The Smile Sessions MONO - a disaster for the Beach Boys' Legacy

[cablegeddon]

as a young person (I'm 20) I cant stand the mono mixes. I am a HUGE BB fan, and an even bigger fan of Pet Sounds and Smile,

BUT I CAN TELL EVERYONE HERE THAT NOBODY MY AGE WILL LISTEN TO MONO PS OR SMILE

Speak for yourself bro. I'm only a few yrs older than you, and I love mono.

If your saying The Beatles 2009 remasters from 'Please Please' me up to 'Abbey Road' are better in stereo than mono.. well y'no...
there are fans, and there are music fans

What did you say? I can't hear you! I'm listening to Sgt Peppers 2009 stereo remix!

[AllIWannaDo]

as a young person (I'm 20) I cant stand the mono mixes. I am a HUGE BB fan, and an even bigger fan of Pet Sounds and Smile,

BUT I CAN TELL EVERYONE HERE THAT NOBODY MY AGE WILL LISTEN TO MONO PS OR SMILE

Speak for yourself bro. I'm only a few yrs older than you, and I love mono.

If your saying The Beatles 2009 remasters from 'Please Please' me up to 'Abbey Road' are better in stereo than mono.. well y'no...
there are fans, and there are music fans

What did you say? I can't hear you! I'm listening to Sgt Peppers 2009 stereo remix!

ha ha welllllll that ONE i may give you - although i also prefer the mono of that too, gotta say i do prefer listening to what the band intended you to listen to ie mono/stereo
Arthur Lee's Love - the Stereo remaster/remixes are WAYYYYY not as good as the Mono originals

[Austin]

There is a big difference between making a digitally-extracted stereo mix listenable versus going above and beyond to present it respectfully and without removing any musical content. Lots of people here complain about the lack of a stereo Smile, as if it's some sort of grand mystery and oversight on part of the producers. I find this amusing: like the experts who have worked with this stuff for years, who do this for a living, are going to receive revelatory technical advice from anonymous message board users, most of whom have zero experience at professional audio engineering.

Whether you realize it or not, the expectations we have for fan mixes are profoundly different than what we (and the general record-buying public) have for professional releases. Speaking as a big, big proponent for investigating digitally-extracted stereo and someone who has made contributions in this regard, I have never heard a fan mix that I preferred over the professional release, including my own. When you clear your head and pull yourself back from the excitement, they just don't sound as good.

Record labels are't perfect, and I'm sure compromises were made, but the fans here who antagonize Capitol are viewing the company through the narrow lens of the Capitol from 40 years ago. What evidence is there that Capitol is demanding a stereo release of Smile? Why pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into such an effort for results that will only cater to a very small market, some of whom will hate it anyway? Whether it was the producers' decision, Brian's decision, or whoever, going mono was the smartest thing the company could have done to find a balance between sound quality, market appeal, money, and getting it released on time -- all factors that fans never have to consider and conveniently ignore.

[Ron]

Austin: Well Said. 

[Chris Brown]

BUT I CAN TELL EVERYONE HERE THAT NOBODY MY AGE WILL LISTEN TO MONO PS OR SMILE

Alright.  I'll bite. 


You're 20.  Your Brain isn't even finished growing.  You won't know sh*t about sh*t for at least another 8 years or so.  When your brain finally stops growing, you'll realize that what you just said is completely ridiculous. 

Not slamming you.  I used to be 20.  I still say ridiculous things from time to time, but boy you should have seen the stupid things I thought back when I was your age. 

It's alright.  We all have horrible music taste like you do when we're 20.  LOL.  You're not old enough to know the difference between mono and stereo; your underdeveloped Brain still thinks that stereo means there's more speakers. 

Lock yourself in a room with Phil Spector's "Back to Mono" box for 3 years, that should straighten you out. 

I don't think it's quite fair to attack him based on his age.  Preferring stereo to mono isn't exclusively a "young person" thing - everyone has their tastes.  Perhaps he could have been a little less blunt about it, but there's nothing inherently wrong with not being a fan of mono.  And moreover, his complaint was more based on the fact that more people are going to listen on iPods or other mobile devices rather than big speakers, which isn't the ideal way to listen to mono anyways.

I'm not saying I agree with his thesis (I think Smile works well in mono, and Austin made some good points as well), but I don't think the insinuation that his opinions are wrong because he's 20 is justified. 

[Mikie]

Yeah, right on, Austin.

[hypehat]

It can't be complete, and in stereo, without sounding messy, or overly digitally processed, or simply having vast swathes of it missing. It's that simple. What were they supposed to do?

And everyone knows youtube comments are the cesspool of public opinion anyway.

Thank you Austin, you said it exactly. I raved over seltaeb1012002's fan mix he just posted, it's amazing, but if something like that got released as 'The Definitive SMiLE', everyone here would line up to kick Linett and Boyd in the nads. They did the respectful thing, as they had to do.

[Iron Horse-Apples]

Mono is rubish. Just like black and wite filmz and steem enjens. I also h8 classicle musik cos they didnt even no how 2 rekord musik then they just wrot it on paper. How stoopid is that? Old stuff suks.

[Curtis Leon]

It's IMPOSSIBLE to release a full SMiLE in stereo. Unless you can find

1. The Good Vibrations vocal multitracks

2. The Barnyard multitracks

3. The missing You Were My Sunshine vocal multitracks

4. The missing Cabinessence lead + truck drivin' man overdubs

5. The ability to magically make Our Prayer (which was recorded on one mike) in stereo

6. The multitrack for the acetate vocals on Child is Father of the Man

Past that, most of the major bits of TSS have already got stereo mixes (Heroes and Villains, Vega-Tables, Wind Chimes, backing for Cabinessence, Surf's Up, technically Holidays and Look), and the only thing that

[cablegeddon]

It's IMPOSSIBLE to release a full SMiLE in stereo. Unless you can find

1. The Good Vibrations vocal multitracks

2. The Barnyard multitracks

3. The missing You Were My Sunshine vocal multitracks

4. The missing Cabinessence lead + truck drivin' man overdubs

5. The ability to magically make Our Prayer (which was recorded on one mike) in stereo

6. The multitrack for the acetate vocals on Child is Father of the Man

Past that, most of the major bits of TSS have already got stereo mixes (Heroes and Villains, Vega-Tables, Wind Chimes, backing for Cabinessence, Surf's Up, technically Holidays and Look), and the only thing that

You're going to have a hard time explaining this to the casual music fan who whorships his Pet Sounds box.

[Freddie French-Pounce]

This thread should be about SMiLE in duophonic, which would have been a disaster for the Beach Boy's legacy.

A:  I made a duophonic SMiLE - Child sounds awesome!

B: I can understand having a preference to stereo over mono (I mainly play records, and, for the borad, I'm 16), but saying one is unlistenable? It just doesn't make sense to me. I Know there ares ome songs that come out today with very little stereo, maybe a single sound effect in the left ear, and yet you don't complain about that!

C:

Quote from: Curtis Leon on Today at 17:35:55
It's IMPOSSIBLE to release a full SMiLE in stereo. Unless you can find

2. The Barnyard multitracks

I thought we had these?

[hypehat]

Not for the track, apparently. the vocals are in stereo, and exist in the vaults, but Mark and Alan didn't put them on the box.... not even on the backing vocals montage 

[EgoHanger1966]

I didn't read any responses to the original post, but I am also 20 years old, and that's just not correct. Let's be honest, modern day stereo is almost mono. Seperation is really, really narrow. Wide stereo of the 60s is a thing of the past. SMiLE in mono is actually closer to the format most young people are listening to.

In addition to that fact, I think most people hearing this material for the first time are drawn to the MUSIC, not the format the music is in.

I myself like Mono and Stereo for a variety of different reasons. There are bad mono mixes and there are bad stereo mixes.  The SMiLE Sessions (Disc 1) sounds really clean, and is in fantastic quality. The fact that we can all own this material in such a nifty package is a joy. Just enjoy it.

[shelter]

BUT I CAN TELL EVERYONE HERE THAT NOBODY MY AGE WILL LISTEN TO MONO PS OR SMILE

Two more statements I'd like to make:

If somebody your age is too close minded to listen to music because it's in mono, than he or she probably won't be open minded enough to listen to music from 1966/1967, period.

Most people under 30 don't even know what "mono" means, they'll probably hardly realize why it sounds somehow different than most of the other music they listen to.

[anazgnos]

I would consider Smiley Smile to be among their top 4-5 albums

So where's your post complaining that there's no stereo mix of Smiley Smile

[Zach95]

It's IMPOSSIBLE to release a full SMiLE in stereo. Unless you can find

1. The Good Vibrations vocal multitracks

2. The Barnyard multitracks

3. The missing You Were My Sunshine vocal multitracks

4. The missing Cabinessence lead + truck drivin' man overdubs

5. The ability to magically make Our Prayer (which was recorded on one mike) in stereo

6. The multitrack for the acetate vocals on Child is Father of the Man

Past that, most of the major bits of TSS have already got stereo mixes (Heroes and Villains, Vega-Tables, Wind Chimes, backing for Cabinessence, Surf's Up, technically Holidays and Look), and the only thing that

You're going to have a hard time explaining this to the casual music fan who whorships his Pet Sounds box.

The casual music fan doesn't OWN the Pet Sounds box...the casual fan undoubtedly owns only the album.

Also @ cablegodden, almost everything necessary for Pet Sounds in stereo exists, which is not the case for Smile.

[cablegeddon]

It's IMPOSSIBLE to release a full SMiLE in stereo. Unless you can find

1. The Good Vibrations vocal multitracks

2. The Barnyard multitracks

3. The missing You Were My Sunshine vocal multitracks

4. The missing Cabinessence lead + truck drivin' man overdubs

5. The ability to magically make Our Prayer (which was recorded on one mike) in stereo

6. The multitrack for the acetate vocals on Child is Father of the Man

Past that, most of the major bits of TSS have already got stereo mixes (Heroes and Villains, Vega-Tables, Wind Chimes, backing for Cabinessence, Surf's Up, technically Holidays and Look), and the only thing that

You're going to have a hard time explaining this to the casual music fan who whorships his Pet Sounds box.

The casual music fan doesn't OWN the Pet Sounds box...the casual fan undoubtedly owns only the album.

Also @ cablegodden, almost everything necessary for Pet Sounds in stereo exists, which is not the case for Smile.

it's on spotify and youtube 

[sidewinder572]

To those who don't like mono, the vinyl says hello.

[Zach95]

It's IMPOSSIBLE to release a full SMiLE in stereo. Unless you can find

1. The Good Vibrations vocal multitracks

2. The Barnyard multitracks

3. The missing You Were My Sunshine vocal multitracks

4. The missing Cabinessence lead + truck drivin' man overdubs

5. The ability to magically make Our Prayer (which was recorded on one mike) in stereo

6. The multitrack for the acetate vocals on Child is Father of the Man

Past that, most of the major bits of TSS have already got stereo mixes (Heroes and Villains, Vega-Tables, Wind Chimes, backing for Cabinessence, Surf's Up, technically Holidays and Look), and the only thing that

You're going to have a hard time explaining this to the casual music fan who whorships his Pet Sounds box.

The casual music fan doesn't OWN the Pet Sounds box...the casual fan undoubtedly owns only the album.

Also @ cablegodden, almost everything necessary for Pet Sounds in stereo exists, which is not the case for Smile.

it's on spotify and youtube 

Check out those popularity ratings on Spotify and how many views Beach Boys songs have on youtube.  The number of people listening to these albums through those sites cannot justify a stereo Smile release.

[DonnyL]

Mono is the definitive way to hear '60s Beach Boys.  It would be a shame in SMILE were released in only stereo!

Sorry, but you're plain wrong about young people not being interested in mono.  In fact, it seems like there has been a 'Back to Mono' trend in new music lately.  There are several new bands releasing mono tracks and mono albums.

[SMiLE Brian]

Mono is the definitive way to hear '60s Beach Boys.  It would be a shame in SMILE were released in only stereo!

Sorry, but you're plain wrong about young people not being interested in mono.  In fact, it seems like there has been a 'Back to Mono' trend in new music lately.  There are several new bands releasing mono tracks and mono albums.

Glad to see the lost art of mono tracks and albums coming back. This whole thread is inane and pointless, SMiLE was never meant to be in real stereo.

[DonnyL]

Beach Boys albums never released in Stereo:

1 - Surfin Safari
2 - Today
3 - Summer Days
4 - Party
5 - Smiley Smile
6 - Wild Honey

Pretty good company!

[DonnyL]

honestly, if you don't tell people something is mono, a lot of times they don't even notice ... especially on vinyl.

[18thofMay]

This thread sucks balls.

[SMiLE Brian]

This thread sucks balls.

This board is starting to suck balls with annoying posters starting threads over the place.