Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2019 11:06:36 GMT
This week's album is Orange Crate Art, a collaboration album between Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks released in 1995:
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bellbottoms
Pacific Coast Highway
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Post by bellbottoms on Dec 23, 2019 13:42:35 GMT
I’m giving OCA a 4. The quality of the songs is high, but I find the vocals so hard to listen to that they ruin the listening experience for me. I can’t say I bother too much with this album, with the exception of San Francisco. Oddly, the vocals really work for me in that song. Plus, it’s just an awesome song.
This is one album that I'd love to hear a remake of. I don't have specific ideas for that remake, but I think a different vocal approach would really elevate it.
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Post by Kapitan on Dec 23, 2019 15:12:16 GMT
I feel pretty negatively toward this album, too. Every so often someone praises it, but I haven't yet been able to figure out why. The vocals are pretty terrible throughout, but honestly I don't even think most of the songs are very good.
I do love, and I mean love, the title track. It's a shame the vocals are so terrible. I prefer Van Dyke Parks's own versions on things like Moonlighting at the Ash Grove to this wall o' breathy Brians. (That's the thing: Brian's vocals sound like wind, not tone. So overdubbed, it's a wall of wind. He really sounds bad.)
Grades...worst part. I don't know. 4?
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Post by B.E. on Dec 23, 2019 19:21:17 GMT
I wholeheartedly agree with the rating of "4" for Orange Crate Art. The last time I listened to it I noted that "This Town Goes Down At Sunset" and "San Francisco" were my two favorites. Though, in this case, that just means that I marginally like them. Personally, I'm not nearly as down on Brian's vocals, and it's his involvement, alone, that results in my very occasional listening of this album. Would I rather listen to this or Bruce's Surfers' Pajama Party? Tough call.
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Post by jk on Dec 23, 2019 20:37:11 GMT
Ooh. I love it--which is why it gets a 10 from me.
Much of VDP's stuff goes in one ear and out the other (or gives me a headache) but not OCA. And there's something infinitely appealing about Brian singing Van Dyke compositions. This and the original mix of BW88 are Brian's finest hours as a recording artist, post 1988. In my jaded view.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Dec 24, 2019 3:29:51 GMT
I'll admit it. When I first heard that Van Dyke Parks was working with Brian Wilson on a new album in 1995, I had high expectations. Yes, some - some - of those expectations included present day SMiLE-like music. Why not? What other kind of music would/could these two guys come up with? Certainly not "Surfers Rule". But how about "Sail On, Sailor"? Back in 1995 I formed two opinions about this album - one about Van Dyke's contribution and one about Brian Wilson's contribution - and those opinions have not changed.
I think Parks did an excellent job in composing Orange Crate Art. Most of the songs are good to very good; a couple are excellent. The arrangements, as you would expect, are tastefully done. The album is well produced. Van Dyke was successful in pulling off his concept album. He did his job. But he made one crucial mistake, and it cost him. Big time. He chose Brian Wilson to do all of the vocals.
Simply put, Brian's vocals obliterate this album. None of the songs (with the possible exception of "San Francisco") reach their potential. I made the same point on a few recent topics and, I'm sorry, but I have to make it again. Certain types of music/songs require certain singing, and Brian's voice/vocals do not fit these songs. At that time (and frankly, probably not even since), Brian did not possess the vocal chops to pull off this material. He didn't have the phrasing, he didn't have the vocal nuances. HE WAS TOO SHOUTY!
In typical VDP fashion, he didn't comment too extensively about Brian's work on this album, at least not in the detail I would've liked. I read an interview or two, but I would really like to know what motivated VDP to dial up his old collaborator to basically "sing an album". I guess Brian did some (most? all?) of the vocal arrangements, too. What recordings were influencing Van Dyke at that time? What made him think that Brian could pull this off? The 1988 solo album? The "Bells Of Madness" cameo? Some of Brian's early work on the "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" documentary? Did VDP think that he and Brian could summon up the old magic? Or, did VDP simply want to sell some records? Of course VDP knew he would get a lot of free publicity simply by linking himself and NEW MUSIC to the Brian Wilson name, the Brian Wilson mystique.
I think Van Dyke Parks made a big mistake in recruiting Brian Wilson. Sure, most of the exposure - and record sales - that the album generated can be directly linked to Brian Wilson. But what about the art? Isn't Van Dyke Parks the ultimate artist? He would like us to think that, based on several things I've read. Ultimately, Orange Crate Art fails. And that's a shame because, again, the material deserved more. When I purchased the album, I gave it a good listen and really tried to like it. Now, I rarely listen to it. I can sit through a couple songs, but then it starts to grate on me. A 3.
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Post by kds on Dec 24, 2019 4:17:31 GMT
4. And that's being kind. The songs are pleasant, but average and not memorable. The vocals are Brian's worst of the last 3-4 decades.
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Post by lonelysummer on Dec 24, 2019 6:42:51 GMT
Sheesh, am I listening to the same album these people are talking about? The first time I heard it was at a listening station in Tower Records, fall 1995. I stood there and listened to the whole album, which I never do, but I was broke, and had to hear it. My how things have changed. But I wasn't knocked out by it. It wasn't what I was expecting. A friend gave me the cassette a few days before Christmas, we listened to it together...again, not knocked out. I took the cassette with me on a trip, the day after Christmas. My first time flying across the USA. Maybe that was why I had a different reaction the this time - I fell in love with it. And when I came home a week later, I started off every day by listening to the album. I sang along with the songs, and I can't figure out why people don't like Brian's vocals on the album. They are not easy songs to sing! I think Van Dyke brought Brian in because he's never liked the sound of his own voice, he wanted a real singer to sing these songs. The songs take enough melodic twists and turns to keep them interesting, and some people hate Van Dyke's style of lyric writing, but I love then. Honestly, every BW album since this (excepting TLOS) has been a disappointment.
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Post by jk on Dec 24, 2019 13:59:09 GMT
Sheesh, am I listening to the same album these people are talking about? The first time I heard it was at a listening station in Tower Records, fall 1995. I stood there and listened to the whole album, which I never do, but I was broke, and had to hear it. My how things have changed. But I wasn't knocked out by it. It wasn't what I was expecting. A friend gave me the cassette a few days before Christmas, we listened to it together...again, not knocked out. I took the cassette with me on a trip, the day after Christmas. My first time flying across the USA. Maybe that was why I had a different reaction the this time - I fell in love with it. And when I came home a week later, I started off every day by listening to the album. I sang along with the songs, and I can't figure out why people don't like Brian's vocals on the album. They are not easy songs to sing! I think Van Dyke brought Brian in because he's never liked the sound of his own voice, he wanted a real singer to sing these songs. The songs take enough melodic twists and turns to keep them interesting, and some people hate Van Dyke's style of lyric writing, but I love them. Honestly, every BW album since this (excepting TLOS) has been a disappointment. Well that's reassuring! Agreed 100% on the bit in bold type, LS. I think it's a great listen. and the only post 1988 Brian-sung album I ever revisit.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Dec 24, 2019 14:11:59 GMT
...I can't figure out why people don't like Brian's vocals on the album. They are not easy songs to sing! I think Van Dyke brought Brian in because he's never liked the sound of his own voice, he wanted a real singer to sing these songs. The songs take enough melodic twists and turns to keep them interesting, and some people hate Van Dyke's style of lyric writing, but I love then. Honestly, every BW album since this (excepting TLOS) has been a disappointment. For somebody who has been in the business almost his entire life (and that's over 75 years now), Van Dyke Parks has a lot of connections, maybe not as much as some other music "stars", but he's been around. I can understand that he wouldn't find his voice...suited...to the material, but VDP has to know several people whose voices do. I think I read that VDP chose Brian for this project because of his (Brian's) life or his personal connection to California - even more than their previous connection with SMiLE. I guess this would make Orange Crate Art VDP's That Lucky Old Sun, or vice verse. But, as you say, lonelysummer, the songs on Orange Crate Art do have twists and turns, and naturally, VDP's lyrics. Not every singer can pull off that combination.
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bellbottoms
Pacific Coast Highway
Posts: 727
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Post by bellbottoms on Dec 24, 2019 14:19:24 GMT
For me, nasal shouting vocals are just not what I want to hear, unless it's being done for comedic or some other type of effect (I think that's why I don't mind it on San Francisco - that song has a certain personality). And that type of singing is especially what I don't want to hear from Brian Wilson. Maybe it's what VDP wanted, but it's hard on these ears.
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Post by Kapitan on Dec 24, 2019 14:22:35 GMT
He sounds OK in the baritone range, but as you go up the register, it's worse and worse, from the shouty tenor to the breathy, quadrupled falsetto. It's not a matter of the songs being hard to sing, it's a matter of his voice not being good. If your falsetto sounds bad, four of them doesn't sound good.
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Post by lonelysummer on Dec 28, 2019 6:08:12 GMT
For me, nasal shouting vocals are just not what I want to hear, unless it's being done for comedic or some other type of effect (I think that's why I don't mind it on San Francisco - that song has a certain personality). And that type of singing is especially what I don't want to hear from Brian Wilson. Maybe it's what VDP wanted, but it's hard on these ears. Nasal? When I think Nasal singing, I think Willie Nelson. Or Bob Dylan.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Dec 28, 2019 14:37:34 GMT
For me, nasal shouting vocals are just not what I want to hear, unless it's being done for comedic or some other type of effect (I think that's why I don't mind it on San Francisco - that song has a certain personality). And that type of singing is especially what I don't want to hear from Brian Wilson. Maybe it's what VDP wanted, but it's hard on these ears. Nasal? When I think Nasal singing, I think Willie Nelson. Or Bob Dylan. For some reason, in the early and mid-1990's, Brian did start to sound a little nasally. Brian rarely discussed his singing styles, but I always wondered if Brian - after hooking up with Landy the second time - was intentionally trying out different singing styles. Obviously after quitting the drugs and cigarettes, his voice was going to change...again, but he was working off-and-on with a voice coach, too. Brian's vocals on Orange Crate Art, the I just Wasn't Made For These Times soundtrack, and some of the Paley stuff sound to me like Brian was kind of "in between" styles, or searching for a new, comfortable singing voice/style. I think he found it with Joe Thomas on Imagination.
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