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Author Topic: Paley Sessions Discussion Thread  (Read 73754 times)
SMiLE Brian
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« Reply #175 on: March 01, 2017, 06:27:05 AM »

I am surprised Mike isn't more bitter over the 2005 lawsuit and the aftermath of that. Statements to BW and Melinda like "your husband better write a big hit because he is going to owe me a big check" seems to indicate that Mike actually thought he had a chance to win that lawsuit.
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« Reply #176 on: March 01, 2017, 06:34:01 AM »


Granted sometimes unfinished studio sessions serve as “demos”, and sometimes demos are sweetened and released as masters, but I’m primarily referring to the intention of the artists when recording.


The definition of "Demo" is certainly murky. I would certainly weigh the stated artist intention heavily. Ultimately, the term means the recording is for "demonstration" purposes, and anything from a scratchy home demo to a full studio production can serve this purpose. Technically, if Paley and Brian were cutting some studio tracks that they intended for the Beach Boys to finish (and even planned to play a collection of the songs *to* the Beach Boys to get their opinion), I don't think it would be out of line to say those tracks certainly *served* as demos in some sense. So if, for instance, there is a Paley backing track and Brian/Paley vocals on a version of "You're Still a Mystery" that we haven't heard, I'd kind of call that a demo in light of the "finished" version having a Was backing track recorded later and all-new vocals recorded.

I totally buy that Paley felt he was cutting masters, not demos. I also buy that, as Paley said in an interview, the Beach Boys could have simply cut vocals on top of those tracks in a day or two and released that as an album. I'm not 100% sure what Brian thought, or if he thought about *that* aspect of it one way or another too much. (Ironically, during Brian's sessions with Gary Usher in 1986 they had the opposite problem; Brian thought they were cutting "masters" while Usher was very clear that those recordings were demos, and at one point mentions how much he's worried that Brian has the wrong impression about what they're recording).

In the case of the Paley tracks, the songs could have used so much additional work in some cases that I guess I'm not sure what to call them. Not that I really *need* to call them anything particularly. I've never gone around calling them "Demos" either; I don't think that's the most accurate term to use. I usually just call it the "Paley Sessions" or the "Paley tracks" or whatever. The only time I usually cite "Demo" is to point out the interesting factoid that Paley seemed offended that someone else would call them demos. I don't think someone listening to the recordings and assuming the recordings are high quality studio demos is a particularly outlandish assumption.

Maybe they fall somewhere in the realm of the "Lucky Old Sun" demos, where the tracks are recorded in some sense for "demonstration" purposes, but are also used as the basis for the finished product.
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« Reply #177 on: March 01, 2017, 06:42:35 AM »

I am surprised Mike isn't more bitter over the 2005 lawsuit and the aftermath of that. Statements to BW and Melinda like "your husband better write a big hit because he is going to owe me a big check" seems to indicate that Mike actually thought he had a chance to win that lawsuit.

I don't think it's a coincidence that in interviews, and in his book, Mike avoids talking about that lawsuit. It was an epic fail. Mike I would assume doesn't want to talk about that. On top of that, believe it or not, I think Mike truly feels as though he has an unfair reputation for being too litigious. If he can avoid talking about a lawsuit here and there, and then also try to shunt responsibility for lawsuits onto BRI here and there, that's much more convenient I would imagine.

He may be quite bitter about that one behind the scenes, but the songwriting lawsuit is much more tangible and easier to explain than the convoluted, borderline frivolous 2005 lawsuit.

I do really wish someone in the present day would play Mike clips from those 1995 interviews and ask him why he's MORE angry in 2017 than he was in 1995 about the lawsuit HE WON.
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« Reply #178 on: March 01, 2017, 06:52:52 AM »

I wonder if he is preparing another lawsuit under the 1976 copyright act and the research his lawyers did made him angry about the issue again.
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« Reply #179 on: March 01, 2017, 07:09:26 AM »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQGb379AntA&feature=youtu.be

Brian and Mike on Entertainment Tonight March 1995. Brian plays a lil bit of Dancing the Night Away on a piano
I remember seeing that, and even then, being a bit skeptical whether anything would come of their reunion or not.

One of the weird aspects of the "ET" video clip is that they're not really promoting anything specific. So why are they going to the media and making people think/hope a new BB album is in the offing? Who made that decision?

Don't get me wrong; a bit of good PR to let everyone know that the songwriting lawsuit is behind them would not be a bad thing (aahhh, remember 22 years ago when we thought a victorious Mike had finally gotten over the songwriting lawsuit?), so I guess that's what this mini-media blitz was about. That, and also possibly drumming up interest from the industry in getting a record deal?


Brian addressed this in the Mix interview, to some degree. I think part of it is on page 6 on one of the page excerpts. He said the Beach Boys were having a tough time getting a record deal, no one wanted them, and it read like he was hoping these sessions and getting back together as a group with new songs might generate interest with the labels. He was right - at that time, it was still the aftereffects of not following up Kokomo with anything close to a single that sold well, and the SIP mess where no big labels would touch them or that album.

But even in light of all that: Consider if there was this kind of press, "hey, we're back together and making new music!", look at what song they featured on Baywatch as the standalone music video as well as one of the main songs during the episode. "Summer In Paradise" and "Summer Of Love", which even at that time were 2-3 year old failures that no one touched when they originally came out.

I think this interview was an attempt to generate interest by amplifying the fact Brian and the band were back making new music together, classic showbiz PR methods, but unfortunately the Jekyll And Hyde nature of the band at this time stepped in again.
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« Reply #180 on: March 01, 2017, 09:28:27 AM »

That interview makes me sad that it all just fizzled.  Don't forget this event in 1995 with BW and Don Was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loHn4Be6cuQ&ab_channel=UltimateBeachBoysVideoCollection
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« Reply #181 on: March 01, 2017, 09:52:04 AM »



Brian addressed this in the Mix interview, to some degree. I think part of it is on page 6 on one of the page excerpts. He said the Beach Boys were having a tough time getting a record deal, no one wanted them, and it read like he was hoping these sessions and getting back together as a group with new songs might generate interest with the labels. He was right - at that time, it was still the aftereffects of not following up Kokomo with anything close to a single that sold well, and the SIP mess where no big labels would touch them or that album.
 

Being as I wasn't really a fan (beyond being a casual fan) back then, I don't have much perspective on this issue... how soon after Kokomo was released did the Kokomo "backlash" happen? I mean, the song hit #1 (albeit briefly), so it must have been very popular with a lot of people. Still, I know it didn't get much critical respect even at the time it was on the charts.

But my question is more along the lines of: was it a sort of written off as a laughable fluke in the industry (unfairly or not) as early as '94/'95? Or was it more that the band released SIP and nothing much else of note following Kokomo? I tend to think that very few people even knew of SIP's existence.

I wonder if labels would have been *more* interested in the BBs in the mid '90s if SIP hadn't even been released at all.
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« Reply #182 on: March 01, 2017, 10:01:00 AM »


I do really wish someone in the present day would play Mike clips from those 1995 interviews and ask him why he's MORE angry in 2017 than he was in 1995 about the lawsuit HE WON.

I think the answer to this question is likely that Mike probably thought in the mid '90s (and for 1st few years after winning the lawsuit) that he'd not only have gained monetary compensation - which of course was only fair and just for the songs he contributed to - but he probably also VERY much thought/hoped/expected to gain more industry/public respect and adulation as a result of people now being aware that Mike had won the lawsuit, and was the long-hidden "secret ingredient" to songwriting with regards to the success of the band.

I think that was far more important to him than any monetary compensation, as proven by the fact that he was willing to settle for pennies on the dollar.

These were the pre-internet days (or the infancy of the internet, basically the same thing), so I think there were less ways for Mike to tabulate how much he was in fact able to (or not able to) gain that respect he wanted. Now, 20+ years into the future from that point, Mike can clearly see that - despite many people being more generally aware of his contributions, and despite a movement towards a positive reevaluation of the legitimately solid aspects of those contributions - that he still hasn't gotten the respect he wanted.

And that's probably due to lots and lots of factors, including Mike having unrealistically high expectations, fans being put off to overtly praising someone who seems to put down his bandmates, all mixed together with plenty of legitimately unfair piling-on against him (and people stupidly dismissing the actually great things he contributed). Mike is his own worst enemy, and does seem to have the slightest clue about understanding how he generates bad PR for himself in a very self-defeating way. The rule he forgets is that no artist should ever make it overtly known that they "want" or "expect" a certain level of respect. That needs to be hidden WELL. Unfair or not, life doesn't work that way for any artist, and he does not get this. At all.

It's really very sad, but I think that's exactly why he's seemingly MORE pissed angry in 2017.
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« Reply #183 on: March 01, 2017, 10:09:51 AM »



Brian addressed this in the Mix interview, to some degree. I think part of it is on page 6 on one of the page excerpts. He said the Beach Boys were having a tough time getting a record deal, no one wanted them, and it read like he was hoping these sessions and getting back together as a group with new songs might generate interest with the labels. He was right - at that time, it was still the aftereffects of not following up Kokomo with anything close to a single that sold well, and the SIP mess where no big labels would touch them or that album.
 

Being as I wasn't really a fan (beyond being a casual fan) back then, I don't have much perspective on this issue... how soon after Kokomo was released did the Kokomo "backlash" happen? I mean, the song hit #1 (albeit briefly), so it must have been very popular with a lot of people. Still, I know it didn't get much critical respect even at the time it was on the charts.

But my question is more along the lines of: was it a sort of written off as a laughable fluke in the industry (unfairly or not) as early as '94/'95? Or was it more that the band released SIP and nothing much else of note following Kokomo? I tend to think that very few people even knew of SIP's existence.

I wonder if labels would have been *more* interested in the BBs in the mid '90s if SIP hadn't even been released at all.

I guess I was thinking of what happened specifically with the band and Capitol, but I'm thinking the word may have gotten around the industry as well because the labels are all tuned into the same info and scuttlebutt, affecting who they sign or don't sign. With Capitol, they were once again hot on the Beach Boys as a viable commercial band after Kokomo and MTV and the like, that LA Times article from 1989 quotes a Capitol exec talking with high hopes for the band to follow up Kokomo with something else. But as we know it never happened, Capitol put out Still Cruisin which after sales were driven by Kokomo being on a Capitol album along with other stalwart hits that casual fans would want to buy having heard them recently in various films, there was no new meat on that bone.

I think the aftereffects I had in mind were the fact that Capitol dropped them and wouldn't touch the SIP album, and that kind of thing does linger in the industry when an artist fails to deliver and loses a deal or contract. In this case, the Beach Boys were Capitol in the 60's, it was their home label, and despite Capitol being on board the band couldn't deliver the goods for them even after a #1 single.

That was something Brian mentioned in that interview, how the band couldn't get any interest from the labels, and I think at least for Brian there was some hope for the new batch of songs he was writing for them and working on them with various members involved for the first time in years. I think there was some hope that these songs would be an elixir for the band's lack of interest from record companies who may have written them off as just the touring band who played the hits with the dancers and all those trappings.

There is also no indication I could find where Mike was anything less than overly enthusiastic about Summer In Paradise, find any interview from that era from the Howard Stern show to anywhere else where Mike mentioned the album and he legitimately believed it was a great album that was going to be the follow up to Kokomo commercially.
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« Reply #184 on: March 01, 2017, 10:42:11 AM »


There is also no indication I could find where Mike was anything less than overly enthusiastic about Summer In Paradise, find any interview from that era from the Howard Stern show to anywhere else where Mike mentioned the album and he legitimately believed it was a great album that was going to be the follow up to Kokomo commercially.

It's weird; I wonder how much of that was him puffing himself up, and puffing the project up that he may have known was half-assed. We all know how he just COMPLETELY avoids talking about that album now, and how it's history-rewriting-style literally omitted from official BB discographies, etc.

Yet this stands in contrast to Mike surprisingly (and awesomely) self-deprecatingly joking about how he doesn't want people to know about the turd that is/was Looking Back With Love, when Brian brought up the album on the campfire sessions TV show thingie in 1989.

Maybe Mike was more willing to joke about a misstep back then than he is now, but I do wonder how legitimately great an album he ever thought SIP was then, regardless of what he publicly said.
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« Reply #185 on: March 01, 2017, 10:59:16 AM »


There is also no indication I could find where Mike was anything less than overly enthusiastic about Summer In Paradise, find any interview from that era from the Howard Stern show to anywhere else where Mike mentioned the album and he legitimately believed it was a great album that was going to be the follow up to Kokomo commercially.

It's weird; I wonder how much of that was him puffing himself up, and puffing the project up that he may have known was half-assed. We all know how he just COMPLETELY avoids talking about that album now, and how it's history-rewriting-style literally omitted from official BB discographies, etc.

Yet this stands in contrast to Mike surprisingly (and awesomely) self-deprecatingly joking about how he doesn't want people to know about the turd that is/was Looking Back With Love, when Brian brought up the album on the campfire sessions TV show thingie in 1989.

Maybe Mike was more willing to joke about a misstep back then than he is now, but I do wonder how legitimately great an album he ever thought SIP was then, regardless of what he publicly said.

It can be hard to separate the salesmanship and ballyhoo about promoting a new project and the actual connection to the project itself, emotionally, creatively and otherwise. But in this case I think Mike truly believed this album was going to be a smash hit that would put the Beach Boys over the top. Was some or even most of that because he was essentially the skipper of the SS Summer In Paradise? I think so. It was more or less his vision on that album for new Beach Boys music. Contemporary sounds, rap, nods to the fun in the sun and the surfin days (hell, he even updated Surfin for the album), the Stamos involvement, the environmental themes, the same hitmaking team basically - without Brian - who did Kokomo...add it all up and it was Mike's project.

Look at how in the absence of any sales success or public demand the title track and Summer Of Love got tabbed as the videos and songs to represent the band on Baywatch, which was a gigantic marketing tool. You also had Mike and QVC offering the album as a freebie bonus for QVC shoppers who bought the GV box set.

It didn't seem to register that no matter how much Mike was invested in the album, it was not what fans wanted to hear from the band and there was just no demand for it. I think for a long time before whitewashing it entirely from the history of the band Mike thought the album or one of the "singles" would catch on if only people would hear it. It never happened.

Then compare that to Mike's postgame commentary on the TWGMTR album, which actually did chart Top 5 and which got people listening to new Beach Boys songs again. He all but dismissed it, and later interviews still have him carrying a grudge that he wasn't more involved in it. Yet it was successful, Mike was Executive Producer on the credits, and it kind of did what SIP failed to do, that is get new Beach Boys music in the public ear to the tune of them buying the album.
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« Reply #186 on: March 01, 2017, 11:39:29 AM »

It also appears as though the SIP album was the last time Mike put much of any personal push into the band (or himself solo) doing a studio album.

I think he felt the touring band was his thing, he already expressed himself that he found the studio work somewhat tedious (even when they were having hits), and you mix that with, by the mid-90s, almost 20 years of failure on the charts/sales front with new material, other than "Kokomo", and a touring schedule that probably didn't make it easy to block out six months to do an album, and it's not surprising the band was so stagnant studio-wise.

Mike didn't appear to be trying to knock down the record labels' doors with Brian trying to sell the Paley stuff in 1995, and wasn't coming up with any alternative as far as new material.  

After 1997, Mike literally lacked the legal ability to do a "Beach Boys" album, so he obviously had even less motivation at that point, because it would have entailed putting the whole band back together (which would almost surely lead to them butting in on the touring side of things).

Look back to what Mike's ideas were for C50. He didn't propose a new album of new material and a 73-date world tour. He proposed doing *two shows*, perhaps for PBS or something. To the degree he showed any interest in recording, the only thing he may have pushed for at some point was an album of oldies covers.

So when we're going back to stuff like the Paley/Was material, I think one of the many roadblocks is that nobody other than Brian and Andy Paley and Don Was seemed to have any strong desire to do an album (Bruce pushed for O'Hagan, but beyond picking the guy and delivering him to the band to talk to them, I'm not sure what Bruce was personally adding to the proceedings). Look at what came after. Al took another 15 years to finally release a solo album (a pretty good one, but one with several cobbled old recordings, numerous cover versions), Mike recorded easily over an album's worth of material in the 2000s and didn't put something out (I think he probably will get something out eventually, but we're at a 36-year gap since the last solo album), Bruce had/has nothing going on and was barely involved in live shows or group studio work by the 90s, and Carl spent most of the 90s apparently *very slowly* putting 1/3 of an album forward for the "Beckley/Lamm/Wilson" album.

Meanwhile, Brian released two albums in 1995, had enough material done with Paley around that same time to probably make a solo *and* Beach Boys album (essentially, marketing schedules aside, Brian *could have* released FOUR albums in 1995 given the right circumstances), had another album out by 1998, and released a myriad of albums (of varying quality, no question) for the next 20 years.
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« Reply #187 on: March 01, 2017, 11:52:20 AM »

Look at how in the absence of any sales success or public demand the title track and Summer Of Love got tabbed as the videos and songs to represent the band on Baywatch, which was a gigantic marketing tool. You also had Mike and QVC offering the album as a freebie bonus for QVC shoppers who bought the GV box set.

It didn't seem to register that no matter how much Mike was invested in the album, it was not what fans wanted to hear from the band and there was just no demand for it. I think for a long time before whitewashing it entirely from the history of the band Mike thought the album or one of the "singles" would catch on if only people would hear it. It never happened.

Also worth noting when it comes to SIP is that "Forever" was promoted heavily via airing at the end of the 1992 season of "Full House", only about 2 1/2 months before the SIP album came out, and only 1 or 1/2 months before the first single from SIP was released.

For the 1992 season, "Full House" was the #7 show on TV. That's huge, especially for 1992. They had the BBs and a song off of SIP *heavily* featured in the two-part season finale of that season (the finales are certainly among the highest rated of each season), and that couldn't even get the SIP album in the *TOP 200* albums for a single week. 
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« Reply #188 on: March 01, 2017, 11:58:41 AM »

*insert filleplage rant here*
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« Reply #189 on: March 01, 2017, 12:04:07 PM »

 Lips Sealed
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« Reply #190 on: March 01, 2017, 12:06:37 PM »

Yeah but the thread won't be derailed to all hell at least. But the 1990s BBs are an odd duck for sure. BW's band from the 1960s vs. Mike's slick touring machine mad off the success of Kokomo.
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« Reply #191 on: March 01, 2017, 02:21:00 PM »

Look at how in the absence of any sales success or public demand the title track and Summer Of Love got tabbed as the videos and songs to represent the band on Baywatch, which was a gigantic marketing tool. You also had Mike and QVC offering the album as a freebie bonus for QVC shoppers who bought the GV box set.

It didn't seem to register that no matter how much Mike was invested in the album, it was not what fans wanted to hear from the band and there was just no demand for it. I think for a long time before whitewashing it entirely from the history of the band Mike thought the album or one of the "singles" would catch on if only people would hear it. It never happened.

Also worth noting when it comes to SIP is that "Forever" was promoted heavily via airing at the end of the 1992 season of "Full House", only about 2 1/2 months before the SIP album came out, and only 1 or 1/2 months before the first single from SIP was released.

For the 1992 season, "Full House" was the #7 show on TV. That's huge, especially for 1992. They had the BBs and a song off of SIP *heavily* featured in the two-part season finale of that season (the finales are certainly among the highest rated of each season), and that couldn't even get the SIP album in the *TOP 200* albums for a single week. 

Here's a random question... does anyone think that the album SIP, and the single Forever '92 would have had an iota more success if Brian had been a part of it? Assuming that it sounded roughly the same and that Brian was just utilized as a harmony vocalist.
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« Reply #192 on: March 01, 2017, 02:24:02 PM »

Probably not ... though with BBs fans, you never know. Suddenly we might have a cult of SIP.
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« Reply #193 on: March 01, 2017, 02:29:15 PM »

Look at how in the absence of any sales success or public demand the title track and Summer Of Love got tabbed as the videos and songs to represent the band on Baywatch, which was a gigantic marketing tool. You also had Mike and QVC offering the album as a freebie bonus for QVC shoppers who bought the GV box set.

It didn't seem to register that no matter how much Mike was invested in the album, it was not what fans wanted to hear from the band and there was just no demand for it. I think for a long time before whitewashing it entirely from the history of the band Mike thought the album or one of the "singles" would catch on if only people would hear it. It never happened.

Also worth noting when it comes to SIP is that "Forever" was promoted heavily via airing at the end of the 1992 season of "Full House", only about 2 1/2 months before the SIP album came out, and only 1 or 1/2 months before the first single from SIP was released.

For the 1992 season, "Full House" was the #7 show on TV. That's huge, especially for 1992. They had the BBs and a song off of SIP *heavily* featured in the two-part season finale of that season (the finales are certainly among the highest rated of each season), and that couldn't even get the SIP album in the *TOP 200* albums for a single week. 

Here's a random question... does anyone think that the album SIP, and the single Forever '92 would have had an iota more success if Brian had been a part of it? Assuming that it sounded roughly the same and that Brian was just utilized as a harmony vocalist.

In this case, "a lot more" success is relative. It might have broken the 1000 mark, but no, I can't picture it doing too well.
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« Reply #194 on: March 01, 2017, 11:53:51 PM »



Brian addressed this in the Mix interview, to some degree. I think part of it is on page 6 on one of the page excerpts. He said the Beach Boys were having a tough time getting a record deal, no one wanted them, and it read like he was hoping these sessions and getting back together as a group with new songs might generate interest with the labels. He was right - at that time, it was still the aftereffects of not following up Kokomo with anything close to a single that sold well, and the SIP mess where no big labels would touch them or that album.
 

Being as I wasn't really a fan (beyond being a casual fan) back then, I don't have much perspective on this issue... how soon after Kokomo was released did the Kokomo "backlash" happen? I mean, the song hit #1 (albeit briefly), so it must have been very popular with a lot of people. Still, I know it didn't get much critical respect even at the time it was on the charts.

But my question is more along the lines of: was it a sort of written off as a laughable fluke in the industry (unfairly or not) as early as '94/'95? Or was it more that the band released SIP and nothing much else of note following Kokomo? I tend to think that very few people even knew of SIP's existence.

I wonder if labels would have been *more* interested in the BBs in the mid '90s if SIP hadn't even been released at all.

I guess I was thinking of what happened specifically with the band and Capitol, but I'm thinking the word may have gotten around the industry as well because the labels are all tuned into the same info and scuttlebutt, affecting who they sign or don't sign. With Capitol, they were once again hot on the Beach Boys as a viable commercial band after Kokomo and MTV and the like, that LA Times article from 1989 quotes a Capitol exec talking with high hopes for the band to follow up Kokomo with something else. But as we know it never happened, Capitol put out Still Cruisin which after sales were driven by Kokomo being on a Capitol album along with other stalwart hits that casual fans would want to buy having heard them recently in various films, there was no new meat on that bone.

I think the aftereffects I had in mind were the fact that Capitol dropped them and wouldn't touch the SIP album, and that kind of thing does linger in the industry when an artist fails to deliver and loses a deal or contract. In this case, the Beach Boys were Capitol in the 60's, it was their home label, and despite Capitol being on board the band couldn't deliver the goods for them even after a #1 single.

That was something Brian mentioned in that interview, how the band couldn't get any interest from the labels, and I think at least for Brian there was some hope for the new batch of songs he was writing for them and working on them with various members involved for the first time in years. I think there was some hope that these songs would be an elixir for the band's lack of interest from record companies who may have written them off as just the touring band who played the hits with the dancers and all those trappings.

There is also no indication I could find where Mike was anything less than overly enthusiastic about Summer In Paradise, find any interview from that era from the Howard Stern show to anywhere else where Mike mentioned the album and he legitimately believed it was a great album that was going to be the follow up to Kokomo commercially.
The problem was, that followup came 4 years too late. If SIP had come out within months of Kokomo's success, it would have sold a lot better (and no, I am not a fan of the album). If nothing else, people that became friends thru Kokomo's success, and  the continued airplay of the old hits, might have picked up a new BB's album out of curiosity. But by the time SIP came out, music had completely changed. The lite pop of the Cocktail/Kokomo era had been replaced by grunge! Try to imagine Mike and the boys walking onstage in ripped jeans, flannel shirts, with guitars turned up to 11 screaming about angst on the beach! Of course, the alternative (no pun intended) was to go the unplugged route, which they did briefly in '93. IJWMFTT has kind of an unplugged vibe about it. Or they could do what many other older rockers did, go country. Yep, did that, S&S didn't sell, either. And Joe Thomas' efforts to turn BW into an A/C artist didn't set the charts on fire, either. At some point you gotta stop trying to follow the fads, and just make the music you want to make. And that's the problem for Mike - he is always about being commercial.
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« Reply #195 on: March 02, 2017, 05:34:44 AM »

I don't know if the lite pop was replaced by grunge. Were they sharing the same audience? I've always felt grunge more replaced pop metal: thosewere the listeners, those were the bands suddenly cutting hair, growing goatees, scrubbing off makeup and pretending to be authentic. I'm not sure any artists or fans in a Kokomo vein would've been affected.
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« Reply #196 on: March 02, 2017, 06:00:28 AM »

Cap, you aren't authentic? Wink
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« Reply #197 on: March 02, 2017, 06:28:08 AM »

I wonder if he is preparing another lawsuit under the 1976 copyright act and the research his lawyers did made him angry about the issue again.

myKe luHv once again looking for another shot to show the world that he is the most f***ed over man on the planet.
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« Reply #198 on: March 02, 2017, 07:37:24 AM »

Cap, you aren't authentic? Wink

Read his signature, SB. He's authentic. Afro
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« Reply #199 on: March 02, 2017, 09:39:21 AM »

With some of Mike's own songwriting projects that have leaked out via boots like "Baker's Dozen" and others, we can look back and hear pretty much where his mind was at when it came to making new songs for either the Beach Boys or whatever solo work he had in mind. The majority of them - how can I say this diplomatically - are to my ears just not that good, and if it were aiming right at a commercial effort, they're not commercial either. In the early 90's, say the time between Kokomo breaking out as a hit and Summer In Paradise, listen to what Mike was recording and demo'ing with Baker and others. It's all there on those recordings, everything from the themes of summer and sun and fun, the wordplay on his name using "love" at key points in the lyrics, the vapid if not horrid synth and drum machine backing tracks, the seeming need to recreate the vocal stacks Brian had with 3 tracks in 1964 done digitally with someone filling in where Mike and Bruce's ranges didn't go...

And some of the songs that did come out: Island Fever is no doubt Kokomo part 2, an attempt several years later to rewrite Kokomo with the same backing track feel more or less, same themes...maybe a few years later than Capitol actually wanted such a follow-up to Kokomo when they inked that deal which produced Still Cruisin'.

Speaking of Still Cruisin, How about Somewhere Near Japan? Some fans enjoy it, there was a songwriters roundtable where Mike and Bruce talk highly of that song and how Capitol focused on a Duran Duran release or something which stiffed the release in some ways. Yet what is the song under all the postmortems? It's another Papa John Phillips song, with the same team of songwriting and production plastic surgeons who came in to give it a facelift and make it more of a hook-filled tune.

Strip it down to the John Phillips original recording and concept, and it was a song about his daughter McKenzie lost on a drug binge trying to score dope. Apparently the title refers to an answer she gave on the phone.

So is that "hit making" material to run with to follow up Kokomo's success? Is that where some thought the Beach Boys should be going?

Put all of that together, listen to the results from Baker's Dozen to SIP to wherever else Mike's efforts were going at this time, and then compare that to what was happening with the Was/Paley sessions.

I guess my issue is still for all of the various doubts and shuffling of feet regarding "new material" surrounding the 94-95-96 period that eventually led to a country tribute album of covers, look at where the band was being skippered in terms of new material and releasing new music in the years after Kokomo became a hit.
« Last Edit: March 02, 2017, 09:40:27 AM by guitarfool2002 » Logged

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