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Beach Boys Albums


garymd

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I picked up another BEAUTIFUL Beach Boys LP at the thrift shop the other day and I'm really suprised how well their albums were recorded. Best of Beach Boys Volumes 1 and 2 in particular. I now have virtually flawless copies of both. Anything from Pet Sounds is just amazing. The rest are very good also. Much better than I expected.

These are on the Starline/Capitol/EMI label for those interested. Other than possibly an original copy of Pet Sounds, these 2 LPs are about all you'd need.

I don't listen to them very often but it's always a nice suprise when I do.

I also picked up what looked to be NM copies of The Best Of The Ink Spots Volumes 1 and 2. I cleaned them and although they look brand new, they sound like someone used an icepick for a stylus.

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is sloop john b on pet sounds?

Yup.

A LOT of effort was put into Pet Sounds to compete with Sgt. Pepper. Definitely their best album IMO. Its been called brilliant by many. Brian Wilson was/is no slouch when it comes to songwriting and is known as a true genius who has been plagued with many problems over the years.

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Even the MFSL LP of Sgt. Pepper ain't that great. Doesn't compare to Abbey Road, The White Album, Revolver, Rubber Soul, Let It Be or Hey Jude. Supposed to be their best album but they certainly didn't do a very good job in the studio with it. JMHO of course.

BTW - What's the clearance, Clarence? Sorry. Been thinking about that line all night.[;)]

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Just don't ever listen to the Beach Boys Christmas album. It is bad enough to make you never want to hear them ever again, no matter how well recorded anything else may be. Only the Beach Boys could make Christmas so depressing.

_____________________________________________________________

Les Garcons de la Plage----The French Beach Boys

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Oh man, beach boys....I've got one CD, but the quality is sooo awful that it's unbearable to listen to. So it's interesting that you claim you found a good recording...all this time I thought it was a product of cheap studio equipment. Time to do some hunting!

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Oh man, beach boys....I've got one CD, but the quality is sooo awful that it's unbearable to listen to. So it's interesting that you claim you found a good recording...all this time I thought it was a product of cheap studio equipment. Time to do some hunting!

Vinyl baby![;)]

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If you really dig Beach Boy tunes I highly recommend the cd "The Beach Boys/Stars and Stripes. The tunes are covered by country western artists and the harmony is done by the boys! Produced by Brian Wilson and executive produced by Mike Love these surf, drag, and school tunes never sounded better. Enjoy

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I may be wrong but I thought that Pet Sounds came out before Sgt Peppers and that the Beatles were needing to best the beach boys - not the other way around. And yes Gary the Beach Boys knew what they were doing. Josh

You could be right Josh. I don't remember where I heard that but maybe I got it backwards. Now I'll have to do some research.

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You're correct Josh. It was Rubber Soul and Sgt. Pepper was the response.

I found this:

If you need some pointy-headed pundit to sell you on the merits of Pet Sounds, your money might be better spent on an ear specialist. Brian Wilson's gift to 20th-century music elevated this pop album into a beguiling musical and emotional cogency that still operates outside pop culture's fickle space-time continuum--and limited critical lexicon. There's never been another record to compare (Rubber Soul, its inspiration, is close; Sgt. Pepper's, its response, misses the point), and certainly no album has been as dissected, overanalyzed, and predigested for public consumption.

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I was much more into Sgt. Pepper than the Beach Boys.

However, it does look like Bryan Wilson as a creative artist was very much holding his own against Lennon and McCartney. No small feat. The pop charts show a dead heat.

It is somewhat a tribute to Wilson that he was dong this mostly on his own and sometimes "in my room". OTOH Lenon and McCartney had each other and could summon to any task the support of those who were riding the tide of Beatle mania.

I too am unhappy that so many of the seminal albums are a bit muddy. (CS&N is one.) I think the issue is that Lennon was experimenting is a lot of overdubbing and re recording. In later days there would be 16 channels of digital. But not then.

There may be hope for Sgt. Pepper. There was a re mix of Yellow Submarine. I heard in in Virgin Music store and it was striking in its clarity.

If the underlyng tracks of Sgt Pepper can be found, and are in good shape, they might be reconstructed. But Jacko has the rights.

Smile,

Gil

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Pet Sounds is absolutely incredibile, you have to have the mono lp, which is the way it was originally recorded. The rechanneled "stereo" does not sound good at all. Brain Wilson remixed it for the DVD-A, it comes in the original mono, a pretty good stereo mix, and a great surround mix, but none are as good as the mono lp, IMHO.

As far as overdubbing, Brian Wilson practically invented overdubbing, it was a required evil because of the limited tracts available at the time and Wilson doing everything in the studio in a modular approach. It would actually go to 24 tracks of analog, not 16 tracks of digital.

Travis

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