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Author Topic: *Merged* Brian Wilson current album thread  (Read 564759 times)
Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again
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« Reply #1275 on: July 22, 2014, 01:26:01 AM »

It's funny how so many pages and pages of virtual ink have been spilled on this forum pointing out the huge difference between Brian's "high art" and Mike's uber commercially minded, clueless, populist efforts to keep his oar above water in today's "rat a tat tat" hit machine, flavor of the month universe! ...... And now we're here celebrating Brian collaborating with an extremely non-adventurous roll call of incredibly mainstream acts and extolling the virtues of Pharrell Williams and Rob Thomas! .... Not that I have a problem with mainstream music, but I do acknowledge that what's cutting edge, and ahead of the curve these days is far removed from the Grammys, or any of the artists we're lauding here (and this has been the case for many years) ..... Why do I mention this? Well, because Brian deserves to be ahead of the curve, not chasing it.... We can bag on Mike all we want, but he's had a major hit within the last 30 years, so maybe we should be praising him along with Daft Punk (whom I dig).

« Last Edit: July 22, 2014, 01:26:54 AM by Pinder Goes To Kokomo » Logged
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« Reply #1276 on: July 22, 2014, 01:53:07 AM »

It's funny how so many pages and pages of virtual ink have been spilled on this forum pointing out the huge difference between Brian's "high art" and Mike's uber commercially minded, clueless, populist efforts to keep his oar above water in today's "rat a tat tat" hit machine, flavor of the month universe! ...... And now we're here celebrating Brian collaborating with an extremely non-adventurous roll call of incredibly mainstream acts and extolling the virtues of Pharrell Williams and Rob Thomas! .... Not that I have a problem with mainstream music, but I do acknowledge that what's cutting edge, and ahead of the curve these days is far removed from the Grammys, or any of the artists we're lauding here (and this has been the case for many years) ..... Why do I mention this? Well, because Brian deserves to be ahead of the curve, not chasing it.... We can bag on Mike all we want, but he's had a major hit within the last 30 years, so maybe we should be praising him along with Daft Punk (whom I dig).



What are you talking about? Where has anyone "extolled the virtues" of Rob Thomas or Pharrell Williams? I certainly did not, unless you equate extolling the virtues of these artists with pointing out that they had massive hit records recording under another artist's album and headlining name, and that's all I did. This was after KittKat or whoever it was asked if such a collaboration album as Brian is making had been done where the marquee name doesn't sing leads on every track or something. And it had been done. To great success, and even less direct involvement from the artist like Santana or Daft Punk whose name is on the album than some are trying to charge Brian with in this case.

Nice try, again. You have no point to make, no counter to the points already made, no ground to stand on, so you make sh*t up that no one said then put words and meanings into other's words that aren't even there to get under people's skin.

Anyone else tired of this nonsense?
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Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again
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« Reply #1277 on: July 22, 2014, 01:58:43 AM »

It's funny how so many pages and pages of virtual ink have been spilled on this forum pointing out the huge difference between Brian's "high art" and Mike's uber commercially minded, clueless, populist efforts to keep his oar above water in today's "rat a tat tat" hit machine, flavor of the month universe! ...... And now we're here celebrating Brian collaborating with an extremely non-adventurous roll call of incredibly mainstream acts and extolling the virtues of Pharrell Williams and Rob Thomas! .... Not that I have a problem with mainstream music, but I do acknowledge that what's cutting edge, and ahead of the curve these days is far removed from the Grammys, or any of the artists we're lauding here (and this has been the case for many years) ..... Why do I mention this? Well, because Brian deserves to be ahead of the curve, not chasing it.... We can bag on Mike all we want, but he's had a major hit within the last 30 years, so maybe we should be praising him along with Daft Punk (whom I dig).




What are you talking about? Where has anyone "extolled the virtues" of Rob Thomas or Pharrell Williams? I certainly did not, unless you equate extolling the virtues of these artists with pointing out that they had massive hit records recording under another artist's album and headlining name, and that's all I did. This was after KittKat or whoever it was asked if such a collaboration album as Brian is making had been done where the marquee name doesn't sing leads on every track or something. And it had been done. To great success, and even less direct involvement from the artist like Santana or Daft Punk whose name is on the album than some are trying to charge Brian with in this case.

Nice try, again. You have no point to make, no counter to the points already made, no ground to stand on, so you make sh*t up that no one said then put words and meanings into other's words that aren't even there to get under people's skin.

Anyone else tired of this nonsense?

I did make a point. And it was a very obvious one. Why can't you disagree without insults and ultimatums?

Seriously! Calm down.

And give me some credit! When I agree with you, which is often, I don't hesitate in the least to say it!
« Last Edit: July 22, 2014, 02:04:20 AM by Pinder Goes To Kokomo » Logged
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« Reply #1278 on: July 22, 2014, 02:23:44 AM »

I'd love to sit down with Joe Thomas (yeah, like that's ever going to happen) and put a few pointed questions to him, in particular "exactly how long after Jeff Beck bailed on the collaboration did you start calling the likes of Deschanel and Del Ray ?"

Don't get me wrong, I'm as fascinated as any of you to hear the new album, but to say its had an... interesting genesis would be on a par with saying George Best was a fair footballer. That said, Sunflower was a distinctly compromised and mongreliod product, and that wasn't exactly shabby, was it ?  Grin

Knowing what Jeff Beck and his band's sets consisted of and sounded like on the tour, and considering no one in Beck's band really sings since Beck's guitar is the lead melody instrument, I'd say it was an interesting experiment for sure but ultimately apart from "Danny Boy" which was excellent...how far could they go with it? Would it consist of Brian's lead vocals trading off with Beck's guitar playing? Would Brian's songs which are heavy on melody, arrangement, and vocal harmonies have blended well with what is basically a modern fusion-jazz combo? Would a small backing band known mostly for playing instrumental jazz-fusion have worked in this context playing across a whole album of Brian Wilson's songs? At some point maybe all parties simply looked at each other and said "it just ain't working".

Perhaps chalk it up to looking better on the drawing board than it ever could work as a whole album project.
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« Reply #1279 on: July 22, 2014, 05:16:41 AM »

I'd love to sit down with Joe Thomas (yeah, like that's ever going to happen) and put a few pointed questions to him, in particular "exactly how long after Jeff Beck bailed on the collaboration did you start calling the likes of Deschanel and Del Ray ?"

Since the questions are "pointed", are we to assume that you don't approve of one musical collaboration for which you've heard 10 seconds of video compared to another musical collaboration you've heard non-original music from in a live setting on YouTube? Are we to infer from you're asking these "pointed" questions of Joe, rather than Brian, Melinda or anyone else involved in the project, because you're assuming that Joe alone made these decisions, without the full acquiescence of Brian and his team?

Isn't it possible that some of the decisions just arose and evolved naturally in the context of Brian's creative process? Why does every imagined interaction always have to have some negative implication for the people involved?

Here's how I imagine that things happened:

Maybe Brian decided he didn't like how things were jiving with Jeff musically. Maybe a few months later he said, "Boy, I love how Al and Blondie's vocals are sounding but I'd also love to have a female vocalist on this record like Taylor."

"Okay, Brian...Hmm...What do you think of us calling in Zooey Deschanel? She's a good singer, we know her and you liked what she's done last time you listened. Also, she doesn't live in Texas and has that tv show now...That might get us some more PR for the album. What do you think?"

"Zooey! That's right, her music reminds me of the "50s on 5". I like her. Great, let's do it. Call her in here."

-----

And just to give a bit of perspective of how the music PR thing works, here's how Jeff, who has a collaborative tour with ZZ Top on the cards, recently described his own upcoming album: “It’s almost like if you went to Turkey and came across a rabid bar band, but it’s more sophisticated.”

Because ya know, that makes sense.
« Last Edit: July 22, 2014, 05:22:17 AM by ToneBender631 » Logged
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« Reply #1280 on: July 22, 2014, 05:39:50 AM »

Why does every imagined interaction always have to have some negative implication for the people involved?

Why do you think that's so, meaning WHY people have negative implications?
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« Reply #1281 on: July 22, 2014, 06:24:29 AM »

Why does every imagined interaction always have to have some negative implication for the people involved?

Why do you think that's so, meaning WHY people have negative implications?

Some of it is based on precedent but I think there is more at play here that reflects on some of the posters more than anything. Let's not get any more personal than that. Deal?
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« Reply #1282 on: July 22, 2014, 07:09:50 AM »

I think Brian's handlers have made a mistake with this duet idea but we'll see. I imagine a large number of his fans won't buy this record.

Perhaps the marketeers take his fan base for granted.  In fact, it's the kind of record that could alienate both his fan base and the fan bases of the guest stars.

But let's hope for some amazing music, interesting chord progressions and stellar harmonies.
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« Reply #1283 on: July 22, 2014, 07:21:36 AM »

Perhaps this will get considered a stupid question, but -

wasn't there an album planned by BW and with Jeff Beck as a main collaborator? Or was that just a rumour flying around before and during their joint touring enterprise?
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« Reply #1284 on: July 22, 2014, 07:25:35 AM »

Appearintly it didn't work out
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« Reply #1285 on: July 22, 2014, 08:37:56 AM »

I'd love to sit down with Joe Thomas (yeah, like that's ever going to happen) and put a few pointed questions to him, in particular "exactly how long after Jeff Beck bailed on the collaboration did you start calling the likes of Deschanel and Del Ray ?"

Don't get me wrong, I'm as fascinated as any of you to hear the new album, but to say its had an... interesting genesis would be on a par with saying George Best was a fair footballer. That said, Sunflower was a distinctly compromised and mongreliod product, and that wasn't exactly shabby, was it ?  Grin

Knowing what Jeff Beck and his band's sets consisted of and sounded like on the tour, and considering no one in Beck's band really sings since Beck's guitar is the lead melody instrument, I'd say it was an interesting experiment for sure but ultimately apart from "Danny Boy" which was excellent...how far could they go with it? Would it consist of Brian's lead vocals trading off with Beck's guitar playing? Would Brian's songs which are heavy on melody, arrangement, and vocal harmonies have blended well with what is basically a modern fusion-jazz combo? Would a small backing band known mostly for playing instrumental jazz-fusion have worked in this context playing across a whole album of Brian Wilson's songs? At some point maybe all parties simply looked at each other and said "it just ain't working".

Perhaps chalk it up to looking better on the drawing board than it ever could work as a whole album project.

It would probably be easier to sit down with Joe Thomas than you think. I was working at a studio in Nashville a few years ago while he was working on a Faith Hill record. He would never remember me, but he was a very nice guy.  Very low key.He and Faith  were going over string arrangements and discussing harmonies and arrangements on her Christmas album. He is extremely knowledgeable musical guy who works with a lot of high quality artists down there. This is a very musical town, and not all just country music. Thomas is always down here working . I would not think that he would consider himself one of Brians handlers. He seems too busy to be involved with the inside day to day details of Brian's career. He's been down  here with Tom Petty , Stevie Nicks , Dave Matthews and many others. None of whom are listed as duet partners on this album. So maybe he wasn't involved at all in the decision process. Aside from being an extremely intimidating looking guy, he did not seem like someone who needs to force his unwanted opinion on anyone, in fact quite the opposite. He spent most of his lunch time playing hoops  in the parking lot with those of us that worked at the studio. So maybe as usual the nay sayers are just looking once again to blame someone other than Brian for anything they do not like. As for the negative tone, I couldn't agree more. Please stop. Im an  outsider and seldom commenter but  just the word handler seems like a slap to Brian. Im sorry that i even used it in my response. I'd reserve that word  for the folks at Sea World. If you really revere the guy, meaning Brian, could we maybe use a more suitable word for his wife and other advisors?
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« Reply #1286 on: July 22, 2014, 08:45:51 AM »

I think Brian's handlers have made a mistake with this duet idea but we'll see. I imagine a large number of his fans won't buy this record.

How many hardcore Brian Wilson fans do you think there are? Not enough to justify the investment of a major label in a project like this. And certainly not enough that them not buying this album will make the slightest bit of difference.

In its first week, Paul McCartney's latest album sold only 67,000 copies in North America. "Weird Al" is going to outsell him this week. And that's Paul McCartney. Albums from older artists -- even the biggest ones -- do not sell much these days. And Brian on his own isn't one of the biggest.

And to quote Mr. Lawlor, who are these handlers? Can you name them?

Perhaps this will get considered a stupid question, but -

wasn't there an album planned by BW and with Jeff Beck as a main collaborator? Or was that just a rumour flying around before and during their joint touring enterprise?

The original Rolling Stone report talked about Brian working on three batches of material -- new pop songs, stuff from the Life Suite, and some collaborations with Beck. It didn't say that there were firm plans for how any of the material would be used. A lot of fans jumped to the conclusion that there was going to be an album-length collaboration with Beck, but I don't think that was ever the plan. At most, he would have been on three or four tracks, with Al on a bunch more, etc.

Essentially all that has changed is that a couple of Beck-Wilson instrumentals have likely been scrapped, and some guest artists have lent vocals to some of the new pop songs. Al is still on it. Blondie is still on it. Dave is likely still on it. And Beck is still on it, too, only on one track.
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« Reply #1287 on: July 22, 2014, 09:07:48 AM »

I'd love to sit down with Joe Thomas (yeah, like that's ever going to happen) and put a few pointed questions to him, in particular "exactly how long after Jeff Beck bailed on the collaboration did you start calling the likes of Deschanel and Del Ray ?"

Since the questions are "pointed", are we to assume that you don't approve of one musical collaboration for which you've heard 10 seconds of video...

You've obviously not read my comments on this clip either here or on the Bloo, or you wouldn't be making any such woefully uninformed assumption. FYI, I've stated that you cannot possibly make any sensible assessment from such a minute sample. So I haven't.

As for questions being pointed, that's as in relevant, i.e., why does the live album sound so bloody awful ?
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« Reply #1288 on: July 22, 2014, 09:41:16 AM »

As for questions being pointed, that's as in relevant, i.e., why does the live album sound so bloody awful ?

There may be something you have not considered. And mind you this is just a somewhat educated guess. How about the live album sounds so bad because there was pitch correction already put on by the live  front of house sound mixer?  The audience could never tell because of the ambient noise in the stadium. And It would sound great coming through the live speakers.Its a much more likely scenario. And very typically done these days. If you look in  the live mixing booth many times they will have several channels of pitch correction  as outboard gear. Or these days maybe just a plug in. Then whomever was recording  the show would have to deal with that  sound as an output, since he or she is probably recording  the output of either the front of house board or the monitor console. That would at least to me answer many questions. Do really think that lets say Tom Petty would ever allow any producer to pitch correct him?  I also do not think that it is any producers wish to use any kind of pitch correction except for a specific sound aka Cher or some of the other artists mentioned. That certainly to me does not seem like the case. Its also very difficult to add pitch correction to live albums anyway. The amount of leakage in the open mics would register on the pitch correction device. so if there was a guitar bass or horn note on the open live mic it would totally confuse the tuning device. The more i write about this the more I am convinced that there was possibly pitch correction already on some of the Beach Boys before anyone mixed the live album.
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« Reply #1289 on: July 22, 2014, 09:46:21 AM »

There was pitch correction on Brian for a short while in the beginning of the tour, but nothing past that.
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« Reply #1290 on: July 22, 2014, 09:48:14 AM »

I'd love to sit down with Joe Thomas (yeah, like that's ever going to happen) and put a few pointed questions to him, in particular "exactly how long after Jeff Beck bailed on the collaboration did you start calling the likes of Deschanel and Del Ray ?"

Since the questions are "pointed", are we to assume that you don't approve of one musical collaboration for which you've heard 10 seconds of video...

You've obviously not read my comments on this clip either here or on the Bloo, or you wouldn't be making any such woefully uninformed assumption. FYI, I've stated that you cannot possibly make any sensible assessment from such a minute sample. So I haven't.

As for questions being pointed, that's as in relevant, i.e., why does the live album sound so bloody awful ?

I've read your comments but the "Can't judge a 9 second clip" statement you made doesn't negate the most recent statement which is drenched in judgement and indictment. Also, I'd like to have a go at the pedantic game. Relevant has nothing to do with "pointed".

Pointed, adjective: (of a remark or look) expressing criticism in a direct and unambiguous way.

So, in directing your hypothetical "pointed" (aka, critical) questions about Joe's decision (and we don't really know that it was his) to call in Zooey and Co., in what way have you not already assessed and judged the material we've only heard 9 seconds of?

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« Reply #1291 on: July 22, 2014, 09:50:43 AM »

Pitch correction has nothing to do zapping the energy out of the performances. Nor does it have anything to do with mixing out quite a bit of instrumentation, either.
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« Reply #1292 on: July 22, 2014, 09:53:47 AM »

As for questions being pointed, that's as in relevant, i.e., why does the live album sound so bloody awful ?

There may be something you have not considered. And mind you this is just a somewhat educated guess. How about the live album sounds so bad because there was pitch correction already put on by the live  front of house sound mixer?  The audience could never tell because of the ambient noise in the stadium. And It would sound great coming through the live speakers.Its a much more likely scenario. And very typically done these days. If you look in  the live mixing booth many times they will have several channels of pitch correction  as outboard gear. Or these days maybe just a plug in. Then whomever was recording  the show would have to deal with that  sound as an output, since he or she is probably recording  the output of either the front of house board or the monitor console. That would at least to me answer many questions. Do really think that lets say Tom Petty would ever allow any producer to pitch correct him?  I also do not think that it is any producers wish to use any kind of pitch correction except for a specific sound aka Cher or some of the other artists mentioned. That certainly to me does not seem like the case. Its also very difficult to add pitch correction to live albums anyway. The amount of leakage in the open mics would register on the pitch correction device. so if there was a guitar bass or horn note on the open live mic it would totally confuse the tuning device. The more i write about this the more I am convinced that there was possibly pitch correction already on some of the Beach Boys before anyone mixed the live album.

No professional sound engineer who is planning on releasing a live recording would "print" live pitch-corrected vocals. Post-production pitch correction would be fairly easy. While there would be some leakage, a good bit of gating, eq'ing and expanding would reduce the other signal enough that it shouldn't trigger anything in the auto-tuning. The issue is that on a few of the tracks (Don't Back Down being the worst offender), the engineer who set the auto-tune was a little sloppy on the retune time and this was compounded by Mike's singing style and the melodic intervals of the songs in question. Other than the occasional vocal tuning glitch, the actual mix of the album is quite good, balanced and aurally pleasing on any decent monitoring system.

With a bit of volume, there's plenty of energy in the performances. The live DVD on the other hand sounds bad because they used so little of the room ambience in the final mix, something which isn't lacking on the CDs. In fact they probably added a bit of ambience for uniformity given the amount of different venues the recordings were culled from.
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« Reply #1293 on: July 22, 2014, 10:23:31 AM »

I think Brian's handlers have made a mistake with this duet idea but we'll see. I imagine a large number of his fans won't buy this record.

How many hardcore Brian Wilson fans do you think there are? Not enough to justify the investment of a major label in a project like this. And certainly not enough that them not buying this album will make the slightest bit of difference.

In its first week, Paul McCartney's latest album sold only 67,000 copies in North America. "Weird Al" is going to outsell him this week. And that's Paul McCartney. Albums from older artists -- even the biggest ones -- do not sell much these days. And Brian on his own isn't one of the biggest.

And to quote Mr. Lawlor, who are these handlers? Can you name them?


Good points. I also don't care for the word "handlers" unless the folks using it here are content to use it across the board on every major musician working today, from McCartney to Mike Love, from Jeff Beck to Beck Hansen and beyond. If we're content to call an artist's team of managers, agents, publicity agents, personal assistants, travel agents, and anyone else who works for and with that artist a group of "handlers", then do it across the board. Just don't put it into a negative connotation when talking about Brian, because these musicians all have teams of "handlers" who deal with everything from scheduling interviews to writing press releases to making sure the buffet table has been set backstage.

The actual numbers on an album like McCartney's are worth noting. It's great that you posted this too - I tried to point some of this out too but in my long posts I'm afraid it got lost or ignored.

But the fact is, no matter what kind of generation-specific view we may apply to an artist like McCartney, or the Stones, or Brian, the hard fact is that it is 2014 and not whatever era we might think it is. These are artists with a huge legacy, instant recognition, high visibility, loyal fan bases and the like...

...but in terms of sales and popularity in the mainstream, it doesn't amount to much in terms of sales and moving product. I'll stand by my observation 100% that the chances of someone under 18 having a Stones or McCartney song on an iPod or playlist are slim compared to their playlists chock full of artists who are so-called "current".

For a reality check, go to YouTube, type in a few artists: Beatles, Beach Boys, Beyonce, Lana Del Ray, Eminem, Beiber...whoever. Just get a mix of old and new.

Then, get the songs which come up on the search. Go to YouTube's search filter, and group the search by view counts.

What you'll see will amaze you. You'll see artists with tens of millions of "hits", or page views, on YouTube. The legends including the Beach Boys...some of the songs barely make 100,000 views, if that. I think Hey Jude got into the tens of millions, but McCartney solo stuff? Not quite.

Yet Justin Beiber's videos are in the tens of millions.

Doesn't that say it all about the nature of how people buy or find their music in 2014, and doesn't it tell more about the people who are actually seeking out this music? Many people simply do not buy or download full albums, and a lot of music via the internet is based around individual songs, like the 45rpm singles of the 50's and 60's. One song, one download, pay a buck and a quarter, you're done. Or go to YouTube/Spotify/Pandora or wherever else, create a playlist, you're set.

The fact that it's Paul McCartney or Brian Wilson, as big of a legend and fan base as they have, does not alone mean they're currently in the "mainstream" of how people buy music today. The whole game is changing.

McCartney's sales prove that. But take note, even a current "star" in music like Robin Thicke had a recent album that literally collapsed with a dull thud and sold next to nothing when it dropped. Here are the numbers: Robin Thicke's Paula has bombed in both the U.S. and the U.K. It sold just 24K copies in its first week in the U.S., which allows it to enter the Billboard 200 at No. 9. It did much worse in Britain, where it sold just 530 copies (you read that right) and entered the chart at No. 200. Thicke's previous album, Blurred Lines, opened at No. 1 in both countries. It sold 177K copies in its first week in the U.S. and 25K copies in its first week in the U.K.

Lest we think the system of charts and all that is on the up-and-up, note that in the UK this turkey of an album sold 530 copies...and still somehow entered the chart at #200. I know local bands that sell more copies and downloads of their own releases than that, and Billboard/Soundscan doesn't even know they exist.

What does it all mean? I don't know... Grin   Maybe it means we're in new territory in terms of marketing and selling music.
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« Reply #1294 on: July 22, 2014, 10:43:48 AM »

I'd love to sit down with Joe Thomas (yeah, like that's ever going to happen) and put a few pointed questions to him, in particular "exactly how long after Jeff Beck bailed on the collaboration did you start calling the likes of Deschanel and Del Ray ?"

Since the questions are "pointed", are we to assume that you don't approve of one musical collaboration for which you've heard 10 seconds of video...

You've obviously not read my comments on this clip either here or on the Bloo, or you wouldn't be making any such woefully uninformed assumption. FYI, I've stated that you cannot possibly make any sensible assessment from such a minute sample. So I haven't.

As for questions being pointed, that's as in relevant, i.e., why does the live album sound so bloody awful ?

I've read your comments but the "Can't judge a 9 second clip" statement you made doesn't negate the most recent statement which is drenched in judgement and indictment. Also, I'd like to have a go at the pedantic game. Relevant has nothing to do with "pointed".

Pointed, adjective: (of a remark or look) expressing criticism in a direct and unambiguous way.

So, in directing your hypothetical "pointed" (aka, critical) questions about Joe's decision (and we don't really know that it was his) to call in Zooey and Co., in what way have you not already assessed and judged the material we've only heard 9 seconds of?



Looking at some recent posts, I think there is a fixation from one or a few folks on how the “plan” for the album has “changed” numerous times (setting aside that this may not be the case as such; as we don’t know what firm plans have ever been developed beyond continually recording). My interpretation of these comments also indicates an implication that the plan being “changed” numerous times is an indication of disorganization, or an indication of potential lack of quality, or is somehow an indictment on Joe Thomas and/or Brian and/or Brian’s people, and/or by extension the straw man “Brianista” fans.

A pointed question about the autotune on the live C50 album is perhaps warranted (how selective one is about pitching “pointed” questions to some folks versus softball questions to others is a separate issue). A pointed question about the plan for Brian’s album continually changing seems totally asinine, as it is rooted in a lack of knowledge of the situation, not to mention seems to have a grossly misplaced level of animosity or skepticism towards simply changing the plan as an album is recorded. I mean, let’s back up a bit here. Changing the plan fifty times *could* be an indication that the resulting album will be a shambles, but we don’t know. But why should the simple act of changing the plan multiple times (which, again, may not even quite be the case)  result in pointed questions? So what if they changed the plan multiple times? Why is that inherently a bad thing? Again, I think it’s a means to support some sort of indictment on Joe Thomas and/or Brian’s camp. They may well need severe criticism if the album warrants it. But that would have to come after we hear it; certainly it would have to come after we have some level of concrete info about the album and its creation. Pointed questions about a project and its evolution before it has even been finished, let alone released, reeks of contempt for those working on the project.  
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« Reply #1295 on: July 22, 2014, 10:48:55 AM »

As for questions being pointed, that's as in relevant, i.e., why does the live album sound so bloody awful ?

There may be something you have not considered. And mind you this is just a somewhat educated guess. How about the live album sounds so bad because there was pitch correction already put on by the live  front of house sound mixer?  The audience could never tell because of the ambient noise in the stadium. And It would sound great coming through the live speakers.Its a much more likely scenario. And very typically done these days. If you look in  the live mixing booth many times they will have several channels of pitch correction  as outboard gear. Or these days maybe just a plug in. Then whomever was recording  the show would have to deal with that  sound as an output, since he or she is probably recording  the output of either the front of house board or the monitor console. That would at least to me answer many questions. Do really think that lets say Tom Petty would ever allow any producer to pitch correct him?  I also do not think that it is any producers wish to use any kind of pitch correction except for a specific sound aka Cher or some of the other artists mentioned. That certainly to me does not seem like the case. Its also very difficult to add pitch correction to live albums anyway. The amount of leakage in the open mics would register on the pitch correction device. so if there was a guitar bass or horn note on the open live mic it would totally confuse the tuning device. The more i write about this the more I am convinced that there was possibly pitch correction already on some of the Beach Boys before anyone mixed the live album.

No professional sound engineer who is planning on releasing a live recording would "print" live pitch-corrected vocals. Post-production pitch correction would be fairly easy. While there would be some leakage, a good bit of gating, eq'ing and expanding would reduce the other signal enough that it shouldn't trigger anything in the auto-tuning. The issue is that on a few of the tracks (Don't Back Down being the worst offender), the engineer who set the auto-tune was a little sloppy on the retune time and this was compounded by Mike's singing style and the melodic intervals of the songs in question. Other than the occasional vocal tuning glitch, the actual mix of the album is quite good, balanced and aurally pleasing on any decent monitoring system.

With a bit of volume, there's plenty of energy in the performances. The live DVD on the other hand sounds bad because they used so little of the room ambience in the final mix, something which isn't lacking on the CDs. In fact they probably added a bit of ambience for uniformity given the amount of different venues the recordings were culled from.

No question, the autotune would be added in post-production. The live album was surely not sourced from a “live” house mix (and, anyway, by most accounts they stopped using autotune in the “live mix” after a few shows). A multi-track recording was made, and most alterations and effects would be added while mixing. Very little would be “printed” onto the recording. Some of the guitar effects pedals and things like that *may* have been recorded that way (even when they are using effects directly hooked to their instruments on stage like a guitar effects pedal, some bands will send out two signals, one unaltered and one with the effect, so both can be captured on the recording, an sometimes mixed together both in the live mix and on any eventual released mix).

I don’t have a particular problem with the overall sound/ambience or mix of the C50 live album. It’s pretty dry and a bit sterile, but I prefer dry live mixes to super-wet, echoey, reverb-laden mixes with a bunch of crowd noise. The main flaw by far is the overuse of autotune on several lead vocals.
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« Reply #1296 on: July 22, 2014, 10:55:43 AM »

I want to add, addressing no one or nothing in particular but just as something to consider, that nearly every album, film, episode of a TV series, whatever the case has been modified from the time the actual recording or filming stopped to the final product being heard or seen by the public. That's just the basic of the basic way these things happen. Edits, re-edits, re-writes, re-records, changes in sequencing, changes in number and length of tracks or scenes, the whole shebang.

I can grab one example or grab a million from the history of modern music and film where we can see and hear various outtakes, deleted scenes, entire characters or key songs which were written out of the script or edited off the tracklist well after they were already "mixed" and ready for release. Everything from Welles and the original director's cuts of "The Magnificent Ambersons" or "Touch Of Evil", to "Caddyshack" where the gopher that became the icon of the film wasn't even prominent in the script or the final cut of the film until the first cut tested so poorly and the gopher was added to basically "save" the film.

Or how about Townshend's Lifehouse project versus "Who's Next", or some of the original tracklists of classic or semi-classic albums that changed songs and sequencing several times before the actual release?

It's really not unusual, is it?  Smiley
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« Reply #1297 on: July 22, 2014, 11:22:12 AM »

If Joe Thomas is such a great guy, and if he's worthy of not being regarded with "contempt" in spite of what he did with the C50 live album, then why did Melinda Wilson once sue him? It wasn't just a suit about business matters either, it had charges about Joe trying to make a name for himself off the name of Brian Wilson. And Joe Thomas countersued Melinda Wilson, making some pretty nasty charges about her and making it way more personal than she did in her suit against him. Just wondering how so many fans of Brian don't find it weird that they're working together again and why it's not logical to have some residual mistrust of the man. That, and the fact that "Imagination" is such an Adult Contemporary style of album. Though lots of fans like that album, it's not everyone's cup of tea.
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« Reply #1298 on: July 22, 2014, 11:26:23 AM »

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« Reply #1299 on: July 22, 2014, 11:38:04 AM »

And just to give a bit of perspective of how the music PR thing works, here's how Jeff, who has a collaborative tour with ZZ Top on the cards, recently described his own upcoming album: “It’s almost like if you went to Turkey and came across a rabid bar band, but it’s more sophisticated.”

Because ya know, that makes sense.

The drugs must be flowin' pretty good for me at the mo, cos I really thought you were talking about Jeff of Foskett there Grin .

Now there's a joint tour I'd pay big money to see. Jeffrey Foskett fronting ZZ Top coming across as a rabid Turkish bar band, only more sophisticated  LOL .
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