Pitch

It's been about three hours, so there is probably a new reissue of some old Beach Boys LP, with a touted "remastering" or something.

I await a Pet Sounds that has been put through pitch correction. I can never dig this record because the keening vocals always have some point where they go sharp. Maybe it's me.

I remember in high school when Club Nouveau's version of "Lean On Me" (inherently trash, yes) had a jarring keyboard sploosh in the last choruses that was so colossally off pitch-wise that I would Pavlovianly twitch and ask whoever I was with "Don't you hear that?" So, yes, pitch is an sticky issue with me [I also hated in the 90's, when vogue-y out-of-tuneness was seen as a brand of honor, and would harangue co-horts with the idea that if I won the lottery I was going to buy a trunkful of tuners and go from show to show and, when things got to be too much, I would whip one right at the offender and peg him/her right in the Paw tee-shirt].

Some other reasons the Beach Boys are terrible include: 1.) sang about cars, and surfing, which, while a cool way to meet chicks, is exercise, 2.) frequent use of co-writers (boo!), 3.) didn't play on their own records much of the time, 4.) give rock snobs a way to say insipid things like "better than the Beatles!" which is patently ridiculous...I could go on, but you know all this.

That said, that latest Dennis Wilson Pacific Ocean Blue reissue is great. Sad, sad and sad. Like a Big Star Third for Californians. Check "Thoughts of You." Plus it rips off the theme from M*A*S*H at one point!

Club Nouveau 'Lean On Me':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vTDjy7KLi0

Dennis Wilson, "Thoughts of You"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQtbElnRX0g

Bonus!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-g0aBYVCgE