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Post by Kapitan on Oct 15, 2019 0:18:06 GMT
This album is where I get let my contrarian flag fly against the prevailing winds of BeachBoysland: Pacific Ocean Blue is a good album. A good album, not a great one. And Dennis Wilson was a talented second-fiddle kind of songwriter, not anything resembling a potential star as a solo artist, much less a genius.
Half a dozen or so of these songs are really good. It's better than all but one of the albums the Beach Boys released from its August 1977 release date forward (with the superior Beach Boys album not released for another 35 years). But were it rated alongside the Beach Boys canon, it certainly wouldn't crack my top five ... or probably top ten. (It would be right in that territory, though: probably in the 8-12 range.)
My critique is well worn by this time: what other people seem to hear as emotion sounds to me like overblown melodrama, and those ballads just never go anywhere. I'm more partial to the songs with some momentum to them: "What's Wrong," for example, as basic as the music is, it's funky and it feels like something is happening (even if that "something" is usually just a short journey from the I chord tot he V chord). "The River Song," "Rainbows," and "Pacific Ocean Blue" are others I really enjoy quite a bit.
But there's such a sameness to Wilson's material. For all his attitude and instincts--and even some arrangement ideas--he lacks both the harmonic and melodic inventiveness one would hope for. As I listen to this album again, the same thought occurs to me as has come up recently in our Queen and KISS discussions: the beauty of having a band of songwriters is that you can (at least in theory) pick the best songs from among them. Wilson absolutely would have landed his fair share had he contributed them all to the band's projects (and had the band's projects not gone over the deep end with the covers-heavy 15 Big Ones and the insanity-heavy Love You). A hypothetical band that kept the spirit of the early '70s, of Holland, would have found use for this material, not to mention added some welcome voices on harmonies, and both they and it would have been better for it.
It's fair to call this album underrated generally because most people haven't ever heard of it, much less heard and rated it. But I stand by my opinion that among serious fans, it might be the most overrated album of Beach Boys-related material there is.
Note: this is only about Pacific Ocean Blue itself. I'm not discussing the Bambu material that's been released on the deluxe reissue, which I think deserves its own thread (someday).
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bellbottoms
Pacific Coast Highway
Posts: 727
Likes: 201
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Post by bellbottoms on Oct 15, 2019 13:59:11 GMT
Well, I’m one of the masses of BB fans who thinks this album is the bee’s knees. Dennis’ contributions to the BB catalogue are fine, some are very good, a few are great, but taken individually, I think every song on this album tops every song he ever contributed to a BB album (including Forever, which I think is a very good song, but if there is any overrated Dennis song, it’s that one). Taken altogether, the album hits all the marks. I don’t hear melodrama, I hear the emotion, and I feel it, too. Often, after multiple listenings, an album’s effect can start to wear off. It has certainly happened to me with Pet Sounds. But that has yet to happen with POB.
I think Dennis was really on to something with POB. He had a unique style that grew out of his experiences with the Beach Boys but then evolved into something that was really his own. POB is a natural evolution of his songwriting with the Beach Boys, and I’m so glad he explored it on his own, but it also makes me wonder what might have happened if if the Beach Boys had let things happen a little more organically and let Dennis emerge as their main songwriter for a little while, for as long as that spark was in him.
While the lack of recognition of Dennis’ talents by general music listeners is certainly a bummer, I have small bee in my bonnet about what seems like a lack of recognition of his talents by the other Beach Boys. I mean, he was right there. He was “theirs”. And it seems that instead of nurturing the spark that had been growing inside him and seeing where it could take them, they backed away from it. Maybe they were afraid of it, or they just didn’t see it. Either way, they ended up going down nostalgia road, when they had this new creative force emerging right there in front of them.
It may be one of the reasons why we ended up losing him. I know that to make a direct link would be an oversimplification of a very complex situation in terms of family and band dynamics, but I do think Dennis’ growth and ambition as a songwriter, whose style diverged from what the band saw as their sound, is a very interesting thread in the narrative.
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Post by kds on Oct 15, 2019 14:03:03 GMT
While I do think it's one of the better Beach Boys solo albums, I agree with Kapitan that it's a bit overrated by BB fans. I really like Dennis's songs on the late 60s / early 70s Beach Boys albums, but I think a whole album of Dennis material is a bit much.
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Post by Kapitan on Oct 16, 2019 23:49:30 GMT
It's not hard to imagine how good a mid-70s Beach Boys album could have been had they chosen to avoid the oldies covers and instead continue vaguely in the vein of C&TP and Holland, using more of Dennis's material, encouraged Carl and Al to keep writing new music, and of course try to get something not terrible out of Brian. To me, that's what POB is more than anything: it's what could have made some Beach Boys albums really good.
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Post by lonelysummer on Oct 18, 2019 2:42:13 GMT
I tend to find Dennis' songwriting a bit overrated among the hardcore fans. I had the Friends-20/20 cd on today, and Little Bird and Be Still are very likeable songs to me, and I love All I Want to Do as a good rocker, but Be With Me starts off nice enough, then goes into this kind of spooky, droning music, which I don't care for. Celebrate the News is another okay track, but it doesn't strike me as anything special. Yet I have constantly read what a great songwriter Dennis was. Yeah, he wrote some good stuff - Slip On Through, Forever, Cuddle Up, Baby Blue. And that's what I hear on POB - some good songs that would have any improved most any BB's album, and other stuff that just doesn't do anything for me. I feel like the odd man out in this assessment, but with Dennis, it's his drumming I love. Who cares if he wasn't as skilled as Hal Blaine - I just love the energy he always put into it. And i'm quite fond of his voice before it was destroyed by alcohol, drugs, or Rocky slugging him in the throat. For example, one little moment I never see anyone comment on, that I think is real nice, is Denny's voice on the intro and outro of Be Here in the Morning. It has that special tone that was unique to Dennis. And BTW, I will take POB over Love You any day!
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Post by kds on Oct 18, 2019 12:06:50 GMT
And BTW, I will take POB over Love You any day! With this, I will wholeheartedly agree.
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Post by Kapitan on Oct 18, 2019 12:32:06 GMT
'fraid I can't join you two on that one. But I do admit POB is a substantially better performed and produced album.
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Post by kds on Oct 18, 2019 12:36:27 GMT
Even thought I think it's highly overrated, I'd still place POB pretty highly on the list of BB related LPs between Holland and TWGMTR, even though that's probably not the highest praise in the world.
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Post by Kapitan on Oct 18, 2019 12:45:50 GMT
Even I agree with that. I think it's the best between Love You and TWGMTR. And if I backed it up to Holland, I'd rank them as Love You, TWGMTR, Holland, POB, then all the others in some barely-relevant-because-they-all-suck order.
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Post by kds on Oct 18, 2019 13:07:09 GMT
Even I agree with that. I think it's the best between Love You and TWGMTR. And if I backed it up to Holland, I'd rank them as Love You, TWGMTR, Holland, POB, then all the others in some barely-relevant-because-they-all-suck order. I'd probably make some room for TLOS there. And I'm pretty fond of MIU and BB85, but each of those albums is way down in quality comparing to POB and TLOS.
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Post by Kapitan on Oct 18, 2019 13:09:47 GMT
Oh, you know what? I wasn't thinking non-BBs but BBs-related stuff. I was just thinking POB-as-Beach Boys. With that caveat I would DEFINITELY put TLOS and frankly also BWPS in the mix.
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Post by lonelysummer on Oct 19, 2019 2:43:22 GMT
I think LA (Light Album) is the best BB's album post-Holland - minus the 10 minute mistake that is HCTN. BB85 is pretty enjoyable, but it's not quite at the level of LA. Maybe it's the absence of Dennis. And as good as TWGMTR is, I can't quite lump it in the with all the albums of the classic lineup. I'll say this - TWGMTR is as good of a BB's album you're gonna get without Dennis and especially Carl there. No one can replace Carl's voice - not even Foskett, lol.
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Post by kds on Oct 19, 2019 17:40:17 GMT
I think LA (Light Album) is the best BB's album post-Holland - minus the 10 minute mistake that is HCTN. BB85 is pretty enjoyable, but it's not quite at the level of LA. Maybe it's the absence of Dennis. And as good as TWGMTR is, I can't quite lump it in the with all the albums of the classic lineup. I'll say this - TWGMTR is as good of a BB's album you're gonna get without Dennis and especially Carl there. No one can replace Carl's voice - not even Foskett, lol. I agree about LA, just a pity the one horrible song takes up a quarter of the album.
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Post by lonelysummer on Oct 20, 2019 3:13:20 GMT
I think LA (Light Album) is the best BB's album post-Holland - minus the 10 minute mistake that is HCTN. BB85 is pretty enjoyable, but it's not quite at the level of LA. Maybe it's the absence of Dennis. And as good as TWGMTR is, I can't quite lump it in the with all the albums of the classic lineup. I'll say this - TWGMTR is as good of a BB's album you're gonna get without Dennis and especially Carl there. No one can replace Carl's voice - not even Foskett, lol. I agree about LA, just a pity the one horrible song takes up a quarter of the album. Yeah, it makes no sense to put the long version on the album - that's what 12 inch singles were for. The Rolling Stones had an extended mix of Miss You, but it wasn't on the Some Girls album. Wings had a 7 minute version of Goodnight Tonight, but you had to buy the 12 inch single to get it. There was better stuff the BB's had that could have filled that space on LA.
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Post by kds on Oct 20, 2019 4:11:24 GMT
I agree about LA, just a pity the one horrible song takes up a quarter of the album. Yeah, it makes no sense to put the long version on the album - that's what 12 inch singles were for. The Rolling Stones had an extended mix of Miss You, but it wasn't on the Some Girls album. Wings had a 7 minute version of Goodnight Tonight, but you had to buy the 12 inch single to get it. There was better stuff the BB's had that could have filled that space on LA. That's Beach Boy logic for you.
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