Wouldn't It Be Nice

Wouldn't It Be Nice PDF Author: Charles L. Granata
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 9781613738375
Category : Rock music
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
When he first started working on Pet Sounds, Brian Wilson said that he was going to write "the greatest rock album ever made." That album, released in 1966, fifty years ago, changed the face of popular music. From conception and composition to arrangement and production, Pet Sounds was the work of one extraordinary man. Turning his back on the protest songs and folk rock of his contemporaries and even on the bright surf sound of his own creation, Brian Wilson reached deep within himself to make music that struck an emotional chord and touched people's souls. Embracing the rapidly advancing recording technology of the time, he expertly created an original studio sound that would inspire generations of listeners and musicians. Featuring a detailed track-by-track analysis of the songs and extensive interviews with key personalities, Wouldn't It Be Nice reveals the influences--musical, personal, and professional--that together created this groundbreaking album. Now revised to include new information and recent developments, this is the definitive book on one of the greatest albums ever made.

Becoming the Beach Boys, 1961-1963

Becoming the Beach Boys, 1961-1963 PDF Author: James B. Murphy
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476618534
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 435

Book Description
They were almost The Pendletones--after the Pendleton wool shirts favored on chilly nights at the beach--then The Surfers, before being named The Beach Boys. But what separated them from every other teenage garage band with no musical training? They had raw talent, persistence and a wellspring of creativity that launched them on a legendary career now in its sixth decade. Following the musical vision of Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys blended ethereal vocal harmonies, searing electric guitars and lush arrangements into one of the most distinctive sounds in the history of popular music. Drawing on original interviews and newly uncovered documents, this book untangles the band's convoluted early history and tells the story of how five boys from California formed America's greatest rock 'n' roll band.

I Am Brian Wilson

I Am Brian Wilson PDF Author: Brian Wilson
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0306823071
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
They say there are no second acts in American lives, and third acts are almost unheard of. That's part of what makes Brian Wilson's story so astonishing. As a cofounding member of the Beach Boys in the 1960s, Wilson created some of the most groundbreaking and timeless popular music ever recorded. With intricate harmonies, symphonic structures, and wide-eyed lyrics that explored life's most transcendent joys and deepest sorrows, songs like "In My Room," "God Only Knows," and "Good Vibrations" forever expanded the possibilities of pop songwriting. Derailed in the 1970s by mental illness, drug use, and the shifting fortunes of the band, Wilson came back again and again over the next few decades, surviving and-finally-thriving. Now, for the first time, he weighs in on the sources of his creative inspiration and on his struggles, the exhilarating highs and the debilitating lows. I Am Brian Wilson reveals as never before the man who fought his way back to stability and creative relevance, who became a mesmerizing live artist, who forced himself to reckon with his own complex legacy, and who finally completed Smile, the legendary unfinished Beach Boys record that had become synonymous with both his genius and its destabilization. Today Brian Wilson is older, calmer, and filled with perspective and forgiveness. Whether he's talking about his childhood, his bandmates, or his own inner demons, Wilson's story, told in his own voice and in his own way, unforgettably illuminates the man behind the music, working through the turbulence and discord to achieve, at last, a new harmony.

The Beach Boys Pet Sounds

The Beach Boys Pet Sounds PDF Author: Kingsley Abbott
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781905139088
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
"Pet Sounds" is the 1966 album that saw The Beach Boys graduate from lightweight pop like "Surfin' USA" into a vehicle for the mature compositional genius of Brian Wilson. The album was hugely influential, not least on The Beatles. This is the full story of the album's background, composition, and recording, its reception and its enduring legacy, revised and updated to take in Brian's live resurgence and the "Smile" album and tour.

The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds

The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds PDF Author: Jim Fusilli
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1441112669
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 103

Book Description
Pet Sounds is, rightly, one of the most celebrated pop albums ever released. It has also been written about, pored over, and analyzed more than most other albums put together. In this disarming book, Jim Fusilli focuses primarily on the emotional core of the album, on Brian Wilson's pitch-perfect cry of despair. In doing so, he brings to life the search for equilibrium and acceptance that still gives Pet Sounds its heart almost four decades after its release. For all the ups and downs, the scandals and, finally, the good times that are associated with Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, nothing can diminish the beauty of Pet Sounds – its sense of adventure, its insight into the boundless mysteries of young love and how all its elements seem to coalesce to lay bare an insecure teen confronted by the uncertainties of adulthood, a man who wishes life were as simple as he believed it once was. More than a wonderful work that has easily withstood the test of time, Pet Sounds raises pop to the level of art through its musical sophistication and the precision of its statement which, taken together, celebrate the fulfillment of Brian Wilson's ambition.

The Musicology of Record Production

The Musicology of Record Production PDF Author: Simon Zagorski-Thomas
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139993518
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 279

Book Description
Recorded music is as different to live music as film is to theatre. In this book, Simon Zagorski-Thomas employs current theories from psychology and sociology to examine how recorded music is made and how we listen to it. Setting out a framework for the study of recorded music and record production, he explains how recorded music is fundamentally different to live performance, how record production influences our interpretation of musical meaning and how the various participants in the process interact with technology to produce recorded music. He combines ideas from the ecological approach to perception, embodied cognition and the social construction of technological systems to provide a summary of theoretical approaches that are applied to the sound of the music and the creative activity of production. A wide range of examples from Zagorski-Thomas's professional experience reveal these ideas in action.

The Beach Boys FAQ

The Beach Boys FAQ PDF Author: Jon Stebbins
Publisher: Backbeat Books
ISBN: 1458429148
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 398

Book Description
(Book). A half-century after their first single release, "Surfin'," the Beach Boys continue to define California popular culture and the sunshine-infused sound that will forever be its living soundtrack. But beyond innocent harmonies touting the delights of catching waves and cruising to the drive-in, the Beach Boys are responsible for some of the most sophisticated pop/rock music ever made. Brian Wilson's acclaimed production, the 1966 LP Pet Sounds , was both a creative triumph that inspired The Beatles' best work, and a commercial disappointment that was widely misunderstood by the band's U.S. fans. The Beach Boys followed that with perhaps the greatest three-minute rock single ever, "Good Vibrations," which wowed the critics, was a worldwide number one hit, and ushered Brian Wilson down the path of substance abuse and mental illness. Brian then leapt into the abstract madness of Smile , his epic psychedelic masterpiece that was ultimately scrapped in a 1967 sea of paranoia that nearly drowned the Beach Boys as an act. As the 1970s dawned, the endless summer of nostalgia designated the Beach Boys as its favorite sons. They recorded a critically lauded string of albums even while coping with the knowledge that their creative leader, Brian Wilson, had become a semipermanent recluse and a casualty of his own excess. Still, the Beach Boys continued through controversy, conflict, and death, rising again and again to find more popularity and more commercial peaks into the 1980s and beyond. As the new millennium unfolds, the Beach Boys are still here and continue to be a popular concert attraction and one of rock's most compelling and important stories. In The Beach Boys FAQ , Jon Stebbins explains how the band impacted music and pop culture. This entertaining, fast-moving tome is accompanied by dozens of rare images, making this volume a must-have for fans.

The Beatles from A to Zed

The Beatles from A to Zed PDF Author: Peter Asher
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1250209587
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 189

Book Description
A legendary record producer and performer takes readers on an alphabetical journey of insights into the music of the Beatles and individual reminiscences of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. Peter Asher met the Beatles in the spring of 1963, the start of a lifelong association with the band and its members. He had a front-row seat as they elevated pop music into an art form, and he was present at the creation of some of the most iconic music of our times. Asher is also a talented musician in his own right, with a great ear for what was new and fresh. Once, when Paul McCartney wrote a song that John Lennon didn’t think was right for the Beatles, Asher asked if he could record it. “A World Without Love” became a global No. 1 hit for his duo, Peter & Gordon. A few years later Asher was asked by Paul McCartney to help start Apple Records; the first artist Asher discovered and signed up was a young American singer-songwriter named James Taylor. Before long he would be not only managing and producing Taylor but also (having left Apple and moved to Los Angeles) working with Linda Ronstadt, Neil Diamond, Robin Williams, Joni Mitchell, and Cher, among others. The Beatles from A to Zed grows out of his popular radio program “From Me to You” on SiriusXM's The Beatles Channel, where he shares memories and insights about the Fab Four and their music. Here he weaves his reflections into a whimsical alphabetical journey that focuses not only on songs whose titles start with each letter, but also on recurrent themes in the Beatles’ music, the instruments they played, the innovations they pioneered, the artists who influenced them, the key people in their lives, and the cultural events of the time. Few can match Peter Asher for his fresh and personal perspective on the Beatles. And no one is a more congenial and entertaining guide to their music.
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