7 Years Later, is The Beach Boys Smile Sessions Box Set Worth it?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Spammers, May 12, 2018.

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  1. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Sell some stuff. You have to get the 2 gold CDs. :edthumbs: DCC ( used to be cheap).

    Just checked ebay uk has endless summer for £420.00 .... DCC CD.

    Lordy price has skyrocketed!!!!
     
    Last edited: Jan 18, 2020
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  2. Rick Bartlett

    Rick Bartlett Forum Resident

    Love his voice timber right up to 'In The Back Of My Mind' 75' version.
    It's an end of an era voice for me, and the start of the new....
     
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  3. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    I sort of peak with BW with Let It Shine.
    Wish Jeff Lynne would write some more tunes with him.
     
  4. Folknik

    Folknik Forum Resident

    Got it for Christmas of 2011 and still love listening to it. The 3 sides of vinyl is my favorite way to listen to the album proper, but I also enjoy all of the sessions and still give the 45s an occasional spin. You have to be more than a little obsessive to enjoy listening to all of it again and again. Guilty as charged.
     
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  5. pool_of_tears

    pool_of_tears Searching For Simplicity

    Location:
    Midwest
    Blame cocaine, too
     
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  6. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Blame Marcella. :D
     
  7. mr.datsun

    mr.datsun Incompletist

    Location:
    London
    Sounds like you had made up your mind before hearing it. For what it's worth there are better ways to hear SMiLE than CD1 in that boxset.
     
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  8. Tristero

    Tristero In possession of the future tense

    Location:
    MI
    I would still like to see them take another whack at Smile with a more natural stereo treatment, leaving out the unnecessary fly-ins and the crossfades.
     
  9. Rick Bartlett

    Rick Bartlett Forum Resident

    I agree!
    I always thought the 2 disc set was a great balance for the fan, and the curious who wanted to hear a bit more
    of what went on......
    (It also came with a interesting, but useless pointless button/badge)
    :cool:
     
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  10. mr.datsun

    mr.datsun Incompletist

    Location:
    London
    Yes all I have is that 2CD. But for the album itself, I do prefer the bootleg comps I made over the years compiled from all my official BB CDs and the Sea of Tunes/Vigatone CDs I have.

    A good single disk sequence made from the masters with no modern effects would be great.
     
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  11. yesteryear

    yesteryear Wild Honey Laureate

    Location:
    Dallas, Texas
    I’ve made some pretty grandiose Smile playlists using all the sessions and snippets from the CDs. I too would like to hear some of the material without the fly-ins, the lost tapes, etc.

    These days I like to use the Smile Sessions versions of the songs and substitute them on my Smiley Smile playlist. One day I had a wild hair and made a “Smiley version” of Cabin Essence by removing the “Who Ran...” sections. It’s on my boobtube channel.
    yonder hillside
     
  12. mbrownp1

    mbrownp1 Forum Resident

    Not surprising that this came from someone referring to records as "Vinyls". :rolleyes:
     
  13. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    And rio. You can always blame part of it on Rio.
     
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  14. drbryant

    drbryant Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    That's hilarious. Obviously a troll ("carl" Wilson?).

    Anyway, definitely read some of the reviews of the large box before buying. My own view is that they sold a ton of these when it was released, so there should be used boxes available at good prices. Definitely worth it at the right price.

    Anyway, The Smile Sessions remains one of the highest rated albums in the history of Metacritic at 96/100, so it has its supporters.
     
    Lewisboogie likes this.
  15. ShockControl

    ShockControl Bon Vivant and Raconteur!

    Location:
    Lotus Land
    I've listened to the main disc on occasion. I listened to discs 2-100 exactly once. Still, there was no way I wasn't going to buy this.
     
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  16. silvertrees

    silvertrees Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    Here's a question for the Smile obsessives out there;

    How much of the big box contains material that has never surfaced on bootlegs? For example if one had most of the boots, would the box set be worth it for new material alone -beside the improvement in sound quality?
     
  17. lou

    lou Fast 'n Bulbous

    Location:
    Louisiana
    This is not an exhaustive list but hits the major unreleased and unbooted stuff on TSS:

    Wonderful 1 tracking session excerpts
    Worms tracking session excerpts
    You’re Welcome vocal session
    Dada - 2 versions 12/22
    I Don’t Know 1/12/67
    Some Heroes "Part 2 revised" sessions
    Vegetables “chomping” overdub extract (a bonus track)
    Cool Cool Water 6/7/67
    Surf’s Up Brian solo fall 1967
     
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  18. silvertrees

    silvertrees Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    Thanks so much Lou!
     
  19. Ryan Lux

    Ryan Lux Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, ON, CA
    That's a great song. Lynne knew how to show off his best at the time. He should've produced the entire album.
     
  20. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Jeff wrote the verse and bridge, BW came up with Chorus. Prefer the ELO man’s contribution more. Even BW was astounded by the songs long bass solo.
     
  21. Celebrated Summer

    Celebrated Summer Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    You can hear what happened if you know where to listen. By the late '60s, he stopped singing high for the most part, and mostly because of psychological, not physical, reasons. He's gone on record saying he came off too "vulnerable" because of how high his voice was on "Let Him Run Wild."

    It's also worth noting that falsetto singing started to go out of fashion when the influence of do wop started to fade from pop, around 1965-66, so part of him singing lower was just him changing with the times. Bruce Johnston cites "Break Away" as the record where they stopped singing high.

    But Brian still had that falsetto. It lights up parts of Bruce's own "Deirdre" from Sunflower. Same goes for the bridge of "Take A Load Off Your Feet" from Surf's Up, which Brian sang. He might not have wanted to sing that way, but he could if he chose to and he could still do it extremely well.

    By the American Spring album in 1972, a vocal roughness was apparent in his vocals toward the end of "Sweet Mountain." By Holland, he sounded like he was barely able to croak out the opening lines of Al's "California Saga: California" but you can tell it's still him. Sounds like he sang it one time then walked out, and the band used what they could. On "Child Of Winter" from '74 he does a semi-spoken part that sounds like his old voice, sort of.

    But when 15 Big Ones appeared in 1976, his vocals were more or less unrecognizable. The real decline seemed to come after 1973 -- and after the death of Murry Wilson, for what it's worth.
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2020
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  22. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Did you buy Spring ( American ) tape that was advertised in Who Put The Bomp( aka bomp) magazine... Brian Wilson was on the cover ?
     
  23. Celebrated Summer

    Celebrated Summer Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    No, I had a CD reissue I bought at Tower Records at some point in the '90s. I had a hard time listening to it because I felt they were off-key a lot. Plus some of their renditions of oldies didn't do it for me. I sold it to a used record store a few years later...and was unpleasantly surprised to learn it now goes for very high prices.
     
  24. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    CD reissue ?

    Yeah the RTR tape only cost a few bucks.

    Ha! When the Honeys reformed in the eighties Marilyn sent me a nice fan letter ( pink paper) + signed 8x10 group foto.
     
  25. oldsurferdude

    oldsurferdude Forum Resident

    Location:
    detroit, mi. 48150
    Celebrated Summer, I think you may not be entirely correct about Brian's voice on Holland, especially on the Mt. Vernon & Fairway stuff. He sounds clear as a bell on that material. I'm also not picking up that he was barely able to croak out the opening lines of "California". To me, he sounds as good as ever on that as well. I would guess that yes, we all hear a bit differently.
     
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