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 This can't be much better! Summer in Chicago has finally arrived, and Brian Wilson has a great new album to carry us through it! And his collaboration with Jimmy Buffett has put us Parrotheads over the top! Brian's writing is as sharp as ever, and you would swear that his harmonies were Beach Boys, vintage 1965. No, this is not another Pet Sounds. Give the guy a break and enjoy a superb work from a true master.
Further, I suspect South American would have been a substantial hit if Giant had promoted it as a single. Give Brian a break. He's not 25 anymore, this isn't the mid-60's, and the Beach Boys are history. He has money and time and very likely can do anything he wishes to do. I'm awfully glad he decided to do Imagination, and I very much hope that he decides to do another album soon. If he does, we will be very fortunated, indeed.
FYI: This reviewer considers himself to be a HUGE BW fan. Currently have 700+ albums, cassettes, videotapes and CD's of BW recordings, interviews, concerts, and unreleased material. He's also attended 250+ Beach Boys concerts, and followed Brian on the road in 1998-99, seeing him in 7 different cities. Just so you know.......peace.
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While all of us Brian Wilson fans have held our collective breaths for so long waiting for a new release, once the new offering is in our hands it becomes painfully obvious that we have pulled off the musical equivalent of waiting for Gadot. Right up front, you gotta know that if you're expecting another "God Only Knows", "'Til I Die", "This Whole World", "Surf's Up", or for that matter, even "Love and Mercy" or "Melt Away", you should just put this CD back down and go pick up one of those. Aside from the hauntingly beautiful tribute to Carl titled "Lay Down Burden", "Imagination" is a hodgepodge filled with remakes done in the same style he did 30 years ago ("Keep An Eye on Summer", "Let Him Run Wild"), simply changing a few words on 20 year-old unreleased material ("Sherry, She Needs Me" becomes the "new" song "She Says That She Needs Me") mixed in with some leaving-you-wondering-why-this-even-got-released material ("South American", "Happy Days", et. al), with the remainder being filled with throw-away, forgettable fluff. Try this test. Ask a HUGE BW fan who's not listened to the CD for say, 30 days to sing you part of the songs "Cry", "Where Has Love Been", or "Sunshine". You'll see what I mean. BW fans, of which I include myself as one, expect bettter than this. We expect songs that touch us, give us something we can relate to, songs that stick with us. That's just not the case here. To just throw together a package like this, and expect it to sell because of the name on the label is asking a bit much of anyone but the true believers. We'll buy it, of course, because ANY Brian is (theoretically) better than no Brian, but this semi-mindless pap is almost too much. Brian should lose the current "friends" and go back to doing "his" music, not trying to accomodate someone else's style. I'd gladly wait 5 years or more for another "good or better" album. Heck, we've done it before.
