Details on the new greatest hits albums and remasters

[runnersdialzero]

Shocked to see "'Til I Die" not making it with how often the Brian camp has shoved it down our fucking throats over the years.

Also, as anticipated, The Beach Boys apparently didn't do jack sh*t worth hearing after 1971 according to the remasters. For Joe Public and Hipster McAnimalcollectiverullz, it's just "Surfin' USA" (black man invented rock and whitey stole his sh*t i hate this song) to Pet Sounds (because Paul said it was the best) to Smile (Mike Love aka mean doodyhead ruined it which means I love it but not as much as Pet Sounds because Paul said it was the best but the Beatles are overrated but the Beatles are the greatest band in the history of everhything) to OH MY F*CKING GOD "'TIL I DIE" (STEREO MIX WITHOUT MIKE LOVE VOCALS) TO "KOKOMO" (SHITTY MIKE LOVE SONG FT UNCLE JESSE & TOM CRUISE GAY HAIRCUT I SECRETLY LIKE IT f*** U MIKE LOVE) TO BRIAN GETTING OUT OF BED AFTER EIGHTY YEARS MEDIOCRE "WHY DID GOD MAKE THE RADIOAF(IGJgggrsdng

[Jeff]

Couldn't give a fig about the best-ofs

Wait, you mean you don't want to spend good money on a set that you could configure yourself in 15 mins. with a CD burner?

[Jeff]

Shocked to see "'Til I Die" not making it with how often the Brian camp has shoved it down our f***ing throats over the years.

Also, as anticipated, The Beach Boys apparently didn't do jack sh*t worth hearing after 1971 according to the remasters. For Joe Public and Hipster McAnimalcollectiverullz, it's just "Surfin' USA" (black man invented rock and whitey stole his sh*t i hate this song) to Pet Sounds (because Paul said it was the best) to Smile (Mike Love aka mean doodyhead ruined it which means I love it but not as much as Pet Sounds because Paul said it was the best but the Beatles are overrated but the Beatles are the greatest band in the history of everhything) to OH MY F*CKING GOD "'TIL I DIE" (STEREO MIX WITHOUT MIKE LOVE VOCALS) TO "KOKOMO" (sh*tTY MIKE LOVE SONG FT UNCLE JESSE & TOM CRUISE GAY HAIRCUT I SECRETLY LIKE IT f*** U MIKE LOVE) TO BRIAN GETTING OUT OF BED AFTER EIGHTY YEARS MEDIOCRE "WHY DID GOD MAKE THE RADIOAF(IGJgggrsdng

Time for your nap Runners.

[Zach95]

Couldn't give a fig about the best-ofs

Wait, you mean you don't want to spend good money on a set that you could configure yourself in 15 mins. with a CD burner?

But it's purtty...

[Catbirdman]

Looking closely at the tracklist for the 1-CD Greatest Hits and the 2-CD 50 Big Ones, can someone explain to me why "Be True To Your School" is on the former, but not the latter?!! It was a #6 single, for God's sake! Good enough to be one of the group's 20 greatest hits, but not one of their 50 Big Ones? It makes absolutely no sense to me.

Heh, yeah that is weird. Nice spot.

Mike Eder, I'm surprised to hear you say you're "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RHf07SA3vg." I'm actually shocked we're getting reissues of individual albums. That was never part of the package in all the press releases up 'til now. Many of us - including me - daydreamed about it on this board, but always with the disclaimer "it'll never happen, but..." It's too much to hope for, but..." etc. But it's actually happening! Mono and stereo. That is HUGE.

That said, the biggest carrot of all is unreleased tracks. True enough, we don't yet know what the box set will hold in that department. The reissues don't have any bonus tracks, but aesthetically, at least, it feels very appropriately and lovingly done to me - to have the individual albums released au naturel, in their original forms, with mono and stereo. Original album art. Original track sequence. feels right.

The big wild card is that EOY box set. I anxiously await, not daring to get my hopes up TOO high...

[runnersdialzero]

I'm rarely opposed to best ofs, but in the case of the Beach Boys, it'd just be nice to see, after a thousand different cheap attempts, a best of that accurately represents the band. It's somehow yet to happen, it could be done easily on two discs, and no, it doesn't have to include obscure fanboy sh*t for someone like me to think they did a good job. Include the hits (ALL of them, no inexplicable exclusions as is always the case), include the singles, include a couple fan favorites (preferably while making sure all members get the songwriting spotlight at least once), include something you can't get elsewhere and give it some exclusive liner notes beyond some dumbass explaining why the band is important to the world.

No need to serve us the same reheated, only slightly stirred bullsh*t every two years - make it definitive and worthwhile. Any level-headed asshole on this board could probably do a better job overall than a lot of these recent efforts. This tracklist certainly isn't the worst, but there's still some very obvious flaws that I can't make sense of.

[Awesoman]

So we're getting a Greatest Hits album, a deluxe greatest  hits album, and new remasters of choice Beach Boys albums?  A little redundant, but I'll take it.  Still wondering what the box set is going to focus on. 

[FatherOfTheMan Sr101]

Buying the box, and 3 new stereo albums, maybe 50 big ones.

We better get wild honey, 20/20 and friends.

[Awesoman]

$20 bucks is a bit much though.  I'm hoping we'll see the prices go down. 

[runnersdialzero]

$20 bucks is a bit much though.  I'm hoping we'll see the prices go down. 

Amazon pages are always very tentative. Prices vary wildly, and they often times won't even have the correct album title etc. until a couple weeks before release.

There's no way they'll release these for 20 dollars a piece after selling the twofers for 10 dollars a piece for the last couple decades.

[Summertime Blooz]

Those covers are pretty damn sh*tty. How fekkin' generic can you get?

[over and over]

I'm so glad we're getting these great albums in stereo but........

I NEED Wild Honey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hopfully it will be coming down the pipeline soon.

[startBBtoday]

Can't say I really understand why they're doing all three, the Greatest Hits, 50BO and the box set. I feel like they could have picked either the Greatest Hits and the box or the 50BO and the box. All three seems redundant. Obviously the powers that be probably know more than me, but having another 20 song greatest hits when tons of those already exist is weird.

[Rocky Raccoon]

I hope a box set would mirror the Beatles box set by having all the core studio albums plus a Past Masters type collection featuring non-album singles, B-sides, and whatnot.  Or perhaps it would have to be two box sets because of the large amount of material.

[MBE]

Very underwhelmed.

After all we've been given thus far? Just the fact that the Beach Boys catalog, albeit a good chunk of it, finally will be treated properly with individual CD releases in mono and stereo is very unexpected, in my mind.

I'm a vinyl guy far more than CD so there's that. I also like and have mono mixes and never have given a darn about the stereo especially the latter day remixes.  I loved the tour, like the new LP, and am happy they got back together, but hit sets mean nothing anymore to me. A box set-CD, Vinyl, or both-with unreleased stuff would be great, but so far I'm not impressed with what has been announced. Now if they were putting out analog mastered vinyl albums I would be happy as the original LP's with original covers deserve to have a complete reissue to give us all the chance to buy them as they originally sounded in mint condition (note the recent posting about Sunflower by Steve Desper), but I'm fine with the CD"s we have and don't feel a need to buy them again.  I was hoping to hear about some great archive stuff coming out not the three dozenth reissue of I Get Around.

[Ron]

This is all really great, exciting news, but that cover is so insulting. Capitol and capitalism will go to the grave insisting that the Beach Boys can and should be reduced to their first two years as a band, a surf group, period. It’s pathological at this point. I’ve never, ever seen anyone or anything continually belittled and boxed-in like they have over the decades. Even Christmas Harmonies has a damn surfboard. Just in case, for one brief moment, you might forget that they were/are a surf band. Also, don’t forget that in the overall scope of the group's career, Smile does not exist. Neither does Love You. Kewl.

ANYWAY, has there been any information on the Isn’t It Time single version, whether it’s newly recorded, or if it just has new overdubs/different vocals and lyrics, or if it’s just an extended mix of the album version? I'm really curious about this. 

Their name is The Beach Boys. Lends itself to surfboards. The idea of a band named The Beach Boys being taken too seriously is kinda funny, if you think about it.
I think surf culture and surfboards are pretty boss, myself. Being linked with them isn't a bad thing.

I never understood it myself.  Where is the big uproar over the band insisting on calling themselves the Beach Boys long after they're no longer boys, or anywhere near the Beach?  It's their gimmick.  Beach.  Boys.  If it says Beach.  Boys. on the artwork, I don't really see a problem with it having a surfboard on there.  Kind of makes sense.  What doesn't make sense?  Giving a sh*t about it when it doesn't even matter.

Who cares what they call them, who cares what the art looks like?  They could spend the next 50 years telling me how shitty they were as a band, and I'd reject it all and still love them and their music, surfboards and all. 

People get so upset when someone else's opinion of the band isn't exactly the same as their opinion.  If Capitol records thinks the Beach Boys sucked after 1965, I don't give a sh*t. 

[Ron]

I hope a box set would mirror the Beatles box set by having all the core studio albums plus a Past Masters type collection featuring non-album singles, B-sides, and whatnot.  Or perhaps it would have to be two box sets because of the large amount of material.

I hope they don't make it a huge set featuring the released albums, because it would be cost prohibitive to most people.  I suppose though the purpose could be to market it to the most die hard of the die hard who would buy it anyways.

As for the 2 cd (or 1 cd) set, I imagine it'll feature the remastered versions of the songs, off the remastered albums.... the Beach Boys cd that came out about two years ago was awesome, lots of remastered and stereo versions of stuff like "Let him Run Wild", etc.  So even though they've released these over and over again, I'm sure they'll throw in enough new mixes and remastered versions to make it irresistable anyways at 20 bucks.

I'm pretty confident that the boxset will have a lot of unreleased stuff.  Keep in mind the Smile Sessions did, including the newly found version of Surf's Up.... that's a real gem, who knows how much other stuff they've found?  With the recent news that a newly written David Marks track was recorded, likely for the box set... it kind of shows that they're attempting to make it really, really comprehensive like the GV box set was.  I'll bet they surprise most rational fans. 

[over and over]

[...]it kind of shows that they're attempting to make it really, really comprehensive like the GV box set was.  I'll bet they surprise most rational fans. 

If they included Brian's 1975 piano demo of "In The Back Of My Mind", I can die a happy man.

[Ron]

They might!  Think about the GV boxset though, everything's going great up until about Surf's Up... then they jump to the 15BO/Love You era... then they pretty much jump all the way up to Good Timin... then a couple more tracks and the Beach Boys are gone.  So they spend three and a half full nice CD's then rush the last 15 years or so.  So maybe on this version, they'll try to make it for us who are too cool for school and focus more on those 70's tracks and albums, as painful as it may be in some instances  

I think stuff like "My Diane", or piano demos, or whatever from that era would really help tell the story. 

[Rocky Raccoon]

It's just that there have been so many configurations of Beach Boys releases over the years, it would be nice if someone would finally settle on a definitive catalog.  For a Beach Boys fan, it's almost impossible to be a completist.  But perhaps that's part of the fun.

[runnersdialzero]

How can folks not understand why other folks are a little annoyed that a fugly (LET'S TAKE THIS PICTURE OF SURFBOARDS AND UP THE SATURATION 10,000%!!!), boring picture of surfboards that represents a very small portion of their career is yet again the album cover? They've done decent work with best ofs in the past (not always), and the That's Why God Made The Radio cover was great on every level and didn't resort to this sort of predictable, "designed in 10 minutes by someone who hasn't heard a note of the band's music" bullshittery (imo).

[Wirestone]

I think the hits comps just seem really ... um ... unnecessary. Sounds of Summer and Warmth of the Sun are each fabulous, each has more songs than the individual discs of 50 Big Ones, and each are just excellent overall. They're not that old, they've sold a bunch. To my mind, just tweak one or both of those to include new tracks, and package them together if you must have a two-disc set. But otherwise you have a situation where a record company is taking the twofers, the boxed set and the hits comps out of print, and replacing them with album reissues that are more expensive, have no bonus tracks, and with shorter and arguably inferior hits collections.

Hmm. I've kind of talked myself out of being enthusiastic about this.

[MBE]

I think the hits comps just seem really ... um ... unnecessary. Sounds of Summer and Warmth of the Sun are each fabulous, each has more songs than the individual discs of 50 Big Ones, and each are just excellent overall. They're not that old, they've sold a bunch. To my mind, just tweak one or both of those to include new tracks, and package them together if you must have a two-disc set. But otherwise you have a situation where a record company is taking the twofers, the boxed set and the hits comps out of print, and replacing them with album reissues that are more expensive, have no bonus tracks, and with shorter and arguably inferior hits collections.

Hmm. I've kind of talked myself out of being enthusiastic about this.

You have it correct in every way.

[DonnyL]

eh, these two hits comps are kinda silly but were we really expecting anything else? i mean, they're gonna do well and it's a good idea from a business standpoint.

but there is something kind of perverse about the Kokomo/You're So Good to Me/Wild Honey sequence ... in fact, the single disc track list is downright weird, which reminds me of Endless Summer.

A genius idea would have been to reissue 'Endless Summer' with an updated track list and do a whole TV campaign. Keep that same weird cover because it looks like Smiley Smile.

i mean, it's a ca$h-grabber, that's all. and that's cool. these best of sets are not for us ... i'm certain the box will right all the wrongs. bring on 'wouldn't it be nice to live again'.

and this is coming from someone who thinks the 'That's Why God Made the Radio' LP is something of a sham. Although I have learned to love 'From Here to Back Again'.

[Ron]

I think the hits comps just seem really ... um ... unnecessary. Sounds of Summer and Warmth of the Sun are each fabulous, each has more songs than the individual discs of 50 Big Ones, and each are just excellent overall. They're not that old, they've sold a bunch. To my mind, just tweak one or both of those to include new tracks, and package them together if you must have a two-disc set. But otherwise you have a situation where a record company is taking the twofers, the boxed set and the hits comps out of print, and replacing them with album reissues that are more expensive, have no bonus tracks, and with shorter and arguably inferior hits collections.

Hmm. I've kind of talked myself out of being enthusiastic about this.

How old are you Wirestone?  I'm just curious that it's taken you so long to understand capitalism.  Capital... Capitol... where have we seen that word before? 

Lemme get this straight: You're dissapointed... that the MUSIC INDUSTRY is doing some sketchy sh*t?  Come on.  You already knew that.