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Post by Kapitan on Mar 15, 2019 15:14:52 GMT
The Beach Boys have plenty of candidates for Most Overlooked Album, but Carl and the Passions: So Tough certainly warrants mention among them. They've also got plenty of candidates for Most Unusual Album, and it belongs among those as well.
Its story--being released with a Pet Sounds reissue--is one wrinkle, of course. But its construction is pretty strange, too: two Flame (more or less) songs, two Brian songs, two Dennis songs, and two multi-member (of the core band) co-written songs.
Handing a quarter of the songs to new band members whose sound was so different from the rest of the band and its history is a brave, but odd, choice. Personally I'm glad they did it. I don't actually like the Flame's music that much, but I do like both of these songs, especially "Hold On, Dear Brother." (The pedal steel solo is great.)
I'm also a really big fan of "Mess of Help." I think it actually should have been a hit, and consider it better than the more-often played rocker from the album, "Marcella." (Both are good to these ears, though.) And it has been great to see something of a resurgence (or a 'surgence,' if I may coin a term) for "All This is That": it was played at C50, for example, and seems based on my purely anecdotal observations that it is discussed by more fans in recent years.
The downside for me is probably predictable, mostly, being what seems to be the one non-fan of Dennis Wilson among hardcore fans of the band. "Cuddle Up" is so overlong, and "Make It Good" feels like it despite its shorter running time. His songs, particularly the ballads, just have so little movement, so little melody, so little harmony. They're just blunt blows by sugar-bats. (Bats made of sugar. You don't have sugar bats?) Then the sugar breaks or melts and gets all over you and you're sticky. Before this goes into a truly disgusting direction, I'll move on.
I'm not a fan of "He Come Down" either. I think this band's gospel attempts are pretty pale, pretty stiff.
Considering the number of unreleased songs the band had at this time, it's astounding to me they didn't flesh out the album with at least two more tunes. But the oddball of an album they actually did release is pretty good.
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Post by kds on Mar 24, 2019 4:05:03 GMT
The Beach Boys manage to get progressive and forward thinking while still releasing an album with a goddamn car on the cover.
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Post by sebevedomy on Mar 24, 2019 8:00:12 GMT
A nice collection of songs by a band of songwriter-producers who have no idea what the others are doing.
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Post by Kapitan on Jun 7, 2021 16:32:17 GMT
Carl and the Passions--So Tough/Pet Sounds [Brother/Reprise, 1972] They can't have much faith in the new one if they're loss-leading with an old one (the one that turned them into a cult band, now finally--how did we stand the wait?--available in its pristine mono form). And indeed, there's no reason they should. Despite the title, it's not some sort of primitive surf doowop--sounds a lot like Friends and Holland to me. Fairly pleasant, but even the highlights aren't all that hot: a nice Brian Wilson oeuvre called "Marcella" (sounds like Smiley Smile) and a silly gospel song for the Maharishi. C+
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Post by B.E. on Jun 7, 2021 23:20:56 GMT
a nice Brian Wilson oeuvre called "Marcella" (sounds like Smiley Smile)
Umm...what?
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 1, 2022 17:13:45 GMT
I was thinking about this album today, both for the track listing of the songs that are there, and what else might have been done to it. Specifically, this idea occurred to me, and then going back to our Album of the Week thread on it, I saw B.E. had thought about it at that time: I think it should be noted that they did a good job of just utilizing their best songs, of not fleshing out the album with mediocre material. The one exception, IMO, being the poorly sequenced "Here She Comes", but it's adequate and is growing on me. (But, seriously, if you need to bury the lead vocal that much, then perhaps it's not up to snuff?) WIBNTLA was worthy, but we're not aware of much else. "I've Got A Friend" could have been, if completed, but how many Dennis ballads can you have on one album? As for Carl, I'm not aware of any good songs that he had written but left off the album. Maybe the Feel Flows box will have something to say about that. So now, a few months after Feel Flows, what do you think? Was there another song you think would have fit well on CATP?
The one that jumps out to me first as a possible addition is "Sweet and Bitter."
One I can almost imagine thanks to the scaled-down version on FF is ... "Soulful Old Man Sunshine"! I never would have thought so in the past, but there is something about the voluminous but sometimes loose background vocal harmonies and the newly prominent electric guitar licks that almost works. Along the same lines, "Seasons in the Sun" could've been used, though hopefully they'd have punched it up a little. I could also imagine "It's Natural," but as always with that one, I'd need to hear a finished version. And we don't really know (I don't think) how much more they might have had but not recorded in terms of lyrics.
A few of the Dennis songs seem like they could have worked ... had he finished them. "All My Love/Ecology" and "Before."
But sticking with the songs that are there, I also feel like fiddling with the running order. I can't wrap my head around "Mess of Help" and "Marcella" on the same side. They feel to me either like bookends or side openers, but an opener and a closer of the same side makes an imbalance between sides to my way of thinking.
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 1, 2022 20:34:17 GMT
I was fiddling with this as a running order:
1. You Need a Mess of Help to Stand Alone 2. Hold On, Dear Brother 3. He Come Down 4. Make it Good
5. Marcella 6. Here She Comes 7. All This is That 8. Cuddle Up
I don't like that Side One is about three minutes shorter than Side Two, but I do prefer the flow of these tracks. But adding something like "Sweet and Bitter" to Side One would help.
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