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Post by Sheriff John Stone on May 7, 2020 15:30:26 GMT
An interview with BB85 producer, Steve Levine:
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Post by Kapitan on May 7, 2020 15:53:36 GMT
Thanks for posting, I don't know that I've ever heard Levine talk about that album before.
Also great to know that my family (an older brother, specifically) had the same car at around the same time as Brian Wilson ... a Ford Pinto!
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on May 7, 2020 16:12:51 GMT
An interview with Robert White Johnson who worked with Carl Wilson on BB85:
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Post by Kapitan on Jun 7, 2021 16:37:15 GMT
The Beach Boys [Caribou, 1985] Would you get excited if the Four Lads released a comeback album with Boy George and Stevie Wonder songs on it? Bet they still harmonize pretty good, too. C
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Post by lonelysummer on Jun 7, 2021 20:08:36 GMT
I like it a lot. IMO, the last real Beach Boys album = Still Cruisin' being a comp, and Summer in Paradise being a Mike Love solo album with guest vocals from Carl, Al, and Bruce. Getcha Back, It's Gettin' Late, Maybe I Don't Know and Where I Belong are keepers. I'm also quite fond of the Stevie Wonder song. I'm So Lonely isn't much of a song, but Levine makes it sound good; it's the one showcase for Brian on the album. The one song that kind of turns me off is Crack at Your Love.
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Post by Kapitan on Oct 28, 2022 16:01:22 GMT
Doing the now-routine review of books for the album under consideration in the best/worst thread.
Carlin's approach to this album and era is a critical (as in criticism, not as in important/key) one: a corporate band barely caring that Dennis just died carrying on in the cold, computerized Reagan '80s.
"A day later [after the autopsy on Dennis] the surviving Beach Boys gathered before the press, looking sad, if not all that surprised. 'We are not disbanding,' Carl declared, firmly. 'We know Dennis would want us to continue in the spirit and tradition of the Beach Boys.'
"Which is precisely what they did without missing a beat. The group played its usual schedule of shows in 1984..." (p247-248)
About the album:
It was "played almost entirely on synthesizers and other electronic gear. And this was precisely the technique Levine brought to the Beach Boys. ... 'Almost everything on the record was programmed note-for-note, sound-for-sound, beat-by-beat, and then we wouldn't hear it until we sent it through the computer.' [Carl said.] 'The digital approach is so new, and it can be quite tedious until you learn it.'
"Not surprisingly, the record that emerged turned out to be an awkward, if occasionally engaging, blend of eras, styles, and cultures." A few of Carlin's specific lines about songs include: "California Calling strip-mined the memory of Surfin USA to predictably lame effect ... with all the grace and passion of one of Levine's computer programs. Conversely, many of the other songs tried too hard to echo the contemporary pop charts ... got tangled in a generic hair-metal guitar solo ... sounded just like the Culture Club outtake it was ... more like exercises than the product of inspiration." (p248-249)
"[T]he group was back to its primary occupation of finding new ways to repackage and sell off the shards of the pure, windswept horizon they had helped Brian bring to life two decades earlier. If they had ever felt moved by the beauty of what they had once created, if they had ever connected the quest for physical transcendence the songs described to the spiritual one that linked the to their ancestors and to the gleam in the eyes that sparkled beyond the footlights every night, it had clearly ceased to matter to them. For now the Beach Boys, like so many other middle-aged businessmen in Ronald Reagan's go-go 1980s, were committed to making money.
"And maybe this was exactly what American's Band was supposed to be doing. ... [T]hough the popular entertainers of the twentieth century have historically presented themselves as transgressive types aligned with society's downtrodden rank and file, their success has most often been determined by their relationships with the rich and powerful. So the Beach Boys took care of business, accepting a deal from Sunkist..." (p249-250)
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Post by kds on Oct 28, 2022 16:45:28 GMT
I'm assuming that the generic hair metal guitar is a reference to Gary Moore's playing on Maybe I Don't Know. While I do like that song, and the playing on it, I will say it doesn't sound very distinct to me. It might as well be a session player, as that doesn't really sound too much like the Gary Moore playing I'm familiar with.
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Post by Kapitan on Oct 28, 2022 19:06:26 GMT
Gaines's book doesn't really get into this album, having been published in 1986. There are two paragraphs at the end worth quoting.
And then "In 1985, the group was dropped by CBS Records when their contract ran out."
(p. 355)
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Post by jk on Nov 1, 2022 12:58:32 GMT
What I.Q. range was the thread title targeting, one wonders? (To say nothing of that opening post.) Ye gods, things at BBT have improved a millionfold since those messy early days.
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 2, 2022 11:50:47 GMT
At least it was active, though most of those first active posters vanished within a few days.
The Cincinnati Kid, any chance you'd be willing to format the title of this thread to match the other album threads in this section? Maybe it's just my spectrumish mentality, but it pains me to have this one standing out.
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Post by B.E. on Nov 2, 2022 13:42:37 GMT
Thanks for fixing the thread title!
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Post by B.E. on Nov 5, 2022 23:39:04 GMT
Recently, we touched on what Dennis' potential involvement in this album could have been had he lived, but I want to ask - should the Beach Boys have included Dennis in some way to honor him? And if so, what should they have done?
The reason I ask is, as I was relistening to this album again a few days ago, it hit me - "Constant Companion" would have been the perfect song to include! Musically, most of Dennis' material and The Beach Boys just don't mesh. But, "Constant Companion" is a very bouncy/pop-y tune that I can hear fitting alongside the rest of the material perfectly. The fact that it wasn't written by Dennis sort of explains that, but I also don't think that detracts. Imagine the song being rerecorded during the album's sessions under Levine's direction. What they could have done, though, is include some/a lot of Dennis' vocals - which then would have been augmented by group vocals. (I haven't really attempted to sequence it but somewhere in the middle of the album, perhaps between "Maybe I Don't Know" and "She Believes In Love Again". Not important, the whole sequence of the album could have been rearranged.) Also, consider that the song works lyrically, too. Dennis singing about being our constant companion. If you've read Carli's thoughts on this song in Dreamer: The Making of POB you'll know that when discussing this song he talked about how he and Dennis used to talk deeply about spirituality and the afterlife. Anyway, the more I thought about this..."daydream" might be the better word...I wanted to add a song written by Dennis. How about "I Love You"? Again, rerecording would have been necessary, but I think you can use the entirety of Dennis' lead vocal and maybe even some of the piano playing. I think the group, if dedicated to it, could have made a very touching version of this. And it could have been the closer. Actually, it works pretty well after "It's Just A Matter Of Time" which, as much as I like it, never really felt like an album closer anyway. (Oh, and I definitely would have kept the abrupt start to "I Love You". I think it would have worked really well - it grabs you. It really gives Dennis the final word. Would have been emotional for fans!)
And while this isn't directly related to the album, how about the first release after Dennis' death being a Christmas single in 1984 - "Morning Christmas" b/w a Christmas message and farewell to Dennis from the group. In this case, less rerecording, but they could have tastefully replaced some/a lot of the harmonies with their own.
Man, I wish the Beach Boys would have done this!
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 8, 2022 21:49:41 GMT
This afternoon I've been reading Jerry McCulley's 1988 interview with Brian Wilson, "Trouble in Mind - A Revealing Interview with Brian Wilson," from the Aug. 1988 issue of Bay Area Music magazine. I haven't read it in forever, and there are so many snippets I could post in so many threads. It's a time when Brian was still somewhat verbose (when he wanted to be), though you can't always tell what he actually means to say and what he just thinks he should say. Landy isn't present for the interview, but Kevin Leslie is (and is referred to numerous times, weighing in every so often). I'm quoting this from Abbott's Back to the Beach anthology.
After maybe a page and a half's worth of discussion about his relationship with the Beach Boys (whether they were jealous of him, whether he felt guilty for all the attention he got, etc.), McCulley asks him about working with the band for the 1985 album.
"I was close to the producer and I was close to Dr. Landy. Eugene Landy was our executive producer on that. Steve Levine was the producer and we were the artists. We got along good. We spoke to each other...there were no hittings or yellings or anything like that. It was okay.
"It was fairly alright except that I was confronted with something that I didn't like: being with the Beach Boys. That's what I didn't like. But at the same time I love being with them. ... But I don't know I love that Beach Boys and I like being with them although sometimes I feel that I'm uncomfortable with them. Let's drop the subject 'cause that's a rough one. That's the one subject that I wish I could master. If I could just master that and get it all together. Someday I will." (p. 200-201)
Then he abruptly says "Now let me invent a subject: what's it like to produce a record," and they talk about that.
There is a lot in that interview that makes clear how uncomfortable he was with the band at the time. He talks about how it's only all business, how they have no personal relationships, how they never talk. We know some of that was Landy's interference. We don't know how much. But that last paragraph quoted above, that kills me. It seems like he wants to want to be a Beach Boy. He wants it to work out. But he simply doesn't like it. To me, it (and plenty of other things I've seen, heard, and read him saying) is like someone who knows his marriage is over, but doesn't want his marriage to end. So he hangs in there, kind of. He leaves, kind of. He thinks of the good times, when he can, until he's reminded of what's wrong.
And in the end, he never did "master that subject and get it all together." It was another 30+ years of the same thing, more or less.
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