This is an interesting story. However if it is meant to back up your assertion that Sloop John B was “sort of tacked on, I think at the suggestion (or even insistence) of one member of the group” I strongly disagree. If anything this story makes me think that Brian Wilson saw something special in it. And the finished track could easily have been discarded if he didn’t think it fit in his masterpiece.
That is certainly one valid way of considering the matter. I certainly don’t think it “messes up” Pet Sounds. (For me, personally, the only song I usually skip is Caroline, No.)
One last comment- SJB was the first pop/rock song I ever heard that had what amounts to “lead bass.” First one I ever noticed, anyway.
Final One last comment, re another post: IMO “Caroline, No” works much better at its original speed and pitch. Possibly at his father’s urging, Brian slowed it down to drop the pitch a semitone.
Interesting! Yes, it is a bit slower than it “should” be – I can see how speeding it up a bit might help.
(The amazingly slow “DT (PYHOMS)” is perfect just as it is, of course. Perhaps the slowest great song ever.)
Travelling Without Moving by Jamiroquai is a fucking great funk album, fast, witty, bouncy, flowing and fun, but those back-to-back turgid stinkers of instrumental didgeridoo tracks on Side Two almost kill it in its tracks. Skipping them is mandatory.
Yeah, like that last piece of crap they recorded, Abbey Road. In order of release (not counting Yellow Submarine, released as a companion piece to the movie, with very little new original Beatles stuff on it), their final 3 albums were The White Album, Abbey Road, and Let It Be. The 3 prior to those were Revolver, Sgt Pepper, and Magical Mystery Tour. 5 of these 6 were on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. including their final 3 albums released. 4 of these were in the top 15 (2 in the top 5, including the top spot; the top 5 also included Rubber Soul).
Where exactly was the point where their albums started to suck?
I always think of The White Album as coming after Abbey Road, because I envisioned their career arc as having all of their “progressive” sounding albums lumped together, toward the beginning they were of course a straightforward rock n roll band, and at the end I thought they were all like “screw all this hippie crap, let’s just make the music we enjoy and let’s go back to our roots and throw in some rock n roll” Of course, the fact that Abbey Road is much less like this than Let It Be and The White Album, yet was recorded afterward, disproves this analysis.
But let’s pretend that my fake timeline were true. Then, I’d say that The White Album is when they began to suck. Relative to their post-Help! stuff, that is.
People, getting old is a bitch. My Senior Moment for today was a doozy.
What I meant to say is that Murry urged Brian to speed CN up, to raise the pitch a semitone, to make Brian sound “younger.” What I neglected to add was that I prefer to hear it at its original lower pitch, but at the faster (as released) tempo.
Christ, I’m not even 62 yet, and these idiotic mistakes/oversights are happening almost daily.
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“Free as a Bird” was a bit lame.
So, what was that, 1997 or so?
High fives all around then. For me the only change to Pet Sounds I would make would be to stick with “Hang On To Your Ego” instead of “I Know There’s An Answer”. And thus…
/end hijack
I rather like “Hotdogs and Hamburgers.” I don’t think it breaks up the flow of the album at all.
I strongly disagree with this. I think “Leave A Tender Moment” is one of the best cuts of the album. You could leave off “Easy Money” and “This Night” and you would have one solid album.
I don’t think there are any songs on any of Boston’s first three albums that ruin the flow of any of them. You can play those three allbums from start to finish and make one awesome playlist. I couldn’t think of their first album at all without “Let Me Take You Home Tonight.”
‘Oh Daddy’ from Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors. If I heard it for the first time today, I might like it. Problem is, I was listening to that album while still in the womb and can’t hear it objectively. Is ‘Daddy’ her father or her boyfriend? She calls him ‘baby’ in the last verse. It is a bit of a cringey, squirmy song for me.
Okay, I’ll play along. Seriously, the White Album sucked? Perhaps less “progressive” than, say, Revolver, but…well, maybe it’s just different strokes. I consider the White Album a masterwork, flaws and all. FWIW, my opinion is common in critical circles. Hell, even Charlie Manson was enamored by it. 
Anyway, in your alternate universe timeline, why did the Beatles suck starting with the White Album?
That wasn’t an album, the Beatles having disbanded 25 years before its release, by 1995 with one of its members dead and all. But I’ll concede the point: by 1995, the Beatles output of current band material was much weaker than prior to 1970. Every year since has been even worse. 
Exactly my point ;). Actually, the recording session which “immediately preceded” Free as a Bird’s – to polish George’s weak waltz-time number “I Me Mine”, in Feb 1970, I believe, and also absent John, though he was still on this planet – was also pretty lame. So, you could say the Beatles began to suck on that day.
But not a second earlier than that!
Oh no, I love “I Me Mine”! Cool chords, and I especially love Paul’s harmony on the chorus–that Beatles sound, the pure, high tenor. It is funny to think of them as consecutive recording sessions, though, you’re right…
One more – For me, “Dreams” is the song I skip on Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours…partly because it’s boring, but mainly because of the atrocious way they try to fit in the lyric “when the rain washes you clean, you’ll know”. The rhythm of the song forces them to completely mis-stress the syllables – “…wa-SHEZ youclean…” rather than “…WASH-ez you CLEAN…” – rendering it completely unintelligible.
(Someone mentioned “Oh Daddy”, and that’s not a great song either, but it doesn’t make me cringe the way “Dreams” does.)
I’ll be damned. For exactly that reason I never knew what the hell that lyric was supposed to be. I always figured it was something that fit the meter but could never come up with anything that makes sense: “When the rain wall shares you clean you’ll kno-o-ow, you will kno-ow…”
I have the same issue with the line with “Serengeti” in Africa by Toto, but that would be a hijack.