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Orphaned references in Musicianship of Brian Wilson[edit]

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Musicianship of Brian Wilson's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "ARP":

  • From Pet Sounds: Heiser, Marshall (November 2012). "SMiLE: Brian Wilson's Musical Mosaic". The Journal on the Art of Record Production (7).
  • From Smile (The Beach Boys album): Heiser, Marshall (November 2012). "SMiLE: Brian Wilson's Musical Mosaic". The Journal on the Art of Record Production (7).

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 02:55, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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"Electricity" synthesis[edit]

Here is the 2002 quote I'm reading combined with Wilson's words from 1995:

The first time I heard the Beatles was when I heard "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and instantly I was aware of their power, the instant electricity, and I was jealous ... I was flipping out. I couldn't understand how [the Beatles] could be just yelled and screamed at. The [song] wasn't even that great a record, but they just screamed at it. ... Mike and I went for dinner and all we could talk about was what we were going to do about these Beatles ... It got us off our asses in the studio. We started cutting – we said 'look, don't worry about the Beatles, we'll cut our own stuff.

At what point does he contradict himself here? In both discussions of the song, Wilson is speaking about the song's Beatlemania reception and how it pushed the band to excel in the studio. The only time he comments on the song, it's to say that it "wasn't that great", but he was "instantly aware of their power" and "electricity". In other words, "not a great song, but people were passionate about them". It would be like if I wrote:

Wilson said he "liked the way it all went together, the way it was all one thing. It was a challenge to me".[1] However, Carl said that Brian "loved the Beatles' later music when they evolved and started making intelligent, masterful music".[2]

The suggestion gleamed here is that Rubber Soul is discounted from the kind of "intelligent, masterful music" that Wilson liked from the Beatles. Which is a ridiculous assertion, obviously.

Try to produce a quote from Wilson where he actually praises the song for some aesthetic quality. Even if you could, it still wouldn't be enough to merit a "however". The only way you could justify a supposed "contradiction" is if Wilson added anything to the effect of "Oh yeah, actually, 'Hold Your Hand' was a great record. More than great, it was terrific. It blew my mind."--Ilovetopaint (talk) 11:25, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You're an obsessive and a pain … I don't know what you're on about with the 2002 quote you give above and what you mean by it's "combined with" Wilson's comments from 1995. I'm going from a piece Wilson wrote, dated February 2002, that appears in the "Psychedelic Beatles" volume of the Mojo Special Limited Edition series on the band. For instance, part of what Wilson says there of first hearing "I Want to Hold Your Hand" on the radio is: "What got right to me was the electricity in their voices. It really turned me on. I said, 'I gotta know who that is.'" Which is obviously a whole lot more complimentary than the 1995 comment, in that a "good record", especially then, was about excitement and how it jumped out from the radio. Also, he goes into some detail about how panicked he was, and Love too, by that song and the Beatles' instant domination of the US charts, and the challenge they represented to the Beach Boys' survival (his word) – which, again, presents a picture that's quite at odds with the 1995 comment "We started cutting – we said 'look, don't worry about the Beatles, we'll cut our own stuff.'" Those two points were why I thought "however" was appropriate.
But I'm not really bothered by that. What gets me as always with you, because it's a clear violation of Wikipedia's policies on balance and neutrality, is how you insist on steering this section towards a narrative whereby virtually all influence between the Beatles and the Beach Boys emanated from California. Here and everywhere else, you're very selective with the sources and quotes you use to push that narrative. That's what I've been trying to show with my recent additions here (e.g. [1], [2]) – because there are examples where Wilson and reliable sources give a far more open picture than the "No he wasn't influenced by them, not he wasn't" line accompanied (of course …) by the "George Martin said/John Lennon praised/Paul McCartney acknowledged" vindication that you constantly impose. McCartney and Martin have always felt sorry for Brian – that's a huge part of their generosity in praising his talents. By contrast, Brian's fragile psyche, not to mention his competitiveness, seems to affect how much, and how consistently, he's prepared to fully acknowledge a degree of influence that pretty much no source other than a Beach Boys biographer fails to pick up on. The rather desperate quote from Mike Love that I know you like to splash around also – that's another example of a completely unnecessary addition, as is almost the entire end note where you've used it at Pet Sounds. ("No he wasn't influenced by the Beatles, no he wasn't …!") And of course, Brian's 2015 comment on the prestigious Sound Bard website always seems to be introduced as him "clarifying" the issue ...) Love's super-competitive and his comments, especially in that late '60s interview when he sounds so uncomfortable and defensive, should be taken with a large amount of salt. Similarly, your addition of "He's also compared listening to "Let It Be" to taking a valium" – well, does that mean it's a downer, or blissful? I know Wilson has said he loves the Let It Be album (God knows why). He's also full of praise for the three Beatles songwriters in his autobiography, from an excerpt I've seen online; the Beach Boys have covered a few Beatles songs since 1965. But where's the coverage here of that sort of a narrative, instead of snide Mike, and Brian's backtracking denials?
JG66 (talk) 13:04, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It's understandable why you neglected to include "it really turned me on" — I have no idea what to make of that, but it's enough to demonstrate some contrast, if only for how ambiguous it is.
It's no secret that the other Beach Boys sans Brian were huge Beatles fans, so what sort of damage control do you suppose they're pursuing when they say "we love them, but Brian was more influenced by Spector"? There's no mention of their cover versions because this is an article about Brian Wilson, not the group. He was not "hands-on" for most of the Beach Boys' Beatles reworkings (see Party!, where the loudest and most enthusiastic vocals for all three Beatles covers are heard, unsurprisingly, from Carl and Dennis). The 1967 recording of "With a Little Help from My Hands" had no participation from Brian; neither a 1970 demo of "You Never Give Me Your Money". Notice a pattern?
There's nothing inherently wrong with selecting particular sources, especially when it's to avoid overstated points that have an overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary (WP:NPOV, WP:FALSEBALANCE). By the way, can you really not figure out why Wilson loves Let It Be? It should be obvious to anyone who looks at the producer credits.--Ilovetopaint (talk) 14:20, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well, hang on, I'd cite WP:NPOV to support my position. As far as WP:FALSEBALANCE goes, I see no issue: to borrow from terms used there, the sources I'm talking about certainly are or fall close to "commonly accepted mainstream scholarship", and they don't represent a "minority view or extraordinary claim".
I think you've done a good job of balancing out the section with your recent additions. The comments from Mike Love's book are quite enlightening, and they go some way to establishing why it is that Brian Wilson feels the need (or appears to) to hammer home this "I was not influenced by the Beatles" message. Funnily enough, the Phil Spector production credit on Let It Be completely escaped my mind … I was just referring to what a drab, undistinguished piece of work the album is (i.e. well before Phil was asked to work on it). JG66 (talk) 08:03, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I hope it really was enlightening. The point I've always tried to demonstrate is that Wilson was not influenced musically to be like the Beatles, but to be respected as a "pop progressive" like they were. Take these points side-by-side:

Yet the pertinent fact about Dylan and the Beatles in the summer of 1964 was that their respective musical constituencies were indeed perceived as inhabiting two separate subcultural worlds. Dylan's core audience was comprised of young people emerging from adolescence--college kids with artistic or intellectual leanings, a dawning political and social idealism, and a mildly bohemian style. His music appealed to their maturity, their sensitivity, their morality, and their verbal sophistication. The Beatles' core audience, by contrast, was comprised of veritable "teenyboppers"--kids in high school or grade school whose lives were totally wrapped up in the commercialized popular culture of television, radio, pop records, fan magazines, and teen fashion. They were seen as idolaters, not idealists.

Within six months of their meeting in August 1964, John Lennon would be making records on which he openly imitated Dylan's nasal drone, brittle strum, and introspective vocal persona. Within one year of their meeting, Bob Dylan would walk out on the stage of the 1965 Newport Folk Festival dressed in the height of Mod fashion and proceed, with the help of a five-piece group and a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar, to shake the monkey of folk authenticity permanently off his back. ("Where's Ringo?" disdainful voices would shout from the crowd.) By then the distinctions between the folk and rock audiences would have nearly evaporated. The Beatles' audience, in keeping with the way of the world, would be showing signs of growing up. But far more surprising would be the apparent readiness of Dylan's audience, in effect, to grow down, as hundreds of thousands of folkies in their late teens and early twenties, entranced by the allure of a newly energized and autonomous pop culture, would redirect some central tenet of their attitudinal allegiance back toward the ethos of their adolescent years.
— Jonathan Gould

Dylan was rewriting the rules for pop success. His music, his image, his attitude, his wry intellectualism—all of these things represented everything The Beach Boys weren’t. In fact, Dylan’s aloofness vexed Brian. To me he’s always been mysterious,” he confessed during this period. “Why did he switch to pop? Does he like us? Does he want to be liked or admired or hated or all three? Is he putting us all on?”
— Luis Sanchez

I think rock n' roll–the pop scene–is happening. It’s great. But I think basically, the Beach Boys are squares. We’re not happening-but we’ve been so lucky in the past. It doesn’t hurt now. We get enjoyment in our recordings. I write most of the songs and I’ve taken some drugs, which have opened my mind to a wider range of musical creativity. I write anywhere, usually at home. I don’t write about drugs and those things, though. As I said, we’re not a hip group. We’re pretty square.
— Brian Wilson, August 1967

He's never shyed away from creditng the Beatles, along with Dylan, as "influential" forces.

I gave a lot of credit, a lot of it, for everybody's success, to the Beatles. They've had a tremendous, universal influence. That 'Rubber Soul' album was a great new contribution. It helped them reach a new plateau. The Byrds, well, they represent a certain projected attitude. They've got a place too, no doubt of that. I still give Phil Spector credit for being the single most influential producer. He’s timeless. He makes a milestone whenever he goes into a studio. The folk thing has been important. I think it has opened up a whole new intellectual bag for the kids. They're making ‘thinking’ records now. That’s what it is. Everybody is saying something. We got into a romantic rut. It was all boy-girl, crying records with everybody kind of screwed up. Suddenly Dylan comes along with a cold, intellectual, philosophical thing. He’s a protester and his message pertains to society in general. I predict all this protesting will become highly personal and pertaining to a person's own hang-ups and his ego. The lyrics will be more introspective. There’ll always be love records, of course. There’s no stronger single theme. But you’ll find plenty of thinking records too. Sure, all this has helped The Beach Boys evolve. We listen to what's happening and it affects what we do too. The trends have influenced my work, but so has my own scene.
— Brian Wilson, Melody Maker, March 1966

Here's my argument: Wilson did not feel he was "made for those times" that the Beatles and Dylan espoused. The key word was progressive, which at the time meant "groundbreaking" as well as "politically conscious". He wanted to be respected as a progressive musician on par with any countercultural music figure, but he didn't want to leave his Four Freshmen/doo-wop/Wall of Sound box. For him to attain the prestige he wanted, he had to prove that he was hip to Dylan's "social statement" aesthetic. The Beatles also had to do this. And from that came songs like "The Word", "I Know There's an Answer", "Love You To", and "Surf's Up". It's "The Times They Are A-Changing" versus "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times".
It wasn't "he heard 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' / 'Norwegian Wood' / Revolver and proceeded to incorporate Coke bottles, Leslie speakers, and slash chords". That's how a sentence like "The Beatles influenced Brian Wilson" reads. --Ilovetopaint (talk) 12:18, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

lyrics[edit]

The section/line about lyrics is incorrect - you wrote that an outside collaborator would typically write all of the lyrics. Brian actually used to co-write the lyrics with an outside collaborator. Tony Asher used to refer to himself as "Brian's translator" - ie. he used to polish up/re-write/improve lyrics Brian had written for the song.

As far as I know Brian used to write a 1st draft of lyrics, outlining the theme/direction of the song, then he used to work with professional lyricists to polish/improve/re-write the lyrocs

108.171.128.173 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:39, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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