Alright, lets talk about Warmth of the Sun!

[Ron]

I can't believe nobody really is saying much about this new cd.  I picked it up today at Wal-mart (They had it unceremoniously still hid in it's box, with only about 3 more copies, I had to dig through their pallet @ 4 in the afternoon just to find it!).

I like some of the new stereo stuff, but others in my opinion just don't hold up to the mono versions.  That's not a comment on Mark's work, he's great at what he does and the best man for the job.  I just think some of the songs were meant to be Mono and sound the best they ever will when they're heard that way. 

I love the remastered sound of the tracks, though.  I've never heard "Friends" sound that good, I don't know what Mark did to some of that stuff but a lot of the tracks are kind of the 'definitive' version for me now.  Breakaway for instance sounds even better now.  I think maybe Mark even found some MORE vocals, I definately heard stuff I never noticed before in it.  I nominate Breakaway as the most over the top production of all time... basically 8 people singing 8 different things the entire song, lol.

Out of the redone stereo tracks, I think Wendy probably sounds the best to me.  It might be an improvement over the mono.  Another thing I should mention is the whole thing may just be I'm playing it on a car stereo, maybe on a high end stereo the stereo tracks blow the monos out of the water, I dunno.  With the stereo tracks, you definately hear a lot of things you never heard before, and it's neat to listen to... I'm not saying they shouldn't have been remixed or anything, just that I think they lose a little something sometimes. 

What's with "Disney Girls" ?  Is that just the result of having it remastered? I've never heard the song sound so clear, the intro doesn't even sound like the same instrument! (although it obviously is).  I guess that's a Mandolin.

I wish they would have used the longer mix of "Cool Cool Water", this version has kind of a weird cut from the SMiLE stuff into the newer stuff right at the beginning.  It's not as smooth as the full long version, but I guess maybe that was made years later and this is the original single version. 

Anyways, anybody have any comments on what they think? 

[Ron]

Oh! "Let Him Run Wild" sounds so interesting all cleaned up and in stereo.  I still like the original better, though, mainly because of the dynamics or I guess just the contrast between the "I GUESS YOU KNOW I!!!" "waiiiited for you girrrrrllll".  On the stereo the contrast doesn't sound quite the same but I realize there are things stereo does great and things mono does great. 

Ultimately though, it's interesting to hear the stereo mixes because you hear so much more of the instrumentation and the harmony vocals. 

[HighOnLife]

I like the CD.

My favorite remixes are 'Please Let Me Wonder' and 'Then I Kissed Her', the first for the clearer Brian lead vocal, and the second for clearer instrumentation.

'All Summer Long' doesn't sound much different than the mono version to these ears, and 'You're So Good To Me' sounds like it's lost it's bottom end in stereo. I've never been crazy about 'Let Him Run Wild', so the remix wasn't really that interesting to me. 'Wendy' doesn't sound much different to me either.

It's definately a must-have though.

[pixletwin]

How interesting was the CD booklet?

[southbay]

It isn't, except for a few cool photos.  No liner notes, which was disapointing. Like all the stereo mixes. Like the alt. Breakaway very much. As with prior posts, my only real complaint is Why Do Fools Fall in Love. Totally out of place. Not only in terms of sequence (awful) but even on the CD at all.

[pixletwin]

Breakaway is the standout track to me as well... As for WDFFIL, I think it really show cases Brian's falsetto and really puts you in a place to remember where the BB were coming from.

[Ron]

I think WDFFIL sounds kind of sub-par for the album.  It's not really a bad song or anything, it just doesn't seem to fit.

I think they probably left the cd book kind of sparse purposefully since the compilation is the bookend to Sounds of Summer, so it's more for a generic audience than die hard BB fans.  Nothing but song credits and pictures, they could print this sucker out for 20 years and it'd never get dated. 

[bellagio]

Well, I bought it for the stereo mixes and just to show capital that there are people out there who will pay good money for (genuine) new stuff. Anyway...
I think there's supposed to be a double track on Brian's lead on PLMW which is missing (probably for the same reason as YSBIM). On Friends it seems like Brian's vocal is clipped off before he says "turned each other on..." which I don't remember...LHRW sounds really good...YSGTM is so-so...Wendy's perfect, except no cough and some punch in sounds around the vox...CCW has a cool edit that I hadn't heard before...forgot how good the single version of WDFFIL is, great intro...I'd ditch 409 and Cal Dreaming for The Lonley Sea and Big Sur(unreleased version). Strange, but I like DGNTW on this comp; somehow it works! Oh, and switch the first and last songs...
    Aside from all that nit-picking, it is actually a pretty cool CD, especially if you are just a casual fan.

[XY]

I love the remastered sound of the tracks, though.  I've never heard "Friends" sound that good, I don't know what Mark did to some of that stuff but a lot of the tracks are kind of the 'definitive' version for me now.

Same here. I immediately noticed that they worked on the EQ's for some tracks. "Little Honda" for example never sounded that good before IMO. A lot of bass!
The sequencing of the first 14 track (up to "Disney Girls") works for me. Even "It's OK" fits in perfectly between "409" and "You're So Good To Me" and I start to really like this song. After that, the euphoria level sinks considerably. Not that the songs are bad, but they don't flow into each other, not the same Vibrations. I would have preferred an up tempo rocker after "Disney Girls" and not "Forever", just not they same slow song types.
I prefer the new stereo mix of "You're So Good To Me" to the mono version. During one of the verses, I hear a bassline sung by Mike I never noticed on the original version. Maybe it's not even there.
With "Then I Kissed Her" happened what I feared would happend when you take apart mono wall of sound productions. It doesn't work. It sounds naked and uncovered. No criticism against Mr. Linett, but it's not the same sound anymore.
"Please Let Me Wonder": Some elements sound a bit digitally stereoised - home improvement - nice to hear but not the real deal for me. Sweet to have the background vocals upfront (also in "Let Him Rund Wild").
All in all I like this comp a lot and hope that it'll be another hit like SOS!

[warnakey]

I love the new sound of Let Him Run Wild. I think it sounds very good. The verses don't work as well as the chorus in stereo, but the initial weirdness of the new sound gets replaced quickly when you realize just how great this song was to begin with.

But the chorus, it just sounds so amazing, the horns sound a lot clearer than ever, and the harmonies work better too. I guess you could say if I had to choose between this track and air, well, I'd be holding my breath just long enough to hear it again.

[Rocker]

Love the new CD !
WDFFIL doesn't really fit in there, it should've come earlier.
I wonder why they didn't use the singleversion of "Cal. saga" but the alt. "Break away" (I like that one more myself, but it's not the original) and the new sound effects on "Cal dreamin" (which sound pretty good to me).

I never liked the frontcover, but as I hold it in my hands, it's ok. The backcover is killer though ! Awesome picture and I love how everything has that nice warmth and golden feel about it.
I think the missing of the liner notes is just to get the podcast more succesful.

BTW only mention of a website is thebeachboys.com (also in the podcast). No word about beachboyscentral. Is this a bad sign?

[matt-zeus]

I love the new 'you're so good to me', the backing vocals especially sound great.
They (the new remixes) seem to have less of a 'room' sound than the Pet sounds stereo stuff, but overall I love the sound of the remixes. When I heard Salt Lake city on hawthornes I though it sounded great.

[Shady]

I love it, really do. And i'm glad it's a hit.

[Ron]

Salt Lake City in my opinion is the best stereo remix they've done yet.  That really kicks ass, especially when the "one horn goes, blah dah dah dah, next horn adds, blah dah dah dah!" finally comes into the song, just blows you away.  ROCK AND ROLL!

[Vega-Table Man]

I grabbed the CD on my way home yesterday. I was most interested in the new stereo mixes, and as usual some of them sound quite good to me and others just sound too different from what I'm used to. "Please Let Me Wonder" sounds remarkably clearer than any version of the mono mix I've ever heard, but that makes it sound very foreign to my ears. Yet I think "You're So Good to Me" and "Then I Kissed Her" are quite nicely done, and "All Summer Long" doesn't seem different enough from the mono version to elicit an opinion from me either way.

Salt Lake City in my opinion is the best stereo remix they've done yet.

I think I'd agree. Though I'm quite fond of "Kiss Me, Baby" as well.

[Don't Back Down]

After these reviews, I'm looking forward to getting this soon!

How is WOTS doing sales wise? or is it too early to know that?

[Shady]

After these reviews, I'm looking forward to getting this soon!

How is WOTS doing sales wise? or is it too early to know that?

My third cousin is an exec at EMI and he says first day sales have been 'Exceptional '

[Dave in KC]

Amazon should be delivering it to me tomorrow. But what a nice half page ad in the new Rolling Stone for the new release. How cool is it to open a Rolling Stone these days and see an in-your-face Beach Boy billboard.

[HeyJude]

I got my copy from Best Buy, and just got around to downloading the "Best Buy exclusive" bonus track, the live take of "409" from Chicago in 1965. It's about what you would expect; probably the least interesting bonus track they could have come up with. I have to say it is a bit of a novelty to have a live take of "409" with Brian on it, and it's worth noting that the bits from the Chicago shows on the SOT CD's (which I think consisted of overdub sessions) did not include this track. Certainly this was a nice enough free bonus.

I hadn't done the downloading a free bonus track thing before, so I was surprised that the whole process was pretty easy and quick. I thought it might download the track on its own and stick it somewhere on a playlist on one of playback programs or something, but it just let me download the WMA track wherever I wanted. The ease with which I downloaded the track was tempered by the fact that it's not exactly CD quality (160 kbps), and was my first experience with the dreaded DRM. I don't do ITunes, so I hadn't dealt with this before. I thought EMI recently announced they were going to start doing higher bitrate non-DRM files. But I guess that only applies to ITunes, and to services where you pay for the track. I guess the free downloads are lower bitrate, with DRM still present. Plus, I don't think EMI has anywhere near totally switched over to the non-DRM files even on ITunes. Oh well. I was hoping I would be able to put the track on a CD just to catalog it. I'm sure there are ways to get around it and encode it for a CD, but since I don't deal with downloads much, I haven' t a clue how to do that. So, in retrospect, I'm glad they didn't choose to make this free exclusive download some sort of huge, lost classic like a "Smile" track or a cool Dennis outtake. I would be totally ticked if I was stuck with some great masterpiece that I could only listen to in 160 kbps on my computer.

Now I'll have to listen to the actual "Warmth" CD! I think that might be a bit more fun!

[Andrew G. Doe]

It's a good compilation for the newbie - first play them Sounds Of Summer, then hand them The Warmth Of The Sun saying "OK, now for the stuff you probably won't know".

[HeyJude]

It's a good compilation for the newbie - first play them Sounds Of Summer, then hand them The Warmth Of The Sun saying "OK, now for the stuff you probably won't know".

Certainly true, but I'd say the same thing to varying degrees about "Greatest Hits" Volumes 2 and 3, and some other compilations. But I certainly can't fault the programming of the compilation too much; there are at least 3 or 4 songs on the "Warmth of the Sun" that I would put in my Top 10 BB songs.

Interestingly, the liner notes state that "California Dreamin'" is the original 1986 mix, which certainly isn't the case. The song as a whole sounds like the same mix, but it has to be an alternate done either back then or recently to incorporate more of the thunder sound effects. The actual original 1986 mix starts cold with the guitar, and then incorporates a bit of the sound effects. The version on "Warmth of the Sun" stars with sound effects and then the opening guitar quickly fades up.

I might be motivated to write a more detailed review about the stereo remixes, but my general impression and feelings are mixed. Some do have too much reverb in my opinion. In general, I still like the idea of stereo remixes. Some have criticized previous stereo remixes for having too much reverb, and while I don't feel that way regarding the "Pet Sounds" stereo remix, some of these new stereo remixes do exhibit this to a degree, in my opinion of course. One of the reasons I like stereo remixes is that they can have more clarity in general than sometimes muddy mono mixes when a big production is crammed into mono. But if the stereo remix uses a lot of reverb, that tends to muddy it up a bit in a different way. But perhaps I'll get more into that in a more detailed review. I'd still say I'm generally happy to have these stereo remixes.

As for the CD's tracklisting, there are a few interesting tidbits on the "Warmth of the Sun" blog, indicating that Al didn't want to talk about "It's OK". I'd be interested to know why that is. Does he just not like the song? Is it something about that era of the BB's that Al doesn't like to talk about? In the actual podcast episode covering the song, and there is nothing from Al, so we can't even hear what his specific comment was about, well, not commenting on the song. Did he just say "I can't think of anything on that song", or was it like "I'd rather not get into that particular song", or something else? Brian certainly links the song with a period that he doesn't remember so fondly today, or at least didn't remember fondly at the time he gave that interview.

[matt-zeus]

I'm a bit confused, there's the Sounds of Summer CD that was released with a big sun on the cover - that was the one that this is the follow up to?
Not the other 3 CD thing called Sounds of summer Platinum edition (with a surfer on the cover), which has a few of the songs on this new comp?
I remember about 6 or 7 years ago when they released the Best of the Beach Boys vol1, 2 and 3 they said that these would be the definitive best ofs, what rot!
Obviously its good that new people get into the BBs, but how many more compilations are there to come?

[Andrew G. Doe]

The 3CD set wasn't released in the US, and I have to say that as a thorough introduction to the band's whole career 1961-96 for the neophyte, it's pretty much unbeatable.

[matt-zeus]

Well I suppose 3 CDs is pretty good for the price, seeing that the GV Box set is a big jump in price and much of the songs are the same.
But it is worth paying the extra for the GV box, when I bought it anyway the 70s 2fer Cds had not been issued, so a lot of it really was rare and obscure.

[Ron]

I love the GV box set, but a lot of the songs have been remastered since then and sound a hella lot better on other compilations and cd's and things.  Oh damn, I guess they're gonna have to release another box set. 

Somebody mentioned somewhere (Maybe on the podcast page) that there's been 70 BB's hits compilations.