The Beach Boys scored a Grammy nomination.

[Ron]

The beach boys have never received a grammy.  This shows that the entire grammy thing is bullshit.

If the beach boys receive a grammy this year, the entire grammy thing will still be bullshit because they ignored them for count 'em... 50 YEARS.

Only difference is, when you say 'The Beach boys never received a grammy" someone will footnote it with "well, they did after half of them died". 

I honestly hope they don't win, because even if they do win, it'll be for bullshit reasons that don't make up for this stupid award show ignoring their greatness through the years. 

[Shady]

Zeppelin and a bunch of other great bands from the 60s and 70s were ingnored by the Grammys.

The boys are in good company

[Chocolate Shake Man]

The beach boys have never received a grammy.  This shows that the entire grammy thing is bullsh*t.

If the beach boys receive a grammy this year, the entire grammy thing will still be bullsh*t because they ignored them for count 'em... 50 YEARS.

Only difference is, when you say 'The Beach boys never received a grammy" someone will footnote it with "well, they did after half of them died". 

I honestly hope they don't win, because even if they do win, it'll be for bullsh*t reasons that don't make up for this stupid award show ignoring their greatness through the years. 

I agree. But while the Grammy's are meaningless to me and you, it may very well be that they are meaningful to those in the band and if that's the case then it would be nice if they won.

[Quzi]

Would it be officially "The Beach Boys won a grammy" or "The Smile Sessions + Brian, Mark and Dennis won a grammy"?

[Peter Reum]

it sure would be official

[The Shift]

Its unbelieveable the Tony Sheridan set got a nod, its the 400th repackage of a set of music that isn't that great. Its a cash in from a guy who was lucky to have the early and raw Beatles as a backing band. I guess the Beatles are so popular that people will award even the turds in the catalog.

True, the Beatles name carries a lot of the weight. But in this specific case, as the set is nominated for liner notes, almost the exact same box set was released over a decade ago on the Bear Family label, known for lavish and super-complete archival releases, and the same writer did the liner notes for *that* in the early 2000's. Then they essentially boiled that down a bit and even though it's nearly the same set and same notes, it gets a Grammy nomination.

It's more than unbelievable, it's almost absurd. I don't understand how the Grammy folks can be so strict about release dates when it come to nominations (and IIRC The Beach Boys or Brian fell into this not too long ago because of when their product was released), yet this debacle manages to slip through the cracks.

As a belated aside, this Beatles release seems to be on the same label, at least here in the UK, as the impending reissue of Surfin' Safari.

This is one of those out-of-copyright specialists, with some very early Dylan material in its repertoire; far as I understand it, it's the nearest thing to a boot outfit you're gonna get this side of Dolcis.

If the Grammys give the Beatles set the gong, they're endorsing every future non-royalty paying pilfer of an artist's back catalogue imaginable. We could all set up as record labels, burn discs of our discs and nominate ourselves for a Grammy. Alternate Surfin' Safari anyone?

If the Beatles set gets an award, the Grammys should rightly be given the boot by the entire legitimate music industry. S'that simple.

[guitarfool2002]

Its unbelieveable the Tony Sheridan set got a nod, its the 400th repackage of a set of music that isn't that great. Its a cash in from a guy who was lucky to have the early and raw Beatles as a backing band. I guess the Beatles are so popular that people will award even the turds in the catalog.

True, the Beatles name carries a lot of the weight. But in this specific case, as the set is nominated for liner notes, almost the exact same box set was released over a decade ago on the Bear Family label, known for lavish and super-complete archival releases, and the same writer did the liner notes for *that* in the early 2000's. Then they essentially boiled that down a bit and even though it's nearly the same set and same notes, it gets a Grammy nomination.

It's more than unbelievable, it's almost absurd. I don't understand how the Grammy folks can be so strict about release dates when it come to nominations (and IIRC The Beach Boys or Brian fell into this not too long ago because of when their product was released), yet this debacle manages to slip through the cracks.

As a belated aside, this Beatles release seems to be on the same label, at least here in the UK, as the impending reissue of Surfin' Safari.

This is one of those out-of-copyright specialists, with some very early Dylan material in its repertoire; far as I understand it, it's the nearest thing to a boot outfit you're gonna get this side of Dolcis.

If the Grammys give the Beatles set the gong, they're endorsing every future non-royalty paying pilfer of an artist's back catalogue imaginable. We could all set up as record labels, burn discs of our discs and nominate ourselves for a Grammy. Alternate Surfin' Safari anyone?

If the Beatles set gets an award, the Grammys should rightly be given the boot by the entire legitimate music industry. S'that simple.

Yes!

I'm hoping that there are others elsewhere raising the same concerns...are there? Or is the fact it's a Beatles release keeping the objections low?

If you've been buying records and music in general for any length of time, you've seen these kinds of "reissues" and raised an eyebrow. Their cottage industry is those folks who may not have heard of nor own the material, and would not realize these gray-area releases have been sold and marketed under different labels and titles for decades.

This set getting even a Grammy nomination should be considered an outrage, but if it should win...

Ultimately what *REALLY* annoys me on this set is how the Beatle liner notes nominated this year have already been released for the most part by the same author. That should disqualify them immediately because in no way were they done in 2012. In this way you could in theory reprint any previously released set of liner notes, re-release them at any time, and they'd be eligible. Total nonsense.

And what *REALLY REALLY* annoys me is that the Beatles are on roughly three of these duff tracks in any kind of notable or prominent way as a group. 

[Rocky Raccoon]

All three of which are readily available on an official Beatles album, Anthology Volume 1 which is a better collection all around.

[I. Spaceman]

If you've been buying records and music in general for any length of time, you've seen these kinds of "reissues" and raised an eyebrow. Their cottage industry is those folks who may not have heard of nor own the material, and would not realize these gray-area releases have been sold and marketed under different labels and titles for decades.

This type of label should also be given credit for unearthing many classic country, blues and jazz performances in complete, annotated, cheap sets that would never be released by major labels.

[Ron]

I don't know what I think about that.  If we're talking specifically about the Bear Family stuff, man they've put out a ton of good compilations that are absolutely impossible to hear in any form if they didn't release it.  Like I.Spaceman said, lots of country stuff that I'm interested in.  Literally songs that have never been released that they dug up somewhere, that were recorded in the 40's or 50's.  They put out a really great Roger Miller CD for instance with a ton of his early demos and early recordings of songs that either never came out or were re-recorded by other artists. 

So while in some instances I'm sure there's some gray area royalty stuff going on, I know for a fact that the country, nashville, historical community has nothing but the highest regard for them.  If you want to hear some of that old early stuff, that's your only option. 

[The Shift]

Gaargh. My bad - the nominated 2cd Beatles with TOny Sheridan is on Time Life and was apparently released Jan 11; the newer 1cd set of material I was looking at is on Hallmark and is much more recent.

Same stuff applies though…

[guitarfool2002]

I am not talking at all about the Bear Family releases, in fact I specifically mentioned them earlier this thread as a label who puts out very high quality and comprehensive sets which have often set the standard.

By "gray area" releases, I mean the type of catalogs I used to get in the 80's and 90's that were full of various greatest hits packages, compilations, and other assorted collections which were not from the original artists' labels and often were not the original hit versions in too many cases. You might get, for example, a collection with the song "Louie Louie" by The Kingsmen, and everyone knows which version is on the radio and which they had on 45 as a kid, but these sets might substitute a live version instead because of money issues.

Don't get me wrong, there were some good things to be found, but it was also a buyer beware situation where you could pay 10 bucks for a Sonny and Cher compilation which was legit or pay 5.99 for one in the catalog and prepare to hear something different than the singles you expected. And the cover art was cheesy, liner notes often non-existant or half-assed, etc.

It was hit or miss, and that was the problem with these warehouse labels that sold through catalogs and magazine ads.

But there were some good finds, too, for sure. And again, I definitely do not put Bear Family or Time Life in the category of those no-name warehouse labels who would send me catalogs.

I actually scored some of my best blues music back then from K-Mart's bargain cassette rack. When I still bought cassettes, they had some killer deals.

[Ron]

o.k., I see what you're talking about.  Yes I'm familiar with CD's like that (or hell, tapes back in the day!).  I've always been a big fan of oldies and as a kid would run into that over and over again, you buy a CD by the platters and you end up with something recorded with a synthesizer and 1 original member in a warehouse somewhere. 

The pulled something like that with the Tony Sheridan Beatles stuff, and it's grammy nominated?  "Ain't She Sweet" is the only song I could stand on the whole thing if memory serves correct.

Thanks for clearing up the Bear Family thing, I was thinking I was going to have to stop buying their stuff, whew! 

About the royalty thing though, even big labels do that now, so maybe that's why their ambivalent about it.  Michael Jackson's #1 hits CD that came out back in the late years of his life, for instance... had all his #1's, and "Ben" was a live version.  Just couldn't bring themselves to pay Motown any royalties, I suppose.  This is on an album that went platinum several times over. 



Oh and to bring it back full circle to the Beatles, any particular reason why all of Paul McCartney's hits cd's always have a live version of Coming up? 

[guitarfool2002]

I think the McCartney issue has to be Paul himself choosing it. I will say that live take of that song is energetic, those horns are terrific, and it is the version most people who are not hard-core Macca collectors would recognize. They play it on oldies radio, it's the single version.

And yes, with those oldies comps, I still feel betrayed by whoever packaged and sold the Chuck Berry greatest hits set I saved up my money to buy, mostly to hear Johnny B Goode, only to play it and get some warmed-over crap which Chuck must have done in the 60's. I'm still hurtin' from that one! 

The Sheridan/Beatles set is nominated for liner notes, and the same liner notes were released several years ago in almost the same form by the same author on an earlier Bear Family release. So basically the set nominated in 2012 is another version of what Bear Family did (very well) several years ago, and the liner notes do not date from 2012, therefore they probably shouldn't be nominated as the best liners of 2012.

Tony Sheridan continues to laugh, maybe not all the way to the bank, but I'm sure he's laughing at this stuff.

[Ron]

At the end of the day.  It's the stupid grammys.  They gave Brian a grammy for 'best instrumental' on a song with a hellova lot of harmony.  Whatever. 

[Theydon Bois]

I think the McCartney issue has to be Paul himself choosing it. I will say that live take of that song is energetic, those horns are terrific, and it is the version most people who are not hard-core Macca collectors would recognize. They play it on oldies radio, it's the single version.

It was the single version in the States, anyway.  In the UK, the studio version was the single, and is accordingly on all of the compilations.