When the Beach Boys released Fifteen Big Ones in 1976, it was a bold move. It was an album full of covers of 1950s and 1960s rock and roll classics, taking the band away from their traditional sound of sunny harmonies and surf rock. Despite being panned by many critics, this album is now seen as an unconventional masterpiece that paved the way for the Beach Boys to explore different sounds and genres.
The lead single, "Rock and Roll Music", was a hard rock cover of the Chuck Berry classic. Brian Wilson's vocals are strong and empowering, and the song has an energy and intensity that few other Beach Boys albums possess. Another track, "It's OK", is a heartfelt and optimistic ballad about growing up that captures the essence of the band's harmonies and pop-rock sensibilities.
Overall, Fifteen Big Ones is an album that deserves more recognition than it has received. It is a bold and daring exploration of different genres and sounds, and it showcases the Beach Boys' talent and creativity. It is an album that should be celebrated for its unconventionality and its commitment to exploring and pushing boundaries. As Lester Bangs wrote, “In its own way, Fifteen Big Ones is an achievement that should not be overlooked, and it's a real pleasure to give it its due.”
So - my question to you is - what the actual fuck???
ReplyDeleteThis is an actual record cover for a copy of Fifteen Big Ones? Sure, I'll play...
DeleteIt's a pirate pressing, so to speak, made to be sold somewhere that the real thing wouldn't have been available or perhaps even legal at the time.
I'm at a blank on the language and alphabet in the middle and lower lines and the back cover, but an obvious starting point is that BOCS in the top line is an attempt at Boys. It also looks like the lower left corner of the back cover has a phonetic attempt at "beach" followed by a repeat of bocs.
Could be an alphabetic mishap along the way, like someone seeing a hand-written lower case "y" and thinking it was meant to be something like chi from the Greek alphabet and translating it to C.
Or... BOCS could be from the Hungarian word for "cubs".
The real album cover might not have been available to the creators of this fine work, who likely pressed this one from a smuggled cassette recording of the real thing and had to come up with cover art of their own.
So their criteria was along the lines of... artistic masterpiece? Who cares? It's a beach. There are people. There's plenty of room for text. It's low-res, so we can afford to print it. It's PERFECT!
Swell commentage! But again, not the answer I was looking for (see my later comments).
DeleteAh, the actual fuck.
ReplyDeleteNot the pretend fuck.
Not the invisible fuck.
Not the metaphysical fuck.
Not the religious fuck.
Not the existential, the mysterious, the ethereal, or the imaginary fuck.
You want THE fuck.
The ACTUAL fuck.
The fuck that brought us to where we are now.
The concrete fuck.
I've always considered 'Fifteen Big Ones' to actually be a great fucking record!
I'm grading this a B+, Babs, on account which yer handwritin' is poifick an' you gots swell gams. but it ain't the answer I'm looking for. See me after class? *cough* White panel truck behind the gym.
DeleteHow about this, for extra credit?
Delete'Brian's Back (He Loves You)'
Outtakes from '15 Big Ones', 'Love You' and, M.I.U. (Maharishi International University). All with excellent audio quality.
https://mega.nz/file/hLsiGISB#K4-uOfCRLioNXy7xkhFt-0ugFvBfB4j-z9kq7DW8tZ8
See you in the van.
Bring weed.
Your credit is always extra with me, toots! *snats elastic bowtie* Let me rephrase the question: "What (the actual fuck) is going on here?" Because it's world-changing, and not necessarily in a good way.
DeleteWorld changing?
DeleteDo you mean the zombie apocalypse where everyone turns into mutations represented by broad brush strokes that look like they were painted by a dropout of the Kennington Secondary School of Herbs And Om (Cecil McCartney, president) wandering aimlessly on an otherwise empty beach?
No. But your world has changed, and not necessarily in a good way, and this here post on a music blog is proof of it.
DeleteSo where's the fuckin' link we wus promised?
ReplyDeleteWhy, you cheap griftin' bum - for two cents I'd - I'd -
Delete- post the link? Just fucking asking...wink, wink.
DeleteP.S.--I'd send you a check for 2 cents, but I don't have your mailing address.
DeleteYour question - what the actual fuck???
DeleteMy answer is, I don't know the album, but what is that awful artwork at the top there, I'm sure it isn't your creation, 'cause you're pretty 'dang good at creating artwork.
It looks like that AI stuff that everyone seems to be using.
DeletePerhaps Farq is just being hip...
Yes, it's an AI-generated image. But ... and ...
Delete(Oh, FYI Steve, I was hipper than Clarence Pune's hip replacement, way back in June last year:
https://falsememoryfoam.blogspot.com/2022/06/from-calvin-klein-underwear-to-psych.html
... and October last year, using an image created months previously:
https://falsememoryfoam.blogspot.com/2022/10/hidden-in-plain-sight-dept-santana-again.html
close parentheses).
What the actual fuck, indeed.
ReplyDeleteAnd what's even more WTAF, someone is actually asking for a link for this?
For the album that buried the Boys as a creative, record-making unit?
The only freakin' redeeming feature on this thing is Dennis' immortal 'find a ride' coda to "It's OK" and maybe, for a laugh, Brian's shouted vocals on "Back Home". Everything else in the bin where that trash belongs.
To think that they followed the fabulous Holland with this...fifteen big yikes
Nobody gets what's happening here?
ReplyDeleteI check out links to a lot of shit. That's how I determine what's shit or not. Then I delete & empty the recycle bin & repeat as necessary.
ReplyDeleteHere ya go, notBob: https://workupload.com/file/mbEsCu8ebZg
DeleteI enjoy this album. Very much. How "good" it is doesn't matter to me. I'm like a Velvet Underground fan here.
Thanks again, but after giving it a quick spin...delete-o-rama it went!
DeleteWe ARE group therapy.
ReplyDeleteThis post is illustrated by AI attempts to deal with the prompt "Beach Boys album cover 15 Big Ones". The main image is a total bust by Dall-E, which includes a beach with some boys and some cynically slapdash typography but basically throws in the (beach) towel. The smaller, made at ChatGTP, is more savvy, using almost-recognisable portraits, but it's still a mess. So much for that.
ReplyDeleteBut - the entire post was written by (not "with") AI. Every word of it. You can try this yourself @ https://writesonic.com/chat . It was written in response to the prompt (my only input) "Favorable review of Beach Boys Album 15 Big Ones in the style of Lester Bangs". Okay, it doesn't read anything like a Bangs review, but it reads enough like a critical assessment of the album to slip past you.
Does it read like anything I might have written? Even ironically? I like to think not, but maybe I'm deluding myself. This piece is bland, unentertaining, with none of my stylistic tics and affectations. And yet - those of you who read it didn't spot anything robotic about it. Not all of you read my pieces (fine by me - I write for my own amusement, and yours is a welcome side effect should you opt in), but some, maybe most, of you did. The piece has had a few hundred "views" - which doesn't mean reads - and yet, and yet ...
Why is this important? Because this is the way that "written content" - as TYPOT like to put it - has already been infiltrated by AI, and it can only get more common as the coding gets refined. You just don't know what you're reading any more. Even pieces with a byline and an attractive little author icon can and will be total non-human creations. News outlets will increasingly rely on AI to come up with instant stories and features. It took writesonic UNDER FIVE SECONDS to write the 15 Big Ones review. Why wait a day or so when you can get something instantly? And for free? Why pay a journalist when a bot will do it for free? When the art side of it catches up, there'll be no need to pay photographers or artists, either. People - real human beings - you - me - won't notice, won't care.
DeleteIf you've my read comments here, I can assure you they were written by me, not AI. But I'm tempted to continue the blog using just AI. If you don't notice, it will save me a lot of time and thought. Why is this important? Because I won't be the only person thinking this way. You won't know. As the process gets smarter and more nuanced and realistic, it'll get harder to spot. Writing/reading is thinking.
DeleteWhat the actual fuck?!?!
DeleteDo bear in mind this post was less than a week after your Velvet Underground For Girls entry. It's not that it slipped past us that the Beach Boys cover album was being pushed as an underrated masterpiece. Many (perhaps most) of us assumed that was part of the gag and we were waiting for the punch line.
DeleteThe New York Post did a big article on ChatGPT just two days before this post. The future could easily be that secondary education and the core curriculum of college education will be AI-instructed. I think that's the conclusion from the article that bugged me the most.
The article also the use of AI in finance but said it was mainly the analysts doing routine spreadsheet data crunching who are at risk of being replaced rather than those making actual portfolio decisions. They missed on that one - algorithmic trading has been driving markets for many years already.
"The future could easily be that secondary education and the core curriculum of college education will be AI-instructed" ... it's not only instruction that will be compromised - it's the response to instruction - term papers, theses, essays. Once the processing power is there (a matter of months?), there will be nothing to stop students using AI, as they now use Google. Only AI generated work will be much harder to spot than copy-pastes from Google. My cutting-edge cheat tech was postage-stamp sized notes hidden in my school uniform (think Hogwarts). Tomorrow's cheats will be at the cutting edge of tech - like porn.
DeleteI read the post and then checked to see if it was a guest post. Easy to say now - after being told it was AI - but it didn't sound like you. I just put it down to you adopting a less...er...outre style than usual.
DeleteOk, I've re-read the review above. You asked for a "Favorable review of Beach Boys Album 15 Big Ones in the style of Lester Bangs", next time ask for "Favorable review of Beach Boys Album 15 Big Ones in the style of Farquhar Throckmorton III", because the review above lacks your (Mr Farq) personality and sometimes provocative and often very funny and entertaining writing. Also who TAF would want to visit Th' Isle O'Foam© if your personality*, wit* and charm* was missing.
Delete* delete where appropriate.
Fortunately, I'd left teaching by then, but in the mid 2000s my wife had to write children's reports using stock phrases. This was an attempt to alleviate workload by using software. OK, it enabled you to comment on a pupil and end up in the right ballpark, but it just meant you were using blanket terms and not actually addressing the details that were crucial in actually knowing the child you taught. It ended up with bland and generic comments that sounded good, but actually didn't express the teacher's assessment.
DeleteI read the post and thought you were having an off day, possibly not feeling well or annoyed by something in your personal life. Also, I thought "what the actual fuck" was semi rhetorical.
DeleteI read the damn thing, and I thought the first two paragraphs could have been by you, Farq, (especially the recasting of "It's OK" as a ballad about growing up which sounds like something you could write in jest) but I really started to have my doubts starting from paragraph three on, because paragraphs three and four especially are bland. Too bland for you to keep the joke going. Also not particularly Bangs-ian. Interesting little experiment you brewed up there, though.
DeleteAlso, repetition of "bold" - most un-Farq like.
DeleteOkay, I've been busy. Big spelling test for the grandson on Thursday (short week, teacher conference).
DeleteSo I glanced at the AI pic and thought, "I have NO IDEA what I'm looking at. The BOCS? The Brief Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (BOCS)? Lettering looks like "alien script" from Futurama (or 50 other sci-fi shows).
Skimmed text, figured...okay, this LP was not NEARLY as good as this reviewer thinks it was. But as I had JUST LAST WEEK heard the cover of the Berry track on "random" play, it made me think that perhaps I would sample a few more tracks to see if I would reconsider my assessment (This week I'm digitizing a Billy Squire SuperGroups In Concert, and wondering "why did I hate this stuff so much?")
So: a robot made me think.
As Torgo mentioned the stock market....
DeleteI'm an investor. I am always on the lookout for useful information about companies I own or might want to own. My phone app allows me to "swipe up" for "more data from Yahoo Finance."
At one time, this would give me stories written by humans about companies. What is most prevalent now are computer generated stories with a byline "By MarketWatch Automation."
Mr. (or Ms.) Automation follows a "fill in the blanks" style:"
HEADLINE - (insert company name) (insert RISES if price goes up, insert FALLS if price goes down), (compare percentage up/down to S&P Index rise/fall, insert OUTPERFORMS/UNDERPERFORMS market.
Then the rest of the story is filled in with similar "analysis," such as "This is the (number) day the stock has risen (or fallen).
As most of the time, the over or under performance relative to the market is some miniscule number such as .08%, the information (while true) is not useful to me. And there are THOUSANDS of these stories generated, every day the market is open. And multiple "robots" writing them. So my "news" feed is full of "information" that is not actually informing me about anything. But the stories must work (that is, generate enough clicks so that the adverting revenue is more than the cost of software and file servers...).
There's more of this to come. Online "news sources" have a set of rotating stories that target human anxiety (supervolcanos, this weeks asteroid that's nearly going to hit Earth) that are still written by humans (that is, they have to pay salaries, benefits, etc.). I'll bet we can use A.I. to write those sort of stories and fire those writers.
This AI thing really has me thinking. But being the eternal skeptic, I decided I'd give it a spin. I used the same site Farq used. I am planning an upcoming post of Grand National - Kicking the National Habit so decided to go with that.
DeleteStarted just like Farq: "favorable review of Grand National album Kicking the National Habit in the style of Legs McNeil".
First off, same as Farq, the style was a complete miss. No Lester Bangs for him, no Legs for me. But far worse were the extreme errors & inaccuracy of the item. The Beach Boys are certainly way more well know & documented than Grand National, so the Beach Boys review held more accuracy.
Here's the review (with comments included):
"The album opener ‘Kings of Neon’ is a pop-rock influenced track that sets the tone for the rest of the album. [There is no such song as "Kings of Neon" on this album] It has a distinctively upbeat feel, with a driving rhythm and catchy chorus. The title track is a more mellow affair, with a subtle 80s synth vibe and infectious groove. [No title-track song]
The songwriting throughout Kicking the National Habit is strong and well crafted, with Grand National displaying their impressive songwriting skills. ‘The Old Ways’ and ‘Last One Standing’ both feature memorable lyrics and big hooks, while ‘Little Kicks’ is a more introspective number with a distinctively melancholic feel." [None of the three named songs exist on this or any other Grand National release.]
So in my opinion, the voice of these reviews are lacking in any noticeably recognizable style (I tried a "tell me about rat poison in the style of William S. Burroughs & it sounded like nothing near to Exterminator). & if the information is not extensively avaiable, then the accuracy exponetially suffers.
I'm not going to believe AI will replace creativity & artistry.
Oh, AI will replace creativity and artistry - at least getting paid for it. Nothing can stop the human spirit from knocking out a watercolor of a swan at sunset, but finding anyone to pay for it will turn from difficult to impossible.
DeleteWe have to understand (and by "we" I think I mean "you") that this technology is in its infancy - being unimpressed by results we get right now is key to making them better. Perhaps "better" isn't the right word - more convincing, Utterly credible. Amazing, even. Technology advances exponentially - think about early video games, pixels the size of housebricks. Seems like yesterday to me. I remember marvelling at the first Pong game I saw in a pub, the first portable phone (again, the size of a housebrick). I would never have believe it possible to carry my record collection around in my phone.
We're now at the tipping point where AI will develop itself, and your Grand National text will seem as quaint as a VCR in no time at all. Have patience!
It may not be such a bad idea moving creativity & artistry away from MONEY. If you can find the right person that needs a swan at sunset watercolor (or a song at their wake or wedding or someone to shingle their roof or patch that hole in their sole), then barter can be done. But severing ties from monetary markers is not always advantageous to survival.
DeleteI just hope that someone somewhere is eyeing AI technology as a means of a more human evolution. What a waste if all that effort is to enhance the ability of AI to "avoid making...(whatever).
My patience is infinite. Imagine.
OK, I give up...But who is this AL guy I keep reading about? (BTW, not composed by AI)
ReplyDeletehttps://falsememoryfoam.blogspot.com/2023/01/you-can-call-me-al-dept-di-meola.html
DeleteDon't miss yer link up there ⇡, notBob!
DeleteThought it may be Al Kooper, but then I remembered the early days of the PC when a student asked if he could write a report for extra credit & proceeded to print something of his nifty, new CD-ROM encyclopedia.Nice try, but no cigar! (And the BBs last great song was Good Virbrations)
DeleteI love our group therapy sessions!
ReplyDeleteYour call is important to us. Please hold.
DeleteHow soon will it be when you can request from AI to compose a “new 35 minute album in the style of the 1965 Beach Boys”? Will anyone be able to distinguish it as a deep fake or an previously undiscovered masterpiece?
DeleteGbrand
How soon?
DeleteHow about very soon indeed?
https://mixedinkey.com/captain-plugins/captain-melody/?gclid=CjwKCAiArNOeBhAHEiwAze_nKEWB7u9FlUmH0hZ_HYehi2pEx2RnieK3dqBH84G_npQrnd59Pw-9kRoClocQAvD_BwE
Do the songwriter royalties go to Capt. Melody? I love computers--nothing can go wrong...go wrong...go wrong...
DeleteNope - the lucky composer gets 100% of a whopping $0.004 per play on Spotify.
DeleteThat's after Spotify have taken their 30% share - so doubles all round! A million plays will get you $4 000.
DeleteThanks for the on-topic (and mildly terrifying) Captain Melody© link!
DeleteThis is heading nowhere good...very soon there could be an AI written blog, about AI written music with AI written comments.
DeleteWe're becoming dispensable.
Music - as most of us understand it - is maths after the human element has been removed, and most of it has rules that can be easily codified and used to produce an AI output.
DeleteOccasionally I will listen to a 'current popular hits' radio station, mostly the music is bland and formulaic already, with an occasional good or even interesting song every now and then. Could AI invent invent the next Bob Dylan, probably not?
Delete15 Big Ones "was marred by disputes, as Carl and Dennis Wilson felt that the production quality was substandard and that an album of originals was more ideal, while Mike Love, Al Jardine, and Stephen wanted new Beach Boys product rushed out in order to capitalize on the group's continued resurgence in popularity. Further tensions arose from the interference of Brian's psychologist, Eugene Landy. One of the proposed titles, Group Therapy."
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine who works as a translator sez this:
ReplyDelete"I already use automatic machine translation for some of my work (think Google Translate on steroids). It's often better I am when dealing with a specialist-subject translation I don't know much about and trying to nail the right jargon and ultraspecific terminology. I use its output as a first-draft translation for, chopping and changing and tweaking and editing to knock it into shape. But within 5-10 years it'll be capable of final drafts that are mostly indistinguishable from human text - especially contracts, corporate memos, procedures, diversity manuals, covering letters, and so on."
This post wasn't a test, a "gotcha" exercise. That none of youse bums spotted AI at work in the writing makes the point. It's not evident. Some of you may have had a chin-strokey moment, but nobody recognised a bot-brain's handiwork - how could you?
ReplyDeleteA huge amount - maybe the majority - of language use is formulaic. My translator friend mentions the business aspects - all business language could be AI-generated. Think of the meetings you've attended, the language used, the vocabulary, the themes. Annual reports, memos - business and corporate expression at every level can be AI generated. And will be. In the world of politics - speeches, manifestos, bills, statements of every kind. All authored by a bot. We won't know the difference, we genuinely won't. And we'll be picking up language from AI bots, learning it, using it, in our day-to-day work and relationships.
Using language - written and verbal - is thinking. It is identical to a core function of the brain.
Think about this. About where our thinking originates - the root of our precious individualism and opinions and life choices. What the actual fuck is happening?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteKubrick's use of language in 2001 is very bot-like. Bland, emotionless exchanges straight outta the corporate playbook. Hal is The Boss, "letting his staff go."
DeleteI was gonna redo my removed comment above, but you beat me to it...HAL was bland, but very effective, as AI is becoming.
DeleteImpressive in a scary way... I tried to use AI for my imaginary meeting between Elvis & The Wailers post, but the results were utterly useless, so I ended up writing it myself.
ReplyDeleteIt's early days. The program I "used" (linked above) is certainly far from being utterly useless. Early days, and already too late.
DeleteHoly. Freaking. Shit.
ReplyDeletehttps://thispersondoesnotexist.com
Combine this with deep-fake video technology and "Of course it happened. I saw it with very my own eyes, man!" is becoming an irrelevant or even worthless claim. The same goes for relying on CCTV and bodycam footage as evidence in court. They say that boom in populist politics heralded the beginning of the Post-Truth Age, but the problems resulting from that are minor compared with where we're now headed: the Post-Reality Age.
DeleteI'm pretty sure no futurist envisioned the problems of AI as we're beginning to experience them. Our near future is as unimaginable as a thousand years from now; there is no slow rising line of technological advance, it's coming in an exponential rush, in forms we can't anticipate and may not even recognise. All language-based work - and numbers are part of language - can be performed by bots. Office jobs which consist of processing language and making decisions during that process - and that's all desk jobs - can be performed by bots. All manufacturing can be performed by robots controlled by AI. Distribution, supply, warehousing - all perfectly capable of being handled by bots with minimal human interference. Agriculture and food production and processing. The Military. The Stock Exchange.
DeleteWhat's left for the humans to do?
Shed tears in rain?
DeleteHoly Freakin' Shit: It's soon-to-be President George Santos!
DeleteAs far as the Oligarchic industrial elite care, we can all (or nearly all) DIE. Once the list of items (& more) FT3 named above are handled by AI, it won't take but a select small group to produce an idyllic life. Ah, the 1%.
DeleteThis is just frightening.
ReplyDeletehttps://google-research.github.io/seanet/musiclm/examples/
The future has happened already.
DeleteWe can all "see the future & it does not work".
DeleteRemember when the biggest problem humankind faced was what to do with all the leisure time created by automation? Starve to death is one option. Robots manufacturing robot cars isn't the future, it's the present, and it's not working. The whole thing makes no sense at all.
DeleteThe penis is evil. The penis shoots seeds, and makes new life, and poisons the earth with a plague of men, as once it was. But the gun shoots death, and purifies the earth of the filth of brutals. Go forth and kill!
DeleteMr. Zardoz? Doctor will see you now - can I wheel you through?
Delete