Hodgepodge

[GhostyTMRS]

20/20 is up there with my top 5 favorite Beach Boys albums of all time (which would include Pet Sounds, Sunflower, BB Today and Summer Days..). When I first heard it way back when, I had no idea that "Our Prayer" and "Cabinessence" had their genesis in SMiLE so my feeling weren't tainted by anything that might have been. I just assumed they were more strong contributions from Brian like "I Went To Sleep" and "Time To Get Alone". I have no issues with anything on the album, not even Dennis' extracurricular activities on the fade of AIWTD or the dreaded NLNTL.
 I suppose you could improve on it a little, at least cosmetically, by substituting the MIC stereo mix of "Do It Again" and the stereo single mix of "Cotton Fields" (and I have and it sounds great!). Had the group managed to cobble together an acceptable version of "Soulful Old Man Sunshine" and opened the album with that instead of "Do It Again", this would have knocked a lot of people's socks off.

I'm surprised to see all this discussion about OMR. I'm fine with Ol' Man River as a bonus track on a CD. It's always struck me as one of Brian's less successful vocal arrangements of an old chestnut compared to something like "The Lord's Prayer" and it's never been a favorite song by anybody outside of Paul Robeson or Stan Freberg's parody (I know Sinatra's version is considered a classic and nobody's a bigger Frank-phile than me but I can't get the nauseating image of Frank descending from the clouds like an angel in the film "Till The Clouds Roll By" when I hear his version. Talk about a wacky context!) Maybe in an alternate universe where SMiLE has been released and "Our Prayer" and "Cabinessence" have already come out, it would've fit. As such, a great bonus cut but there were better things out there (like "Soulful..." and it's non-completion/release which is one of the most stupid decisions the group ever made) 

[phirnis]

When TLOS came out the various renditions of the title track reminded me a lot of OMR somehow. Same goes for Plenty of Nothing from the Gershwin album. I've always loved OMR and in the context of these newer recordings it suddenly made even more sense than it had before. I think Brian was probably up to something very specific with OMR but somehow failed to convince the other guys. Too bad!

[JK]

Listening to 20/20 yesterday (and, I must admit, enjoying its hodgepodginess) it struck me that what all recent BW/BB recordings lack is quirkiness, in its best sense. It's certainly there on 20/20----string lines disappearing into the stratosphere, vocals that leap out at you, a guitar solo that leaps out at you, Dennis's muffled vocals on "Cabinessence"... I miss that in the later stuff.     

[kookadams]

Hodgepodge or not 20/20 was a solid album. Post-holland BBs was ALL hodgepodge, MIU-light album-KTSA and 15big ones were all very poor and other than to us hardcore BBs zealots those albums were weak collections and had no flow whatsoever, 20/20 was/is a rockin album even if it was a collection and not proper lp.