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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Apr 4, 2020 16:24:35 GMT
...and that brings us to our namesake - The Beach Boys Today!
This one had potential; another woulda/shoulda/coulda. I like the sweaters and I love the front cover photo. Very handsome young men, dare I say clean cut. But that's OK, it was still 1964/65. The brown? Meh. The orange? A nice contrast. My biggest problem, though, is too much brown. Why not just extend the photo down through their legs and into the pool. A pool is nice. You don't always need an ocean, and this was no surf & turf record.
The back cover is more of the same which means bad. No back cover photos, no color, much wasted space (it's even noticeable), and another opportunity to advertise old albums on a new album. And, I liked Dick Clark as much as the next guy, and he was in his heyday back in 1965, but did we really need a...message from him?
Looks like another quickie to me. Hand the guys a couple of sweaters, take a new picture, try to effectively crop it, plaster a few old (black and White) album covers on the back, and voila, a new Beach Boys' album cover!
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 4, 2020 16:34:29 GMT
To me the color scheme is very "of the times." I think of the pyrex cookware my mom still had decades after my parents got it as their wedding gifts, and the designs were always on an orange, brown, olive, gold background. Those kinds of colors seem to have dominated at least parts of the '60s.
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Post by kds on Apr 4, 2020 17:48:31 GMT
So........much........brown
What was the fascination with brown in the 60s, 70s, and early 80s?
Decent band photo otherwise
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Apr 4, 2020 18:05:45 GMT
This photo would've eliminated some of the brown, complete with Beatle boots:
...and, how about this one on the back cover with the guys looking at the song titles on the right:
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on May 3, 2020 14:51:23 GMT
Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)
The positives? That's a very nice front cover photo of the guys. Is it a coincidence that Brian is bigger and out front? You have the blue sky, the ocean, and a sailboat. Very appealing. Mike does look a little out of place in the swimsuit and without a shirt on, but whatever. Well, that's about it for the positives.
Did they have to cram those song titles on the front cover? Was anybody actually looking at them? To see if "California Girls" was included on the album?
Nitpicking time...Was it necessary to put And Summer Nights in parentheses, and with !!
Like I said, it's a very nice photo of the group, but when I/you think of summer days (and summer nights!!), do you think about sailing? I guess they exhausted all of the other "summer activities" on the All Summer Long album cover.
No Bruce yet.
Did the Capitol Records' art department have something against color photography? Why did they continue to use black and white photos on the back covers? The band was already three years and ten albums in! They did include the lead vocals' credits (I wonder what prompted that?). They were still promoting those past Beach Boys' albums on the NEW album, though. Did you read what the guys had to say in their individual paragraphs? I guess that did add a personal touch which was needed back in those days; nothing wrong with that.
OK, the Al issue, or specifically his absence from the front cover photo. I've commented on this issue several times on several forums over several years. I know it's just an album cover (though I take them very seriously), but Al not appearing with the guys on the front cover is one of the most bizarre and unbelievable moments in Beach Boys' history. The story is that Al was sick on the day of the photo shoot. Al must've been pretty sick. I think I would've called a doctor, maybe gotten some medication or a shot or something, and ultimately crawled to that photo shoot. And then I would've puked all over everybody for not rescheduling the session. I mean, come on, what disrespect shown to Al. Did I mention that he sings lead on "Help Me, Rhonda" and "Then I Kissed Her", two of the most popular songs on the album? The Beach Boys were the most popular group in America, second worldwide behind only The Beatles. Is it a fair comparison to say that leaving Al off the album cover would be akin to George Harrison being left off a Beatles' album cover. Maybe a little bit?
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Post by Kapitan on May 3, 2020 15:04:14 GMT
Middling cover in my opinion. I neither love nor hate it visually.
Re the color covers and B&W backs, I wonder if that was just a financial issue. I'm sure it was cheaper to do the backs in B&W, and that might have simply been industry standard at the time. Not saying they couldn't have spent more on a successful act, but maybe it simply wasn't an issue for them then. Maybe everyone involved figured the front was what mattered most, that color (on the front) was a cool addition, as opposed to B&W on the back being a drawback.
The parenthetical "(and Summer Nights!!)" definitely smacks of a grown-up square trying to be coy. Hey kids, wink wink, you know what we mean... And I don't much care for exclamation points to begin with, much less doubled-up. But that's the old journalism major in me.
It always does amuse me how many older album covers--not just Beach Boys--list some songs, but not all. Yet the "some" is often half the album or so, to the point that it seems like you could just as well go all or nothing with it. It's like if I were to tell you my favorite dinner was pizza, lasagna, palak paneer, piri piri chicken, roast turkey and potatoes, spicy fried rice, chili, clam chowder, gyros, moussaka, rogan josh, pancakes, or stuffed red peppers.
More specifically for this band (as opposed to just objectively as a cover), Mike being half nude while the others aren't just dressed, but dressed for chilly weather, is funny and perfect. I can imagine it having been a chilly day and him insisting: this shirt comes OFF! (Leaving countless people to ask, why couldn't Dennis have taken off his shirt?)
Leaving Al off was indeed disrespectful to the nth degree. Ditto Bruce, if he was formally in by this point. I don't recall all the specifics in the timeline and would hate to be sassily corrected for my ignorance.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on May 3, 2020 15:17:31 GMT
More specifically for this band (as opposed to just objectively as a cover), Mike being half nude while the others aren't just dressed, but dressed for chilly weather, is funny and perfect. I can imagine it having been a chilly day and him insisting: this shirt comes OFF! (Leaving countless people to ask, why couldn't Dennis have taken off his shirt?)
Leaving Al off was indeed disrespectful to the nth degree. Ditto Bruce, if he was formally in by this point. I don't recall all the specifics in the timeline and would hate to be sassily corrected for my ignorance. Good point! Summer days, huh? Brian looks like he's freezing (with black socks and shoes ), Carl is wearing dress pants, and Dennis is wearing the odd combination of a swimsuit AND a mock turtleneck shirt. If I didn't know it was 1965, I'd think Mike's waistline was photoshopped.
And standing somewhere on the boat, out of the frame is...? Wouldn't have that been strange if Bruce was on the front album cover photo - and Al wasn't?
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Post by Kapitan on May 3, 2020 15:21:12 GMT
Bruce is standing--in shorts and baseball cap--out of frame, clapping, adjusting camera stands (as there are no mic stands on the vessel), and telling Mike he looks great.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on May 3, 2020 15:24:31 GMT
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Post by kds on May 3, 2020 16:36:19 GMT
Minus the obvious gripe about Al bring absent (especially since he had two leads on the album), I like this cover. Even if the title and cover both go against the attempted depature from fun in the sun songs.
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bellbottoms
Pacific Coast Highway
Posts: 727
Likes: 201
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Post by bellbottoms on May 4, 2020 13:35:42 GMT
I like the SDSN cover too, despite its obvious flaws. It's kind of amusing that we have Mike in his swim shorts and Brian in a sweater. I've often wondered if Al being sick is really true, or if he had some kind of aversion to boats, or if he forgot about the shoot or something, and the "sick" excuse was made up. Whatever the reason, they should have rescheduled it, it's baffling that they didn't. At some point I hope to meet Al and get him to sign the front cover to get him on it.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on May 4, 2020 14:38:03 GMT
...and I guess they tried to "make it up to Al" by giving him center position on the back cover, using a photo where Al is dressed for winter days (and winter nights!!)
This is the first time I ever read those personal messages on the back cover. So, it was Al himself who mentioned that infamous flu, and then he goes on to spend the next three paragraphs complaining.
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bellbottoms
Pacific Coast Highway
Posts: 727
Likes: 201
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Post by bellbottoms on May 4, 2020 15:38:07 GMT
This is the first time I ever read those personal messages on the back cover. So, it was Al himself who mentioned that infamous flu, and then he goes on to spend the next three paragraphs complaining. I know it's the official story, and it might very well be true. But the way the BB's have always tried to control and edit their narrative makes me feel just a tad suspicious, lol. I can very easily imagine the band telling Al to say he was sick. But without evidence to the contrary, I suppose I should accept it on face value.
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Post by Kapitan on May 4, 2020 15:50:07 GMT
I tend to go the opposite way and disbelieve any little stories like that in PR material. Yet I have to say, it's such a stupid excuse, I can't imagine what truth it could have been thought to be better than...
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on May 21, 2020 13:09:46 GMT
Meh. That's a lot of orange. It's looks like they were back to the collage theme a la All Summer Long. I think I would've preferred a group photo on the front cover, but with less "other non-Beach Boys" (see below). Glad to see Al made the session, and so did several Beach Boys' wives! The collage works better on the back cover, though some of the photos are very similar to All Summer Long. I guess you could have an outdoors party. Oh, and the ! was back. Hooray - all color photos, both front and back cover. And, instead of just lead vocal credits, we now have some humor added to them. At least they stopped advertising the back catalogue. A very straight forward album cover, and for the fans, the more photos the better.
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