gfxgfx
 
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
logo
 
gfx gfx
gfx
680597 Posts in 27600 Topics by 4068 Members - Latest Member: Dae Lims March 28, 2024, 10:05:48 AM
*
gfx*HomeHelpSearchCalendarLoginRegistergfx
gfxgfx
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.       « previous next »
Pages: 1 2 3 [4] Go Down Print
Author Topic: So is it as good as TLOS then?  (Read 15520 times)
Runaways
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 2008


View Profile
« Reply #75 on: June 03, 2012, 04:42:15 PM »

i have a feeling the highs of TWGMTR are higher than TLOS.  Usually that's what keeps me coming back to an album.
Logged
Sound of Free
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 439


View Profile
« Reply #76 on: June 03, 2012, 05:23:25 PM »

Also the fact that the tearjerkers on TWGMTR ("From There to Back Again", "Summer's Gone") seem a lot more believable, and therefore sad and poignant, than things like "Midnight's Another Day" and "Southern California".

I think you make some good points, but you don't find

"I had this dream
Singing with my brothers
In harmony
Supporting each other"

to be believable?
Logged
JohnMill
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 1253


View Profile
« Reply #77 on: June 03, 2012, 05:38:31 PM »

I think they both have their merits and both are certainly on par with one another as far as overall enjoyability.  I guess in the end it's whatever floats your boat.  For me what puts TWGMTR slightly ahead of TLOS is like someone else said you not only have Brian but Al, Mike, Bruce and David as well.  This is a Beach Boys record in the truest sense of the word and hearing those voices blend once again for me puts it ahead of any solo project out there.  There is also something to be said for the palatable joy that springs off the speakers on this record.  I'm not saying things off TLOS like "Morning Beat" or "Forever My Surfer Girl" don't exude a similar quality but there is something special going on with this record and quite frankly given how sour many of us were on the prospects of it heading in, I think it's going to knock more than a few of us on our backsides once we have time to take it in.  This is a record with something to say.
Logged

God Bless California
For It Marks My Faith To See
You're The Only State With The Sacred Honor
....to sink into the sea
Jim V.
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Online Online

Posts: 3038



View Profile
« Reply #78 on: June 03, 2012, 05:48:24 PM »

Also the fact that the tearjerkers on TWGMTR ("From There to Back Again", "Summer's Gone") seem a lot more believable, and therefore sad and poignant, than things like "Midnight's Another Day" and "Southern California".

I think you make some good points, but you don't find

"I had this dream
Singing with my brothers
In harmony
Supporting each other"

to be believable?

Okay, I guess maybe I worded that wrong. It's believable obviously, but I just get the feeling that Brian didn't create that song as a self referential thing about his brothers and his music career. He apparently found Scott's lyrics to be good enough to use, but whatever. You know, that's the thing about TLOS with me. It very much seems to be about the "Brian Wilson mythology" and I don't know, but it just seems lame to me. And I'm not so sure Brian really wants to sing about that. He'd probably rather sing about having a good time, or girls, or summer.

See, on the other hand, we know the "Summer's Gone" idea was indeed Brian's, so even with a Bon Jovi co-writing credit, it seems to be more of a "Brian" idea if you know what I mean.
Logged
Chocolate Shake Man
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 2871


View Profile
« Reply #79 on: June 03, 2012, 06:07:49 PM »

Okay, I guess maybe I worded that wrong. It's believable obviously, but I just get the feeling that Brian didn't create that song as a self referential thing about his brothers and his music career. He apparently found Scott's lyrics to be good enough to use, but whatever. You know, that's the thing about TLOS with me. It very much seems to be about the "Brian Wilson mythology" and I don't know, but it just seems lame to me.

You're right. It is about building up or reinforcing the mythology. At the same time, a song like Southern California is also just about coming to terms with your life in some affirmative way. People put down the TLOS lyrics a lot but I find that I connect with so many on a personal level. It's not that I necessarily connect with them because I've had similar experiences but because they are written in a way that I find to be very engaging. So lines in Southern California like "tried to slow down the motion so it could move us again" to me resonates very nicely. I've often said that it would be nice if life had a pause button or a rewind or even a fast forward. And to me, that whole album really taps into that desire in a way that I find to be quite emotional. In that sense, for me, I hardly even think about the album as being about Brian (or, in many ways, being about Scott).

Quote
And I'm not so sure Brian really wants to sing about that. He'd probably rather sing about having a good time, or girls, or summer.

Maybe but he did recently name check it as one of his favourite albums. And, anyway, a lot of the songs on TLOS are about having a good time, girls, and summer.
Logged
Wirestone
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 6043



View Profile
« Reply #80 on: June 03, 2012, 07:33:40 PM »

you not only have Brian but Al, Mike, Bruce and David as well.

Well, the first four of those at least.
Logged
runnersdialzero
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 5143


I WILL NEVER GO TO SCHOOL


View Profile
« Reply #81 on: June 03, 2012, 09:47:25 PM »

David claims he's on the record, though. Who knows?
Logged

Tell me it's okay.
Tell me you still love me.
People make mistakes.
People make mistakes.
Jim V.
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Online Online

Posts: 3038



View Profile
« Reply #82 on: June 03, 2012, 09:56:37 PM »

David claims he's on the record, though. Who knows?

What we talkin' bout here? Is there a rumor David isn't on the record? Or are we just talking vocally?
Logged
Runaways
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 2008


View Profile
« Reply #83 on: June 03, 2012, 10:02:42 PM »

wirestone seems to think david isn't on the album.
Logged
runnersdialzero
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 5143


I WILL NEVER GO TO SCHOOL


View Profile
« Reply #84 on: June 03, 2012, 10:03:29 PM »

And I feel like "Cry" and "Lay Down Burden" have much more sincere emotion to them than "Midnight's Another Day", which, as I've said many times before, just seems to be Scott Bennett changing an up-tempo BW song into a slow, mournful ballad with a "'Til I Die" type feel.

jimmerz, I'm not sure why you always bring this one up. Brian has always had folks writing lyrics for him from his point of view, most famously so on the entirety of Pet Sounds (sans "I'm Waiting For The Day"). Granted the difference is Brian's direction versus Scott writing them on his own, but Brian must have approved the final results both lyrically and musically before going ahead with recording it. And who's to say Scott wasn't writing about himself at the same time? And who's to say the original version of "Midnight's Another Day" is any good?

I never found this song particularly "'Til I Die"-esque, either. Closer to something like "Happy Days" in which the song is through the viewpoint of someone who's been through some tough shtuff but finds some kind of resolution in it. "'Til I Die" is "I'm insignificant and I want to die" straight up.

JUSTSAYIN', and that's just me.
Logged

Tell me it's okay.
Tell me you still love me.
People make mistakes.
People make mistakes.
Jonathan Blum
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 659


View Profile
« Reply #85 on: June 03, 2012, 10:04:04 PM »

What we talkin' bout here? Is there a rumor David isn't on the record? Or are we just talking vocally?

Just vocally, I think -- the credits put David on guitar on about seven of the tracks.  Not prominent but present seems like a good description...

Cheers,
Jon Blum
Logged
Wirestone
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 6043



View Profile
« Reply #86 on: June 03, 2012, 10:28:40 PM »

wirestone seems to think david isn't on the album.

No one has yet to provide me with a single moment where he's audible. I think the notion that he's actually on the record is a polite fiction.
Logged
Runaways
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 2008


View Profile
« Reply #87 on: June 03, 2012, 10:30:35 PM »

wirestone seems to think david isn't on the album.

No one has yet to provide me with a single moment where he's audible. I think the notion that he's actually on the record is a polite fiction.

you're talking guitars right? you don't think he plays guitars "audibly" on the album because of the other guitarist credited isn't someone you put on the sideline?
Logged
runnersdialzero
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 5143


I WILL NEVER GO TO SCHOOL


View Profile
« Reply #88 on: June 03, 2012, 10:34:20 PM »

wirestone seems to think david isn't on the album.

No one has yet to provide me with a single moment where he's audible. I think the notion that he's actually on the record is a polite fiction.

According to Mr.Blum, he's credited with guitar on seven tracks. Why falsely credit him on seven tracks and not all tracks? Even David says he's on the album, although I don't think his voice is on there. Haven't you been the one sayin' "Sans a few seemingly accidental omissions, the credits don't lie. Brian produced this, etc. etc. etc." or am I mistaken?
Logged

Tell me it's okay.
Tell me you still love me.
People make mistakes.
People make mistakes.
Wirestone
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 6043



View Profile
« Reply #89 on: June 03, 2012, 10:45:08 PM »

I'm talking about what I can hear. The credits are already demonstrably wrong on two tracks -- no sax player is listed on TWGMTR and no keyboard player on Isn't It Time -- so I'm not giving the musician credits a huge amount of weight. I'm sure David went into the studio, and he likely did record on some seven songs -- I just can't hear where he is on them. And if he's mixed so low that he's not audible, how is he meaningfully on the record?

But perhaps I'm just causing trouble ...
« Last Edit: June 03, 2012, 10:47:59 PM by Wirestone » Logged
runnersdialzero
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 5143


I WILL NEVER GO TO SCHOOL


View Profile
« Reply #90 on: June 03, 2012, 10:51:57 PM »

I'm talking about what I can hear. The credits are already demonstrably wrong on two tracks -- no sax player is listed on TWGMTR and no keyboard player on Isn't It Time -- so I'm not giving the musician credits a huge amount of weight. I'm sure David went into the studio, and he likely did record on some seven songs -- I just can't hear where he is on them. And if he's mixed so low that he's not audible, how is he meaningfully on the record?

But perhaps I'm just causing trouble ...

Do you even know what Dave's leads would sound like on these songs, though? It sounds bad, but I know I don't. I know what it sounded like in '63, but obviously it's probably different nowadays.

As for a couple omissions in the credits, well, that's a couple omissions of instruments listed. It doesn't say "Keyboards - Brian Wilson" when it's actually someone else, for instance.
Logged

Tell me it's okay.
Tell me you still love me.
People make mistakes.
People make mistakes.
Jonathan Blum
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 659


View Profile
« Reply #91 on: June 03, 2012, 10:58:15 PM »

No one has yet to provide me with a single moment where he's audible.

It's been negative-one days since the album came out -- hardly a surprise people haven't picked him out yet.  After all, a few threads over from here, people are still arguing over whether Brian's on various Surf's Up / CATP tracks forty years later.

But if you can hear any guitar on "Isn't It Time", or any electric on "Bill And Sue", he's the only such player credited on those, IIRC.

The other tracks he's on, there are up to five guitar players credited -- good luck spotting any of them individually!  (Except maybe Skunk Baxter...)

Cheers,
Jon Blum
Logged
Jonathan Blum
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 659


View Profile
« Reply #92 on: June 03, 2012, 11:04:51 PM »

Do you even know what Dave's leads would sound like on these songs, though? It sounds bad, but I know I don't. I know what it sounded like in '63, but obviously it's probably different nowadays.

Heck, back in '63 he probably wouldn't have been playing lead, not with Carl there.  He may well be doing extra rhythm parts now too -- that whole Phil Spector wall-of-guitarists thing.  They'd probably only give him the solo if it was meant to be in a surf style, and I can't see that fitting in something like TWGMTR...

Cheers,
Jon Blum
Logged
Dave Modny
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 540


View Profile
« Reply #93 on: June 04, 2012, 03:33:58 AM »

I love twgmtr, but there is nothing that matches the *OMG Gasp!* moment in tlos after Southern California returns to the "Om mama Yama glory hallelujah"! Sends a thrill down my spine every time. So tlos > twgmtr for me.


For me, I had that same type of "moment" during the part of "Summer's Gone" where the bg voices swelled up with one of those last "another summer's gone" lines. For whatever aching melancholy they were going for in the song, they got me in spades right there, as I immediately thought of Dennis and Carl, the first Beach Boys record I bought in 1975, my first BB's concert in 1979, things that have happened to me over the last decade, how the BBs are truly here in the present of 2012, and how summer really is slipping away for many of us. All in the course of about 3 seconds. I was pure blubber.

Those four "suite" songs at the end, with "Think About The Days" tagged onto the beginning of them, are as good of an album "side" that I've heard in many a moon -- a surfer moon or otherwise. And while the jury is still out for the rest of the album with me, those five tunes alone make it far superior to TLOS in terms of my own preference. As someone else stated, while each album has its own musical highs and lows (some even *really* low on "Radio," IMHO), the highs are just higher for me with the new record. Even if this ends up being a great "half album" for me, or the last new studio album the Beach Boys ever commit to tape...I'm completely satisfied. What an amazing story with an amazing ending.

(Still...part of me wonders what an entire BB's record with the vibe of those five songs would've sounded like? A man can still dream about a possible "next" time that surprises us with something even more amazing? No?) Smiley
« Last Edit: June 04, 2012, 03:41:21 AM by Dave Modny » Logged
Wirestone
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 6043



View Profile
« Reply #94 on: June 04, 2012, 05:42:08 AM »

I've come to think you can't have the last four songs without the rest of the record. The suite gains so much power because of the upbeat vibe of so much of the other material.
Logged
Dave Modny
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 540


View Profile
« Reply #95 on: June 04, 2012, 07:21:37 AM »

I've come to think you can't have the last four songs without the rest of the record. The suite gains so much power because of the upbeat vibe of so much of the other material.


Just imagining "what-ifs" for a second, I think there's a very good chance that if an entire album were built around the concept of a long form suite, that there would still be plenty of upbeat songs that would be specifically written with that framework in mind. After all, Strange World was supposedly part of the original suite (along with I'd Go Anywhere), yet it still feels perfectly at home within the context of those other more melancholy and reflective final tracks. At least it does to me.

Thus, for me, and only having what we have now, I'm still warming to which songs outside the suite I feel fit well along with my perfect album "side." That is, in creating a longer album, or mini-album, that still feels complete yet allows me to nuke the songs I personally don't care for or want to skip over. At this point, I'm still tinkering, and I'm thinking about weaving in a couple of songs after Strange World but *before* FTTBA. Perhaps, Daybreak and Shelter for me. They seem to fit that slice of day/time concept well, and I like having a full Mike vocal within the suite to complete the overall "Beach Boys feel" to all proceedings. Smiley


This is a longer form that I personally like:


Think About The Days (perhaps just an edit of an introductory snippet)
Strange World
Daybreak Over The Ocean
Shelter
From There To Back Again
Pacific Ocean Highway
Think About The Days (a longer reprise edit)
Summer's Gone

The title track stands on its own well for me...just like the introductory single that it was. The other four -- SV, Beaches, Bill & Sue and Isn't It Time -- are the ones I personally don't care for (and I know that everyone on earth *except* me seems to love Isn't It Time...lol.).
Logged
Aegir
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 4680



View Profile WWW
« Reply #96 on: June 04, 2012, 01:17:26 PM »

I'm always the odd man out here. I dislike most of the lyrics in TLOS. My favorite song is Good Kind of Love, probably because the song stands on its own and not being a song by Brian about Brian.

I like all the songs on TWGMTR, but I think I like the beachy fun songs more. Spring Vacation, Isn't It Time, and The Private Life of Bill and Sue are so catchy.

And the bicycle bell in Strange World at least as cringe-inducing as Mike Love referencing other song titles.
Logged

Every time you spell Smile as SMiLE, an angel's wings are forcibly torn off its body.
AndrewHickey
Smiley Smile Associate
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 1999



View Profile
« Reply #97 on: June 04, 2012, 01:33:11 PM »

Comparing them as albums seems ridiculously unfair to the new one -- I'd take the single line "I've got a notion we come from the ocean and God almighty" over the entire new album.

I'm still letting Strange World and From There To Back Again grow on me -- they seem the kind of songs that need a lot of time before you can decide if they're great or don't work -- but of the rest, Shelter, Isn't It Time and The Private Life of Bill And Sue are *almost* as good as the worst stuff on That Lucky Old Sun, and the rest isn't.
Logged

The Smiley Smile ignore function: http://andrewhickey.info/the-smiley-smile-ignore-button-sort-of/
Most recent update 03/12/15
gfx
Pages: 1 2 3 [4] Go Up Print 
gfx
Jump to:  
gfx
Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines Page created in 1.021 seconds with 21 queries.
Helios Multi design by Bloc
gfx
Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!