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MightyStonesStillRollin50

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shadooby
The new album's classic Beach Boys, I love it.

This is great news not only for Beach Boy's fans (I am one) but great news for Stones fans (I am one) also. No way is Mick gonna let Mike Love have the "last laugh"! Let it be written: "There shall be a new classic Stones album and world tour!"

MightyStonesStillRollin50s is still blathering!

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WeLoveToPlayTheBlues
It's funny how anything that beats the Stones in any way, chart toppings, show attendance, money made at one show, money made for a entire tour, attendance for a entire tour, how many singles released, newspaper clippings - is all fodder for MightyStonesStillRollin50's blathering about how Mick is gonna find a way to beat The Beatles, U2, Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen and now The Beach Boys.

Funny how the older crowd is still so concerned with 'no I got you back' playground stunts like that.

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Turd On The Run
Listening to the Beach Boys is an exercise in longing. Their best songs are usually set in a magical, parallel time and place...it is almost always the summer of 1965 and we are all 16 and buff, live on the beach in California, and have a groovy, blonde, super-gone girl and a red hot-rod with a surfboard plopped on top in the driveway. Their dramas always play on a variation of this fantasy.

That's Why God made The Radio has some songs that directly relate and hearken back to that world. The opening track quietly brings us into a melancholy cathedral choir of harmony, eliciting dawn over a still ocean...the Beach Boys vocalizing like God's angels...and then the gorgeous (title track) single kicks in and it's Summer again. I think it is their best and most iconic single since the 60's -- a song so exuberant and melodic that it (almost) makes you forget the schmaltzy lyrics...but then, it is a summer single after all, and the harmonies alone transport you into your mythic hot rod, cruising the seaside strip with your beach-blonde babe at your side...

The subsequent songs follow this blueprint, but with a twist...they are wistful, all about "turning back the pages" and "remembering photographs" and "how the world used to be when it was just about you and me" and doing it "just like yesterday". This album is one long pensive look back at better times, when we were all strapping and vital, the darkness was only to be found in hidden corners, and the summer sun burned away all doubts and fears. The melodies are impeccable (obviously very well produced to the point of being processed...but then these guys are all around 70 years old so we'll cut them a break) and the more one listens to these songs the more one sinks into the soaring harmonies like settling into a favorite sofa. In a better world there are 3-4 classic Beach Boys hit singles here...

...and then come the last 4 songs and the entire mood suddenly changes. This is the soul of the album -- a suite of melancholy and yearning -- and it is quite stunningly beautiful. Strange World kicks it off with a deceptively cheerful mood, but the message is all about alienation from this present-day "strange world" and being grateful for having someone to love that helps you "getting through it". And then the album deepens into something absolutely stunning...

...From There To Back Again is probably their most glorious song since their Pet Sounds heyday...a mini-pop-opera in the inimitable style the Beach Boys made famous. Al Jardine sings the beautifully simple lyrics ("Why don't you run away and spend some time with me, on this summer's day, there's nowhere else I'd rather be..." / "...you're been thinking about some things we used to do, thinking about when life was still in front of you...", cushioned by flutes, smooth harmonies and a wistful piano. The song contains a sound that brings back memories of the best melodies of The Carpenters and even The Rascals...and then as Al Jardine implores his love to come with him Brian Wilson swoops in with "If you'd just call..." and the Boys go into a swooning harmony and Brian takes the song home, singing about "another place in time...". Pure Beach Boys magic.

The last two songs -- Pacific Coast Highway and Summer's Gone -- are beautiful beyond words..."sunlight's fading and there's not much left to say...", while "...dreams go on for those who still have more to say." Brian sings "Summer's gone, gone like yesterday, the nights grow cold, it's time to go...". His way of saying "Goodbye" and an elegiacal lament and benediction to all that has come before and that will never be again. If the Beach Boys never record another sound again, these last songs are the perfect bookend of the Beach Boys legacy...a legacy is so rich and deep that listening to the best of it is like (as they sing on the single That's Why God Made The radio) "receiving a signal like a prayer...", and it reminds us that all Brian ever wanted was to make us...Smile.

Perfect time to listen to the album: A hot summer day is ending...sunset over the beach...looking over a balcony at the calming waves...the horizon turning to amber...heaven...

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flacnvinyl
The documentary on the remake/completion of Smile made me sad. Bryan Wilson letting someone else do his job.

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Justin

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flacnvinyl
The documentary on the remake/completion of Smile made me sad. Bryan Wilson letting someone else do his job.

That makes me sad.

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peoplewitheyes
if the Stones can put out a couple of tunes that are as moving and downright good as the highlights of the BB album (the title track, Isn't It Time, Shelter, the last 4 tracks), then I will be very very happy (and more than a little surprised).

I expected to find this BB album embarrassing and worthy of half a listen at best, but, my god, half of it is breathtaking.

who'd a thought it?

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keefriffhard4life

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peoplewitheyes
if the Stones can put out a couple of tunes that are as moving and downright good as the highlights of the BB album (the title track, Isn't It Time, Shelter, the last 4 tracks), then I will be very very happy (and more than a little surprised).

I expected to find this BB album embarrassing and worthy of half a listen at best, but, my god, half of it is breathtaking.

who'd a thought it?

who'd a thought? its brian wilson

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Justin
No amount of ProTools can account for the quality songwriting found on the three song suite in that album. Shame you couldn't pick up on it. That is, if you even heard it at all.

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Justin
No amount of ProTools can account for the quality songwriting found on the three song suite in that album. Shame you couldn't pick up on it. That is, if you even heard it at all.