'The Beach Boys With The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,' to be released on June 8!

It's not Brian's wife, but one of their friends.

 

Okay, here’s the deal ...

This album is not the horseabortion I thought it was gonna be. Totally listenable if completely unnecessary. The only misstep for me is what they’ve done with “Sloop John B,” which has never been a favorite here anyway.
The track remixes offer some groovy sounds for the hardcore fans.
How many spins will this one get? Not too many.

 

- Surfin’ Safari
- Surfin’
- Catch a Wave
- Hawaii
- The Warmth of the Sun
- I Get Around
- Little Honda
- Wendy
- Little Saint Nick
- Don’t Back Down
- Dance, Dance, Dance
- Please Let Me Wonder
- California Girls
- Help Me, Rhonda
- Let Him Run Wild
- You’re So Good to Me
- I’m Waiting for the Day
- Good Vibrations
- Wild Honey
- Darlin’
- Do it Again
- All This is That
- It’s O.K.
- Kokomo

All featuring primary lyrical contributions from Mike. Can we just drop this **** and get back on topic please?

 

Come on fellows please, not what most people want to see or read on here!

 

One should be able to separate how they view him personally to his musical legacy. The absurd bashing and minimizing his contributions is embarrassingly juvenile.

There are musicians who have done way worse than he has who have the luxury of a virtually untarnished legacy. Some of whom are in his same band.

 

Imo, not wise to bash Mike or any other member of the great group.
Personally, I'd like to see such posts in other threads.

At least they're still performing.
At least we still have The Beach Boys.
We can't say that about many other groups, where we only have their recordings to remember...

 

To be fair that segment followed on from a piece about Trump meeting Kim in Singapore. It's nice to see Mike and Bruce plugging the record.

 

I listened to a couple tracks. I don’t think it works. Elvis’ songs like “Can’t Help Falling in Love” sounded amazing and “right” with the orchestral backing. Not true of The Beach Boys.

 

I think it’s on a track by track basis. It works for some more than others.

 

Strong sales in UK. Did it even make a dent in the US charts?

I assume Vol 2 is a definite now that they know they have a winning formula.

 

Vol.2's never seem to catch the magic normally, in this case, it would be the ultimate exception!

 

To my knowledge these orchestral releases have never done well stateside. The fact that to date none of them (again, to my knowledge) have used a non British orchestra further leads me to the conclusion that these released are targeted at a UK audience, and they seem to gobble them up.

The producers have pretty much turned these into a well oiled assembly line product. These releases are not meant to be interesting artistically, they're as you state a "winning formula" that they know will sell, sell, sell. It's why they all sound so similar. My issue with them has generally been that the arrangements call far too much attention to the orchestra, not to the songs themselves. It's the musical equivalent of a photobomb.

 

The other thing worth noting is that The Beach Boys, and Brian in particular, have been much more highly regarded in the UK than in the US. This has been true since the late 60’s.

 

This idea would have been much better if they'd taken the old Beach Boys vocals and given them to a slate of indie rock and modern surf rock bands and let the younger bands play new backing tracks to the classic vocals for remixes.

 

I bought my copy on release day & I like what I heard. Some of the tracks I'd not heard of before & if it turns out to be a big seller I wonder if they'll get to do a Beatles version? They could do a few volumes of their stuff. The Hollyridge Strings did some good versions way back in the 60's.

 

Happy birthday to Bruce! Orchestral "Disney Girls" in his honor.

 

Finally got around to listening to this. It's perfectly fine. But I don't find that the added orchestration adds much to many of these songs. They are fine with the orchestration. They are fine without it. A few nice flourishes are added by the orchestra, but nothing revelatory.

I can't see myself going back to this album much. If someone else puts it on...no problem.

 

I love The Beach Boys - favorite band if pressed for answer? Yes. I dig the remixes. I dig the demos. I dig... my god I even dig most of Summer in Paradise.

These Orchestral albums have been wildly hit or miss to me - the surprising favorite of mine being the Aretha Franklin one. The re-orchestration (not part of same series) of Freddie Mercury's Barcelona from 2012 is incredible.

I listened to this album three, four time now. "Heroes and Villains" cool intro. I don't mind messing with Beach Boys tracks.

But unfortunately, this one did nothing for me at all. In fact, a lot of it bothered me as Brian's arrangements and The Wrecking Crew are drowned out in favor of... louder strings not arranged by Brian?..

Fortunately, I also purchased that Paul Simon Graceland Remixed, so thankfully, the Beach Boys are not on my "worst purchase of year" list.

I'm glad they didn't label this album "Vol. 1" because yeah - I'd rather have a sequel to Stars and Strips than another one of these.

Get back to Elvis!

Jeff

 

I think the minimal replies from Brian pretty well explains it for me too.
He is trying to be 'nice' but even he knows, they ****ed up his arrangements for the most part.
They were right the first time.

 

No interest in this release, but I peeked 'Disney Girls', and it's great to hear that beautiful lead vocal so clear and not completely out-of-phase. Sounds like it was recorded yesterday. Whole 'Surf's Up' (and 'Holland') deserves a remix.

Shame it's so compressed, especially for a release like this which should be dynamic. The hi-res is the exact same master.

 

'Disney Girls' is the best track on the release, quite easily.

 

Give me a break. He’s most likely not paying these much mind.

 

what's your prob? I never said Brian was, I was just saying sheesh!! settle down.

 

Three weeks in the UK top ten so far. Wouldn't be surprised if a volume 2 came along at some point.