smoe.org mailing lists
ivan@stellysee.de
| From | "David Bash" <bashpop@earthlink.net> |
| Subject | Re: The Aerovons...I've heard it..have it |
| Date | Mon, 16 Jun 2003 00:01:16 -0700 |
[Part 1 text/plain Windows-1252 (2.7 kilobytes)]
(View Text in a separate window)
--- In audities@yahoogroups.com, Michael Coxe <michael@a...> wrote:
> Stewart Mason wrote:
> >It's true, anyone who's looking for The Rock here is going to be
> >disappointed, but I like this album a lot more than many other supposed
> >"lost '60s soft-rock masterpieces" -- it beats the pants off Billy
> >Nicholl's WOULD YOU BELIEVE, for example.
>
> A bit of bullshit Stewart. I read this and Bash's recent comments on
> Nicholls (especially after David's unabashed postive raves at WYB's
> rerelease) to be belated backstabbing. I've been listening to alot of
> brit pop-psych over the past 7 months and very little has reached the
> heights of the songs on WOULD YOU BELIEVE.
If you read my comments on Would You Believe as belated backstabbing, you
didn't get the gist of what I wrote. What I said was, in reference to The
Aerovons:
>I fear, like it
> was for The Billy Nicholls 'Would You Believe' disc after it was heartily
> hailed as the second coming of Pet Sounds, The Aerovons 'Resurrection'
isn't
> going to live up to the hype and suffer greatly from the inevitable Beatle
> comparisons.
Which is absolutely what happened in the case of Would You Believe. Some
members of the British press, who were fortunate enough to hear test
pressings of Would You Believe not long after it was recorded, had hyped
Nicholls as a "British Brian Wilson" and the songs on Would You Believe as
being aural pastiches in a similar vein and of a similar quality level to
Pet Sounds. When the reissue was announced a few years ago the press
releases, as well as several journalists, did make reference to Pet Sounds.
Then, when the album was released, people whose expectation levels were
raised by the advance press were greatly let down when the album didn't live
up to the hype. Had there not been any Pet Sounds references, but instead
Would You Believe was simply purported to be a lost '60s soft pop album,
people's expectation levels would have been more normal and the album would
have likely been viewed in a much better light.
I stand by the comments I made when the first reissue (there have been
several) of Would You Believe was released. I think it's an excellent
album, one of the better UK soft pop albums of the '60s, one that I will
repeatedly play for years. However, to my ears it isn't in the same league
as Pet Sounds, which is one of my all-time favorite albums.
And, while I disagree with Stewart's assessment of Would You Believe, I
wouldn't be so presumptuous as to call it "bullshit". He has a right to his
opinion, and unlike many people who espouse their beliefs, one can never
accuse Stewart of making an uninformed statement.
--
Pop Rules!!!!!
Take Care,
David
For assistance, please contact
the smoe.org administrators.