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Author Topic: Could Brian write music in the style of 'Pet Sounds' after Pet Sounds?  (Read 6276 times)
Tom
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« Reply #25 on: August 05, 2020, 02:27:21 AM »

Aren't You Glad is a pleasant song, but it shows that BW had lost some of his ability to make a hit single.

I don't agree that Brian had quite lost his hit making mojo at this point. Wild Honey and Darlin did pretty well despite their semi lo-fi production which was quite out of step for the time. Do It Again was also a big hit in the UK.

As for Aren't You Glad specifically, I feel the verse and pre-chorus are very hooky and single-worthy - the chorus melody and chord progression is just a bit lacklustre unfortunately. But that song was never slated as a single as far as I can tell.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2020, 06:06:49 AM by Tom » Logged
phirnis
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« Reply #26 on: August 05, 2020, 11:41:45 AM »

Brian wrote and recorded some hit-worthy material after Heroes and Villains. I agree that Do It Again is a great example. Break Away, however, was different. Unlike Do It Again, which was meant to be simple, that one was clearly a conscious attempt to create another big production like Help Me Rhonda or California Girls. I love Break Away but it's not in that same category, it doesn't sound as convincing in terms of sounding like a hit record.
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juggler
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« Reply #27 on: August 05, 2020, 04:05:29 PM »

One factor that's been absent from this discussion is the role that the relatively greater success of Barbara Ann & Party! compared to Pet Sounds may have had on Brian's mindset.   If you dash off Party! on a lark but it sells better your subsequent magnum opus Pet Sounds, what does that tell you?  Maybe it tells you that you missed the mark a bit.  We see PS now as the high-water mark, but BW didn't see it like that at the time. If he had, he wouldn't have been going around promising that Smile would be "better"  and "as much of an improvement over Pet Sounds as that was over Summer Days."   I do think that many of the Smile tracks plus "Time to Get Alone" etc wouldn't have been out of place on PS, and Brian was capable of doing that again if he had wanted to.

Breakaway is interesting.  Yes, the attempt was a return to the big production song.   Why wasn't it a hit?  It's a good song. Maybe Capitol didn't promote it enough.  And maybe it just wasn't catchy enough of a tune. Maybe Murry's lyrics were nothing special.  Maybe giving Al or Mike the lead vocal would have done the trick.  Heck, maybe giving Mike background vocals would have helped.  Who knows. You can't strike gold every time.
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WillJC
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« Reply #28 on: August 05, 2020, 04:19:31 PM »

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guitarfool2002
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« Reply #29 on: August 05, 2020, 04:29:42 PM »

Aren't You Glad, I disagree, it's one of the catchiest songs of that era and the arrangement had all of the elements that could have made it a hit had it been released as a single for late '67 going into '68. Horn bands were on the radio and would be so even more in the next year or two, and "Darlin" was pretty standard on the setlists of working bands with a horn section like Chicago Transit Authority who were playing the current hits in clubs at that time.

Studio version aside, listen to the live version of Aren't You Glad on the "Live In London" album, and it's pure energy and magic, which is testament to the song itself alongside how tight that band was at that time. It could have been a hit record if it were released the right way.
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Tom
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« Reply #30 on: August 05, 2020, 05:46:58 PM »

Break Away is an interesting one. Based on the info that was in the Desper study video, it seems like Brian fully believed it would be a hit. Perhaps the chart success of I Can Hear Music gave him the initial idea that another Spector-inspired single could be viable.

The song itself is gorgeous in terms of the production, but I agree with others that it wasn't hit material. The chorus is fun once you're used to it but I'll admit it doesn't really work or propel the song into the listener's long term consciousness. Overall it kind of feels like a weaker, more downtempo sequel to Darlin (similar vocal rhythm in the verse especially). But as I said, I still really enjoy it. I actually find the coda to be the best part - I disagree that stripping it down killed the momentum - just gives it the chance to build up rather than hitting you with everything at once.

It really does seem like Break Away was the final straw for Brian - he'd focused all his efforts on making this track as commercial as he possibly could, and it charted terribly. As we know it was really in '69 that he first started to take a major step back, and I believe the failure of Break Away was a catalyst. He still wrote new stuff for Sunflower, but it's clear he wasn't trying to be commercial anymore for the most part, instead just doing what he wanted to (When Girls Get Together, H.E.L.P., Good Time, Just Got My Pay).
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Mitchell
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« Reply #31 on: August 09, 2020, 08:33:05 PM »

As much as I love it, the post-Pet Sounds era has a more "dead" sound to it, until Sunflower. It's not surprising that the passé Beach Boys couldn't get a hit, though the quality of the music certainly deserved it.

To elaborate on my comment above, I remember listening to 20 Golden Greats a lot as a kid, and everything up to Heroes and Villains has a "drop of sunshine" feel to it; a bright summer day at the beach or cruising around. H&V is an odd duck anyway, so I'll skip that, but Darlin' to me evoked a "backyard patio in the evening" kind of feeling, and that just wasn't as commercial. It marks a definite point where the sound changed, and it's probably not a coincidence that their commercial fortunes waned at the same time (among dozens of other factors).
« Last Edit: August 09, 2020, 08:34:30 PM by Mitchell » Logged

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Tom
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« Reply #32 on: August 10, 2020, 08:32:56 PM »

The sound changed for sure - maybe due to financial limitations, but also probably because Brian didn't want to deal with large sessions with 15+ players after Smile.

Also, it was a stylistic choice to a point - Wild Honey and Friends would sound dumb if they were swathed in chamber reverb like Pet Sounds.
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phirnis
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« Reply #33 on: August 13, 2020, 12:07:09 AM »

I agree, clearly an artistic choice for those two albums - and let's not forget that the Beach Boys weren't alone with their stripped-back approach, only for them it didn't really pay off commercially. WH and Friends still sounded like albums with major Brian involvement. Don't get me wrong, they put out some amazing material in the years that followed but to me, nothing really matched that creative spark that Brian brought to the music and after Friends the albums certainly began to sound more patchy and less homogeneous (except for Holland, which has a great sound of its own from start to finish).
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