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Poll
Question: Rate Holland
5 - 72 (40.9%)
4 - 69 (39.2%)
3 - 30 (17%)
2 - 5 (2.8%)
1 - 0 (0%)
0 - 0 (0%)
Total Voters: 163

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Author Topic: Holland  (Read 109500 times)
Charles LePage @ ComicList
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« on: December 25, 2005, 07:52:38 PM »

Discuss, review and rate Holland, released January 1973.

« Last Edit: December 30, 2005, 03:01:22 PM by Charles LePage » Logged

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the captain
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« Reply #1 on: December 25, 2005, 08:36:32 PM »

Probably my favorite BBs album of the '70s, slightly ahead of Surf's Up and Love You (and significantly ahead of Sunflower, which I've always thought is overrated). I love the tracks by all the guys, and think that if only the poetry could have been left out of the middle section of the California Saga, it would have been nearly perfect. I've never heard the studio version of We Got Love, but I wonder if its addition--or some other fitting, unused track--might have really made it a classic.
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« Reply #2 on: December 26, 2005, 01:31:16 AM »

Far too serious of an album, pseudo-hip and pandering. Leaving THis Town is very overrated and Funky Pretty is horrid. The Beaks Of Eagles is pitiful. But the rest is nice at worst (Big Sur), incredible at best (Sailor, Only With You, Steamboat).
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« Reply #3 on: December 26, 2005, 01:13:44 PM »

The band is trying too hard here. I like about half of the album (same with Summer in Paradise and Keepin' the Summer Alive). The best songs are from Brian and Dennis. Al has his shining moment here. The Trader was always better live (and I have the bootlegs to prove it).
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« Reply #4 on: December 27, 2005, 01:38:46 AM »

Holland also belongs to my Top 5.


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« Reply #5 on: December 27, 2005, 12:23:52 PM »

My favorite of the 70's and in my top five BB albums.
 
They are NOT trying too hard here.  They WERE on the previous two albums.

 IMHO,they finally got it right here in terms of  escaping the old image and doing some genuinely good original music, from the heart, relevant, and sampling the talents of all members.

And I'll be g*ddamned, lost it all and returned three years later with 15 Big Ones. 

I can't even understand that beyond the power of cocaine and the money that Endless Summer provided to buy it.
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SurferGirl7
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« Reply #6 on: December 28, 2005, 10:18:42 AM »

Creative. Dark. Magical. Side A is a pretty good start. Steamboat is my big favorite on here next to of course, Sail on Sailor. Loved the backing track and very much liked the vocals. The only thing that ruins some of the album for me is Mike talking in it  Angry Enough talking, I want to hear the music. Why We Got Love didn't make it in is tragic. At least it got done live. The one big song that moved me out of everything was Fairy Tale Music. I hated the talking but when I heard just the music on GV boxset, WOW, WOW AND WOW!!!!!!! Such genius! I felt like it was a mini SMiLE or something. My favorite part has to be I'm The Pied Piper.

3 stars.
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« Reply #7 on: January 04, 2006, 07:49:40 AM »

Mt. Vernon and Fairway should be listed as a seperate album.

More overlooked than Love You ever was.
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Jeff Mason
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« Reply #8 on: January 05, 2006, 05:44:21 PM »

I like the phrase "trying too hard".  That is EXACTLY what I thought when I first heard Big Sur.  I still don't like the 3/4 released version (the boot is cool though).  It sounds like a calculated attempt to be "hip" with an artificially created "organic" vibe.  Not bad, but still not in their own forte like Sunflower was (and to some extent also Surf's Up which IMO was the beginning of struggles with forced music).  Of course, forced artistic BB is still very interesting and far better than most 1973 music and definitely better than MIU and beyond.

My biggest sadness was the way that they sort of botched Sail On Sailor.  I still think of it as a classic song, but the actual recording is a bit too slow and sloppy.  It is screaming for either a full Brian Wilson production or else the feel that the live version has (which is why I far prefer the In Concert rendition).
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« Reply #9 on: January 05, 2006, 05:49:10 PM »

While I don't dispute the "trying too hard" label for parts of Holland, I can't imagine that the previous two or three albums escape that label, either. Sunflower was every bit as forced. Attempts at everything fill that album: cuteness (it came to my window), rock (don't get me started on the Dennis poop), etc. You're right, Jeff, but the genesis of the comment is Sunflower.
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« Reply #10 on: January 05, 2006, 05:53:47 PM »

While I don't dispute the "trying too hard" label for parts of Holland, I can't imagine that the previous two or three albums escape that label, either. Sunflower was every bit as forced. Attempts at everything fill that album: cuteness (it came to my window), rock (don't get me started on the Dennis merda), etc. You're right, Jeff, but the genesis of the comment is Sunflower.

See, to me the Dennis stuff flows naturally and is so like his personality.  And I DO think that At My Window is cute.  Maybe it doesn't seem as forced to me since I buy it.  But I don't buy Mike Love singing songs about riots or Harvest-inspired campfire songs, nor do I think that Jack Reiley's lyrics are a comfy fit for the band (though Carl as a basic solo artist did some good stuff with them on Surf's Up -- AFAIK no other BB is heard on his two songs there).
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« Reply #11 on: January 05, 2006, 05:58:35 PM »

I agree totally, Jeff, except for the SDT snub.
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Jeff Mason
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« Reply #12 on: January 05, 2006, 06:01:07 PM »

It's not a bad song, I just don't believe that Mike Love is being sincere in his lyrics.  I think he is just writing them to be cool.  The track itself sounds fine.  But this is one of the few times that I react to a BB song like Luther reacted to "It's About Time" -- the lyrics are so in your face that you can't look past them.  And they don't work.  While Mike is not singing, the track works.  I adore the live version of Riot they were doing with the original lyrics and wish that they had just used them for the album with the same track.
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the captain
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« Reply #13 on: January 05, 2006, 06:02:01 PM »

I agree totally, Jeff, except for the SDT snub.

Oh, Ian, fvck SDT. Hard.
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« Reply #14 on: January 05, 2006, 06:04:28 PM »

No, fvck you. Hard.

Good post, Jeff.
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« Reply #15 on: January 05, 2006, 06:08:14 PM »

No, fvck you. Hard.

Good post, Jeff.

OK. But ow. Not so hard... Wink

Really, I think Jeff isn't wrong. But to me there is something harmless about the pretentiousness in Mike's Big Sur lyrics, and various others on the disc. They're not that bad. I'd take it over the endless cycle of rewrites that began later that decade.
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« Reply #16 on: January 05, 2006, 06:10:36 PM »

It is harmless, and it is better than the rewrites. But better to have neither, really.
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« Reply #17 on: January 05, 2006, 06:12:36 PM »

Better to have neither? I would say that if the alternative to the harmless pretentiousness and the rewrites is the remainder of the Beach Boys' career in that era (i.e., virtually nothing at all), I have to disagree.
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« Reply #18 on: January 05, 2006, 06:17:06 PM »

If you think I dislike the forced songs because they are forced, you misread me.  I am just being critical and ranking the BB by certain criteria.  "Forced" means flawed and so not as easy to love as something like the first three songs on Sunflower, which to me is one of the greatest thrills I ever had as a BB fan (that opening shot converted me as a BB fan -- totally).  It jars me a bit and makes me more self-conscious about the songs, but I don't dislike them.  I agree -- Holland is still far better than any non-LY BB album to come.  Though I still argue that had the 95 reunion been finished it would have blown Holland away.
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« Reply #19 on: January 05, 2006, 06:23:02 PM »

Better to have neither? I would say that if the alternative to the harmless pretentiousness and the rewrites is the remainder of the Beach Boys' career in that era (i.e., virtually nothing at all), I have to disagree.

Nope, there's a LOT more. My Diane, Love You, All I Want To Do, a lot of great music.

ANOTHER great post, Jeff.
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« Reply #20 on: January 05, 2006, 07:25:55 PM »

Jeff--Nope, not misreading you. Referring to Ian.

Ian--I don't know about A LOT more, but I'll give you more.
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« Reply #21 on: January 06, 2006, 03:27:46 AM »

Holland seemed to have a purpose; something totally lacking in the subsequent albums.  I don't think there's any evidence to suggest that a 95 album would've blown the others away.  There are some good Paley/BW songs and there are some weak ones.  You probably would've had an album with the feel of a 60s one.  Maybe Sean O'Hagan could've pulled off something interesting... On the other hand, by this time, the Lovester's lyrics aren't up to much - just listen to Bummer in Paradise or the stuff off his new album - even worse than Kalinich's on GIOMH, which is saying something.
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« Reply #22 on: January 06, 2006, 03:39:36 AM »

I only have this to say...

You're Still A Mystery

Best BB song since Sail On Sailor and a peer to the 60's classics.  Make an album like that and you have a classic as well.  Just MO.  There was enough good material to make an album whose parts would make a greater whole.
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Smilin Ed H
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« Reply #23 on: January 06, 2006, 04:07:14 AM »

I agree totally about that song. I understand it was re-recorded for GIOMH.  Bet it wasn't as good as the 'demo'!
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« Reply #24 on: January 06, 2006, 06:49:04 AM »

I don't see "Big Sur" as being forced OR pretentious, particularly. That was just kind of the...zeitgeist of the times, that kind of "outdoorsy / nature / America" type of vibe, and the Boys, as usual, were just reflecting it back. I think the entire Califiornia Saga is frickin' brilliant, and I've said it before and I'll say it again: that INCLUDES Beaks of Eagles, thank you, which I find absolutely lovely, and "California" which is a total stone blast. I loves me some Holland in general -- I don't find "Sail On" at all ponderous, I think its a phenomenal recording and actually prefer it to something like "Till I Die" which is more crystalline but somehow less rugged and passionate. To me, the low point is the EXTREEEMELY dragging "Steamboat," which took me years to learn to even like, let alone love. And wow, "Trader" is just up there in terms of all-time favorites, certainly Carl's very best and most moving song. Really, to me, "Carl and the Passions" and 'Holland" are really one big long record that to me equals "Sunflower" as my very favorite period in the group's history. I can play those two albums over and over and over and never get remotely tired of 'em -- the organic, raw, passionate yet experimental feel is something I think is very forward-thinking for the group and its a shame it kinda dropped right there.
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