Feel Flows box set

[William Bowe]

Look at the "standard" Top 200 album list this week.

Indeed - The Beach Boys Christmas Album has spent the last four weeks bouncing around the lower end of the chart, being at #115 this week. I guess what you're saying here is that this is mostly down to Little Saint Nick being on rotation in supermarkets and such like.

As for McCartney III -- as someone who has only ever bothered to listen to one other McCartney album since Tug of War (that being Flaming Pie, which I only ever thought had one good song), I can say I'm very impressed with it.

[William Bowe]

Duplicate deleted

[Pretty Funky]

McCartney 3 can be purchased on cassette in 2020? Oh dear lord.
Sorry...respect for the guy has dropped a notch reading about the variants above.  

[c-man]

McCartney 3 can be purchased on cassette in 2020? Oh dear lord.
Sorry...respect for the guy has dropped a notch reading about the variants above.  

In case you aren't aware, cassettes are considered "hip" again amongst millennials (and maybe others who just like them). Hence, every Record Store Day for the past few years has seen someone of notoriety do a special "cassette-only" release.

[bsten]

Given how no form of release has happened for any live recordings made in 1970, am I right in understanding that as of 00:01 tonight, these recordings become public domain within the EU? Or does the fact the the original recordings have the Copyright extension, mean the live versions do as well?

Interesting question. And what about the FF stuff that was on Allmusic a while ago? BTW, could someone please explain how the snippets ended up on a site like Allmusic - and nowhere else?

And however interesting could someone please move the McCartney stuff - isn't this thread about FF? Thx...

[sloopjohnb72]

Given how no form of release has happened for any live recordings made in 1970, am I right in understanding that as of 00:01 tonight, these recordings become public domain within the EU? Or does the fact the the original recordings have the Copyright extension, mean the live versions do as well?

Interesting question. And what about the FF stuff that was on Allmusic a while ago? BTW, could someone please explain how the snippets ended up on a site like Allmusic - and nowhere else?

And however interesting could someone please move the McCartney stuff - isn't this thread about FF? Thx...

The answers to those two questions are probably related. Other bands such as The Rolling Stones have figured out ways to "release" material to preserve copyright without actually "releasing" it, and that's probably exactly what The Beach Boys have done here due to Feel Flows now coming in 2021... which doesn't bode well for the potential of future releases.

[B.E.]

And however interesting could someone please move the McCartney stuff - isn't this thread about FF? Thx...

Here's a fine landing spot: http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,24095.0.html

[thetojo]

Other bands such as The Rolling Stones have figured out ways to "release" material to preserve copyright without actually "releasing" it, and that's probably exactly what The Beach Boys have done here due to Feel Flows now coming in 2021... which doesn't bode well for the potential of future releases.

This begs the question, exactly what is the point of protecting copyright if there is no intention to ever release?

Is there a feeling that this unreleased stuff is more commercially viable say 60 or 65 years after it was recorded, as opposed to 50 years after?

[juggler]

McCartney 3 can be purchased on cassette in 2020? Oh dear lord.
Sorry...respect for the guy has dropped a notch reading about the variants above.  

In case you aren't aware, cassettes are considered "hip" again amongst millennials (and maybe others who just like them). Hence, every Record Store Day for the past few years has seen someone of notoriety do a special "cassette-only" release.

I was NOT aware.  eBay, here I come. 

[Awesoman]

I love Paul McCartney, and while I have mixed (at best) feelings about his last two studio albums, it also has to be said that McCartney put out an EMBARRASSING amount of variants of "McCartney III" trying to push it to #1. I'd feel this way even if it was the best album he had ever made. It would still be embarrassing and frankly unbecoming. It really is *that* ridiculous.

This wasn't even the normal case of putting out a few cover variants at Target stores or something. It was an obscene amount of variants, essentially trying to get a few thousand hardcore fans to buy not two or three, but 20+ variants of the album to goose the sales chart (since the streaming numbers aren't going to do it).

When there were delays on some of the vinyl pressings, they delayed *all* version of the album an extra week so that ALL of those vinyl variants could be counted in the first week sales numbers. They added copies of the album to everything they possibly could. The sheet music songbook? Sure, add the *actual album* to that too! They also nearly *GAVE AWAY* copies on Amazon, selling digital copies in the first week for $3.99.

There were at least *TEN* vinyl variants. There were around *ELEVEN* CD variants (*not* including every bundle variant), plus a cassette. So yes, probably 1,000 hardcore fans bought up to *22* copies (or more for some swag items) of the album to help push this album as high as it got.

Here is a (probably not complete) list of variants (and this is ONLY USA variants!):


LPs

Black Standard - 602435136592
Red Third Man Records PM Site - 602435321875 (same number as UK non-Third Man Records)
Coke Bottle Clear Spotify PM Site - 602435136608
Opaque Pink Newbury Comics - 602435384719
White Indie - 602435321783
Green Target - 602435321776
Opaque Blue Barnes & Noble - 602435321820
Opaque Orange Universal - 602435384689
Opaque Yellow Beatle Fan PM Site - 602435439655
Yellow with Black Dots Third Man Records - TME707

CDs

Standard - 602435136561
Green Target - 602435136578
Songbook - 602435445939
White Deluxe - 602435513195
Blue Deluxe - 602435513201
Red Deluxe - 602435513225
Yellow Deluxe - 602435513249
White Mini-Jacket - 602435481661
Blue Mini-Jacket - 602435481869
Red Mini-Jacket - 602435481739
Yellow Mini-Jacket - 602435481784
White with Dice – 602435481432
Blue with Dice - 602435481791
Red with Dice - 602435481678
Yellow with Dice - 602435481746
White with T-Shirt - 602435481456
Blue with T-Shirt - 602435481814
Red with T-Shirt - 602435481708
Yellow with T-Shirt - 602435481753
White with Hat - 602435481463
Blue with Hat - 602435481838
Red with Hat - 602435481715
Yellow with Hat - 602435481760
White with Mask - 602435481487
Blue with Mask - 602435481845
Red with Mask - 602435481722
Yellow with Mask - 602435481777

Cassette

Smoky Tint - 602435321738

And yes, McCartney's PR team did everything they could to try to change this from a #2 album to a #1 album in the headlines by obscuring which album chart they were talking about. Even milking his hardcore collector fans *that* hard, they couldn't get it to #1 on the actual main Billboard album chart.

It's all relative of course. It's still an achievement considering the market conditions for this type of artist, where they have to rely so heavily on old fashioned physical sales to make up for far less streaming. But I can't overstate how ridiculous it has been the last few weeks and months as McCartney's team churned out as many physical variants as possible. At one point, they added four bonus tracks after a bunch of variants had been pre-ordered. But get this: They put ONE bonus track on each of four variants, meaning you had to buy FOUR copies of the CD to get all four bonus tracks. I'm pretty sure someone crunching the numbers probably realized there are packaging "completists", but then also some hardcore fans who really only collect variants with different, you know, MUSICAL CONTENT, so they hatched the one bonus-per CD with different color variant plan for that demographic of fan.

It isn't uncommon for McCartney to release a number of variants of his albums.  For both New and Egypt Station he put out "deluxe" versions of these albums containing bonus tracks such as live versions of the music as well as several extra (and honestly forgettable) new tracks.  But yeah he went way overboard with this one.  Kind of fun I guess that you have a variety of flavors to choose from with this album but if you're a serious collector that has to own everything, this one is a real headache.  

As for the album itself, it's okay.  Perhaps the best song on here is the one that he wrote and recorded during the 1997 Flaming Pie sessions: "When Winter Comes".  Although it is a little jarring to hear just how much McCartney's voice has declined over the years when this track closes the album.

Going back to Feel Flows, although I am hopeful this one will sell well and get proper publicity and attention, it seems unlikely that box sets usually hit #1.  Although I'd be happy to be proven wrong.  

Look at the "standard" Top 200 album list this week.

As for McCartney III -- as someone who has only ever bothered to listen to one other McCartney album since Tug of War (that being Flaming Pie, which I only ever thought had one good song), I can say I'm very impressed with it.

If you enjoyed his latest album, you might like his Fireman album, Electric Arguments.   It's very similar in execution and also has the "one-man band" sound. 

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_k7WIBgmD0oPR6d80581lOAJX7NrFA6PfE

[Pretty Funky]

McCartney 3 can be purchased on cassette in 2020? Oh dear lord.
Sorry...respect for the guy has dropped a notch reading about the variants above.  

In case you aren't aware, cassettes are considered "hip" again amongst millennials (and maybe others who just like them). Hence, every Record Store Day for the past few years has seen someone of notoriety do a special "cassette-only" release.

I was NOT aware.  eBay, here I come. 

Same...Beach Boys tapes plus many others hit the dumpster during a Covid isolation clean-up. Dohhh!

[guitarfool2002]

Look at the "standard" Top 200 album list this week.

Indeed - The Beach Boys Christmas Album has spent the last four weeks bouncing around the lower end of the chart, being at #115 this week. I guess what you're saying here is that this is mostly down to Little Saint Nick being on rotation in supermarkets and such like.

As for McCartney III -- as someone who has only ever bothered to listen to one other McCartney album since Tug of War (that being Flaming Pie, which I only ever thought had one good song), I can say I'm very impressed with it.

The way the charts were calculated changed massively in recent years, not just albums but singles as I mentioned earlier, and that is why you have Bing Crosby, Bobby Helms, Brenda Lee, etc. getting top-10 albums and singles around Christmas where they previously had been excluded. So it begs the question which of these "charts" is actually accurate or even worth noting?

For singles, the Billboard chart has been dominated by old Christmas hits the past few weeks. If radio airplay in the US is factored in, there are these FM stations, pre-programmed, playing 24 hours of Christmas music every day for over a month. Some classics, notably the ones which are currently dominating the top-40 Billboard singles chart, are played literally every hour on the hour. Consider that every major US city and radio market has one of these continuous holiday stations, along with those outside the metro areas doing the same thing. Multiply all those stations times 50 states, and there are literally hundreds if not thousands of stations spinning Bing Crosby and Andy Williams hourly. Of course the airplay on radio alone would bring massive totals for those songs.

Then factor in how many streams there are online spinning the same holiday music 24/7. That gets factored into the singles charts as well.

Christmas albums are perennial sellers - People want a hit, today it's as easy as just clicking on the full album stream. Boom, more sales.

Then as you mentioned there are the commercial licensed satellite and streaming services for stores and businesses (and even on-hold music). I guess all that gets calculated too.

My mind was on that McCartney "Top Album" chart - On that one, it tabulates actual physical copies of albums sold, as in vinyl, CD, etc. So it may actually be more of a realistic "chart" because it's showing how much actual product is being shipped to the stores.

But imagine how many decades these charts which are industry standard have been woefully inaccurate if ever since they changed the algorithm and tabulation/survey process the charts have been dominated by decades-old Christmas songs and albums which were barely seen on the current top-100 or top-200 singles and album charts let alone dominating the top 50 positions on each.

It just suggests that either something is wrong or something has been wrong with the way music is charted - and I think it's both. I don't think the music biz has caught up with digital downloading and streaming, and I also think there are some very smart tech teams at the labels who can and do take advantage of that fact to show unrealistic numbers for their artists.

But it also opens up a door for something like the Feel Flows box set to chart at number 1 on its respective genre and category charts because it really doesn't take many units sold or downloaded to place an item on those charts these days. Yet that status of a number 1 placement means more than actual units sold when it comes to publicity and PR.

[Bedroom Tapes]

Pure speculation on my end but I think it would be cool if this box set includes material from 1969 to 1975ish.  Then some subsequent bulk releases down the road for the 15 Big Ones/Love You/Adult Child era.  Then after those, whatever outtakes remain from MIU to Beach Boys 85 roughly.  One can dream...

[thetojo]

Anyone know what the song "It's Natural" is?

[Peadar 'Big Dinner' O'Driscoll]

All this McCartney stuff should have it's own thread. I wanna read about the Feel Flows Boxset 

[HeyJude]

Not trying to make it a thing, but the McCartney album was brought up in relation to how another "legacy" act would do with a release (e.g. "Feel Flows"). There have been a few posts about McCartney's new album; I don't think we need to immediately call for a new thread and complain due to like a half dozen partially-off-topic posts in a 114-page thread.

Indeed, there is much to learn in terms of potential Beach Boys releases from how McCartney and Beatles product has been marketed in recent years and decades. I think some aspects aren't very comparable or applicable (with the BBs we're talking exclusively, for now anyway, about only archival releases), and Beatles and even McCartney product has a larger audience undoubtedly, but other aspects of what McCartney does (many themed curated playlists/EPs to build up momentum/excitement for a new release) could work quite well for the BBs.

[HeyJude]

Pure speculation on my end but I think it would be cool if this box set includes material from 1969 to 1975ish.  Then some subsequent bulk releases down the road for the 15 Big Ones/Love You/Adult Child era.  Then after those, whatever outtakes remain from MIU to Beach Boys 85 roughly.  One can dream...

This set was/is an outgrowth of "Copyright Extension" releases, and it's also meant to pretty specifically showcase Sunflower/Surf's Up material. I very much want to see LOTS of outtakes from the 70s and 80s (I probably want late 70s/early 80s outtakes more than most any other fan), but any boxed set that includes an appropriate amount of material that also tried to cover through 1975 would have to be like a 12-disc set or something.

"Feel Flows" is and should be a (mainly) 1970-1971 set.

[Rocker]

Back to Sunflower and "Feel Flows". I just stumbled upon this article:





It was poster on another messageboard and that user also posted a lot of other articles from the late 60s. Check them out:


https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=73674.1800

[HeyJude]

Back to Sunflower and "Feel Flows". I just stumbled upon this article:

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this was an *advertisement* rather than a real article.

Still very interesting. But framing it as a trade ad is very different from a real contemporary article on the band.

[CenturyDeprived]

Good ol' Jack Rieley. I'm assuming we have him to thank for getting articles like that into the consciousness of readers.

[Shady]

Back to Sunflower and "Feel Flows". I just stumbled upon this article:





It was poster on another messageboard and that user also posted a lot of other articles from the late 60s. Check them out:


https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=73674.1800

65 million?

[Rocker]

Back to Sunflower and "Feel Flows". I just stumbled upon this article:

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this was an *advertisement* rather than a real article.

Still very interesting. But framing it as a trade ad is very different from a real contemporary article on the band.

Sorry, didn't want to misrepresent this. I just typed in the first somewhat fitting word that came to me. It probably is more of an advertisement or something similar, I agree.

[Don Malcolm]

It's no biggie. Let's all not turn into nitpickers and hairsplitters, like the guttersnipe contingent amongst those residing over at the "nearest not faraway enough" place...

The site this was taken from is from the UK and bears many of the hallmarks of the Brit's approach to pop music in general and the BBs in particular...about 50% on its way to being Nick Kent...which is NOT a direction worth aiming for. The play-by-play of the main poster has its moments but, as is often the case with the Brits, is way too glib--much too similar to the mag writers selected here.

The actual ad copy here is interesting, and it prompts a query regarding who wrote it. Was it actually Jack, or was it long-time Warners chief flack Stan Cornyn? Stan used to sign his stuff IIRC, so I'm leaning toward the idea that this might just be Jack's prose.

Something that's probably been answered before, but a cursory search here didn't turn up anything specific: in Bob Dawbarn's interview with Mike from 1969 our friend the Lovester lays claim to writing "Do It Again" and bringing it to Brian to be finished. Do we know the actual genesis of the music for "Do It Again"? The melody bears a certain up-down-up-down semi-monotony that is similarly existent in Mike's "Big Sur," so one might extrapolate  that Mike actually created the melody with the lyrics...at which point Brian took over and made a complete song out of it. What sayeth our masters of detail regarding all this?

[Rebel]

Well Do it Again has origins back to Hawthorne Blvd. and that itself reminds me of a song by the Frogmen .. the name escapes me... but Mike could still technically be right if he had a hand in Hawthorne Blvd - but let’s be real here.

[Custom Machine]

Back to Sunflower and "Feel Flows". I just stumbled upon this article:

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this was an *advertisement* rather than a real article.

Still very interesting. But framing it as a trade ad is very different from a real contemporary article on the band.

Right. An ad from the Nov. 14, 1970 issue of Billboard.