Love and Mercy (2015 film) A Biopic about Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys

[Rex Kwon Do]

Saw it opening day and really enjoyed it.

I wasn't thrilled with the casting other than Paul Dano which nailed it but everyone acted well and the story was pretty accurate to real life events.

Casting is really the only thing that hurt it. It bothers me that Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys are known as a goofy surfing group from the 60s when they really should be as respected as the Beatles are in the states.

If you liked Straight Outta Compton, watch Love & Mercy. They are very similar movies.

Bothers me, too. Also, interesting little piece of trivia: at one point in time the Beach Boys were bigger in the UK than the Beatles, while the Beatles were bigger than the Beach Boys in the US.

 

[mozfonky]

The Beatles (and more specifically, John Lennon) caused Brian Wilson to have a massive mental break down during their competitive years. A Day in the Life is said to be what Brian Wilson was so desperately trying to achieve with Pet Sounds and Smile, and when he first heard it he broke down saying "He got there first."

i always thought pet sounds came out before sgt. pepper's though, and i thought paul was the one who brought the idea to the others (according to him). I do remember before pet sounds that brian told the boys "c'mon guys let's we gotta beat the Beatles". It was a great competition which made both bands better. Good Vibrations is just as good as anything the Beatles did at the time, just my opinion. Beatles win just on sheer volume though. Pet Sounds was great and i never really got to listen to smile or what was released as smile. it's own legend preceded it for many, many years.

 

[The Diplomat]

i always thought pet sounds came out before sgt. pepper's though, and i thought paul was the one who brought the idea to the others (according to him). I do remember before pet sounds that brian told the boys "c'mon guys let's we gotta beat the Beatles". It was a great competition which made both bands better. Good Vibrations is just as good as anything the Beatles did at the time, just my opinion. Beatles win just on sheer volume though. Pet Sounds was great and i never really got to listen to smile or what was released as smile. it's own legend preceded it for many, many years.

Rubber Soul came out, and influenced Brian to make Pet Sounds, which in turn influenced Paul into making Sgt Peppers. But after it came out, and Paul played A Day in the Life for Brian, he didn't take it so well. He never "officially" finished Smile until the 2000s.

 

[mozfonky]

i would have to say that the beach boys did have more an influence on the beatles than the other way around, at least in the psychedelic era, that distinctive keyboard riff on good vibrations you know that shuffle rhythm was used by the beatles and many others Prince used it really well on his Paisley Park and even michael jackson used it on Leave Me alone, i can't think of anyone who did it before the beach boys, though it's very possible. Jerry lee lewis rhythm is very similar on a lot of his songs so maybe it's derivative of that.

 

[Peteyandjia]

 

[Rex Kwon Do]

They had some dreadful songs, in terms of lyrics, but were almost always musically brilliant.

Who else thinks "All I Wanna Do" is one of, if not the, best Mike Love vocal performances?

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That song is timeless. If you played that for someone today, I'm confident they wouldn't be able to guess it was recorded over 40 years ago. They wouldn't be able to place it.

 

[mozfonky]

their lyrics were for their audience, teenagers and the things teenager like, i don't think too many people in that era wrote about much more. Dylan maybe, the beatles matured a lot but really, most rock and roll, even by people who've been playing it for decades is pretty young themed. Many exceptions that i can think of throughout the late 60s to now though. Bruce Springsteen brought a lot of adult themes to his music, and I guess, some of his heroes, the kinks, the animals, were a lot more real life based than most of the bands of their eras. Bruce actually has some beach boys sounding stuff on one of his latest albums, i didn't particularly care for it but recognized that he was imitating the beach boys on that track "girls in their summer clothes" I think was the name of it, admittedly, his voice does not lend itself well to that style of singing.

 

[RoosterShooter]

Dad wanted to watch this with me n in never got around to it. Gotta aquire this shit by other means n watch with the big guy.

Love Brian Wilson

 

[DaleBoca]

The father of one of the members of Wilson-Phillips?

 

[The Diplomat]

Why hate, Carolla could barely co-host a niche Comedy central show without his Shawn Michaels in Jimmy Kimmel.

They didn't mention any of their later songs. The irony is that they didn't make any hits (other than Good Vibrations) without singing about cars, ships, the beach or surfing. Wilson was tired of writing the same shit, and his brothers were okay with going in another direction. It was their cousin Mike Love that insisted on doing the same stuff.

Surfs Up, Heroes and Villains, Good Vibrations, those songs are closer to what Brian envisioned during the making of Smile.

 

[ToxicShocker]

I don't know about you guys but I think the Beach boys are boooooring as fuck. I would rather watch the Ya Ya sisterhood than watch this movie.

Maybe its because I had to listen to them in musak form for 5 years.

 

[mozfonky]

Why hate, Carolla could barely co-host a niche Comedy central show without his Shawn Michaels in Jimmy Kimmel.

They didn't mention any of their later songs. The irony is that they didn't make any hits (other than Good Vibrations) without singing about cars, ships, the beach or surfing. Wilson was tired of writing the same shit, and his brothers were okay with going in another direction. It was their cousin Mike Love that insisted on doing the same stuff.

Surfs Up, Heroes and Villains, Good Vibrations, those songs are closer to what Brian envisioned during the making of Smile.

poor brian, that's got to be frustrating, it always is when an artist feels stifled by the people around him. I guess it's true that most of the themes were pretty immature but who else in that era was any different other than Dylan? Rock was youth music, as for me, i just want to hear something moving and a lot of their silly songs do that. Get Around, Help me Rhonda, and like i've said, i think Good vibrations and california girls is groundbreaking as anything the beatles did. I was looking for brian wilson interviews, trying to find out how he came up with that shuffle rhythm organ on california girls, come to find out he said it came from Bach. Honestly, i've listened to a lot of bach and i can't think of anything that sounds like that. Listen to the beatles and you'll hear that the beach boys sound had a much bigger influence on them that the other way around. That steady quarter note chords that so many beatles songs have came from the beach boys.

 

[mozfonky]

I don't know about you guys but I think the Beach boys are boooooring as fuck. I would rather watch the Ya Ya sisterhood than watch this movie.

Maybe its because I had to listen to them in musak form for 5 years.

story has plenty of possibilities, an abusive father who I think left Brian blind in one ear, a band full of sibling rivalry and very different personalities and visions, a cult leader who befriends one of them, real mental illness that truncates the prime of it's creative leader.

 

[Peteyandjia]

Why hate, Carolla could barely co-host a niche Comedy central show without his Shawn Michaels in Jimmy Kimmel.

Not hate, they're just having a laugh at that one song. I know that Carolla and especially Dana Gould (one of the other comedians in that clip) is a fan of Brian & the Beach Boys.

Dana Gould in particular, does a very interesting & funny little piece on how shitty Brian Wilson's father Murry was to him, in this particular episode of his podcast:

http://www.danagould.com/and-hot-pudding/

 

[The Diplomat]

poor brian, that's got to be frustrating, it always is when an artist feels stifled by the people around him. I guess it's true that most of the themes were pretty immature but who else in that era was any different other than Dylan? Rock was youth music, as for me, i just want to hear something moving and a lot of their silly songs do that. Get Around, Help me Rhonda, and like i've said, i think Good vibrations and california girls is groundbreaking as anything the beatles did. I was looking for brian wilson interviews, trying to find out how he came up with that shuffle rhythm organ on california girls, come to find out he said it came from Bach. Honestly, i've listened to a lot of bach and i can't think of anything that sounds like that. Listen to the beatles and you'll hear that the beach boys sound had a much bigger influence on them that the other way around. That steady quarter note chords that so many beatles songs have came from the beach boys.

The Beatles were already doing it on their own early on, it's just they were still playing with the way producers and record companies wanted them to play. From Me to You is just as ground breaking, musically and structurally, as anything the Beach Boys were doing at the time (in terms of music) It was the harmonies and melodies that the Beach Boys excelled at, the Beatles started to take some of that. Back in the USSR is a tribute to the Beach Boys.

 

[The Diplomat]

I don't know about you guys but I think the Beach boys are boooooring as fuck. I would rather watch the Ya Ya sisterhood than watch this movie.

Maybe its because I had to listen to them in musak form for 5 years.

It's all about respecting the time and age of the music of the 60's, as well as understanding that most really don't know who Brian Wilson is, and that the general public don't put him in the same breath as other rock gods. Usually, when people think of "The Beach Boys" , if they don't do any more research and only listen to the surf songs, they can't distinguish any of them and think of it as a collective unit. In reality, one guy was writing and producing most of their hits, and he was alone in that regard besides his partner Van Dyke parks.

 

[mozfonky]

ya, and i was watching some interesting stuff by a group of musicians called the wrecking crew, particularly the interviews of a female bassist. a female bassist is pretty unusual and here she was just funkin' it up, i guess she played on motown tracks too, for all my musical knowledge, i'd never even really heard much about "The Wrecking Crew". Her take on Brian is pretty interesting and accurate, that he had some knowledge of Jazz and a little bit of formal music(unheard of for most pop musicians) but was mainly a creative force.

 

[Rex Kwon Do]

Why hate, Carolla could barely co-host a niche Comedy central show without his Shawn Michaels in Jimmy Kimmel.

They didn't mention any of their later songs. The irony is that they didn't make any hits (other than Good Vibrations) without singing about cars, ships, the beach or surfing. Wilson was tired of writing the same shit, and his brothers were okay with going in another direction. It was their cousin Mike Love that insisted on doing the same stuff.

Surfs Up, Heroes and Villains, Good Vibrations, those songs are closer to what Brian envisioned during the making of Smile.

Yep, fucking Mike Love. He hated Van Dyke Park's lyrics, but I think they fit beautifully with Brain's music during that period, even if they did sound like some poetic Berkeley acid-head wrote them. Same with Tony Asher's during the Pet Sounds period; they fit perfectly.

 

[Madmick]

didn't see it, but love Brian Wilson and consider him one of the great genius' in rock history. always thought Landy sold wilson a bill of goods and just wanted total control of the guy so made him think he was sicker than he really was.

As far as the collective opinion of most 20th century pop musicians goes, not critics, Pet Sounds almost certainly wins the most widespread regard as the greatest album ever made.

Not that Brian isn't worshiped by Rolling Stone, too, but for whatever reason, his esteem is disproportionately even greater among artists themselves as contrasted against the critics (who always waffle between picking one of like 6 different Beatles albums, one of Bob Dylan's big three albums, or the Stones' Exile on Main Street).

 

[Rex Kwon Do]

I don't know about you guys but I think the Beach boys are boooooring as fuck. I would rather watch the Ya Ya sisterhood than watch this movie.

Maybe its because I had to listen to them in musak form for 5 years.

Well, they're my favorite band and I think Brian Wilson belongs on a Mt. Rushmore of music with such luminaries as JS Bach and Richard Wagner. So I must disagree about the boring as fuck part.