MiC up for order on Amazon, August release

[Mikie]

You have good taste, Jay. 

The 70's - particularly the early 70's - was the best time to be a Beach Boys fan.

[Jay]

You have good taste, Jay. 

The 70's - particularly the early 70's - was the best time to be a Beach Boys fan.

Thanks.  Can't forget Fort Myers(3-29-75) and Greensboro(4-5-75). 

[Disney Boy (1985)]

Re: 'Why has the set got Good Vibrations, Kokomo, Help Me Rhonda, etc. on it, I don't want to buy them yet again'.

Well, it's because this is a career-spanning box set, and it has always - always - been advertised as a career-spanning box set, and a Beach Boys career-spanning box set without Good Vibrations, Kokomo, Help Me Rhonda, etc. would be weird and inaccurate.

In fact, if, say, Help Me Rhonda wasn't on there, you'd all be saying 'Hey how come they left off Help Me Rhonda???'

One small aspect of it that I have noticed however - and this isn't a complaint, just an observation: there's more tracks from Sunflower on MIC then there is from Pet Sounds! In fact, there's more tracks from Surfer Girl and more tracks from All Summer Long than there is Pet Sounds. For such a milestone in their career, it's curiously under-represented.

Anyway, question: Are we going to get the full-length WIBNTLA? Now that we know that it's officially being released, presumably there's no harm in us being told whether we're getting the full-length version - complete with flutey noodling - or an edited version?

Personally I very much hope we get the full-length version, regardless of whether the flutes go on a bit at the end. I haven't waited four decades to hear the song only to have someone behind the scenes decide 'You know what, they don't need to hear all of this, man' - SNIP!

[Jay]

I was kind of hoping that if they were going to include backing tracks or "special mixes", that they would have included the percussion, drums, and organ track for It's About Time. Regardless of whether or not any actual Beach Boys were playing the instruments. It's just so awesome. 

[Micha]

Here is my cast iron, 100% guaranteed method of deriving the maximum pleasure from Made in California:

1 -  if you like the track listing you've seen, buy it, and enjoy.

2 - if you don't, don't buy it, in which case you'll have saved over $100 and your blood pressure won't be elevated from all that bitching.

Now, how hard was that ?  

And what do I do if I like some of it and some not?

Well in that scenario you're screwed! 

[Micha]

sneak into the pressing plants and replace the master for disc one with an Adult Child bootleg...

You mean just to make sure I'm not tempted to buy it? Because I don't like Adult Child, you know.

Don't worry, I'll buy the set anyway.

[AndrewHickey]

This makes sense... but they are too blind to see the artistic value of say, uh, Thank Him as opposed to California Dreamin'. It's just what it is. I accept that.

I know that dudes like Mark and Alan B. and everyone else knows this. Therefore I salute them..and while I still feel as strongly as I do, it is important to be excited about all the cool stuff we are about to hear...

If you're comparing those two tracks, frankly I'm on the band's side. Thank Him is rubbish.

[AndrewHickey]

I guess Jon Blum’s post is a good segue to a thought that’s been swimming around my brain. It’s a bit morbid. Bear with me. So Capitol continually banks on baby boomers buying these Beach Boys compilations year after year, right? The fans that grew up with the band. The guys who are losing or already lost their hair and might even wear a Hawaiian shirt every now and then . People who don’t know how to illegally download music without a younger family member around to show them, but even then would opt for a physical release because that’s what they’ve known their whole life, that’s the only way they legitimize a music release. And they have some money to throw around and buy this stuff, right? Well...these people...are going to be dead soon... I know, i know, this isn’t exactly the sort of subject we want to be thinking about now. But i was thinking, when that market no longer exists (and the sad reality is that the band members are obviously in the same demographic), do you think Capitol will maybe shift their sales approach a bit regarding the BB to a younger, “cooler”/“edgy” (i think i just vomited in my mouth a little bit) demographic and focus on less commercial ventures, things that transcend the massive Beach Boys branding, and are more niche, off the wall, and generally considered more “artistic”? (Sorry about all the terms in quotation marks) Do we just need to wait, i don’t know, twenty years or so? Or am i talkin' poppycock?

Sincere apologies for the grim topic. It's hard not to wonder though what the decision making process for these sort of BB releases is going to look like when the guys themselves and the fans of their age group who are largely responsible for perpetuating a certain image of the Beach Boys are no longer around... 

Frankly, I suspect that once the boomers have died off there'll be about as much of a market for the Beach Boys as there is for, say, Benny Goodman records now. Which is to say there'll still be *some*, but it won't be a matter of promotion or marketing as much as trying to make sure any of it's available at all...

[Jonathan Blum]

One small aspect of it that I have noticed however - and this isn't a complaint, just an observation: there's more tracks from Sunflower on MIC then there is from Pet Sounds! In fact, there's more tracks from Surfer Girl and more tracks from All Summer Long than there is Pet Sounds. For such a milestone in their career, it's curiously under-represented.

I think they might be figuring that the average punter who'd go for the box set is way more likely to have their own copy of "Pet Sounds" than of the other albums.  Or indeed the whole other box set just of "Pet Sounds"!  It's probably their most available actual album at this moment (and -- at least according to the RIAA -- their highest-selling IIRC), and sells solidly on its own; they don't really need to nudge people to give it a look in the same way they might want to encourage them to pick up "Sunflower" or "All Summer Long"...

Cheers,
Jon Blum

[AndrewHickey]

I think they might be figuring that the average punter who'd go for the box set is way more likely to have their own copy of "Pet Sounds" than of the other albums.  Or indeed the whole other box set just of "Pet Sounds"!  It's probably their most available actual album at this moment (and -- at least according to the RIAA -- their highest-selling IIRC), and sells solidly on its own; they don't really need to nudge people to give it a look in the same way they might want to encourage them to pick up "Sunflower" or "All Summer Long"...

Absolutely. And it's not as if it's that under-represented either. There are five songs from it -- the same number as from Surf's Up and Holland and more than from Love You.

I think one of the best things about this box as an introduction to new fans is it redresses the balance a bit. The Good Vibrations box devoted more than twenty per cent of its space to just three albums -- Summer Days, Pet Sounds and Smile. While that's understandable in that it was the first release of any Smile material at all, it did leave the set reinforcing the mythology that the Beach Boys had a load of silly surfing songs, then did one masterpiece, then their genius leader went mad before he could finish their second masterpiece (probably because of Mike Love) and they went downhill fast.

I think that by re-emphasising the 67-77 period, this box *might* just do a lot to stop new people falling for that. We can hope...

[The Shift]

One small aspect of it that I have noticed however - and this isn't a complaint, just an observation: there's more tracks from Sunflower on MIC then there is from Pet Sounds! In fact, there's more tracks from Surfer Girl and more tracks from All Summer Long than there is Pet Sounds. For such a milestone in their career, it's curiously under-represented.

I think they might be figuring that the average punter who'd go for the box set is way more likely to have their own copy of "Pet Sounds" than of the other albums.  Or indeed the whole other box set just of "Pet Sounds"!  It's probably their most available actual album at this moment (and -- at least according to the RIAA -- their highest-selling IIRC), and sells solidly on its own; they don't really need to nudge people to give it a look in the same way they might want to encourage them to pick up "Sunflower" or "All Summer Long"...

Cheers,
Jon Blum

Still a little surprised that there's been no Legacy (or similar) edition of Sunflower, given the number of available outtakes, alt versions and different mixes etc.  Maybe that's sommat else to look forward to ( and maybe this belongs in the fantasy tracklist thread…)

[Jay]

I think they might be figuring that the average punter who'd go for the box set is way more likely to have their own copy of "Pet Sounds" than of the other albums.  Or indeed the whole other box set just of "Pet Sounds"!  It's probably their most available actual album at this moment (and -- at least according to the RIAA -- their highest-selling IIRC), and sells solidly on its own; they don't really need to nudge people to give it a look in the same way they might want to encourage them to pick up "Sunflower" or "All Summer Long"...

I think that by re-emphasising the 67-77 period, this box *might* just do a lot to stop new people falling for that. We can hope...

I never thought about that, but you might be on to something. Last year(ish) saw the release of the infamous Smile tracks, and seems to have done fairly well. I wonder if it might soon be the time for a Smiley Smile/Wild Honey set.

[Dunderhead]

Well, it's because this is a career-spanning box set, and it has always - always - been advertised as a career-spanning box set, and a Beach Boys career-spanning box set without Good Vibrations, Kokomo, Help Me Rhonda, etc. would be weird and inaccurate.

I don't really understand how we somehow knew that this boxset would be a letdown for months and months when the biggest source of frustration here for a long time has been the lack of any definite or official statement about the box. Speak for yourself but I didn't know anything really about this thing, and for months at a time the only discussion more or less occurring here revolved around vindictive dismissals of Phil Cohen for not having any faith that the elusive "career-spanning box" would eventually one day be substantiated as actual.

Information was spotty at best. "Career-Spanning" is a pretty meaningless designation in and of itself. To pretend that it's somehow analytic that the term necessarily meant all along that this box would contain primarily the tired-old fair isn't correct. A rarities box would also be "career-spanning", and the initial press release from almost a near ago now was pretty unclear what exactly would be on this thing.

It was only with significant difficulty posters here wrenched out even the faintest acknowledgement that the entire thing hadn't fallen apart from the few "insiders" around here. Some of the hints that were dropped, like some of the information from Ponghit in fact painted a very different picture of this release I think from what we now know it to be. What little else we knew seemed to mostly come from phantom, place-holder release dates on online retail sites.

I mean come on.

[Paulos]

Well, it's because this is a career-spanning box set, and it has always - always - been advertised as a career-spanning box set, and a Beach Boys career-spanning box set without Good Vibrations, Kokomo, Help Me Rhonda, etc. would be weird and inaccurate.

I don't really understand how we somehow knew that this boxset would be a letdown for months and months when the biggest source of frustration here for a long time has been the lack of any definite or official statement about the box. Speak for yourself but I didn't know anything really about this thing, and for months at a time the only discussion more or less occurring here revolved around vindictive dismissals of Phil Cohen for not having any faith that the elusive "career-spanning box" would eventually one day be substantiated as actual.

Information was spotty at best. "Career-Spanning" is a pretty meaningless designation in and of itself. To pretend that it's somehow analytic that the term necessarily meant all along that this box would contain primarily the tired-old fair isn't correct. A rarities box would also be "career-spanning", and the initial press release from almost a near ago now was pretty unclear what exactly would be on this thing.

It was only with significant difficulty posters here wrenched out even the faintest acknowledgement that the entire thing hadn't fallen apart from the few "insiders" around here. Some of the hints that were dropped, like some of the information from Ponghit in fact painted a very different picture of this release I think from what we now know it to be. What little else we knew seemed to mostly come from phantom, place-holder release dates on online retail sites.

I mean come on.

Hi Phil, nice to see you're back.

[Dunderhead]

You know, I never really minded Phil. That's probably the thing that's turned me off most from this board over the last several months, what little shits a lot people were being to him.

[AndrewHickey]

Information was spotty at best. "Career-Spanning" is a pretty meaningless designation in and of itself. To pretend that it's somehow analytic that the term necessarily meant all along that this box would contain primarily the tired-old fair isn't correct. A rarities box would also be "career-spanning", and the initial press release from almost a near ago now was pretty unclear what exactly would be on this thing.

"Career-spanning box set" is a term that's used regularly in the music industry.

Googling the phrase, in quotes, brings the following on the first page:
http://consequenceofsound.net/2013/05/sly-and-the-family-stone-receive-first-career-spanning-box-set/ -- four-CD box set by Sly And The Family Stone. 77 tracks, 17 previously unreleased. Includes all the hits.
http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/bbking -- 10-CD box set including all his key recordings
http://www.liketotally80s.com/heart-interview.html -- "features their biggest hits, some great live and previously unreleased demo tracks, as well as solo selections."
http://www.blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=21358 -- "There aren't any unreleased songs on "Box Of Scorpions", but there are a few tracks that have only been released on best-of collections"
http://pitchfork.com/news/46546-the-books-to-release-career-spanning-box-set/ -- "will include all of the duo's albums, plus audio and visual bonus material."
http://www.uncut.co.uk/stephen-stills-announces-career-spanning-box-set-news -- "Carry On will be a 4CD set, featuring 82 tracks, 25 of which are previously unreleased. "
http://www.bringthenoiseuk.com/201202/music/news/reef-to-release-career-spanning-box-set -- "The 9 CDs will include every commercial song recorded as well as their very first demo, ‘The Purple Tapes’, along with b-sides, demos, live tracks, rarities and previously unreleased material."

And there's a lot more where they came from, along the same lines.

So clearly, when the music industry use the phrase "career-spanning box set" what they mean is a collection of between four and ten discs, consisting mostly of previously-released material, but possibly with up to about a third of it previously unreleased. Which is what we got.

It was only with significant difficulty posters here wrenched out even the faintest acknowledgement that the entire thing hadn't fallen apart from the few "insiders" around here. Some of the hints that were dropped, like some of the information from Ponghit in fact painted a very different picture of this release I think from what we now know it to be. What little else we knew seemed to mostly come from phantom, place-holder release dates on online retail sites.

People like AGD, who have contacts with "insiders", were saying all along that we would get roughly two discs' worth of unreleased material, as were a lot of other people, like me, who don't have those direct contacts but who do know how to read press-release-speak.

I didn't see *any* hints dropped that would lead to any other conclusion. In fact, to take the specific example you give, Ponghit was asked:

can you say is the MIC project more a "career retrospective" or rather a "deep cuts anthology w/ some hits".

and replied

Maybe both? It's safe to assume the big hits will be represented, no? And there will be a 'bonus' disc, comparable to the 1993 box that MIC is apparently destined to 'replace.'

So he was stating, back in April, that it was a replacement for the 1993 box, comparable to it, and that the hits would be on the box.

I'm very sorry for you that you got your hopes up for something that was never going to happen, but people have been explicitly saying exactly what this would be for a long time...

[Dunderhead]

1. It's a meaningless catch-all. Gimmie a break, it would have been a career-spanning boxset either way.

2. AGD's "press speak"? "I know not of this Made In California of which you speak.  " Over and over again. People were clamouring for an official confirmation and announcement of this and they were rebuffed with a lot of non-committal double-speak silencing for simply wanting to know what the deal was.

3. Ponghit initially was talking about it being an "archival project" or something to that effect. He talks about all sorts of songs being considered that seem to have been left off in favor of material the fans are over-saturated with already. He certainly didn't give a particular clear conception of what the thing was all about.

My point is, it's complete hogwash what some people are attempting to do by retrospectively projecting a definite conception of this thing onto past discussion in order to invalidate current criticism. Across hundreds of pages of posts for almost a year fans were speculating and arguing and expressing a desire that capitol would expedite some official word about the release, and what very little reliable or trustworthy information there might have been, was diluted over untold numbers of posts and cloaked in teasing obfuscation.

It's just crappy. This is a crappy release that for all the build up and hype feels like a bunch of table scraps attached to an unnecessary re-re-re-re-release of material everybody is sick of buying. It feels like they put the bare number of novel tracks on it that they could get away with in order to save material for the 55th anniversary box or whatever. If serious fans weren't an important demographic the sale of this boxset depended on, they wouldn't have bothered to put any rarities on this at all. They're on there to entice serious fans to buy it, not as some favor or handout. And in this case, what myself and several others have all been saying, is that we don't want to buy it and that we think they did a bad job figuring the whole thing out and reading what their consumers were expressing a desire to buy. Ultimately the only thing they care about is whether or not they can make money, and they'll keep doing whatever that is so long as it works. If you're a fan and you simply buy whatever sh*t they put out obsessively, and never voice what you actually want to buy from them, or what you're disappointed about, they'll never have any reason to do anything else.

If they turn a profit off this, if it lives up to their projections, good for them, in all likelihood it will. But it's a boring release that seems to depend mostly on consumer inertia to carry it to the finish line. I'm voicing my frustration, and letting them know what put me off about this release instead of just praising and buying it uncritically so that, in the future, perhaps the aggregate fan-reaction will cause a gradual tend towards a release I actually care to purchase. This is in fact the completely reasonable, completely fair thing to do, and as a fan really all I can do to let the record company know what it is I want and what I'm willing to buy.

[Steve Mayo]

if you don't like it don't buy it

[Dunderhead]

if you don't like it don't buy it

Yes, I'm going to do that as well. But I'm also going to post here as much as I want explaining why I don't like it and why I'm not going to buy it so if you don't like that then you can just not read my posts.

[AndrewHickey]

1. It's a meaningless catch-all. Gimmie a break, it would have been a career-spanning boxset either way.

It's the term used in the industry for a particular type of release. That you don't know that isn't your fault. That you didn't listen to people who do know that is.

2. AGD's "press speak"? "I know not of this Made In California of which you speak.  " Over and over again. People were clamouring for an official confirmation and announcement of this and they were rebuffed with a lot of non-committal double-speak silencing for simply wanting to know what the deal was.

In case you haven't noticed, nobody on this board is able to make an official announcement on behalf of Universal, and people who leak things don't tend to find more stuff out.  Certainly enough was said by those people that I knew, many many months ago, that we would be getting about two CDs of new material.

3. Ponghit initially was talking about it being an "archival project" or something to that effect. He talks about all sorts of songs being considered that seem to have been left off in favor of material the fans are over-saturated with already. He certainly didn't give a particular clear conception of what the thing was all about.

Seemed perfectly clear to me. And yes, those posts talk about some tracks being considered that weren't included, but he definitely said that all the hits would be on it and that it would be a replacement for the Good Vibrations box.

My point is, it's complete hogwash what some people are attempting to do by retrospectively projecting a definite conception of this thing onto past discussion in order to invalidate current criticism. Across hundreds of pages of posts for almost a year fans were speculating and arguing and expressing a desire that capitol would expedite some official word about the release, and what very little reliable or trustworthy information there might have been, was diluted over untold numbers of posts and cloaked in teasing obfuscation.

So blame the people who got your hopes up by speculating when they knew nothing, and yourself for listening to them rather than to people with a clue.

for all the build up and hype

A single press release in 2011 saying there would be a career-spanning box set counts as 'build up and hype'?

EVERYTHING else came from discussions on here, mostly by people who didn't let their lack of knowledge stop them speculating wildly. That's not the fault of Universal, the compilers, the Beach Boys or anyone else involved in the box set.

[Bicyclerider]

if you don't like it don't buy it

Yes, I'm going to do that as well. But I'm also going to post here as much as I want explaining why I don't like it and why I'm not going to buy it so if you don't like that then you can just not read my posts.

Well you haven't heard it yet.  So not liking it is qualified - you don't like the track listing.

Besides taking negativity to a new level, besides you wanting to express your displeasure at Capitol and BRI,  you also want to repeatedly tell all of us why we shouldn't like it, which is just as boring as you claim this new box set is.  We read and understand your points, and we disagree.  Maybe check in after the box set is released to troll some more on how the box isn't selling and if they had produuced the box set you wanted they would have sold so much more (well, 1 extra copy I guess).

[Freddie French-Pounce]

From Brian's Site:

Do It Again is a true stereo mix made from the recently found 8 track master

We're Together Again- is a new stereo mix with strings also from a newly recovered 8 track master

The live All I Want To Do is complete and contains elements not heard on the mix on the Rarities album

The live Help Me Rhonda features Dennis on the lead vocal

The live Wild Honey features Blondie Chaplin on lead vocal and guitar

[PaulTMA]

Meanwhile on the Hoffman board, people are saying the likes of 'Lines' and 'Stevie' are unreleasable

[hypehat]

well there's no accounting for taste....

V excited about the newly found DIA and We're Together Again masters!

Also, IDK whether this has been mentioned but Our Prayer is a Stereo Smile Sessions mix - and it wasn't in stereo on TSS, was it?

[Iron Horse-Apples]

Do It Again is a true stereo mix made from the recently found 8 track master

Fantastic!