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What I Really Want for Christmas
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Brian Wilson Album Review:
heartbreaking at 2005-12-19
In Brian Wilsons world, christmas feels more like loss than like presents. Its not just that he dedicates this cd to his two beloved brothers who he misses singing christmas carols with. Its also his voice--older, harder, less resilient. what i really want for christmas is sad and beautiful like a childhood memory of christmas past: wishing the wonder could recreate itself, realizing it wont, and expanding the bittersweet knowledge of experience into something clear and lasting. most of the songs surprise, but the a capella auld lang syne is the diamond in the collection, arranged and sung as if it were the last song being sung on the last day of the world.
Brian Wilson Album Review:
A Wonderful CD! at 2005-12-13
This CD would have a 5 star rating if Amazon would remove the inappropriate (and sometimes dishonest - one guy says the copy protection wouldnt let him listen to the CD - since theres no copy protection on it what does that make him?) comments regarding copy protection. The two new songs are magnificent, and the Wilson/Taupin song - What I Really Want For Christmas - is a true gem, one of the finest songs Brian has ever written. The playing and the vocals by his band are simply out of this world. I am pretty tired of the Christmas standards, and even the Brian Wilson touch cant save a few of them for me. But I wasnt predisposed to like this CD - and I find myself just more and more drawn into it with every listen. Its a Christmas album Ill be playing in July!
Brian Wilson Album Review:
Nice combination of old and new at 2006-01-22
I was really pleased when I first listened to this recent Christmas album from Brian Wilson. I love the way he sings the old carols, and the contemporary songs that he wrote fit right into the album and the mood of Christmas. I thought the arrangements, harmonies, and Brians voice were just perfect for this album. I highly recommend it to listen to at Christmas time, and even during the year!
Brian Wilson Album Review:
brian wilson christmas cd at 2006-01-15
great cd
Brian Wilson Album Review:
A pleasant surprise. at 2005-12-31
I got this as a gift from my wife who knows I am a big Beach Boys fan. I was pleasantly surprised. While not quite as good as the Beach Boys Christmas album, lets remember this is 40 years later and Brain is really trying to please us all releasing albums we never would have thought possible even 10 years ago. The man is amazing, he can still craft catchy pop tunes as evidenced by the new songs on this album. I just wish he would have done more pop Christmas songs than traditional ones, but Im not complaing. Sit back and enjoy!
Brian Wilson Album Editorial:
A new Brian Wilson record is always cause for celebration even if it turns out to be an album of Christmas music his third such venture in 40 years. iWhat I Really Want for Christmas features Wilson and the crack band he employed on iSmile putting their spin on 10 traditional favorites plus new versions of the Beach Boys Little Saint Nick and The Man With All the Toys and two originals cowritten with Bernie Taupin and Jimmy Webb. Though they dont rise to the level of his best work (admittedly the tallest of orders) the title track and Christmasey prove Wilson can still turn out a catchy melody when he wants to and the disc as a whole shows his arranging chops are as strong as ever if no longer as innovative. Like iSmile iWhat I Really Want for Christmas sometimes suffers in comparison to the Beach Boys--Wilson dedicates it to his beloved brothers Carl and Dennis who I miss singing carols with (as do we)--but occasionally as on O Holy Night one feels the old soul and spirit shining through. Though it may not merit a spot next to iThe Beach Boys Christmas Album and iA Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector as a classic of the genre its still a joy to hear Wilson singing the songs hes loved since childhood. If this is your kind of music this is your kind of album. Benjamin Lukoff
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SMiLE
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Brian Wilson Album Review:
Disappointed at 2006-08-01
As a long time Beach Boys fan who is in his 50s, I was rooting for Brian Wilson to pull this off. Unfortunately, this is a very mediocre album and in places really grates on me. My wife made me take it out of the player in the car. Good Vibrations and Heroes and Villains realize the potential of the 60s versions and shine as the albums best cuts. Most of the rest of the album is unlistenable. It is Pet Sounds progressing to the next level (not a good thing) and almost sounds like a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon wanna be, only 35 years too late, and not as listenable.
Brian Wilson Album Review:
Smile makes me frown at 2006-07-07
This is just a big, fat, pretentious bunch of bits and pieces. There are only 3 hummable songs on it, and I already have two. Brian Wilson is/was a master, no doubt. But this is not a good example. Ill take the recording Holland (my favorite) anytime. The Beach Boys sum is definitely better than the sum of any of its parts. Too bad they cant get back together.
Brian Wilson Album Review:
for fans only at 2006-06-06
I can here the same strange slurring, (like Bill Murray playing Hunter Thompson), in Brians singing, that is even more apparent in his speaking voice. Fans are fans, but I cant imagine this changing anyones mind.
Brian Wilson Album Review:
Nice but i prefer the 60s version at 2006-06-19
One day a dear friend of mine came home and in his trusty back-pack he brought a copy of a new cd he had downloded and burnt in his computer. It was called Smile and he went on with the story we have all heard about Wilsons lost album. I kept it and never gave it back (or maybe he gave it to me as he would often do). Being a fan of the beach boys and of 60s and 70s rock i loved every minute of my un-official copy of SMILE. So when i saw this i bought it thinking ths was a remake with the old tapes. Not so. This is a brand new recording with Wilson being (i think) the only original member from the earlier tapes. And it needs to be said, this is one tremendous piece of work, just like the original. But i much prefer the original 60s sound. How can you reproduce the sound of a recording like Good Vibrations the SMILE version?!? Good luck with that one!...But its worth it to hear the new Smile album with 21st century recording quality anyways...
Brian Wilson Album Review:
The Masterpiece of all Pop Masterpieces Finally Realized at 2006-06-11
_Smile_ was a revelation when it came out in incomplete form in 1967, especially Good Vibrations, which remains and always will remain as a cornerstone of innovative form and overwhelming feeling in pop music (with this song the Beach Boys put psychedelic pop AND hard rock on the map for good; seriously, listen to the cello outro at the end and tell me that Deep Purple and Zeppelin didnt base their entire careers on this repetitive and still consciousness-expanding riff). This album was a five then. Brian Wilsons redux is a six; the only albums I can compare it to as far as providing the entire package and so much more are _Sgt. Peppers_, Patti Smiths _Horses_, SYs _Daydream Nation_, Radioheads _Kid A_, Wilcos _Yankee Hotel Foxtrot_, and Mars Voltas _De-loused at the Comatorium_.And like these, this album frustrates those who want Good Vibrations over and over. This is not Little Deuce Coupe Beach Boys beyond the fun harmonies. This is orchestral pop that veers all over the place, a classical masterpiece from an emotional genius with no classical training. Which is why it is still rock and roll. I defy you to put this on after a hard day at the office or wherever you spend your time and not feel your preoccupations slip away after the opening vocals of Our Prayer. Then you should be absorbed by the strange and infectious concoction that is Heroes and Villains. With Roll Plymouth Rock you should be singing along for the rest of the album (after you memorize every single note, that is). Once your sing-along starts its more or less an hour of chills and ineffable emotions. Not exactly the sensation of hearing a Beethoven symphony (considering Beethovens music is wordless), but as completely engrossing and oblivion-inspiring. And that, in a nutshell is the purpose of good music: to get you out of the every-day and into infinity. _SMiLE_ does this every time.What makes this better than the original are the greatly increased production values, the laser focus of Wilson here, the complete orchestra, and the missing pieces of the puzzle. The highlight amongst these missing pieces, in my opinion, is Mrs. OLearys Cow, which I am skeptical was actually in the works in 1967, unless it was on a subsconscious level in Brians admittedly fertile mindscape. This sounds like grunge with the bells and whistles of a fully-outfitted symphony hall. Nevertheless, it puts an appropriately distracting spin on this already consistently distracted sound-palette, which before this point has stuck to more typical 1960s tropes.Brian is back to this with In Blue Hawaii, with the appropriately discombobulated segue that begins with Is it hot as hell in here/ or is it me?/ It really is a mystery and then into a Lords Prayer allusion. After all the echoes and low wah-wah harmonies, we are back to the familiar lyrical and musical Maui fantasy. Mrs. OLearys Cow has brought us through the hell of manic depression and we have arrived in heaven: being poured a holy holy cow at a luau. As elusive as this alcohol-inspired holy of holies might have proven for Wilson, we are back at the beginning of SMiLE within a few seconds of Our Prayer before we arrive at what must certainly be the theme song of nirvana. You have to be one pretty uptight mofo to not be singing along and playing air drums on this faithful yet vastly improved rendition of the original classic. I dont know where,/ but you take me there. Indeed, Brian that is what you do for a legion of rightfully adoring throngs. I click my Mai Tai with yours at the incomparably varied, rich, and ingeniously-realized party that goes on forever thanks to your unswerving vision that refused to wane even after thirty-seven years away from your unfinished masterpiece. Cheers!!!
Brian Wilson Album Editorial:
ISmile is inarguably the most long-awaited album in modern pop history. Its been more than 37 years since the title first appeared on a label release schedule intended as the January 1967 follow-up to the groundbreaking art-rock of the Beach Boys IPet Sounds. But ISmile never made its initial release date. Today this album is not a mere reconstruction of past performances but something entirely new a serious summation of a project that has been gestating for nearly four decades.
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