SMiLE Sessions box set!

[guitarfool2002]

Could almost be a still right out of Mad Men. I guess this is the only accurate scene in the SMiLE section of the An American Family TV movie.

Not so - a lot, a whole lot, of that movie was very accurate as regards period and detail: shame about the band history...

I know it's territory which we've discussed a few months ago, but the fact that they were so obsessive about little details yet painted such a horribly *wrong* picture of the Pet Sounds through Smile era, and beyond, is one of the more troubling parts of Beach Boys history, for me. Some of those scenes border on slanderous, for the people involved. But again, it's all stuff we've discussed before, maybe best to place it in the dust bin of history.

[ghost]

All part of the mystery my good man. That movie is a classic. YOU DON'T STILL WANNA BE A DENTIST DO YOU? Comedy gold.

[The Radiant Radish]

Last picture (honest) and we can forget that films didactic misrepresentation.

Look we burned the tapes, did you get that we burned the tapes this scene proves it so don't get any ideas now!

[Heysaboda]

Amongst other things, the one thing the Beatles did was finish at the top of their game with Abbey Rd ,which is often regarded as their best release. However the Beach Boys music  in that 64 to 66 period  is IMO unmatched in pop music history.

As Bruce Johnston once famously said,
"When Brian pulled back,the whole magic pulled back....."

I'd agree that 64 to 66 is a high water mark for the BBs, but look at 69 to 70 -- the run of Smiley Smile, WIld Honey, Friends, 20/20 and Sunflower is a terrific run -- 5 totally brilliant pop albums, brilliant in every way -- they soound even better today.......

and now, back to SMiLE........

[Micha]

Took a visit to my local record store today. I pre-ordered the box there. The official release date was October 28th, as on ebay Germany, pretty early. I wonder if that will be the case. But then again, Santa Claus visits German kids on December 24th. (Heartical Don, when is the release in the Netherlands? )

I wonder if the box sets available in Europe are actually produced here rather than transported over the Atlantic. And if so, would that affect the mastering of the vinyls?

I took a look at the used LPs racks. The Beach Boys slot was half filled with misplaced Beatles LPs. That's where this thread got us.

[Bicyclerider]

I'm with whoever said The Beatles leave them feeling cold. Just about every single Beach Boys album gives me a fulfilling listening experience. I feel good after it. After Revolver....Rubber Soul.... Pepper... I really can't wait for them to finish. There's nothing in it. I'm the taxman do do do i'm the taxman. Great. good day sunshine do do do do. docta robert he's a new and better man he does everthing he can docta robert. turn off yyer mind relax and fall asleep.

Compare with Pet Sounds - from the first moment it's an emotional catharsis you will never forget or leave entirely. Pet Sounds will be with us TILL DEATH. However I doubt many of us here will be whistling DR ROBERT upon death... more like Till I Die, or hearing the melody of You Still Believe In Me.

While I agree Brian is much more prone to bare his soul in his songs than the Beatles ever did, nevertheless there are  some songs where the Beatles do expose themselves like Julia, Yer blues, Let It Be, I Want You.  Of course, the "introspective" Brian is what Mike disliked!  He thought Till I Die was too much of a downer!

[Heysaboda]

[You seem to have read a lot out of a small part of a short sentence.  I love the Beatles, but like you say it's typically just straight chords and simple progressions.  Their harmonies were usually simple block stuff......

(koff, koff)

Uh, guys, with all "doe" respect, the Beatles catalog is replete with diminished chords, raised fifths, even the occasional MINOR 9th, as well as a variety of tricked out chords in all positions.

"Block" is the one word I'd not use relative to the Beatles......

Sounds like some people here don't know the Beatles catalog as well as they think........ but that's okay.  No one is "required" to like the Beatles.

Uh, yeah, koff, koff, what about that SMiLE?

[Mikie]

And no mention was made here of the Abbey Road album, Mojo's number one in the list of the 100 greatest albums ever made according to readers. Of course Pet Sounds holds the number one spot on the magazine's top 100 list!

[Dunderhead]

And no mention was made here of the Abbey Road album, Mojo's number one in the list of the 100 greatest albums ever made according to readers. Of course Pet Sounds holds the number one spot on the magazine's top 100 list!

Sun King is the only song I really like on that album.

[Andrew G. Doe]

[You seem to have read a lot out of a small part of a short sentence.  I love the Beatles, but like you say it's typically just straight chords and simple progressions.  Their harmonies were usually simple block stuff......

(koff, koff)

Uh, guys, with all "doe" respect, the Beatles catalog is replete with diminished chords, raised fifths, even the occasional MINOR 9th, as well as a variety of tricked out chords in all positions.

"Block" is the one word I'd not use relative to the Beatles......

Sounds like some people here don't know the Beatles catalog as well as they think........ but that's okay.  No one is "required" to like the Beatles.

Uh, yeah, koff, koff, what about that SMiLE?

What about them aeolian cadences and pandiatonic clusters, eh ?

complete load of bollocks from 1963

[Mikie]

I love Smile-o-Philes who are so infatuated and obsessed and addicted to Smile that they're besides themselves with it, can't stop thinking about it, and tend to forget about all the other great music that The Beach Boys recorded.

I can't believe it Mikie ,but i actually agree with you!

Good to know we agree on something.  Obviously, you know the truth too!

[rogerlancelot]

[You seem to have read a lot out of a small part of a short sentence.  I love the Beatles, but like you say it's typically just straight chords and simple progressions.  Their harmonies were usually simple block stuff......

(koff, koff)

Uh, guys, with all "doe" respect, the Beatles catalog is replete with diminished chords, raised fifths, even the occasional MINOR 9th, as well as a variety of tricked out chords in all positions.

"Block" is the one word I'd not use relative to the Beatles......

Sounds like some people here don't know the Beatles catalog as well as they think........ but that's okay.  No one is "required" to like the Beatles.

Uh, yeah, koff, koff, what about that SMiLE?

What about them aeolian cadences and pandiatonic clusters, eh ?

complete load of bollocks from 1963

Will you take a bath with me?

[JohnMill]

[You seem to have read a lot out of a small part of a short sentence.  I love the Beatles, but like you say it's typically just straight chords and simple progressions.  Their harmonies were usually simple block stuff......

(koff, koff)

Uh, guys, with all "doe" respect, the Beatles catalog is replete with diminished chords, raised fifths, even the occasional MINOR 9th, as well as a variety of tricked out chords in all positions.

"Block" is the one word I'd not use relative to the Beatles......

Sounds like some people here don't know the Beatles catalog as well as they think........ but that's okay.  No one is "required" to like the Beatles.

Uh, yeah, koff, koff, what about that SMiLE?

What about them aeolian cadences and pandiatonic clusters, eh ?

complete load of bollocks from 1963

John Lennon always thought they were talking about exotic birds.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

I think they were significant, but their influence was negative. Particularly the White Album, which is where a lot of the insufferable rockism of popular music comes from. It's an album that's amazingly pretentious about not being pretentious.

This final claim here sounds good but it doesn't really mean anything. First of all, to call something "pretentious" is a value judgement so to say something is "pretentious about not being pretentious" is so abstract, it can't be processed. So what exactly do you mean? That it pretends to be simple when in fact it's not? If that's what you mean, I think it's a groundless claim. Is Revolution #9 pretending to be simple? Happiness is a Warm Gun? Of course not. Yes, some of the songs are simple, some of them are not.

What was cool about the 60's was these bands challenging what rock and roll was.

Well, here we fundamentally disagree. Earlier you noted that The White Album had a negative influence on music. I would say the attitude that we must "challenge what rock and roll is" was not only negative, it entirely killed rock and roll as an art form and because "challenging rock and roll" became the fashionable thing to do, white pop music in general has done nothing but tread water since the early 70s. There have been brief revivals - such as punk, which had the intelligence to understand that all this "challenging rock and roll" was nothing more than a self-aggrandizing genre.

Brian was really moving beyond that, embracing the unlimited infinite possibilities of psychedelic music.

And again, I would say that psychedelic music did its part in virtually destroying what made rock and roll music important. That was when a very rebellious movement became castrated. That's not to say there weren't good psychedelic albums - there were. But the best ones were typically done by artists who recognized it as a scene that had a very brief shelf life and understood it for what it was - a different sound to explore temporarily.

Wasn't that the whole point? Artistic freedom? Not being confined and bogged down with artificial notions of what music was or had to be?

Except that psychedelic music became a fashionable commodity in less than two years after it became a scene, not some beacon of artistic freedom.

Brian ditched the notion of the band entirely, and was just doing a full modern orchestra that took advantage of all the cool possibilities of the modern studio. This is what the Beatles supposedly stood for as well, but, well, White Album.

Well The White Album what? You're talking about "artistic freedom" but you seem to have a very narrow concept of what an artist has to do in order to make music that could be considered "free."

I can at least appreciate the Pepper-era music, you know, music about their development as people. It was a concept where they tried to sluff off all the artiface that had hardened around them during their breakthrough years.

No it wasn't. And the reason why it wasn't was because they really didn't have a lot of artifice that "hardened around them during their breakthrough years." In fact, when The Beatles broke out in 1963, they became part of a scene that virulently stood against just about every trend that was happening in mainstream culture. I know that's hard to see in 2011, but 1963 was a very different time.

Pepper was them doing something honest, talking about who they were and where they came from and what they loved. Breaking through the limitations they had placed on them.

What limitations?

But then they turned right around and did S/T. An album that launched generations of musicians on some bogus quest for rock and roll authenticity.

The White Album has exactly zero to do with trying to achieve "rock and roll authenticity" whatever that means. It is quite simply the strangest, weirdest, most bizarre and anti-commercial product that the band ever produced. Chuck Berry it was not.

When really psychedelic music was about being honest

 

And prey tell, when was that? And what made it more honest than, say, The White Album?

it's like they came along and killed the whole thing and codified a bunch of silly tropes and cliches and wrapped themselves in this bullsh*t cloak of "rock and roll".

I'm astounded that you've even listened to the album, given how conventional you're making it sound. How do you explain how an album that includes a Beach Boys pastiche, a Caribbean pastiche, a Glenn Miller pastiche, a three-part mini opera, folk, country and western, music hall, BB King style blues, and a nine minute avant-garde sound collage is wrapped in a cloak of "rock and roll"? The truth is, you can't.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

Problem I have with The Beatles is, they're not as good as their most rabid fans - that is, pretty much all of them - would have us believe. Don't get me wrong, they were very good, sometimes great and on occasion, outstanding ("Tomorrow never Knows" is one of my all time top 10 songs, and always will be - still blows my mind), but to hear a Beatles fan talk, you'd think they did everything first and best in between brokering world peace and finding a cure for cancer. No-one's that good. God isn't that good. The Beatles are very possibly the most over-rated band in rock history (only challenger - The Smiths), but only because they've been invested with a messianic aura. They're just four guys who made fine music. That's all. And some of it wasn't very good.

I made this claim elsewhere here a few days ago, but again, statements like these is akin to claiming that Shakespeare is overrated. Of course, one is not required to like Shakespeare and it makes perfect sense that not everyone would like him. But it makes no sense to say that he's overrated.

Not that you said the Beatles were overrated.

[Heysaboda]

[You seem to have read a lot out of a small part of a short sentence.  I love the Beatles, but like you say it's typically just straight chords and simple progressions.  Their harmonies were usually simple block stuff......

(koff, koff)

Uh, guys, with all "doe" respect, the Beatles catalog is replete with diminished chords, raised fifths, even the occasional MINOR 9th, as well as a variety of tricked out chords in all positions.

"Block" is the one word I'd not use relative to the Beatles......

Sounds like some people here don't know the Beatles catalog as well as they think........ but that's okay.  No one is "required" to like the Beatles.

Uh, yeah, koff, koff, what about that SMiLE?

What about them aeolian cadences and pandiatonic clusters, eh ?

complete load of bollocks from 1963

Heh heh Bullocks indeedy...... Har dee har har har

Well, I was not posting about "Aeolian cadences" or any such codswallop.... any musician worth his salt knows about the “naughty” chords, the diminished and augmented, and the other naughty lovelies....  The lads may not have known the names of the chords, being self-taught..... And anyone who thinks the Be-atles were a 3 chord band has got rocks for a brain and a tin ear......  er, are there any musicians posting on this board....?

Memo to self: look up definition of: Bullocks.  Used to be the name of an American department store.......

(koff, koff, SMiLE, koff koff)

[brother john]

What about them aeolian cadences and pandiatonic clusters, eh ?

complete load of bollocks from 1963

Call it bollocks if you like, but its actually just a description of a piece of music, like 'bar', or 'scale' or 'major/minor'. The things do exist. Lennon called it bullsh1t because he didn't understand the terms.

[Ebb and Flow]

Sounds like some people here don't know the Beatles catalog as well as they think........ but that's okay.  No one is "required" to like the Beatles.

I listened to the Beatles catalog on repeat for the better part of my late teenage years/early twenties and stated repeatedly in my posts that I love their music.  I just don't find it as deep or as satisfying as what Brian composed.  End of story.  Pointing out examples of diminished chords, raised fifths or minor 9ths doesn't really change how I feel about that.

[Andrew G. Doe]

What about them aeolian cadences and pandiatonic clusters, eh ?

complete load of bollocks from 1963

Call it bollocks if you like, but its actually just a description of a piece of music, like 'bar', or 'scale' or 'major/minor'. The things do exist. Lennon called it bullfeces because he didn't understand the terms.

I know it's not made up - I'm not a complete Philistine - but even for The Times in 1963, it's such a load of pretentious twaddle: soem boring old fart trying to be hip by try to 'dig' this 'pop music'. Lennon called it bullsh*t because it was, and he knew it.

[JohnMill]

Sounds like some people here don't know the Beatles catalog as well as they think........ but that's okay.  No one is "required" to like the Beatles.

I listened to the Beatles catalog on repeat for the better part of my late teenage years/early twenties and stated repeatedly in my posts that I love their music.  I just don't find it as deep or as satisfying as what Brian composed.  End of story.  Pointing out examples of diminished chords, raised fifths or minor 9ths doesn't really change how I feel about that.

and that is all it really comes down to really in the end.  The music is obviously going to either connect with you or it isn't.  Look with The Beatles there has to be some objectivity due to everything they accomplished and that they were innovators in the sixties but there are a lot of people who never caught the Beatlemania bug and endless repetition of what they were able to accomplish isn't going to change that.  

Now personally I count myself among those who think The Beatles are great and deserve all the plaudits they've ever gotten and probably then some.  I've found in my life that due to the fact that I'm so familiar with The Beatles catalog that I actually under value them at times which is a bit unfair because The Beatles made some dynamite records in the sixties that still hold up remarkably well today.  

[Heysaboda]

What about them aeolian cadences and pandiatonic clusters, eh ?

complete load of bollocks from 1963

Call it bollocks if you like, but its actually just a description of a piece of music, like 'bar', or 'scale' or 'major/minor'. The things do exist. Lennon called it bullfeces because he didn't understand the terms.

Brother John, if we ever meet, I'm buying you a glass of Merlot!  The finest!

 

[Mikie]

I'd agree that 64 to 66 is a high water mark for the BBS, but look at 69 to 70 -- the run of Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, Friends, 20/20 and Sunflower is a terrific run -- 5 totally brilliant pop albums, brilliant in every way -- they sound even better today.......

And how did those Beach Boys albums (you forgot Stack-0-Tracks, Greatest Hits I,II,II, and Live In London) fair with the record buying public, especially in the U.S.? How high did they go on the charts? And before you say, "Who cares - they're great albums" (I totally agree) how was the Beach Boys popularity during that period when Brian essentially "pulled back" as Bruce described it? How were the Beadle records selling during that timeframe? Answer: they were selling through the roof! And each Beatles' solo career was pretty damn successful too after they broke up in '70! I'm sorry that the same can't be said for The Beach Boys career, going on at the same time. Surf's Up eventually went gold, I think, and until Endless Summer, they were still struggling for success. If Brian had just maintained and been just as much of a productive writer and producer as he had when he left off with Smile..........but he didn't. And that's history. The Beach Boys have always been 'underdogs'  in my book compared to the Beatles and the Stones and others. But they NEVER lost my allegiance to them and I've followed them every single step of the way since as far back as I can remember. Nothing will ever diminish (minor 7th) that until I die and beyond. Beach Boys - the music of my life.

And what was my point again?  I forgot......

P.S. And how about those suspended chords in Surf's Up, eh?  Brian was smokin' some outta sight hash when he wrote that!

[Amazing Larry]

The Residents were on to something with the artwork for their first record.  

FINALLY someone mentions The Residents!

[SMiLE Brian]

Last picture (honest) and we can forget that films didactic misrepresentation.

Look we burned the tapes, did you get that we burned the tapes this scene proves it so don't get any ideas now!

That picture scares me to my core.

[Phoenix]

Start another thread and moving any future "versus" talk there.  In case anyone forgot THE BEACH BOYS ARE FINALLY RELEASING THEIR HOLY GRAIL and people are bickering about the Beatles comparison in a thread DEVOTED TO THE NEW BOX SET!  With information (and tracks) slowly being leaked/released, there's a reason I check this specific thread several times a day and it's NOT to find out which of these great bands did what better than the other.

Come on.  Focus guys.

Please?