I find MIU more consistent too. Most of it is crap. LA does have more genuinely good songs.

Thanks for this, Ray.

No, it's just criminal.

For me, Love's lyrics are, at times, too close to those on Summer in Paradise and there's a forced cheesy sentimentality (a la Summer of Love) about some of the songs - though I rather like the music for Spring Vacation.  The best of the album however, is very good indeed. I just wish the rest had matched it. In that sesne it reminds me of LA - a kind of 50/50 album, though here, the best songs are Brian's whereas Dennis, as a writer or singer, rules the best songs on LA and Brian was pretty much absent.

I would have much preferred to hear the Boys' voices on Brian's solo work, but I draw the line at the kind of lyrics Love seems to have supplied to Spring Vacation and Beaches in Mind.

Most of BW 88
Some of TLOS
The first track and last three on the new album
A handful of other things, like Don't Let Her Know She's an Angel (which hasn't been recorded decently) and You're Still a Mystery

"We've arrived at a time when dissing VDP became hip."

No.  That's not what this is about.  It's about the article, not VDP. For all Williams bigs up what VDP brought to Brian, what, apart from an opportunity. did Brian bring to VDP?  Listen to the music tracks on the Pet Sounds box' listen to Brian's development in arranging, say between Surfer Girl and Pet Sounds and tell me Brian's music wasn't becoming more complex. When VDP split, did the Boys return to songs about bikinis and proms? I like his lyrics for SMiLE and I like Clang of the Yankee Reaper and Song Cycle (and OCA to a lesser extent) and the bottom line is that's personal taste, but to criticise the boys in such a cheap (surprisingly so, coming from this writer) manner is bad
form. SMiLE, after all, is still what VDP is best known for.

Agree, Rocker. Lowers the tone, somewhat.  I actually prefer his lyrics to Daybreak.

I like Williams, so I thought this was a really disapointing articel, which, in essence, takes a swipe at the Boys and sees VDP as some kind of saviour spurned by the evil Mike Love. Totally uncalled for.  He didn't take them away from songs about beaches and bikinis (bikinis?); that process was already underway.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jun/15/van-dyke-parks-return-musical-maverick?INTCMP=SRCH

Let's not forget VDP arranged the steel drums and plays the accordion on Kokomo, that great beaches and bikini BB song...

Why no love for 'Kokomo?'

How about that it's incredible cheesy and represents all the bad things about BB? How about that it's incredibly dated. How about the fact that ML can't seem to shut up about it. Oh sure it's a crowd pleaser. I don't believe it's a crowd pleaser because people think it's some great  work of art. It's a crowd pleaser because people remember it as a corny little song that was a hit back in the late 80's. If the song never went to #1 we wouldn't be talking about it today.

...Thing is, just about every word of this applies to "Surfin' USA" as well.

Doesn't have to be art to be a neat little song.

Cheers,
Jon Blum

No no no no. Surfin' Usa is vibrant.  Kokomo is dull. And cheesy. And represents what the BB became during the 80s and 90s, if not in actuality, then certainly in the eye of a large swathe of the public

"i think beaches in mind is a million times more cringeworthy than bill and sue.  I find Bill and Sue a nice tune to listen to. "

Me too. And I much pefer it to the ghastly South American

I'm sure he's more like 65 - or maybe he's making that up!

LOve the 88 album. Yeah, I wish the production hadn't been that way, but there are more stronger songs overall on here than on Imagination

God I hate Daybreak etc etc.  Hated it on the solo album. Hate it now.  There were better tracks he could've used.

Still... My overriding feeiling is this should've happened years ago, but thank God they got together before it was too late. For all their brilliance, so much of their career has been a tragic waste.

I was raised here in Westchester County...

I remember going to see Jackson Browne and this woman in front of me moaned to her boyfriend/husband all the way through the first half.  They left at the interval.  He ought to have put her in a cab and returned for the rest of the show. Hell, I would've paid for the cab just to shut her up.

Maybe Bon Jovi supplied the tight leather pants then left the room...  I trust Andrew on this (and on many other things except his questionable taste in football teams).

What is this?  Steve fucking Hoffman?

I'd love to hear a clear version of Sumahama off First Love.  The spoken Japanese bit kills the one on LA for me.

 As the follow-up - and a long awaited one at that - to a strong album, it's beyond disappointing.  As a therapy album for Brian with songs from his younger years and some somgs in that kind of groove, it has a certain charm.  I also think Had to Phone Ya is wonderful and Everyone's in Love is frighteneingly awful.  Like other posters, I made a 'boot' of 15 oldies recorded around this time and I appfeciate them for what they are, kinda like Dylan's Good as I Been To You; I also made a 'boot' incorporating the better new tracks from 15 BO and most of Love You. Works for me, but I love Love You as it is.

"Someone had to say it and Bruce did."

Yeah, Romney is awful...

Sad thing is, we're the ones with the official stuff and the boots and this is just what we didn't want - although I appreciate some of you are being more generous and want to hear the whole thing first - and one or two are being obtuse.

Replacing Spring Vacation with a bettr song, I hope...

They're beyond dumb.  SIP Part

It's Spring Vacation and it's fucking wretched. There's more of it on here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hRiAtEqxDk