The (eventually) MIC spoilers thread

[buddhahat]

MIC is on Spotify now!


And so this is the famous (WIBNT)LA uh?



Pitch correction on "You're Still A Mistery"    And is that a new lead by Brian??  It feels so slow now.

What country are you in? Spotify usually allows access to new albums on their release date and it doesn't seem to be showing up in the US one (and I wouldn't expect it to until Tuesday).

Pretty sure it's not on the UK site either.

[buddhahat]

I'm Finland at the moment.

Does this work for you?
https://play.spotify.com/artist/3oDbviiivRWhXwIE8hxkVV

Hi STE,

I can't use the webplayer unfortunately.

If you control click (or maybe right click if not on a mac) the album title in spotify browser you should get a context menu with an option to 'copy HTTP link', then paste it here. That should allow us to access the album providing it's available outside of Finland.

Many thanks!

[STE]

"Country Air" stereo is unreal!!

[STE]

I'm Finland at the moment.

Does this work for you?
https://play.spotify.com/artist/3oDbviiivRWhXwIE8hxkVV

Hi STE,

I can't use the webplayer unfortunately.

If you control click (or maybe right click if not on a mac) the album title in spotify browser you should get a context menu with an option to 'copy HTTP link' or 'Copy Spotfy URL'. One of those should allow us to access the album providing it's available outside of Finland.

Many thanks!

Ok, how about this
https://play.spotify.com/album/2bNE80uDjuw9kqCjC6cZMR
But I'm not using the Spotify desktop app, just the webplayer.  I can check in the app later.

[KokoNO]

Try giving us a direct link to the album rather than the artist. The artist just leads to the Beach Boys Spotify main page in our given country...only way we're going to hear this thing early outside of certain territories is if we can have a direct link to the box's URL and then cross our fingers.

[STE]

Try giving us a direct link to the album rather than the artist. The artist just leads to the Beach Boys Spotify main page in our given country...only way we're going to hear this thing early outside of certain territories is if we can have a direct link to the box's URL and then cross our fingers.

That is supposed to be the link to the album..  but to the web-player version

[KokoNO]

I'm Finland at the moment.

Does this work for you?
https://play.spotify.com/artist/3oDbviiivRWhXwIE8hxkVV

Hi STE,

I can't use the webplayer unfortunately.

If you control click (or maybe right click if not on a mac) the album title in spotify browser you should get a context menu with an option to 'copy HTTP link' or 'Copy Spotfy URL'. One of those should allow us to access the album providing it's available outside of Finland.

Many thanks!

Ok, how about this
https://play.spotify.com/album/2bNE80uDjuw9kqCjC6cZMR
But I'm not using the Spotify desktop app, just the webplayer.  I can check in the app later.

Alright, so what it's doing for us in the US is letting us access only the previously released tracks. So the recent remasters of certain tracks are what's accessible. Nothing else. Basically, the duplicates that are available on other recent reissues/compilations are what's showing up. That's it.

[buddhahat]

Try giving us a direct link to the album rather than the artist. The artist just leads to the Beach Boys Spotify main page in our given country...only way we're going to hear this thing early outside of certain territories is if we can have a direct link to the box's URL and then cross our fingers.

That is supposed to be the link to the album..  but to the web-player version

Thanks STE. That has worked on my phone but the tracks unique to the set are all unavailable. My guess is that this is Finland (or some other European countries, sans UK) only. Curses, but enjoy anyway, and please share some of your discoveries!

[STE]

I didn't A/B it yet, but listening to it again it does sound like the lead on "You're Still A Mistery" it's a newly recorded one (and pitch corrected).  But it's hard to say cause the song it's so much slower than we are used to.

I will try to only listen to "known" songs on Spotify, I will wait for the real thing for the unreleased ones.

[buddhahat]

Here's the album link, for any non US/UK residents that might be eable to access the tracks:

http://open.spotify.com/album/2bNE80uDjuw9kqCjC6cZMR

[KokoNO]

Dear God...the Smile Backing Vocals Montage is 8:32. Seriously. I don't own the Smile box (have the 2 CD download and the 2 LP vinyl), so I had no clue that they were wasting close to 9 minutes on something like that, especially given that it's previously released.

The "Good Vibrations" stuff that follows is also another waste of nearly four minutes. The biggest mistake of the boxed set is unquestionably losing 13 minutes of the rarities disc to Smile Sessions stuff. The only people this satisfies are those that are interested enough to purchase this six CD set and delve into the rarities and not interested enough to purchase the deluxe Smile Sessions boxed set. That's probably about 1% of this boxed set's purchasers.

Also, if you're going to include two sessions tracks that were previously released, why not just include stuff from the Pet Sounds box as well?

Going further, why the hell would you include two Smile Sessions pieces that weren't even good enough to make the standard Two-CD set? Again, probably because they're assuming there's enough people out there that purchased the 2 CD set and this box, but not the full Smile Sessions package. Either way, it's still a waste of time/money. We would've been better off with thirteen minutes of cuts that were on the previous career spanning boxed set that aren't on this one. "Still I Dream Of It" for example...

[KokoNO]

Thinking about it more. They also f***ed up when it comes to "Heroes and Villains"...Disc Two features a whopping 11 minutes of that track. We get the extended two part version (which is far too long and feels more like studio sessions than something that's complete) and the single version. They probably should have just went with either the single version or the Smile-album version and spared us the extra 7 minutes or so.

I figured this would be an annoyance and looking at the time-listings and listening to these, I can't help but feel that the historical flow of this set is interrupted greatly by what's pretty much the same song three times in a half hour span.

[The Shift]

Thinking about it more. They also f***ed up when it comes to "Heroes and Villains"...Disc Two features a whopping 11 minutes of that track. We get the extended two part version (which is far too long and feels more like studio sessions than something that's complete) and the single version. They probably should have just went with either the single version or the Smile-album version and spared us the extra 7 minutes or so.

I figured this would be an annoyance and looking at the time-listings and listening to these, I can't help but feel that the historical flow of this set is interrupted greatly by what's pretty much the same song three times in a half hour span.

Y'know, if they'd left the six discs blank, they could have spared us eight hours having to listen to the thing at all…   

[Cabinessenceking]

This is a day of disaster.


Spotify here in Europe hasn't got it up and for the first time ever I exceeded my 10 hour limit 

MiC is probably good tho.

[Daniel]

Here's the album link, for any non US/UK residents that might be eable to access the tracks:

http://open.spotify.com/album/2bNE80uDjuw9kqCjC6cZMR

Thanks for this.
But around half of the tracks are greyed-out and unavailable for listening
?

[Dunderhead]

Thinking about it more. They also f***ed up when it comes to "Heroes and Villains"...Disc Two features a whopping 11 minutes of that track. We get the extended two part version (which is far too long and feels more like studio sessions than something that's complete) and the single version. They probably should have just went with either the single version or the Smile-album version and spared us the extra 7 minutes or so.

I figured this would be an annoyance and looking at the time-listings and listening to these, I can't help but feel that the historical flow of this set is interrupted greatly by what's pretty much the same song three times in a half hour span.

Yeah I thought the same thing when I first saw the tracklist. There's something vaguely insulting about the whole release and I'm really not regretting not buying it now. In a couple of days stuff like WIBNTLA will just be up on youtube.

[buddhahat]

Here's the album link, for any non US/UK residents that might be eable to access the tracks:

http://open.spotify.com/album/2bNE80uDjuw9kqCjC6cZMR

Thanks for this.
But around half of the tracks are greyed-out and unavailable for listening
?

See the spotify thread. Only some countries have access to all the tracks. Not sure which beyond Finland at the moment (poster STE can access all the tracks and is busy demythologizing WIBNTLA as we type).

[Daniel]

Here's the album link, for any non US/UK residents that might be eable to access the tracks:

http://open.spotify.com/album/2bNE80uDjuw9kqCjC6cZMR

Thanks for this.
But around half of the tracks are greyed-out and unavailable for listening
?

See the spotify thread. Only some countries have access to all the tracks. Not sure which beyond Finland at the moment (poster STE can access all the tracks and is busy demythologizing WIBNTLA as we type).

yeah i saw that. At least he's bigging up Country Air!

[The Shift]

I hope folks will maintain a sense of proportion.  We're very, very fortunate…

[STE]

Here's the album link, for any non US/UK residents that might be eable to access the tracks:

http://open.spotify.com/album/2bNE80uDjuw9kqCjC6cZMR

Thanks for this.
But around half of the tracks are greyed-out and unavailable for listening
?

See the spotify thread. Only some countries have access to all the tracks. Not sure which beyond Finland at the moment (poster STE can access all the tracks and is busy demythologizing WIBNTLA as we type).

Well don't get me wrong, it's a good song, great production, great performance. But it suffers from its own mythological status.
Some people go nuts for "Midnight's Another Day" and "Summer's Gone" too.

[Matt Bielewicz]

Dear God...the Smile Backing Vocals Montage is 8:32... [snip] ...I had no clue that they were wasting close to 9 minutes on something like that, especially given that it's previously released... [snip] ...The "Good Vibrations" stuff that follows is also another waste of nearly four minutes. The biggest mistake of the boxed set is unquestionably losing 13 minutes of the rarities disc to Smile Sessions stuff. The only people this satisfies are those that are interested enough to purchase this six CD set and delve into the rarities and not interested enough to purchase the deluxe Smile Sessions boxed set. That's probably about 1% of this boxed set's purchasers.

Yeah I thought the same thing when I first saw the tracklist. There's something vaguely insulting about the whole release and I'm really not regretting not buying it now. In a couple of days stuff like WIBNTLA will just be up on youtube.

See, I still can't agree with this (while respecting your right to hold that opinion, of course). We're all seasoned followers of the Wilson-Love circus, so OF COURSE we've got TSS and we're also buying MiC. But imagine you were a Wilson noob, or, rather, just a little bit MORE than a noob... someone who'd bought mebbe Pet Sounds and a hits comp, maybe a couple of albums, and wanted to know more.

MiC will be the 'gateway' for people like this. And in that case, you sure as hell want a few versions of H&V on there, and you sure as hell want the SMiLE vocals montage on there. Because that stuff is some of the best stuff the Beach Boys did, it's innovative and cool and totally NOT the 'fun in the sun' stuff that people laziliy pigeonhole them with, and if they're anything like me, it will hook people in like I don't know what, and they'll probably buy TSS at some stage soon after.

This is sort of what happened to me, back in 1995. I bought (in this order) a hits comp, then Pet Sounds, then I wanted to know more about SMiLE, so I bought the 1990 Smiley Smile/Wild Honey twofer. And I was so hooked by that that I wanted as much of SMiLE as I could legally own. So I bought... the GV box.

(and shortly after that, I wanted as much of SMiLE as I could ILLegally own... but that's another story...!)

Imagine someone like me, then, at that similar stage, only transplanted to 2013. The modern equivalent releases for someone like that might be 50 Big Ones, the latest Pet Sounds remaster, the Japanese Smiley Smile remaster, and then MiC.

If I had had the 2013 catalogue available in 1995, I would have gone that route. And after hearing those H&V mixes and the montage, I would have gone straight out and bought the SMiLE Sessions box. I know it*. And then prolly the Pet Sounds Session set.

Eee, t'kids today, with their deluxe multi-disc yearbook boxsets and flip-top shops with a built-in light and surfboard... they don't kner ther BORN, ah tell thee!!!!



*Well... actually, I *wouldn't* have done that, because in 1995 I was waaaay too poor to just go out and do that. But I would have saved and saved for months until I could afford it, and THEN gone out and bought it.

[STE]

"Why Don't They Let Us Fall in Love" is surprisingly interesting and sounds nothing like the bootlegs.
"Da Doo Ron Ron" doesn't improve with the sound quality.
"You've Lost That Loving Feeling" oh yes!  But what's with the all the wet reverb?


 

[Matt Bielewicz]

Well don't get me wrong, it's a good song, great production, great performance. But it suffers from its own mythological status.
Some people go nuts for "Midnight's Another Day" and "Summer's Gone" too.

I still haven't heard WIBNTLA, but I wondered about that. I like Dennis's stuff from this period probably more overall than his later stuff, so I reckon I'll like lt, but there's just no way the poor song can live up to some of the hype there's been here about it, IMO.

I'm expecting good, maybe even very good, but not life-changing.

And I agree with John M's sobering post above; it's a box set, not the Holy Grail or even (sorry, 1966 Brian...) world peace. Time for a walk round the block and a tall glass of perspective, as Douglas Adams wrote once.

[Dunderhead]

I hope folks will maintain a sense of proportion.  We're very, very fortunate…

I'm sorry but this is just so over the top I can't help but laugh. Take the guilt trip somewhere else.

[The Shift]

I hope folks will maintain a sense of proportion.  We're very, very fortunate…

I'm sorry but this is just so over the top I can't help but laugh. Take the guilt trip somewhere else.

Maybe, but I get a bit down when the non-appearance of a song or two on Spotify gets referred to as a "day of disaster"…  I mean…