Sunday, June 03, 2007

Fun with the Sunday paper

I only buy the newspapers if they're running promotions. The Sunday Express showed a commercial last night advertising their two-week giveaway of Beach Boys songs, so I thought I'd pick up a copy this morning.

Well, listening to the CD, I can say that it isn't quite what I expected.

The Beach Boys' tracks I remember were mostly recorded in the 60s, when the guys were...well, young. The CD included in the paper is a split copy of Good Timin': Live at Knebworth England 1980, which was released in 2002 and never charted here or in the USA. It's something of a letdown, to be honest. While I'm not a huge fan of the band, I do like a few songs ("Sloop John B" comes to mind), and these versions are a little lackluster, especially in the falsetto parts. First, it's a live album, with all the problems that entails. Secondly, it was done in 1980, and according to Wikipedia, this was the last major UK performance for the original members, who were all approaching middle age by the time this was done.

I'd overlook these failings but for the paper's bizarre decision (and they're not the only ones who do this) to fill second half of the disk with unknown British pop songs, none of which are even thematically close to the Beach Boys' tracks. One is halfway decent, but still...guys, come on.

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