The Beach Boys' "Carl and the Passions - So Tough/Holland" twofer: C/D?

I was debating whether to start two individual threads for these but worried that they might not survive long. Feel free to splinter if need arises

a tad overrated now, but classic.

It's one of the weirder two-fers, in that it's an actual 2-CD, so Holland could accomodate the bonus 7".

Carl & The Passions has the best moments of the two... the Dennis Wilson songs and "Marcella"

Holland is the better album.

also "Trader"

Classic. "Carl and the Passions" perhaps underrated, "Holland" perhaps overrated?

yeah "Trader" and "Only You" ftw

It's one of the weirder two-fers, in that it's an actual 2-CD, so Holland could accomodate the bonus 7".

Yes, irritates me a bit. They should just have put out a single CD for non-fanboys that didn't have the fairy story on it

(I like the Fairy Story 7"!)

(aside from the narration, it's the closest precursor to High Llamas of all Beach Boys material.)

I don't like the High Llamas that much but they're not that bad

haha, well I expect to be alone in my admiration for the fairy story single. :)

Hard to think of them together, for me. Holland was my BB gateway drug, way back - I 'got' it (in the sense of appreciation rather than acquisition) before Pet Sounds or Surf's Up. Carl and the Passions has been a recent falling asleep to record - side two is glorious, and for some odd reason reminds of what I think Talk Talk are meant to be but aren't really ( I expect to have a TT revelation soon......)

Holland sounds to me like their only "wintery" album, which is maybe why I felt compelled to start this thread.

"Carl and the Passions" always seems oddly sequenced to me

I need to get a copy of this- "All This is That" and "Trader" are two of my BB's favorites from the seventies.

"Carl and the Passions" always seems oddly sequenced to me

oddly recorded too - BB records often sound better than they are, but Carl and the P. sounds kinda dull in places.......when it actually isn't

Why 'Wild Honey' thread so popular?

I really can't say I like much on "Carl", other than that funky 70s jam called "She Comes Down" which sounds nothing like the Beach Boys.

Holland on the other hand is awesome. I love how Carl (?) sings "Trader!" at the beginning of that song as if he's accidentally started at the wrong time.

i don't like the dennis songs on "carl" either. he sounds like he's struggling with some sort of butt problem.

um what

The Beach Butts

It's a fair point. Since that album, Dennis has sounded gloriously constipated.

Not nearly as constipated as he sounds on "Baby Blue" on L.A. Light Album. He sounds almost Tom Waits-ish on that one.

just a general digression: most of my fascination with the Beach Boys from 1967 to 1979 is just how all the gaffes have created mostly unique Beach Boys albums. Each of them have their flaws, some more than others. But, intentionally or not, this is why they're more interesting to me much of the time than, say, Pet Sounds -- brilliant album, but tired of it -- and the earlier stuff -- lots of great stuff and standouts, but yeah, same general flavor overall. I don't think an older rock band has had such a long and proliferous "WTF" period as the Beach Boys.

Hahah, that sums it up perfectly. The anchor of Endless Summer as a catalog seller throughout the seventies made for a truly strange mirror image.

I forgot about Endless Summer! That point is way overlooked because all of those post-1974 albums may have never been made (for better and/or worse)

Back to Dennis, again, the butthurtosity of his voice is most painful to watch (which is more el-smack-ness, :( ) in the last performance of the Beach Boys with all original members in 1983 (in Atlanta I think?). Dennis came up to sing "You Are So Beautiful" solo, and he looked practically zombified.

"Holland" is kinda cool, but never quite gotten the grip on "Carl And The Passions". A bit too little of Brian Wilson on both of them. And the superior twoofer is "Sunflower"/"Surf's Up" anyway, of course.

both of these albums are fuckin sweet and honestly would've benefited from more input from Fataar/Chapin, judging by their old band the Flame's stateside debut (produced by Carl). "We Got Love" for example, is a great song.

I bet even Geir would dig this

much better than that blogpost makes it out to be imho

very Abbey Road-ish, some serious McCartney pop tricks on a couple tracks, synth-prog-opus goodness at the end

Is there a modern band that does a cover of "Cuddle Up"? Or maybe a different version of it on a bootleg with a more up tempo arrangement? (I'm not thinking of the Captain and Tennille cover.)

if there is a bootleg alt take, it must be pretty obscure cause I can't think of any

there's this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL8iyaM60rE

That's not it. I think I may have dreamt it.

Argh, it's driving me crazy.

Oh my god, I figured it out.

I feel soooo stupid.

I think I'm too embarrassed to say what the answer was.

It turns out that I have never heard this song at the correct speed before, haha.