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Post by Kapitan on Nov 19, 2020 12:48:22 GMT
In October 1981, Mike Love followed Dennis Wilson and Carl Wilson when he released a solo album while still a Bach Boy. Looking Back With Love, produced by Curt Boettcher except the "Be My Baby" session material Brian Wilson had produced earlier.
The album did not perform well, went out of print, and has never been issued on CD or digitally.
Rate and discuss Mike Love's first solo album, Looking Back With Love.
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Post by kds on Nov 19, 2020 13:46:20 GMT
This is actually the only Beach Boys album from either the band or one of the five primary members that I've never listened to (the lack of CD and digital presence is a primary reason).
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Post by The Cincinnati Kid on Nov 19, 2020 13:52:14 GMT
I've heard bits and pieces, but never the whole thing. Going off of memory, First Love would have been a much better release. I'll have to give this a full listen later.
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 19, 2020 13:57:50 GMT
I guess voting would be easier if I remembered to add the poll ... one moment, please.
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Post by kds on Nov 19, 2020 14:43:09 GMT
I'm finishing up my first ever listen of Looking Back.
It's not bad. It's not necessarily good. It's sort of in line with the yacht rock ish nature of the LA Light Album, with less good songs. You can do a drinking game with all the references in the title track, not just to The Beach Boys, but to the Beatles, Jan & Dean, Stones, and The Who.
I wasn't a big fan of the oldies, specifically the reggae over of Over and Over. They're as disposable as most of the oldies covers on 15BO.
One Good Reason was a pretty decent track.
I'll give it a generous five. Nothing really stood out as terrible, but nothing particular good either.
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surfinnj
Denny's Drums
Posts: 46
Likes: 6
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Post by surfinnj on Nov 19, 2020 15:07:14 GMT
Just listened to it for the first time too. It was enjoyable. I liked the title track and the calendar girl cover. Found this video too, pretty cool:
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 19, 2020 15:52:46 GMT
I'm shocking myself by thinking so high, but I'm considering something in the range of 3-4.
I've always abhorred this album and still do (though it's not as if I've let it sink in with repeated, frequent listenings). But I have to admit that it's relatively well done for this kind of early '80s pop cheese, lyrics notwithstanding. And on that note...
The title song's lyrics--and really most of the original songs' lyrics--are some of the most MikeLovian lyrics you'll ever come across, which is astounding in that he isn't credited as a cowriter. In fact, it's astounding that he's only credited on one song. It's Jim Studer (who, I've learned this morning, was working with Jim Messina around that time) who has the most co-writes as well as a keyboards credit.
This is competent. It's tuneful. There are good background harmony arrangements and performances. I'm putting 3 for the moment, but God help me, I might change it to a 4. Some of these awful albums we've done recently have skewed my perspective and resulted in some serious grade inflation.
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Post by kds on Nov 19, 2020 16:36:40 GMT
I pulled up the track list from Wikipedia so I could follow along with the YT stream of the album. It had one of the funnier credits I've seen.
Brian Wilson - Inaudible background vocals on Be My Baby
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 19, 2020 16:46:04 GMT
My understanding of that is, Mike took the Wilson session of "Be My Baby" as the basis for his version, but ended up using wholly newly recorded parts that were done atop it. So the original basic track is there, kind of, but not anything you'd hear. That's also why sometimes you see it as being co-produced by Brian: he produced the original session, but really had nothing to do with what Mike did for this album.
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 19, 2020 22:14:30 GMT
I have to admit, I wasn't familiar enough with this album prior to multiple listenings today (to make my hypothetical '81 Beach Boys album--see the alt albums thread!) to realize it had a song about masturbation. So, uh, go Mike! You beat Cyndi Lauper's "She-Bop" by several years.
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 19, 2020 22:43:58 GMT
For some reason, YouTube thought I was interested in Looking Back With Love (possibly by my repeated listenings before downloading it from that afore-linked video...) and thus recommended this. So, if you want to hear this guy talk about the album, here you go.
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Post by kds on Nov 20, 2020 13:30:11 GMT
I don't know if I need a 22 minute reaction video from Hyde from That 70s Show about LBWL in my life.
Or do I? Ask me again one evening after some bourbon.
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 20, 2020 13:36:56 GMT
He actually wasn't as harsh about it as I expected when I saw the thumbnail. He gives Mike a lot of credit generally and says that while the album is obviously no artistic masterpiece, it doesn't deserve so much scorn either. Says it's a pleasant album with some good stuff and some bad stuff.
He shared your opinion on "Over and Over," though, that's for sure.
(But it isn't required watching by any means. Nothing all that insightful.)
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Post by kds on Nov 20, 2020 13:42:29 GMT
In general, I enjoy a lot of these YT videos of guys talking about bands / albums. I've recently stumbled onto the Sea of Tranquility YT Channel. But, man, some of these videos run way way long. 22 minutes isn't terrible for a rundown of an album, but some videos of this nature go into the 60-90 range.
Having now listened to all of Mike's solo albums, I think they're all pretty much in the middle of the road some good, some bad, nothing terrible great, nothing terribly awful. Kind of like Carl's albums.
And, I feel a little silly as I didn't realize that On and On and On appeared on this album prior to popping up on 12 Sides of Summer.
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 20, 2020 13:45:36 GMT
I definitely can't say I've ever thought any of Mike's solo albums were good. But there are moments within each that are pretty good, no question about that. It's just that Mike, like Carl, like Al, etc., wasn't really capable of putting together full albums of consistently good material. (And even Brian, who at one point certainly would have been capable of it, wasn't consistently capable of it.)
Band > Solo in almost every single case, musically speaking, Beach Boys related or otherwise.
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