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Post by kds on Apr 7, 2019 20:54:55 GMT
Four years ago today, I stopped at Target after work to pick up my copy of their exclusive 18 track deluxe version of Brian Wilson's No Pier Pressure.
As I listened to the album that Tuesday night, enjoying the easy listening MOR album (save for a dance track and a country pop one), I had no idea how polarizing the album would be.
A later career album that will only be played by BW diehards caused such an expected ripple in the fanbase. Some fans were saying this was the rock/pop genius's latest masterpiece. Others were saying the album was as far removed from Brian's acclaimed work as possible. The fans who thought the later were accused of attacking Brian Wilson by fans who believed the former. Well.....we all know the story.
On the album itself, I still find myself enjoying much of it. I still think Sail Away might be Brian's best solo song. I still relax to the soothing sounds of Half Moon Bay. I still like to think every night is Saturday Night. For all its flaws, I still enjoy the album.
Its a pity that civil disagreements didn't occur back in 2015, but that seems to be the nature of Beach Boys / Brian Wilson fandom.
Anyway, Happy Birthday NPP. And if anyone from Brian's camp is reading this, Whatever Happened would be a great addition to the setlist.
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 7, 2019 21:13:13 GMT
I thought it was a good album. Really good in spots. Sure, there are things I’d change, but that’s true of most albums, including some that are far, far better than NPP!
It’s a shame people can’t accept disagreement and move on, especially about something as inconsequential in the big picture as a minor pop album.
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Post by kds on Apr 7, 2019 21:17:18 GMT
I thought it was a good album. Really good in spots. Sure, there are things I’d change, but that’s true of most albums, including some that are far, far better than NPP! It’s a shame people can’t accept disagreement and move on, especially about something as inconsequential in the big picture as a minor pop album. Couldn't agree more, and considering Brian has been in the business over a half century, that album's pretty good. I think some fans unfairly compare his work in the 2000s to his work in the 1960s, or expect some weird/quirky Brian album in 2015. Im just happy to have an album where I can enjoy 14 of the 16 songs.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Apr 7, 2019 21:50:28 GMT
I think No Pier Pressure is a good, maybe very good album and easily Brian's best solo album. I think Imagination is second and That Lucky Old Sun is terribly overrated. What auto-tune I hear, and it isn't as much as other people I'm sure, doesn't bother me. I like the diversity of the songs; I think that's the strong part of the album. It's hard to explain, but even though songs like "Runaway Dancer", "Guess You Had To Be There", and parts of "Our Special Love" are so un-Brian, and I question his contributions to those songs, for some reason they don't bother me. Parts of "Our Special Love" are very emotional and "Saturday Night" is a good song. Personally, I don't care for any of the guest vocalists chosen, and they do make it sound like less of a "solo" album, but they do their jobs fine. I mean, it's not like they don't turn in good performances.
The two things I take from No Pier Pressure is, first, The Beach Boys blew a tremendous opportunity for a quality follow-up album to That's Why God Made The Radio. Some of these No Pier Pressure songs are very good ("Sail Away", "What Ever Happened", "The Right Time", "One Kind Of Love", "Tell Me Why", "The Last Song") and are tailor-made for The Beach Boys' voices. And that brings me to the second, but best part of the album - Brian and Al's vocals. No Pier Pressure might be Al's best Beach Boys-related album ever! And, I don't care how Joe Thomas does it or what he uses - he makes Brian Wilson sound about as good as you can expect, or in the case of this album, better. On some of Brian's lead vocals, I am not only impressed, but I actually feel a little emotion. I actually think on a few of them, maybe "Tell Me Why", "What Ever Happened", and "One Kind Of Love", Brian sounds comparable to what he might've sounded like at age 70+ had he not ruined his voice. His singing is that good.
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 7, 2019 22:07:04 GMT
I especially agree about The Beach Boys album that’s in there. Plus Run James Run is from those sessions, which deserved a better fate than being a barely finished tack-on to a retrospective.
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Post by sebevedomy on Apr 8, 2019 12:07:43 GMT
I’m a fan. If I include “I’m Feelin’ Sad” and cut a couple tracks I think there is a very good 12 or 13 track album there.
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Post by The Cincinnati Kid on Apr 9, 2019 0:39:29 GMT
I was really looking forward to this album. I wasn't a hardcore fan yet when TWGMTR came out, so it was fun to hear news about the album slowly leak out for new Beach Boys related material. I was disappointed to hear that Lana Del Rey didn't end up recording a vocal for The Last Song, and Our Special Love is not... great, but I really enjoy the rest of the album. I remember the autotune debate and that's when things really started to go downhill at the place we all used to post at. I didn't even think it was that noticeable, certainly not as much as on TWGMTR. I skipped my last class of the day and went with one of my friends to Target to go buy a copy. I listened to the entire album quite a bit and still listen to it every now and then. Lots of quality songs and could have obviously been a Beach Boys album as others have mentioned. It's looking more and more like this will be Brian's last album of new material and I don't think it's a bad way to go out.
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 9, 2019 12:30:42 GMT
I have to go back to a point kds made about people expecting—and I’d add acting entitled to—1960s quality Brian, and their disappointment (anger?) at not getting it. I don’t think anyone would explicitly say that: they’d realize how absurd it is while forming those words! But that is the implicit reaction, again and again.
Honestly I feel bad for those people. That’s just not the world we live in, and they’ll always be disappointed. (How many bands witha classic album followed it up with NOTHING BUT CLASSIC ALBUMS, for decades!?) I enjoy being snarky as much as anyone, but I hope people can tell the difference between snarky jokes and actual dissatisfaction. It’s so much more fun to enjoy things...
NPP was good. Not great, certainly not legendary. But I’ve enjoyed it many times, and will many more.
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Post by kds on Apr 9, 2019 12:39:51 GMT
I have to go back to a point kds made about people expecting—and I’d add acting entitled to—1960s quality Brian, and their disappointment (anger?) at not getting it. I don’t think anyone would explicitly say that: they’d realize how absurd it is while forming those words! But that is the implicit reaction, again and again. Honestly I feel bad for those people. That’s just not the world we live in, and they’ll always be disappointed. (How many bands witha classic album followed it up with NOTHING BUT CLASSIC ALBUMS, for decades!?) I enjoy being snarky as much as anyone, but I hope people can tell the difference between snarky jokes and actual dissatisfaction. It’s so much more fun to enjoy things... NPP was good. Not great, certainly not legendary. But I’ve enjoyed it many times, and will many more. I agree. I feel like fans of legacy artists in general unfairly compare recent works to classic works instead of taking the recent works on their own merits. However, there are also fans who are delusional enough to think that NPP was just as good as Pet Sounds.
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 9, 2019 12:43:49 GMT
That’s true enough. There’s delusional thinking all over, expectations and evaluations both.
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Post by kds on Apr 9, 2019 12:50:05 GMT
That’s true enough. There’s delusional thinking all over, expectations and evaluations both. Yep. I think in general music fans would be far happier is they judged an album on its own merit. But, that tends to be the nature of fandom.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Apr 9, 2019 14:42:30 GMT
I have to go back to a point kds made about people expecting—and I’d add acting entitled to—1960s quality Brian, and their disappointment (anger?) at not getting it. I don’t think anyone would explicitly say that: they’d realize how absurd it is while forming those words! But that is the implicit reaction, again and again. Honestly I feel bad for those people. That’s just not the world we live in, and they’ll always be disappointed. (How many bands witha classic album followed it up with NOTHING BUT CLASSIC ALBUMS, for decades!?) I enjoy being snarky as much as anyone, but I hope people can tell the difference between snarky jokes and actual dissatisfaction. It’s so much more fun to enjoy things... At one time in my BW fandom, to some extent, that ^ was me. When there were rumblings of a Brian Wilson solo album in the mid-1980's, I had my hopes set high, very high. I rationalized my thoughts this way: On every preceding Beach Boys' album, Brian Wilson's songs were the standout tracks. There was just something about his music, that little spark, that BW touch, that magic if you will. And this was prevalent through the 1970's with 15 Big Ones, Love You, and even to some extent with MIU and Keepin' The Summer Alive. I found something to like in ALL of those BW songs. I felt that Brian "still had it", even if "it" wasn't being fully expressed or realized. I really believed he was capable of releasing an entire album of, while maybe not Pet Sounds or even Today! quality, something of a very high Brian Wilson standard.
The first time my hopes took a hit was with The Beach Boys 1985. Something was definitely different with Brian's songs on that album. They were boring, and that was something you would never find with past BW songs. The second disappointment if you will was with "Let's Go To Heaven In My Car". Again I thought it was less than what Brian could do and again I found it slightly boring. So, when I found out that Brian was, in fact, finally releasing a solo album in 1988, I was slightly - SLIGHTLY - concerned. I had some doubts about how the quality would be. And, I WAS disappointed with Brian Wilson 1988. I didn't care for the songs, the vocals, or the production. After the first solo album, I don't really remember if I had given up most hope for Brian to return to his previous 1960's/1970's form, but I do know that I was starting to waiver.
That pattern continued after the release of Imagination and Gettin' In Over My Head and What I Really Want For Christmas and so on. My hopes and expectations lowered with each subsequent solo album until I got to the point where I am at now. I'm not as optimistic anymore, my expectations are lowered, but I continue to hope for the best. But, again, there was a time, a period of time in the 1970's and early 1980's when I thought Brian might (would?) return to his prior form. I think a lot of Beach Boys' fans did. I think a lot of music fans did. We wanted Brian to come back.
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 9, 2019 15:44:42 GMT
I think that his mental illness, drug abuse, and band politics have given Brian Wilson a huge pass over the years that facilitated that kind of understanding, delaying people’s “come to Jesus” moments with him. As long as there was something or someone else to blame, any shortcomings in his or the band’s output could be blamed on it. Think about it: how did people explain away the subpar output from other acknowledged geniuses? Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and many others, what explains their bad albums? Um, they just made bad albums (or bad songs). It happens. But when Brian Wilson penned a bad song, or released a subpar album, it has always been that his mental illnesses or drug use incapacitated him; his bandmates and hangers-on bullied him; his producers ran all over him. He has had the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card for legitimately decades … or his fans have. It’s almost like being in a long-time minority party in politics (and don’t worry, I’m not going to talk politics), like the Libertarian or Socialist parties. You can’t lose because you’re never responsible for anything. You have no power to do anything, so you can constantly insist on your counterfactual thought experiment, “if only,” then things would be perfect. That’s Brian Wilson’s fans since the late ‘60s, more or less. Yet the dirty little secret is, he has been a solo artist for 30 years. He has put out music that, at some point you have to hold him responsible for if you respect him in the slightest, whatever influence others may have had. Brian Wilson isn’t the guy dying to put out that next Smile; if he were, he’d have done it again by now. Approaching things as they actually are frees you up tremendously.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Apr 10, 2019 3:09:11 GMT
I think that his mental illness, drug abuse, and band politics have given Brian Wilson a huge pass over the years that facilitated that kind of understanding, delaying people’s “come to Jesus” moments with him. As long as there was something or someone else to blame, any shortcomings in his or the band’s output could be blamed on it. Think about it: how did people explain away the subpar output from other acknowledged geniuses? Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and many others, what explains their bad albums? Um, they just made bad albums (or bad songs). It happens. But when Brian Wilson penned a bad song, or released a subpar album, it has always been that his mental illnesses or drug use incapacitated him; his bandmates and hangers-on bullied him; his producers ran all over him. He has had the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card for legitimately decades … or his fans have. I can only relate how I felt as a fan. Yes, to some extent, I would blame or use mental illness, drug abuse, and/or band politics as an excuse. I say TO SOME EXTENT because I just didn't know. Oh, I speculated, and I tried to be as "in-tuned" to Brian and the band as any fan could be. But you really couldn't separate fact from fiction. All you had - or have - is what was reported. Or what you saw. Or what you heard. And that was forever changing. One article or interview might be positive, and the following one might give you reason for some serious doubt. One time you see or hear Brian and you have hope; the next time you are sure he's finished.
How mentally ill was/is Brian? How much did the years of drug abuse affect his talent? What was really going on with the band, behind closed doors? I can remember giving it all some serious thought. Obsessively. And I remember thinking, over and over, that no matter how damaged Brian was or how screwed up things were within the band, Brian could still sit down at the piano and in a matter of minutes write a great song. You don't lose that talent do you? Can somebody lose their "genius"? That's what kept you going, gave you hope. I'm sure every diehard BW/BB fan will admit (if they're truthful) that they have probably devoted entirely too much time and thought to this band and its members.
So, what I ended up doing was trying to use logic or common sense or deductive reasoning. Big mistake. When I was a newbie in the mid-late 1970's , I tried to figure it out, tried to make sense of it all. It went something like this. On 15 Big Ones, tracks like "Had To Phone Ya", "Just Once In My Life", and "Palisades Park" showed that Brian could still produce. Then, on The Beach Boys Love You, tracks like "The Night Was So Young", "I'll Bet He's Nice", and "Roller Skating Child" showed that Brian Wilson could still write. Finally, on MIU, tracks like "Matchpoint Of Our Love", "Wontcha Come Out Tonight", and "She's Got Rhythm" showed that Brian could still sing. Great, fine, so on the next album, L.A. (Light Album), Brian will put it all together and do something as great as the 1960's. Yeah, right. He disappeared again. For reasons we didn't know at that time.
In the end, what I did was not necessarily give up all hope or, on the other hand, be totally positive that Brian would do great things again. It was somewhere in between. It was somewhat measured. Again, you took what you saw, heard, or read, and lived with it. Sometimes you were happy for awhile, but many times you were skeptical. However, like I said in my previous post, after being hit on the head or being disappointed too many times (and now I'm referring specifically to Brian's solo career), you begin to NOT be as positive or hopeful. You run out of answers or...excuses.
This is a fascinating topic, one which every BB/BW fan has lived through to some extent. I would like to read what other posters' experienced or thought. It's a shame more people are not participating in the thread.
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Post by kds on Apr 10, 2019 12:25:36 GMT
I think that his mental illness, drug abuse, and band politics have given Brian Wilson a huge pass over the years that facilitated that kind of understanding, delaying people’s “come to Jesus” moments with him. As long as there was something or someone else to blame, any shortcomings in his or the band’s output could be blamed on it. Think about it: how did people explain away the subpar output from other acknowledged geniuses? Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and many others, what explains their bad albums? Um, they just made bad albums (or bad songs). It happens. But when Brian Wilson penned a bad song, or released a subpar album, it has always been that his mental illnesses or drug use incapacitated him; his bandmates and hangers-on bullied him; his producers ran all over him. He has had the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card for legitimately decades … or his fans have. I can only relate how I felt as a fan. Yes, to some extent, I would blame or use mental illness, drug abuse, and/or band politics as an excuse. I say TO SOME EXTENT because I just didn't know. Oh, I speculated, and I tried to be as "in-tuned" to Brian and the band as any fan could be. But you really couldn't separate fact from fiction. All you had - or have - is what was reported. Or what you saw. Or what you heard. And that was forever changing. One article or interview might be positive, and the following one might give you reason for some serious doubt. One time you see or hear Brian and you have hope; the next time you are sure he's finished.
How mentally ill was/is Brian? How much did the years of drug abuse affect his talent? What was really going on with the band, behind closed doors? I can remember giving it all some serious thought. Obsessively. And I remember thinking, over and over, that no matter how damaged Brian was or how screwed up things were within the band, Brian could still sit down at the piano and in a matter of minutes write a great song. You don't lose that talent do you? Can somebody lose their "genius"? That's what kept you going, gave you hope. I'm sure every diehard BW/BB fan will admit (if they're truthful) that they have probably devoted entirely too much time and thought to this band and its members.
So, what I ended up doing was trying to use logic or common sense or deductive reasoning. Big mistake. When I was a newbie in the mid-late 1970's , I tried to figure it out, tried to make sense of it all. It went something like this. On 15 Big Ones, tracks like "Had To Phone Ya", "Just Once In My Life", and "Palisades Park" showed that Brian could still produce. Then, on The Beach Boys Love You, tracks like "The Night Was So Young", "I'll Bet He's Nice", and "Roller Skating Child" showed that Brian Wilson could still write. Finally, on MIU, tracks like "Matchpoint Of Our Love", "Wontcha Come Out Tonight", and "She's Got Rhythm" showed that Brian could still sing. Great, fine, so on the next album, L.A. (Light Album), Brian will put it all together and do something as great as the 1960's. Yeah, right. He disappeared again. For reasons we didn't know at that time.
In the end, what I did was not necessarily give up all hope or, on the other hand, be totally positive that Brian would do great things again. It was somewhere in between. It was somewhat measured. Again, you took what you saw, heard, or read, and lived with it. Sometimes you were happy for awhile, but many times you were skeptical. However, like I said in my previous post, after being hit on the head or being disappointed too many times (and now I'm referring specifically to Brian's solo career), you begin to NOT be as positive or hopeful. You run out of answers or...excuses.
This is a fascinating topic, one which every BB/BW fan has lived through to some extent. I would like to read what other posters' experienced or thought. It's a shame more people are not participating in the thread.
I'm speaking as a fan who only came aboard as a casual fan in 2006, and got really into the catalog around 2012. So, by the time I came on board to BB/BW fandom, the man was in his 70s, so I never really experienced any of his comebacks in real time. That being said, I'm not sure if people lose songwriting ability / genius. I just know that, in the case of just about every writer whose been in the game for a quarter century or more, there's a decline in quality. Do they lose ability? The passion? Does the well just run dry? I don't know to be honest. I used to work in radio, and we had a music director who said something that's stuck with me, "After so many years, you just kinda run out of songs. Then, you become Paul McCartney."
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