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So I borrowed a friend's copy of "Made in the USA" today in order to revisit that bizarre, alternate mono mix of "Wouldn't It be Nice?" that was a mainstay of Capitol's BB compilations for quite some time. It's quite different: the vocal mix is clearly altered, edits are a bit cleaner (no "phasing" after the bridge), and the EQ is *very* different. Of course, the primary difference comes during the bridge, as Mike's vocal starts out single-tracked.

Have we ever discovered exactly why this mix exists? It seems to not quite jibe with the usual "last minute" story of the insertion of Mike's bridge. I'm also curious as to why it abruptly disappeared from the catalogue (never to surface or be acknowledged again) in the 1990s.

That's "Made in USA" to you.

Interesting about the single-tracked Mike. Although I still say I like Brian a lot more there, authenticity be damned.

Have you ever heard this one?

I'm sure I have, but not in any academic sense.

Interesting.

I always thought that a different take of Brian's lead vocal was used for the alternate mix. What do you think?

Strange that this mix was not on the PS sessions box. Disc 4 has several alternate mixes (some of them are not very different from the final mixes), but not this one.

I'm not sure it's an alternate take...given the extreme layering going on on just about every Pet Sounds song, I think this just represents a radically different "arrangement" of lead vocal parts.

Yeah, this mix disappears after ~1996, never to be seen again. Given that it wasn't acknowledged *before* this...

BTW, I finally saw the American Band documentary....I'm shocked at the amount of alternate mixes used in that thing! It uses a single-vocal "Wouldn't It Be Nice" *with* backing vocals! I love that mix!

Xenu wrote:BTW, I finally saw the American Band documentary....I'm shocked at the amount of alternate mixes used in that thing! It uses a single-vocal "Wouldn't It Be Nice" *with* backing vocals! I love that mix!

So do I. After I first saw that film many years ago, I bought every copy of "Wouldn't it Be Nice" I could find, hoping to discover it had made it way onto disc. No dice ...

Yeah. IIRC, the SOT set has something similar (a super-wide single-vocal Wouldn't It Be Nice, with the vocal on one channel and the music on the other), but it lacks the backing vocals. Pity.

I'm going to have to check Made in USA when I get home to see if it's actually as good as sh.tv suddenly group-thinks it is. I recall it being highly unspectacular.

Xenu wrote:I'm going to have to check Made in USA when I get home to see if it's actually as good as sh.tv suddenly group-thinks it is. I recall it being highly unspectacular.

Same here. I sold my Made in USA long ago, but I did keep that track on a CD-R, which I dug out last night and loaded onto my iPod (I'm going through a huge Beach Boys kick right now and I must have loaded 100 of their songs over the past few days). Haven't re-listened yet, but ... I recall being surprised and intrigued but not very impressed by that particular alternate mix.

I just revisited the mono mixes of "Wouldn't It be Nice" on Disc 3 of the Sessions set...fascinatingly, it seems as if each mono assembly of the song featured a *different* mix of the Mike Love section (and in fact, only the PS mono album mix has the phase problems that plague the edits around that section).

So *why* isn't that part available in stereo, again? Brian erased both of Mike's parts, added his version in, mixed to mono, changed his mind and edited the Mike part in from an otherwise-unreleased alternate mono mix, right? Or do I have this all wrong?

Something like that, yeah.

Seems pretty strange with all those tracks available, but...

I also love that of all of the freakin' tapes Brian managed to grab to do dub-downs on, Mr. Perfectionist decided to use a multi-track for the dubdown of "I'm Waiting For the Day" that has clear bleedthrough from *something* going on.

I know - that bugs the shit out of me. I'll take the stereo remix any day.