Live at The Roxy and Imagination are 2 of Brian's better releases over the later years of his career.
@scottstephenson2112
Жыл бұрын
This was the first Brian Wilson solo CD I bought and loved it from the beginning. It’s sad that it hasn’t been released on vinyl and didn’t get love on his Greatest Hits album a few years back. My biggest criticism of people’s review of music is when they say things like “It sounds like a 90’s album” and then it gets panned. It should sound like a 90’s album as that’s when it was released!! Brian gets the same criticisms for his solo debut and Beach Boys 85.
@ronfowlermusic
Жыл бұрын
Right on!
@pauldaniels2019
Жыл бұрын
This is one of my favorite Brian albums. I'm surprised that you didn't mention that Jimmy Buffett co-wrote South American. Who wrote more songs about the beach and ocean than those two? Anyways, in '98 I was at a Jimmy Buffett concert, and in the middle he brought out Brian! I couldn't believe it. The crowd totally erupted. This was before he started touring with his band, I believe. They did South American, Surfin USA, and I think In My Room together. It was a magical moment in the open air Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre. Thanks for the fun video.
@TheCraig8754
Жыл бұрын
Love Love Love this album
@TheCraig8754
Жыл бұрын
Another great informative review. Thank you.
@vdggmouse9512
Жыл бұрын
This album isn't that bad. Nor is it that good. Being a boomer I grew up on singles then albums. I saw/heard music expand from simplistic what some would call pop tunes through the psychedelic and then the progressive phases. It was mind blowing the changes that popular music went through from '62 - '80. This is an album that I could've loved in '66 or maybe up til '68 and listened to it in its album context. But I listen to albums for the musical journey - the ups and downs - the highs and lows. I need more variation in my 45 minute experience than what Brian Wilson gives me - today (or in '98). Back then - in the 60's he gave what I needed - but not now. That said - if I'm cruising up or down PCH or wherever - an individual cut off this album would be great - any one of them. But to listen to all these songs back to back - no way. Just not enough meat on the bones for my musical palette.
@moricwilson
Жыл бұрын
Oh man I love Happy Days as well, it's such a good interpolation of past ideas into something really special. There's something really motivational about how it starts so gloomy and creepy and resolves into this euphoric ending. I feel like the middle jazzy section is so awesome that it could go on for several more minutes, like Light My Fire, before resolving. Anyways great review man, it's a shame the production on this album lets it down, but there's definitely some gold on it.
@knockedoutloaded279
Жыл бұрын
Great album
@andylove9961
Жыл бұрын
Great review Giggens - very underrated BW solo album in my opinion.
@marcofalzone6469
Жыл бұрын
Nice review Gig. "Cry" is Brian's most mature lyric as an Adult imo. None of his usual naivety he's usually known for. It's got great chords and a mysterious wisdom about it.
@matthintz9468
Жыл бұрын
Imagination may not be as, ironically, imaginative as Lucky Old Sun or the Rio Grande cut off his self-titled 1988 album, and it might not as varied with mixtures of pop and rock like the '88 album, but Brian's vocals were probably the best they'd been since Live Aid/Farm Aid, sounding confident and grounded. Even his vocals on Gettin' Over My Head, Smile, Lucky Old Sun, etc., do not have that quality. We get flashes of it on That's Why God Made the Radio, but he doesn't carry the entire vocal load himself on that album. From a solo album perspective, the vocals on the album might be his best overall. Imagination is a concept album in search of a concept. If Brian would have asserted more production and artistic control over the album, he could have crafted something on par with Lucky Old Sun from most of the material. Sadly, this ended up not happening. I want to go on record though, and say that I don't think Thomas' production values were poor, just unambitious and too conventional for someone like Brian, who is really an avant garde kind of thinker in terms of his styles and tastes. Cry, for me, is the undisputed masterpiece on the album. It's melodic, melancholy, wistful, and filled with incredible harmonies. A perfect Brian Wilson ballad. It also features Brian, probably for one of the last times, comfortably doing some pretty impressive vocal work on the top end of his register. Another thing about the song for me is that it is "the" song I think of when I see the album cover, and when I hear the long instrumental after the final verse, with him singing "leave her alone," his vocals rising up and down and the sound of rain starting in the background, the album cover comes to mind - that quiet, almost otherworldly image of a starlit sky, the beach, the aquamarine water slowly turning to dark blue, before turning to black. It looks celestial.
@cjdesign5700
Жыл бұрын
Absolutely love that disc...we were living in the Il suburbs where Brian was working w/ Joe...in St Charles..I tried to find his house. 😎 Saw the Imagination Show live w/ the Wondermints. Brian sang all the lyrics except South America he sang w/ Jimmy Buffet
@Giggens
Жыл бұрын
So awesome!
@Throwboy
Жыл бұрын
Still my favorite of Brian's solo work. Did anyone ever notice the background vocals at the end of Your Imagination are the same as the background vocals in the Beach Boys' This Whole World? "Ba-ooom Bop Diddy" pretty cool call back. Overall I love those songs. You can definitely tell it's a product of the late 90s move from analog to digital. Does anyone else hear a faint digital hum before each song? I wonder if it was recorded to digital tape (like ADAT) which was very popular in those days. Great review Giggens! Thanks for covering this one! BTW if you can find it, there's a really good interview of Sean Lennon interviewing Brian for this album.
@carlrudd1858
Жыл бұрын
Gosh, I haven't listened to this in ages. I'll dig it out. BTW Have you done a segment on SWEET INSANITY ?
@Giggens
Жыл бұрын
Soon!
@knockedoutloaded279
Жыл бұрын
@@Giggens Its a great album as well as the Paley sessions.......
@goldwaterproductions
Жыл бұрын
While the production isn’t great, it doesn’t take away from the songs which are fantastic
@Flapperdame16
Жыл бұрын
John Stamos in an interview, stated he played on one of Brian's albums- around this time? I keep wondering which album it was because he did not say, almost as if he personally withheld the title.
@knockedoutloaded279
Жыл бұрын
Have you reviewed the BB reunion album........?
@Giggens
Жыл бұрын
Oh yeah, last year I think!
@knockedoutloaded279
Жыл бұрын
@@Giggens ill look for it...
@nighthawk5295
Жыл бұрын
and suddenly, on my youtube suggestions list, all the songs from Beach Boys Love You suddenly appear. Just a coincidence, I guess.
@ronfowlermusic
Жыл бұрын
Brian's 4th solo album. Brian Wilson 1988, I just wasn't made for these times 1995, orange crate art 1995 with van dyke, imagination 1998. Great album, beautiful vocals.
@matthintz9468
Жыл бұрын
Orange Crate Art was really a Van Dyke Parks solo project. He wrote all the music and lyrics, played nearly all of the instruments. Brian only sang, played a little piano, and maybe gave advice on some vocal arrangements. Like Santana with his band's vocalists, or Alan Parsons with his, Parks was merely using Brian's voice as an instrument for his creative work, not Brian's creative work.
@ronfowlermusic
Жыл бұрын
@@matthintz9468 I count it as. BW album, separate from the Beach Boys, but of course Parks wrote the songs, it was his vision.
@Blend42
Жыл бұрын
@@ronfowlermusic Briand did no writing, no production and no instrumentation on Orange Crate Art, It's not a solo album, it's him providing his voice to Van Dyke's project. I've heard that we was not responsible for the vocal arrangements either. The title track is amazing and there is some good stuff on there though. I don't count IJWMFTT as a solo album personally. There are no new songs and the Still I Dream Of It demo from 76 is the most notable song.
@ronfowlermusic
Жыл бұрын
@@Blend42 well, we don't have a string of BW/VDP albums, so I put it with his solo albums. In my vinyl collection, I have a section for the Beach Boys, and a separate section for Brian Wilson. Guess where OCA goes? It's not a Beach Boys album. The artist billing is "Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks". That's where the record stores file it, too.
@NOWtheband
Жыл бұрын
I get what you're saying about the songs being good but if the production is rubbish, I can't listen through it to the essence of the songs. For songs to sound good, the production needs to reflect that. Thomas' productions simply don't. I find him unlistenable actually (Obviously that means that there's certain BW/BB albums that I cannot listen to, unfortunately) There were many records from the nineties that don't sound hideous, so I don't think it's to do with the era or recording technology or style. It's The Curse Of Joe Thomas, ha! 😀
@johnrunion5357
Жыл бұрын
this is the only bw solo album that i do not like. there are 2, maybe 3, songs i actually like, but the production kills it. it sounds generic.
@johnrunion5357
Жыл бұрын
@@AwesomeWrench the production on imagination sounds ... cheap and the arrangements are the most un-bw that bw has ever done.
@Blend42
Жыл бұрын
@@AwesomeWrench I like the production on BW88, sort of a more mature Beach Boys Love You.
@kbv3263
Жыл бұрын
Looking forward to a stripped down remix edition🙏
@jamesandrew520
Жыл бұрын
The most insipid album. An embarrassing MoR filler. The first Brian Wilson solo album had enough to maintain interest (even though, or maybe because, the credits were longer than the ingredients listed in Sunny Delight) but Imagination is woeful and bland. Sorry, but I think BW 87 is the last point of interest solo wise, likewise BB 85 for the group. At least there seemed intent and some form of effort (even if it didn’t hit the mark) but, everything else that followed- meh!
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