Beach Boys - Friends And 20/20...

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by saborlord123, Mar 27, 2020.

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  1. saborlord123

    saborlord123 "I'm not a genius. I'm just a hard working guy." Thread Starter

    Location:
    U.S.A.
    make a great double album, IMO. These two albums are really great and some of my favorite Beach Boys albums. Sometimes I do cheat and put the Do It Again MIC mix and replace Our Prayer and Cabinessence with Break Away and Celebrate The News. It makes it even better! Putting these two together kinda reminds me of The White Album, so many different styles of music but a nice flow between the songs. Anyone else think so? Thank you to a kind forum member who suggested that these two together make a double album I was looking for.
     
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  2. Etienne Hanratty

    Etienne Hanratty Forum Resident

    Location:
    uk
    The twofer was one of the first Beach Boys’ releases I bought. A great selection of songs, but Friends is too unique to be subsumed into a larger whole.
     
  3. SurrealCereal

    SurrealCereal Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    I enjoy both albums but I don’t think they go particularly well together. Friends has a specific, cohesive sound (Lo-fi minimalist sunshine pop?) whereas 20/20 is very clearly a collection of odds and ends written by different people with no overall substantive vision. I suppose if you shuffled the tracks then the rough sound of Friends might work with the eclectic sound of 20/20 (giving it the White Album effect referenced in the OP), but I think there is obvious contrast if you play them back to back.
     
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  4. Tristero

    Tristero In possession of the future tense

    Location:
    MI
    Agreed. Friends is a much more cohesive statement from Brian. It took me a while to warm up to it, but the recent archival set gave me a new appreciation for it. I now think of it almost as a continuation of his more impressionistic Smile mode, but rather than baroque psychedelia, Friends offers a more stripped down, homespun vibe. As you say, 20/20 is much more of a hodge podge with the other members of the band stepping up as Brian receded. Of course, there's a lot of other great material from this era, including singles and outtakes (like "Old Man River" and the amazing "Can't Wait Too Long", which definitely feels like a Smile throwback), so all-in-all, this remains a very fruitful period for the band, despite their commercial decline.
     
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  5. Wildest cat from montana

    Wildest cat from montana Humble Reader

    Location:
    ontario canada
    Me , I like ' Busy Doing Nothin'.
    Whenever I hear it I picture Brian walking around his place high as a kite looking for a pencil and a piece of paper to write down things he wants to remember while melodies are bouncing around in his head.
     
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  6. SurrealCereal

    SurrealCereal Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    Also, I’m not sure mixing Friends and 20/20 would do justice to both albums. Adding songs from Friends might make the patchwork nature of 20/20 feel more natural (like The White Album, Exile On Main St, Physical Graffiti, etc), but I think it might make some songs from Friends feel underwritten. The short song sketches on Friends work when that’s the whole point of the album, but when you place them alongside prospective hit singles like “Do It Again,” perfectly good tracks from Friends sound unfinished by comparison.
     
  7. sharedon

    sharedon Forum Zonophone

    Location:
    Boomer OK
    Brian's Twitter feed said today (albeit in Pet Sounds font) that he's home, and "Busy Doing Nothing"
     
  8. onionmaster

    onionmaster Tropical new waver from the future

    I think Wild Honey and Friends would make a better combined album. Both albums are quite short so with a few tracks cut they could comfortably be turned into a single LP.
     
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  9. daveidmarx

    daveidmarx Forem Residunt

    Location:
    Astoria, NY USA
    At a combined 55 minutes, Friends / 20/20 could make a great single album! :righton:
     
  10. classicrockguy

    classicrockguy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Livingston NJ
    Actually I think they go perfectly together. The final TM song on Friends transitions very nicely into Do It Again and on it goes from there.

    I agree about leaving the Smile songs off and ending 2020 with the bonus tracks, assuming you have Smile somewhere else of course.
    Breakaway, Celebrate the News, We’re
    together Again, and Old Man River make a perfect ending to the album, their Capitol career and the 60s. Especially the fade of Old Man River (the short bonus version on the CD)which sounds like movie credits are rolling.

     
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  11. rstamberg

    rstamberg Senior Member

    Location:
    Riverside, CT
    I’ve got the Brother/Reprise double LP set from ‘74. My introduction to both albums.
     
  12. cwitt1980

    cwitt1980 Senior Member

    Location:
    Carbondale, IL USA
    Or how about a twofer that's a three-fer with WH, Friends, and 20/20.
     
  13. pdenny

    pdenny 22-Year SHTV Participation Trophy Recipient

    Location:
    Hawthorne CA
    Same here. And I heard it long before I ever heard PET SOUNDS. Love both albums but FRIENDS especially is a treasure. Find the Japan Past Masters CD if you can.
     
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  14. puddleduck

    puddleduck Forum Resident

    Location:
    Lake District
    This is another two-fer which like Today / Summer Days and Summer Nights makes a great listening experience. Friends in particular is a little gem, 20/20 is a bit more hit and miss.

    I maintain that the Today / Summer Days and Summer Nights two-fer is far better than the over-rated Pet Sounds, and while Friends / 20-20 doesn't reach those heights it's a fantastic package. I think of the two-fers as pretty much 1 album as that was how I was originally exposed to them.
     
  15. RDF

    RDF Forum Resident

    Location:
    Massachusetts
    I came to this thread to post the same exact thing. I believe Wild Honey is packaged with Smiley Smile but Friends/WH definitely have a vibe more similar than any other two albums in their discography.
     
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  16. jwoverho

    jwoverho Licensed Drug Dealer

    Location:
    Mobile, AL USA
    FRIENDS could really use a Super Deluxe version. An understated gem from Brian and The Boys. While Bri was no longer in a production war with The Beatles, he made an album with wonderful melodies and dazzling arrangements.
     
  17. lou

    lou Fast 'n Bulbous

    Location:
    Louisiana
    Both are great albums, so putting them together in a vinyl twofer was an excellent idea. that said, Friends is a cohesive musical statement while 20/20 is a brilliant grabbag of many different musical styles.
     
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  18. mbrownp1

    mbrownp1 Forum Resident

    Friends is much more of a concept and 20/20 is a hodgepodge. Both are high quality but don't belong together.
     
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  19. hollywoodswag

    hollywoodswag Forum Resident

    Location:
    Central Florida
    Friends already has a sort of super deluxe edition if you factor in the sessions that are available digitally.
     
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  20. Dirk the Nightfly

    Dirk the Nightfly Forum Resident

    Location:
    Germany
    I always think the High Llamas inhaled the sound of FRIENDS and made a career out of it... that's how great it is! 20/20 may be a hodgepodge, but I absolutely love it. Both albums more stand on their own - they are way too good to throw them together.
     
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  21. Pierino

    Pierino Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canonsburg
    I think you could definitely make a double album out of Friends and 20/20. There are enough songs on 20/20 - "I Went To Sleep", "The Nearest Faraway Place", "Time To Get Alone", and even "Our Prayer" - that, if sequenced properly, would fit nicely along side the Friends' songs. And if you need some tracks to fill out a double album, you have a couple of other available songs that would also fit such as "Old Folks At Home/Old Man River", "We're Together Again", and "Been Way Too Long".
     
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  22. Friends and 20/20 are each marvelous albums by themselves. Together they are the greatest twofer of all time.

    Unless it's Today!/Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!).
     
  23. onionmaster

    onionmaster Tropical new waver from the future

    Agreed. They were definitely more low-key than their preceding albums.

    I have a vinyl twofer of Friends and Smiley Smile (in that order), and the albums couldn't be more different. I'm sure that Smile and the unrelated tracks from Smiley Smile could make a nice double album (especially as the official release of Smile only constitutes 3 sides plus an 'extras' side) but I haven't looked into it.
     
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  24. skyblue17

    skyblue17 Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York City
    I was just gonna say this, these are short albums!
     
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  25. Tristero

    Tristero In possession of the future tense

    Location:
    MI
    I'm inclined to leave Friends as is and work on building a better 20/20, minus the Smile tracks but then adding the best outtakes from the era to make it a bit more cohesive.

    On a tangential topic, has anyone heard any great new fan mixes of "Can't Wait Too Long" that incorporate some of the new bits that have emerged in recent years? They did so much great work there that it's frustrating that it remains unfinished.
     
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