Summer in Paradise Recalled

[Smilin Ed H]

in a way albums you love and hate are tied much closer to the ones you have complete apathy for..which BB album is the one you listen to/think of the least??

The albums that annoy me in a way no other BB albums do are KTSA and MIU. I mean, things were disintegrating but guys were all around (kind of)! And LA, because there were tracks around that would've improved it, though with our luck we'd have been presented with more stuff in the manner of Shortenin' Bread or Sumahama. My bottom five would be (in no particular order): Looking Back with Love, SIP, Still Cruisin, Stars and Stripes and...  GIOMH or Youngblood (or Going Public).

[kwebb]

C'mon, Youngblood isn't THAT bad...

[IainLee]

I have a soft spot for SIP. Some of it isn't great but I've never quite understood the hatred it seems to generate.

How do I know which version I have? I'm in the UK but THINK I may have the US version. What are the differences and how do I tell?

[Cam Mott]

There he is! Get 'im!! (mob, torches)

[HeyJude]

If the “SIP” CD has an EMI logo, it’s the UK version. (I also believe the UK version may have come in a standard jewel case). Whereas, the US version doesn’t have an EMI logo and came in that weird fold-out, “eco” digipak packaging. That’s the easiest way to tell without looking at track times and listening.

[IainLee]

If the “SIP” CD has an EMI logo, it’s the UK version. (I also believe the UK version may have come in a standard jewel case). Whereas, the US version doesn’t have an EMI logo and came in that weird fold-out, “eco” digipak packaging. That’s the easiest way to tell without looking at track times and listening.

Ah, so mine is a US version then. How odd, I don't remember buying it as an import. So how different is the UK version then?

[ontor pertawst]

Would you have such a soft spot for Summer in Paradise if you knew it was directly responsible due to anomalies in time and space for Sly Stone's debilitating crack addiction? "Hot Fun in the Summertime" was so bad that George Clinton officially declared The Funk dead for a full fortnight before it was reconstituted using DNA found on James Brown's socks.

Iain, there's your reissue project. Convince Mike to put out a two-LP Summer in Paradise ultimate Masterpiece edition. You know you want to liner note that sh*t up, wax rhapsodic about it and use that as your pitch.

Here's a quote to open it from the Maharishi:

"I let people make remarks about me, but it doesn't touch me, all those remarks."

A few tender extracts from the epic"Why Do You Hate Mike Love" thread and how could people resist?

[Rocky Raccoon]

If the “SIP” CD has an EMI logo, it’s the UK version. (I also believe the UK version may have come in a standard jewel case). Whereas, the US version doesn’t have an EMI logo and came in that weird fold-out, “eco” digipak packaging. That’s the easiest way to tell without looking at track times and listening.

Ah, so mine is a US version then. How odd, I don't remember buying it as an import. So how different is the UK version then?

The title track is a complete re-recording and an improvement on the original.  The arrangement is different, it's slightly faster paced with a more substantial chorus.  I think it has more of a Beach Boys feel to it.  It features Roger McGuinn playing one of his signature 12-string guitar parts and singing one of the verses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUlPQokMjKk

It's very similar to the live version on Made in California which has Bruce Johnston singing the McGuinn verse.

[Mike's Beard]

If the “SIP” CD has an EMI logo, it’s the UK version. (I also believe the UK version may have come in a standard jewel case). Whereas, the US version doesn’t have an EMI logo and came in that weird fold-out, “eco” digipak packaging. That’s the easiest way to tell without looking at track times and listening.

Ah, so mine is a US version then. How odd, I don't remember buying it as an import. So how different is the UK version then?

The title track is a complete re-recording and an improvement on the original.  The arrangement is different, it's slightly faster paced with a more substantial chorus.  I think it has more of a Beach Boys feel to it.  It features Roger McGuinn playing one of his signature 12-string guitar parts and singing one of the verses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUlPQokMjKk

It's very similar to the live version on Made in California which has Bruce Johnston singing the McGuinn verse.

I always thought I had the UK edition but it turns out I have the Yank version. After a quick listen on youtube, I personally find the UK mixes to be inferior.

[urbanite]

Has Mike Love ever given his thoughts about SIP in an interview?

I was disappointed that a live version of Summer In Paradise, the song, is on Made In California, but Lahaina Aloha is not.

[Mujan, 8@$+@Rc| of a Blue Wizard]

Has Mike Love ever given his thoughts about SIP in an interview?

I was disappointed that a live version of Summer In Paradise, the song, is on Made In California, but Lahaina Aloha is not.

Not as far as I know. Not in over a decade at least. I think hes just as ashamed of it and willing to bury it as the others and the fans are.

[HeyJude]

Not trying to be a smartass, but finding the UK/US album differences isn’t a huge research chore:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_in_Paradise

[Toursiveu]

I always found SIP superior to the awful Still Cruisin' (I only like Kokomo and Still Cruisin' on that album!), more fun, even if it's mostly for bad reasons.
And you have to admit that the Summer of Love / Baywatch video has a certain hypnotic quality, with Mike at his most nasal and creepy, Brian angry as an extra in the background and Bruce grinning like an idiot. You can't just watch it once, you have to watch it over and over again, show it to your friends. It's so addictive! So bad it's good!

[TMinthePM]

Can anyone tell me who plays on this album? I know it came with a foldout blow-up of the cover art, and I think on the back of that the credits.

I'm wondering if it was the touring band?

[Bittersweet-Sanity]

Carl Wilson, Al Jardine (vocals, guitar); Bruce Johnston (vocals, keyboards); Mike Love (vocals).Additional personnel: John Stamos (vocals); Craig Fall (acoustic & electric guitars, mandolin, bass); Danny Kortchmar (acoustic & electric guitars); John Weston (pedal steel guitar); Van Dyke Parks (accordion, keyboards); Joel Peskin (saxophone); Keith Wechsler (keyboards, drums, programming) Terry Melcher (keyboards, background vocals); Rod Clark (bass); Sammy Merendino (drums); Sal Marullo (congas); Richard D. Titus (programming); Adrian Baker (background vocals)

[TMinthePM]

Who were there guys?

[TMinthePM]

Who were THESE guys?

Sorry. It's 6am in Nanjing and I'm on my first cup of coffee.

[Bean Bag]

I find this album compelling now again.  Thank you for the discussion!

It's always been cheesy - but a flower in a desert.  A lame little flower, and that's cool with me.

[Moon Dawg]

Love You "retarded bullshit" while SIP's a "damn good collection of tunes"? I think it's time for me to meditate.

  THE BEACH BOYS LOVE YOU plays like the music of the spheres next to the radioactive waste that is SUMMER IN PARADISE. The latter album remains the worst LP ever released by a major (or perhaps minor) rock band.

[Lee Marshall]

Yeah. The one sounds like an album by a working band, anchored around a handful of classics updated, the other like Elmer Fudd's greatest hits.

What, are you deaf?

Not possitive but I think this is the most hilarious thing I've ever read here.  Elmer Fudd's greatest hits INDEED!!!  That's IT.  The perfect 'review'.  [or at least the most honest one.]  Not terribly huge on SIP but I'll take it over Love You 365 1/4 days a year.

Surfer Joe - Surfaris
Remember Walkin' In the Sand - The Leader of the Pack gals.

[CenturyDeprived]

Love You "retarded bullshit" while SIP's a "damn good collection of tunes"? I think it's time for me to meditate.

  THE BEACH BOYS LOVE YOU plays like the music of the spheres next to the radioactive waste that is SUMMER IN PARADISE. The latter album remains the worst LP ever released by a major (or perhaps minor) rock band.

Never thought I'd be here defending the good parts of SIP, but Lahaina Aloha, Strange Things Happen, and Slow Summer Dancing all have their moments, and despite crappy production, aren't totally without their charms. I can also dig Hot Fun in the Summertime and when I'm feeling generous, I can take Still Surfin', Island Fever (total guilty pleasure) and the title track in small doses. Everything else is super, off-the-cliff abysmal in my opinion. It ain't great, but if you can acclimate to its production suck-titude and just focus on the better tracks, there are far bigger turds than this among the catalog of a great many famous bands, I'm sure.

It would have to be an album which has no redeeming value whatsoever on any song (Chinese Democracy comes to mind).

However, if you take JUST the other tracks from SIP (the ones I haven't mentioned), and if you released that as a BB's EP, I'd agree with you totally. That would be unlistenable.

Now as far as turds of this level coming from the same band that achieved as many unbelievably gorgeous musical moments of bliss as this band? That may be closer to a statement I can get behind. No other band, bar none, has as many moments of pure lard compared to many, many, many moments of perfection as this band. A strange, strange band this is.

[TMinthePM]

Guess I knew going into this that the knives would be drawn. Too bad, as I'm just musing, out loud and before the whole world, over the memory of a nice time and how the music conjures images.

Could just as easily meditate on slow dancing to Side Two of Today in 1965 and whispering I Love You into her ear as Please Let Me Wonder comes to a close.

There's nothing these guys did after Good Vibrations that can equal the classic outpouring that came before. Altho I'd vote Smiley thru In Concert the second best period on vinyl, the best live. Now that I think of it, I'm on the cover of In Concert, in the audience of course.

But 15BO-Love You? No way. I was just emerging from a long period away from rock in 76. I associate Johnny Hartman singing with John Coltrane in memory as the sound of that time for me. Whoa, Lush Life. Yeah, you wanna get laid? Drop the needle on to The Gentle Side of John Coltrane and watch how fast she drops her drawers. (Still works, by the way.) Anyway, news that a new Beach Boys album was out sent me to the bins, but what did I waste my $2.74 on? You guessed it. And the following was no better. Am I seriously supposed to romance a grown woman to the strains of "wub id de wumin...?" I don't think so.

It may not be the best rock album ever made, or even a particularly good one (altho, and oddly enough, I kind of associate it with Sticky Fingers but can't say why) but at least Summer in Paradise doesn't drag me into the depressing world of Brian Wilson's endless bummer.

[sockittome]

Oops!  Reading the title of this thread, I thought we were discussing something else!






Never mind! 

[NateRuvin]

IF SIP was intact, recalled, as we all thought it was being,

WOULD YOU GIVE YOUR COPY BACK?

I mean sure, the record is shitty compared to Pet Sounds (duh), but for us completists, would we hand our copies back?

[sockittome]

IF SIP was intact, recalled, as we all thought it was being,

WOULD YOU GIVE YOUR COPY BACK?

I mean sure, the record is shitty compared to Pet Sounds (duh), but for us completists, would we hand our copies back?

Sure, if it means that they will fix it (in other words remaster it, or remix, or whatever, which seems to be the main issue with that album).  When your car gets recalled, they make it right, yes?