mail: daniel_fjall@hotmail.com
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brian wilson i just wasn't made for these times imagination live at the roxy theatre gettin' in over my head smile
Brian Wilson Released: 1988 Rating: 8/10 Track listing: 1. Love And Mercy/ 2. Walkin’ The Line/ 3. Melt Away/ 4. Baby Let Your Hair Grow Long/ 5. Little Children/ 6. One For The Boys/ 7. There’s So Many/ 8. Night Time/ 9. Let It Shine/ 10. Meet Me In My Dreams Tonight/ 11. Rio Grande Brian Wilson’s first solo album and really his comeback to the spotlight since the Beach Boys’ Friends, not counting 15 Big Ones and Love You from the mid-70’s. Much had changed since his prime. Now we need synthesizers, sterile drums and generally a lifeless, dated production. Fortunately, Brian adds so much warmth, genuine feeling and, of course, true talent that overcome any drum machine. Not that Brian Wilson is purely digital, far from it, but it’s clearly meant to be modern and commercial. Some of the songwriting is kinda weak, but how can you resist the melody and harmonies of “Love And Mercy”? The beauty of “Melt Away” and the complicated, but still gorgeous a cappella in “One For The Boys”. Songs that shows Brian as close to his peak he ever got after 1967. Melodic and catchy. Profound but simple. Everything that defines Brian Wilson. This is definitely your best bet for a Brian Wilson solo album. Yes, it’s looking back and is nostalgic (“Baby Let Your Hair Grow Long” makes you think of “Caroline No”) but far from as nostalgic as his later solo releases.
I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times A bunch of re-recordings to accompany the film with the same name. I must say that the idea itself sounds disgusting. In what way would these new versions be able to replace the originals? Well, first of all are the arrangements stripped down, naked and bare. Brians voice has obviously taken a lot of beating over the years, but it only has a positive effect. Especially interesting is “Melt Away” and “Love And Mercy”. Here liberated from their previous dated and sterile productions, they are even more affecting. It’s also interesting to see how he choose some less known material. It would have been easy to do “God Only Knows” and “Surfer Girl”, instead we get the short, but still masterful “Meant For You” and the great ballad “Let The Wind Blow” from Wild Honey. I guess when you look at this collection of songs you realize which songs that lies closest to Brians heart. The only real let down is that this album is so short (29 minutes). Still, that just adds to the charm. You wished it’d be longer, but then it wouldn’t be the same. Kinda like “Meant For You” as an album.
Imagination Remember how I mentioned nostalgia? Well, this is it. A production that tries to recapture the magic of Pet Sounds, but it ends up sounding lifeless, clean and really safe. Everything that Pet Sounds wasn’t and managed to avoid. No matter how Brian tries he cannot escape from the co-producers firm grip, nor the overprotective people around him. He’s held tight. They want him to create magic, but won’t let him be eccentric. It’s bound to fail. However, sometimes that genius is shining through. There’s no denial that “Your Imagination” is a great rewrite of “Do It Again”/“Wouldn't It Be Nice”, filled with trademark harmonies and catchy hooks. The highlight of the album is definitely “She Says That She Needs Me”. A fantastic song that for once manages to sound like Pet Sounds and still honest. The lyrics are simple, but still emotionally complex in the same way as they were on Today and similar in style as the ones Tony Asher wrote for Pet Sounds. Also add Brian’s wonderful harmonies and the amazing arrangements. How it starts of as a ballad, builds some tension, reaches the climax as a full grown pop symphony and then back to the ballad format again. The Wilson signature, that no one, no one, does better. In fact, that song alone justify the existence of this album. “Lay Down Burden” is a tribute to Carl Wilson too, and it easily ranks as one of the highlights here. It’s still better performed on the live album that would follow, but here it’s done with true emotions. Imagination has some ugliness too. Sure, “Let Him Run Wild” might be an improvement over the original version, but why? It’s almost 40 years old. It’s nothing special. It doesn’t even has potential. Why? “Keep An Eye On Summer”? Big question mark from me. There are some stuff that will pass you by as non offensive (“Cry”, “South American”), but the album has its share of fillers and even pure crap that might make it difficult for you to discover the really good stuff. “She Says That She Needs Me”, “Your Imagination” and “Lay Down Burden” presents Brian at his absolute peak. Songs that most people would kill to sign their name to.
Live At The Roxy Theatre First of all, Brian’s band is fantastic. Great players and even better singers that manages to recreate some of that Beach Boys magic. However, at first listen Brian seems worn out, enthusiastic perhaps, but competent? Hardly. Then, listen again. Not only has he grown older, but spent years of heavy medication and even more years as a drug addict. Naturally that effects the voice. Not the range and register, but how he shapes the words. It’s even more present when he talks between the songs. He sludges, but listen to the long notes he holds out. Listen to the “aaah”s and similar stuff. His pitch is perfect. He knows exactly what he’s doing on that stage. He has lost his famous falsetto, though. He doesn’t even try to sing “Don’t Worry Baby” or “Surfer Girl” the same way he did in the 60’s. Which works just fine, anyway. The songs are so strong that they can handle it. Even stronger songs are “God Only Knows” and “Caroline, No”. For some reason, that makes them even more important and sensitive. Even more dependent of perfect singing. “Caroline No” just needs that old falsetto, “God Only Knows” needs to be sung by Carl. Otherwise it’s just wrong. Of course Brian gets away with it, but the songs don’t become the definitive highlights they could’ve been. Instead for the absolute classics, the semi-classic numbers rise as the highlights. “Add Some Music To Your Day”, “Please Let me Wonder” and “Love And Mercy”. The latter being even more stripped down than on I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times, performed with only a nice piano along with excellent harmonies. Did I mention how great the band is? The only song here from the previous solo release, Imagination, is “Lay Down Burden” and it’s so much more affecting than the studio version. Simply gorgeous when it’s performed tight, but not on the edge to unbearable slick as it was presented on the studio album. Of course those legendary Wilson-harmonies are ever present and makes your hair stand on end. Especially after the bridge before the final chorus. We also get some minor surprises. The cover of “Be My Baby” and previously unrecorded song called “The First Time”. The best surprise, and one of the absolute highlights of the whole album is the cover of Barenaked Ladies’ “Brian Wilson”. Funny and shows that Brian has distance and perspective about his past. I love it. There are very few let downs here. I could have lived without the two Pet Sounds-instrumentals and “All Summer Long”, but other than those I’m not sure if I would want to change anything. I would have loved to hear him do “She Says That She Needs Me” and “Melt Away”, but I guess you can’t have everything. “Do It Again”, “This Whole World” and “Darlin’” are performed splendid and isn’t much worse than the studio versions. Great album that proves that Brian is out there and enjoying himself. And even more, he’s doing it good too. It’s not some second hand, cash-in tour. It’s for real. Did I mention how great the band is?
Gettin’ In Over My Head What strikes me most about this album is Brian’s vocals. If you have bothered to read my review of his Roxy-album you might remember how I mentioned that Brian’s pitch is perfect and his only problem is to shape the words without sounding like a drunk bum. That statement is still true here, even if he sounds slightly better in the studio than he does live. What's most impressive is the fact that Brian himself did all harmony vocals. Every single line, except for on “Desert Drive” on which he used his great band from the tours. And you can actually tell the difference between Brian and the band. No matter how great and fantastic the band might be (‘better than the Beach Boys’ according to the star himself), Mr. Wilson’s work is more convincing and more classy. Another thing that strikes me, is the production. Whilst the songs are clean and extremely well performed with some clever arrangements, Gettin’ In Over My Head is far from as boring and slick as Imagination. The songs actually breathes of life in a different way than on its predecessor, even if perhaps not as much as on Today!, Pet Sounds or Sunflower. But who cares anyway? At least this is a new album that doesn’t try to be a Pet Sounds-rip off like Imagination was. The cover proudly announces the guest appearances of Elton John, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton and the late great Carl Wilson. Elton John does a decent job with the opening number, but it does come off as a very ordinary song with a 50’s feel to it. What makes the song interesting is the excellent harmony vocals supplied by Brian. Especially the a capella intro. McCartney isn’t given quite as much space, but that doesn’t matter very much as “A Friend Like You” arguably is the album’s worst track. Too cheesy, too cliché, but once again, the harmonies are fine. Eric Clapton lends his guitar for “City Blues”, a song that probably is the most odd on the album. It uses some 80’s synths and a heavy brass-section with EC’s wailing stratocaster on top of it. I like it a lot, mainly because the energy surrounding it cannot be faked. However, the best song on the album is without a doubt “Soul Searchin’”, which features an old vocal take by Carl Wilson, with Brian just singing harmonies and the bridge. It’s fantastic, really. I know the song since a couple of years ago when Brian gave it to the soul singer Solomon Burke (available on the excellent album Don’t Give Up On Me). To me, that was one of the real highlights on the Burke-album, but I must admit that the Wilson brothers blows the soul man’s version out the window. An amazingly solid performance and a catchy melody. For once, it’s the bass register in the harmonies that’s most compelling. And any song featuring the voice from “God Only Knows” and “I Can Hear Music” is automatically something special. Yet the album has flaws. Mostly in the songwriting department. The songs have solid melodies and all, but not any truly magical notes that makes you stop, forcing you to listen. It’s too average, even if there are some golden moments. When the songwriting works (as in “Soul Searchin’” or the title track) you realize that the man still got it when he puts his mind to it. The lyrics are mostly awful throughout, but so what? If you want poetry, buy a poetry book. If you want heavenly harmonies and optimistic songs, buy Gettin’ In Over My Head.
SMiLE Through out my reviews of Brian Wilson’s albums, I have tried not to mention his past problems. I’ve tried not to make cheap shots and jokes, just as I’ve tried not to feel sorry for him or pity him. With the release of SMiLE it is unavoidable to talk about it. No matter if it was his bruised up-growing and troubled relation with his father, the competitive atmosphere of the time to top other bands or even to top himself (Pet Sounds), or if it simply was the drugs, Brian cracked. Maybe it was a combination of all those things. Maybe he set his ambitions too high to be accomplished. Maybe it was none of the mentioned. After finishing Pet Sounds in 1966, Brian started to work on what would be known to the world as SMiLE. It was a project that gained hard resistance from the other members of The Beach Boys and his family. The great lyricist Tony Asher had been replaced with Van Dyke Park. If you are the slightest familiar with the differences between the two writers, you can also figure out that there would be a significant change in the music as well. Tony Asher was a very mature writer, managing to come up with lyrics simple on the surface, but hiding a lot of depth and various feelings, both dark and light. Those lyrics fitted the music on Pet Sounds perfectly. Van Dyke Parks, on the other hand, was a influenced by the psychedelic wave and wrote abstract lyrics, which is very much reflected in the music of SMiLE. However, Brian Wilson was unable to complete the album at the time and pretty much left the music scene and The Beach Boys decided to carry on with Carl and Dennis Wilson as the leaders. Now, since the record company had been promised an album, The Beach Boys dug out Brian’s recordings and managed to put the pieces into an album, Smiley Smile. It was charmy and had a couple of highlights, but it was far from Brian’s original ideas and surely was underwhelming for the fans and the record company. Besides “Good Vibrations” and “Heroes And Villains”, all that existed were short fragments of songs. Since the band members had worked against Wilson on the project and had avoided it as much as possible, they had no clue of what Brian had in mind. These bits and parts was meant to be tied together and create a grand statement. A piece of art. ‘A teenage symphony to God’, as Brian described it. Naturally they could not pull it off. The myth about the great, lost masterpiece grew. The years turned into decades and finally Brian had recovered enough from his traumas to dare approaching the project again. It is an impressive listen. Of course the vocal harmonies plays a major part. They are excellent and are all over the place. Not messy in any way, and the arrangements are beautiful. The amount of time and care put into these songs are astonishing. There's also a shock load use of instruments such as banjos, guitars, trumpets, organs, lots of percussion, pianos, strings and orchestrations, weird sound effects and God only knows what else. Everything marvelously engineered and produced, of course. The main thing remains the vocal harmonies, though. The music and lyrics swifts without any obvious obstacles between being easy, light and nearly childish to become melancholic, depressingly dark and weary. The darker sides of life isn’t touched upon as much or as long as I had hoped, and the focus remains on the brighter sides of life and the album ends up being an optimistic and joyous achievement. I admit that I sometimes feel like skipping a track here and there, but that would ruin the listening experience. Some of the songs that might appear as weaker moments should be listened to with full attention and focus. New instruments and weird things will be discovered, and again, it is so carefully constructed and the arrangements are so amazing that it doesn’t matter much if the basic songwriting fails to match the perfection of the arrangements. Another thing that is remarkable, is how Brian manage to bring back sections of songs later on in the album, in different contexts without it sounding out of place or as he just didn’t care to come up with something new. One could wonder why Brian even bother with SMiLE, nearly 40 years down the road. Songs such as “Good Vibrations” and “Heroes And Villains” have been stated as pop masterpieces and it is brave to even think about rerecording them. He actually manages to improve them, a feat that pretty much sums up the album fairly well. SMiLE holds up surprisingly well, even though the songs have gathered dust during the last 4 decades. Over the years, bootlegs from the 1967-sessions has slipped out to the public and it is hard not to compare them with this 2004-version. The old recordings have been improved greatly, but these new versions are not that different, actually. They aren’t tied together to build a full album of “Good Vibrations”-copies. SMiLE-2004 has a few 'full' songs making up the cornerstones and foundation, although the ‘lesser’ songs certainly is needed and it all ends up as a sense of unity. It is difficult to pick out any clear highlights since even the major songs (“Surf’s Up”, especially) is dependant of its surrounding songs. “Song For Children” starts of nicely, but not mind-blowing and it floats into “Child Is Father of The Man” which is a stunning piece of gorgeous music, and finally the movement is culminating with “Surf’s Up”, which then returns to be “Child Is Father of The Man”. Those 10 minutes are not only interesting, but also one of the most beautifully, tenderly and emotionally moments I’ve heard from Brian. Most probably from anyone, even. Yes, Brian’s voice has changed and is far from as soothing as in the 60’s. However, you cannot go back and compare it to the bootlegs. This is SMiLE, and those old recordings is not. It can’t be pointed out as a flaw or a deterioration, since it had nothing to deteriorate from. Remarks like that fits better for Pet Sounds Live. Still it is intriguing to think of how these songs could have sounded if he had actually finished the album way back when with his brother Carl contributing lead vocals here and there. That is not of importance, though, as memories, ideas, influences and approaches changes over the years. It is far from certain that this is the way SMiLE would have sounded then or if Brian even intended it to be like this. One could wrestle with different theories and lose way too many hours of sleep while trying to figuring it all out. Don’t bother. We have the result here. It doesn’t quite live up to the myth, but did we really expect that? It’s not possible. That said, the album is a unique product and without a doubt the greatest thing Brian Wilson released as a solo-album. It might even be better than The Beach Boys peak, Pet Sounds. Musically, I think SMiLE is more interesting than Pet Sounds. If it is as emotional resonant is harder to tell. Who cares? It is a fantastic achievement and Brian finally got it off his shoulders. I think it has bothered him every since he abandoned the project. It will be interesting to see what happens now, when it is out of his system. He has been quite active during the last years, but mostly been recycling old material. Live At The Roxy Theatre was mostly old Beach Boys standards, Pet Sounds Live was a good, but honestly quite boring, reworking of his old masterpiece and finally Gettin’ In Over My Head featured a lot of songs that were written years and years ago. Now, with SMiLE completed, he must start writing new material. There is hardly anything left for him to prove, but I do look forward to the next release.
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