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The Beach Boys


Sbbruin

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On 7/3/2019 at 11:06 PM, honolulu horn said:

Wow, you're regarded.

Brian Wilson is unquestionably one of rock's geniuses. Here's one reason why. You can hear him working out one little piece of the insanely complex final version that he hears in his head:

And if you really want to get into it, here's Brian Wilson working out California Girls. It takes 45 minutes and 42 takes, but it's pretty cool seeing how it all comes together. He was exacting but had it all worked out in his head -- just needed to get the players all aligned to get there:

Remember that he started experiencing symptoms of schizoaffective disorder right around the release of Good Vibrations / Pet Sounds. He still receives treatment for it. The film Love and Mercy is a great biopic. He's pretty amazing to see live, as he just comes out and his band checks in with him throughout to see what he's able to perform without his symptoms getting in the way. Incredible story about a genius struggling with mental illness and (at times) harnessing it all into amazing works of mastery.

 

I only made it 20-25 minutes in to the California Girls video-- fascinating stuff.

(As someone who's never recorded/worked in a studio) I was surprised at how many false starts there were that were caused by bum notes. Shit, guys, get it together.

Edited by SwanderedTalent
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6 hours ago, SwanderedTalent said:

I only made it 20-25 minutes in to the California Girls video-- fascinating stuff.

(As someone who's never recorded/worked in a studio) I was surprised at how many false starts there were that were caused by bum notes. Shit, guys, get it together.

Yeah, I find these sorts of recordings really interesting. They take songs we've heard forever and really show how much work, trial and error, etc went into the final version. There's a great video of the Beatles working out Something in which George Harrison gets help with the lyrics "Something in the way she moves, attracts me like a pomegranate" and in which McCartney figures out the bass line. I love hearing how these things are made.

The ones of Brian Wilson producing are especially cool -- you know he's got it in his head and is just trying to explain it to the musicians. "Yeah, we need to have two simultaneous but discordant bass lines..."

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