seriously misguided and it's complete bullshit. And I'm not just basing that on assumptions or opinion.

Dude, you need to stop believing all the PR from Brian Wilson's camp. "He enjoys it"? "He's inspired by the audience's reaction"? Have you seen any video from his latest tour? He looks like he'd rather be anywhere else in the world that on that stage.

He tours for the same reason as everybody else: to make as much money as possible while they still can. It's the same reason you and I go to work every morning. Sure you may happen to like your work, but would you do it for free?

Don't believe them when they say those tours don't bring them much revenue. That's basic PR to prevent accusations of charging too much for tickets: "we barely make any money as it is, how could we charge less for tickets?" Truth is, they wouldn't do it if it wasn't profitable. All of those old rock stars have ex-wives and child support payments and a bunch of people on staff and a bunch of kids they need to leave the biggest estate to.

It's pretty miraculous that Mike Love got a record deal in the first place to release an album of new material. Old-timers from the Sixties are usually told by the industry these days, "either rerecord the old hits as duets or make an album where you cover famous songs from other artists". It's obvious the second disc had to be included in order for the company to agree to release the new material, but we can just disregard it and at least we got a whole LP of new material!

It's ok of course to not like the CD but I do wonder: will those who wish the CD didn't even exist be happy when ML and all of the other BBs are dead -- which will be the case in just a few years -- and there can never be ANY new material from any of them, including Mike? I think it's great that there even IS new solo BB material being released; even if it's not grade-A music, it's better than what awaits all of us as fans, which is no new material, ever, when they finally pass away.

That's like saying because I'm from Texas,  I like cowboy hats and country music. Nope

No, it's like saying Texans are known generally for cowboy hats and country music -- which they are. It's not saying every Texan wears a cowboy hat.

Missed it aa I rarely pay attention to lyrics.  Wow...that's just...yeah.

"I'm outraged by this racial slur I hadn't even noticed until somebody pointed it out to me."

I'm French Canadian and I sure get offended when people refer to us as liking maple syrup. Even though, you know, we do...

Amy B is right, and I agree with Billy - All of this stuff with Van Dyke and Mike taking public swipes at Brian and airing these grievances to the fans, it's so one-sided it makes the whole thing even more absurd. Brian could unload and have every right to do so, but he does not. And that may speak as much to why so many love and show their love to Brian Wilson whenever he performs or just overall. It's respect, and unless someone can find an example of Brian in the recent past taking any public swipes at Mike, Van Dyke, or anyone else related that would warrant those being hurled at him (and his family), I can't think of any. It's not how he is. In fact, if anything Brian has been complimentary of both men when he could have easily laid them out publicly and been right on the money.

Maybe I should reboot the challenge from a few years ago and offer up a nice bottle of red wine, maybe a port or something heavier than the previous bottle of white, to coincide with the Fall and holiday seasons upon us, to anyone who can find a recent interview or Tweet where Brian publicly took a jab at either Mike Love or Van Dyke Parks.

VDP is a guy writing his own tweets on his own Twitter account, he doesn't have PR people telling him what to say. Same with ML, he's a minor celebrity who obviously answers only to himself. BW has a carefully orchestrated career and image. In interviews, he either clams up and says nothing at all, or he sticks to PR-friendly and uncontroversial statements. What I mean is that we have a glimpse of the real VDP or ML, warts and all. But BW? Who's to say what he's like now in his private life? What does he say when he's by himself with friends, with no reporter around? It's hard to say.

[/quote]
 Brian and Joe Thomas crank out a *Top 3* album,
[/quote]

You say earlier that TWGMTR was a Top 5 album, and now you bring up this chart placement. You realize that it means nothing commercially these days, right? TWGMTR and NPP sold to the remaining BB fans, then dropped like stones. These days, you can sell like 30 000 copies and get to number one. It's entirely possible that the record company made no money from either of those albums.

According to a new interview from Mark Lindsay he and Brian wrote some songs together in 2013, excerpt:

MARK: Well, it’s not quite out yet but, it will be. It’s songs I started two or three years ago. I started… Brian Wilson was looking for songs for a solo album so, I started writing some songs that I thought were kind of like evocative of the period and that I could kind of hear the Beach Boys doing in that kind of style and… I presented them to him and he liked a lot of them but, then, I don’t know what happened… Maybe his producer didn’t care for the tunes. One thing led to another and nothing happened. The songs were just laying there, so I went, “Well, what the heck?” So, I went ahead and finished them myself and… uh… So, it’s like… it’s just kind of a slice of that time, that much… a kind of a… I don’t want to say softer edges… Well, yeah… A slightly different style of music than people probably expect from me. But, I think the songs are great and I had a lot of fun doing it and it’s going to be out soon. It’s called… It was started long before this 50 SUMMERS OF LOVE TOUR was proposed but, that’s the title of the project. It’s called SUMMER OF LOVE. I wrote a couple of songs with that title so, it kind of fits in but, it’ll be available quickly.

http://zacharymule.com/wp/?s=micky+dolenz

So more key-in-hand songs from outside writers that, if Joe and Melinda had approved of them, would now appear on NPP as Brian Wilson cowrites, and we'd be discussing how "only BW could write songs like that"...

From the just-released RS interview :

"I haven't written a song in five years," Wilson says, then lets out two Donald Duck–like quacks. "All outta tunes. But I think I'm getting ready to write."

So who wrote the songs on NPP?

[others]

Well bikeman...The Boys had just owned the fall with Good Vibrations...surely one of the top 2 songs of the entire year in '66.  SO?  If they had followed with Smile in a timely fashion... ... ...

We wouldn't be having this conversation...or many of the others which occur here.  History would have been different.  A LOT different.  The Boys faded from site due to self inflicted inactivity followed by the release of substandard dreck a full 16 months after the release of Pet Sounds.  In the mid 60s when new sounds were exploding out of the speakers day by day/week by week...16 months was a century.  They were lost and forgotten.  And it was a self inflicted and needless injury brought about by 1... negativity to the extreme and 2... by the ever increasing mental disorder exacerbated, in large part, by that debilitating negativity.  Perhaps Brian would have toppled exactly as he did eventually as the illness took its toll.  But there were a couple of people involved in his next to daily existence who pushed the buttons which sped up his demise.

[sick and cruel.]

Don't interviews from the time period, including the one posted above, pretty much explain that the Smile album was shelved for the simplest of reasons: Brian Wilson gave up on it because he couldn't figure out how to get all of the pieces to fit together, and decided to start from scratch with a simpler project?

I think the OP's "fear" that Scott Bennett wrote the intro to TLOS has more to do with recent events with Scott Bennett than any kind of hero worship of Brian Wilson.  At least, that was my interpretation.

nothing to do with the crime. I fear because that section is to me the main proof in recent years that Brian "still has it". Without that my case turns pretty bad though.
"Forever She'll Be My Surfer Girl" is revolting.

I'm actually a fan of Forever She'll Be My Surfer Girl.

And if Brian no longer "has it" at the advanced stage in his career, and needs help from outside collaborators, I don't have a problem with that.  Heck, even at it's peak, BW's solo career doesn't come close to his Beach Boys peak anyway IMHO.  But, it's better to enjoy it for what it is than lament what it isn't. 

I agree with this: music is music, so better to have a BW album with outside songwriting than no album at all. But I also care about historical truth and truth in advertising.

Paul McCartney is as old as BW, and I don't think he has his producer play chords so he can write melodies on top. I think this business of Joe Thomas playing chords is PR for: "BW can't write songs anymore, so I play songs for him in the studio, and whatever he contributes, no matter how small, is considered a co-write".

I mean, if Brian Wilson is still able to write quality material like TLOS on his keyboard and bring his demos to his team, then why would he need Joe Thomas to play chords for him? He can play the chords himself, which must be 100 times more effective than this tag team business. And if Joe Thomas can come up with chord sequences that bring out all of those songs, surely he can write songs himself, which he would then bring to BW mostly complete.

Add to that that a lot of BW songs on his solo records don't sound like anything he's ever written before, that there's a lot of remakes, cover versions and rewritten outtakes from previois decades, and that it is known he was struggling to write as far back as the 1988 solo record, and TLOS sounds all the more like a Scott Bennett record with BW vocals. Otherwise it's a true miracle.