Flex's Takes: The Beach Boys

[revbob]

[Flex]

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Loooooool

[Flex]

Listening to Surfin' USA (the album) for the first time in a minute, and I'd forgotten how many surf instrumentals are actually on this one. It's actually pretty fun stuff. Supports my thesis that the boys used to have a touch of the garage/proto-punk in 'em. For my money, this one is actually pretty ding dang good:

[matedog]

Listening to Surfin' USA (the album) for the first time in a minute, and I'd forgotten how many surf instrumentals are actually on this one. It's actually pretty fun stuff. Supports my thesis that the boys used to have a touch of the garage/proto-punk in 'em. For my money, this one is actually pretty ding dang good:

I admire your attempts to do a long game on rev to get him into Summer in Paradise.

[Flex]

Listened to Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) this morning. What a half goofy/half great record. I know it sort of gets lost in the shadow of Today! but, for my money, the run of songs from Girl Don't Tell Me -> Help Me Rhonda -> California Girls -> Let Him Run Wild -> You're So Good To Me -> Summer Means New Love is about as good a sequence as anything the Boys ever committed to vinyl (not necessarily best, but equal to). It's kinda funny that the rest of the album has some of their goofiest songs since like Surfin Safari (not bad goofy, necessarily).

[WestwayKid]

Listened to Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) this morning. What a half goofy/half great record. I know it sort of gets lost in the shadow of Today! but, for my money, the run of songs from Girl Don't Tell Me -> Help Me Rhonda -> California Girls -> Let Him Run Wild -> You're So Good To Me -> Summer Means New Love is about as good a sequence as anything the Boys ever committed to vinyl (not necessarily best, but equal to). It's kinda funny that the rest of the album has some of their goofiest songs since like Surfin Safari (not bad goofy, necessarily).

I've always chalked it up to Brian's workload. Today was recorded June 64 to January 65 and then a month later they were back in the studio for Summer Days. There was just no way they could avoid filler now and then.

Brian did have Sandy/Sherry She Needs Me, but for whatever reason it was not finished for the album and like many unreleased Wilson songs, it then endured a torturous history of getting reworked almost released, scrapped and repeat.



The album cover is great. I love the layout. Al's missing (apparently he was sick). Oh well. This is also the first album to feature much from Bruce. He also could not appear on the cover due to an existing contract with Columbia Records.

[WestwayKid]

The Beach Boys on CD

Unlike some bands from their era, the Beach Boys have been well represented on compact disc. Here's my review of the 12 CD's released by Capitol in 2012 to celebrate the band's 50th anniversary.

They released 12 titles: Surfin' U.S.A., Surfer Girl, Little Deuce Coupe, Shut Down Volume 2, All Summer Long, The Beach Boys Today!, Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!), Beach Boys' Party, Pet Sounds, Smiley Smile, Sunflower and Surf's Up.

They were packaged in cardboard gatefold sleeves. In general, the packaging was pretty lousy. The print quality was fair to poor. There is nothing to protect the discs when sliding in and out of the packaging. Each album comes with very minimal liner notes: front and back cover of the LP and then inside just a track listing and some production credits. The gatefold itself is looks low budget. It's glossy, but that's it. Front and back covers are again printed. The back of the gatefold is a very, very, very basic track listing with a period photo dropped in. It's clear that Capitol was not spending money on the presentation.

So what about the music? On all the discs (except Sunflower & Surf's Up) you get mono and stereo versions. This is fantastic because Brian's mono versions had not been released on CD before. The 1990/2000 "twofers" featured the original stereo mixes done by engineer Chuck Britz in the 1960's. They sound good (for the most part), but Brian's preferred medium was always mono.

Surfin' Safari is not included because the mono mix had already been released in 1990/2000 and there was never a stereo mix done (other than a lousy fake stereo mix). That said, one of the coups of this 2012 series was something called an extraction mix. The stereo masters for certain songs had gone missing (Don't Worry Baby is an example). Engineer Mark Linett was able to use software to extract the individual parts from the multi-tracks to create new stereo mixes. I suppose they could have done this with Surfin' Safari, but for whatever reason they chose not to.

The 1990/2000 release of Smiley Smile was in mono, so for the first time in 2012 we got a stereo (extraction) mix.

Friends and 20/20 were not included in this run. There was not a true mono release ever (just collapsed stereo) and the 1990/2000 CD's did a good job covering the original stereo mixes.

I feel like this series was done to 1) cash in on the 50th and 2) fill in some gaps (and showcasing some tech). The 2012 twofers are still the gold standard for the Beach Boys on CD.

[Flex]

The album cover is great. I love the layout. Al's missing (apparently he was sick). Oh well. This is also the first album to feature much from Bruce. He also could not appear on the cover due to an existing contract with Columbia Records.

Agreed, always been one of my favorites. A Yachtsman special.

The Beach Boys on CD

Unlike some bands from their era, the Beach Boys have been well represented on compact disc. Here's my review of the 12 CD's released by Capitol in 2012 to celebrate the band's 50th anniversary.

They released 12 titles: Surfin' U.S.A., Surfer Girl, Little Deuce Coupe, Shut Down Volume 2, All Summer Long, The Beach Boys Today!, Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!), Beach Boys' Party, Pet Sounds, Smiley Smile, Sunflower and Surf's Up.

They were packaged in cardboard gatefold sleeves. In general, the packaging was pretty lousy. The print quality was fair to poor. There is nothing to protect the discs when sliding in and out of the packaging. Each album comes with very minimal liner notes: front and back cover of the LP and then inside just a track listing and some production credits. The gatefold itself is looks low budget. It's glossy, but that's it. Front and back covers are again printed. The back of the gatefold is a very, very, very basic track listing with a period photo dropped in. It's clear that Capitol was not spending money on the presentation.

So what about the music? On all the discs (except Sunflower & Surf's Up) you get mono and stereo versions. This is fantastic because Brian's mono versions had not been released on CD before. The 1990/2000 "twofers" featured the original stereo mixes done by engineer Chuck Britz in the 1960's. They sound good (for the most part), but Brian's preferred medium was always mono.

Surfin' Safari is not included because the mono mix had already been released in 1990/2000 and there was never a stereo mix done (other than a lousy fake stereo mix). That said, one of the coups of this 2012 series was something called an extraction mix. The stereo masters for certain songs had gone missing (Don't Worry Baby is an example). Engineer Mark Linett was able to use software to extract the individual parts from the multi-tracks to create new stereo mixes. I suppose they could have done this with Surfin' Safari, but for whatever reason they chose not to.

The 1990/2000 release of Smiley Smile was in mono, so for the first time in 2012 we got a stereo (extraction) mix.

Friends and 20/20 were not included in this run. There was not a true mono release ever (just collapsed stereo) and the 1990/2000 CD's did a good job covering the original stereo mixes.

I feel like this series was done to 1) cash in on the 50th and 2) fill in some gaps (and showcasing some tech). The 2012 twofers are still the gold standard for the Beach Boys on CD.

A very nice writeup. I will say, I just finished completing a switchover of the catalog to the Analogue Productions SACD remasters and I'd generally say they seem to better the 2012s a bit (more dynamic range pretty consistently, for one thing) but the difference isn't, like, huge. I also read that on a couple of tracks (need to find where this was detailed) incorrect fold-down mixes were used instead of true mono mixes or something.

I remember how excited I was when the 2012s came out and I could finally hear the mono mixes of these albums for, mostly, the first time.

Have you ever checked out the Japanese Pastmasters series for any of the Beach Boys releases? I read they're supposedly flat transfers, mostly bettered by the 2012s and AP SACDs but was thinking of trying to track down some copies of the Pastmasters for the live albums and Friends/20-20/Wild Honey.

Also, you may know the answer to this: are there still tracks from the old 2-fers that only appear digitally there? I haven't gone through the various box sets to see if all the bonus tracks appear elsewhere but I'm debating finally parting with my 2-fers where I've upgraded to the 2012s or APs...

[WestwayKid]

Life is feeling a bit crazy today, looking for a few distractions... so going to keep rolling on this.

The Beach Boys on CD

As I mentioned previously, the "gold standard" for the Beach Boys on CD is the "twofer" releases of 2000/2001. These releases were updates of the original 1990 twofers.

They're called twofers because each release features two albums:

Surfin' Safari / Surfin' U.S.A.
Surfer Girl / Shut Down Vol. 2
Little Deuce Coupe / All Summer Long
Today! / Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!)
Party / Stock-O-Tracks
Smiley Smile / Wild Honey
Friends / 20/20
Sunflower / Surf's Up
Carl & the Passions / Holland
15 Big Ones / Love You
M.I.U. Album / L.A. (Light Album)
Keepin' the Summer Alive / The Beach Boys
Concert / Live in London
In Concert (the only release featuring 1 album, but it's 20 tracks)

What's missing? Pet Sounds, of course. Pet Sounds was released in 1999 in both mono and stereo. It might have made sense to pair it with Party instead of Stack-O-Tracks because does anyone really need that release? For those who don't know, Stack-O-Tracks was a Capitol cash in that featured backing tracks stripped of their vocals.

The packaging is top notch. Each CD is in a jewel case. They each come with a nice booklet with the front and back covers of each LP, along with essays, track by track info, and photos.

The sound is great. The Capitol LPs were sourced direct from the master tapes without any remixing. Everything from Sunflower on was remixed by Andrew Sandoval, who did a fantastic job.

The Capitol releases all come with bonus tracks, so you get non-LP singles like The Little Girl I Once Knew and Break Away, along with lost treasures like All Dressed Up For School and I Do.

Capitol really did a nice job with these releases.

They only go up to The Beach Boys (85) so if you have any interest in completing your collection, you'll need to source the original CD releases of Still Cruisin' and Summer in Paradise. Summer in Paradise is actually not easy to find (and honestly is it worth the effort).

[WestwayKid]

The album cover is great. I love the layout. Al's missing (apparently he was sick). Oh well. This is also the first album to feature much from Bruce. He also could not appear on the cover due to an existing contract with Columbia Records.

Agreed, always been one of my favorites. A Yachtsman special.

The Beach Boys on CD

Unlike some bands from their era, the Beach Boys have been well represented on compact disc. Here's my review of the 12 CD's released by Capitol in 2012 to celebrate the band's 50th anniversary.

They released 12 titles: Surfin' U.S.A., Surfer Girl, Little Deuce Coupe, Shut Down Volume 2, All Summer Long, The Beach Boys Today!, Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!), Beach Boys' Party, Pet Sounds, Smiley Smile, Sunflower and Surf's Up.

They were packaged in cardboard gatefold sleeves. In general, the packaging was pretty lousy. The print quality was fair to poor. There is nothing to protect the discs when sliding in and out of the packaging. Each album comes with very minimal liner notes: front and back cover of the LP and then inside just a track listing and some production credits. The gatefold itself is looks low budget. It's glossy, but that's it. Front and back covers are again printed. The back of the gatefold is a very, very, very basic track listing with a period photo dropped in. It's clear that Capitol was not spending money on the presentation.

So what about the music? On all the discs (except Sunflower & Surf's Up) you get mono and stereo versions. This is fantastic because Brian's mono versions had not been released on CD before. The 1990/2000 "twofers" featured the original stereo mixes done by engineer Chuck Britz in the 1960's. They sound good (for the most part), but Brian's preferred medium was always mono.

Surfin' Safari is not included because the mono mix had already been released in 1990/2000 and there was never a stereo mix done (other than a lousy fake stereo mix). That said, one of the coups of this 2012 series was something called an extraction mix. The stereo masters for certain songs had gone missing (Don't Worry Baby is an example). Engineer Mark Linett was able to use software to extract the individual parts from the multi-tracks to create new stereo mixes. I suppose they could have done this with Surfin' Safari, but for whatever reason they chose not to.

The 1990/2000 release of Smiley Smile was in mono, so for the first time in 2012 we got a stereo (extraction) mix.

Friends and 20/20 were not included in this run. There was not a true mono release ever (just collapsed stereo) and the 1990/2000 CD's did a good job covering the original stereo mixes.

I feel like this series was done to 1) cash in on the 50th and 2) fill in some gaps (and showcasing some tech). The 2012 twofers are still the gold standard for the Beach Boys on CD.

A very nice writeup. I will say, I just finished completing a switchover of the catalog to the Analogue Productions SACD remasters and I'd generally say they seem to better the 2012s a bit (more dynamic range pretty consistently, for one thing) but the difference isn't, like, huge. I also read that on a couple of tracks (need to find where this was detailed) incorrect fold-down mixes were used instead of true mono mixes or something.

I remember how excited I was when the 2012s came out and I could finally hear the mono mixes of these albums for, mostly, the first time.

Have you ever checked out the Japanese Pastmasters series for any of the Beach Boys releases? I read they're supposedly flat transfers, mostly bettered by the 2012s and AP SACDs but was thinking of trying to track down some copies of the Pastmasters for the live albums and Friends/20-20/Wild Honey.

Also, you may know the answer to this: are there still tracks from the old 2-fers that only appear digitally there? I haven't gone through the various box sets to see if all the bonus tracks appear elsewhere but I'm debating finally parting with my 2-fers where I've upgraded to the 2012s or APs...

I agree on the Analogue Productions - they sound nice. For me, the 2012's sounded so good that it's hard to hear a ton of improvement. I've looked them up on the Dynamic Range Database before and there isn't a ton of difference between the 1990/2000's and the Analogues.

[matedog]

Listened to Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) this morning. What a half goofy/half great record. I know it sort of gets lost in the shadow of Today! but, for my money, the run of songs from Girl Don't Tell Me -> Help Me Rhonda -> California Girls -> Let Him Run Wild -> You're So Good To Me -> Summer Means New Love is about as good a sequence as anything the Boys ever committed to vinyl (not necessarily best, but equal to). It's kinda funny that the rest of the album has some of their goofiest songs since like Surfin Safari (not bad goofy, necessarily).

They just don't write songs about amusement parks like "Amusement Parks USA" anymore. I'll have to give this more of a spin to get to that run. I think Today! was the one that really surprised me with how solid it is when I did my initial skim.

[WestwayKid]

Listened to Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) this morning. What a half goofy/half great record. I know it sort of gets lost in the shadow of Today! but, for my money, the run of songs from Girl Don't Tell Me -> Help Me Rhonda -> California Girls -> Let Him Run Wild -> You're So Good To Me -> Summer Means New Love is about as good a sequence as anything the Boys ever committed to vinyl (not necessarily best, but equal to). It's kinda funny that the rest of the album has some of their goofiest songs since like Surfin Safari (not bad goofy, necessarily).

They just don't write songs about amusement parks like "Amusement Parks USA" anymore. I'll have to give this more of a spin to get to that run. I think Today! was the one that really surprised me with how solid it is when I did my initial skim.

Summer Days runs just a tick behind Today (in my opinion)

The Girl from New York City is slight, but Brian's production is HUGE - so it punches way above its weight.
Amusement Parks U.S.A. falls a bit flat, it's not terrible, but not memorable.
Then I Kissed Her is a fantastic cover. I think Brian one ups Spector on this production. Al's gritty lead is perfect.
Salt Lake City is kind of interesting musically, though the lyric is a bit boring. Pleasant filler.
Girl Don't Tell Me is seriously underrated. It's Brian doing Rubber Soul. Carl's vocal is great.
Help Me, Rhonda is interesting because it's Brian trying to improve on Brian and he succeeds. This version is better than the original, the vocal arrangement on the chorus is insane. How he could hear those voices and figure out how they fit together... wow.
California Girls... what else can I say about this track. It's sublime.
Let Him Run Wild is another underrated classic. Brian's falsetto was something special. There was a whininess to it, which isn't a bad thing as I think it gave him a slightly wounded, boyish tone.
You're So Good to Me is offbeat and wonderful. Brian does away with the complex arrangement and strips it back completely with some wonderful, almost doowop backing vocals.
Summer Means New Love is okay as an instrumental. It borders on sappiness at points, but I don't hate it.
I'm Bugged at My Ol' Man is pure throwaway, but the subtext of Murry being a bad "ol' man" gives it a slightly menacing feeling. Let's not forget that Today! came with Bull Session with Big Daddy ...
And Your Dream Comes True is Brian channeling the Four Freshman. It feels a little out of place in 1965 and it's also a slightly downbeat/low key way to finish the LP, but again - the vocal arrangement .. wow.

[WestwayKid]

My hometown Milwaukee Bucks, favorites to win the NBA Championship this year, are suddenly down 3-1 to the Miami Heat. A large part of that (in my opinion) was losing Giannis for most of G1 and then all of G2 and G3. What happened to him? He collided with Kevin Love (it was not intentional) and fell and hurt his back. It somehow all goes back to Mike, doesn't it??

[Flex]

And Your Dreams come true might be my fave of the a capella beach boys tracks (at least the onea recorded AS a cappella to be released as such, not counting some wonderful isolated vocal takes that have appeared on boxes). Not that this is a huge list to choose from, but it sure beats graduation day imho

[Dr. Medulla]

My hometown Milwaukee Bucks, favorites to win the NBA Championship this year, are suddenly down 3-1 to the Miami Heat. A large part of that (in my opinion) was losing Giannis for most of G1 and then all of G2 and G3. What happened to him? He collided with Kevin Love (it was not intentional) and fell and hurt his back. It somehow all goes back to Mike, doesn't it??

"We see you at the Southwest Wisconsin fairgrounds this June. Surfs up!"