Greetings and salutations Hivers. Today let's go into another Evening Groove / Three Tune Tuesday post.

As always, thanks to @ablaze for making this series. Lots of people participate in it! Follow the tags to find a ton of good music recommendation.

Today I have another mix of different genres. Trying to keep switching things up to stay interesting.

Harajuku - The Phantom of the Opera

This was the first single from the eurodance project Harajuku, named after the unique district in Tokyo. I first became aware of this song when a buddy sent me an AMV in university. I think the AMV was just ok and was made very well, but what I really enjoyed was the song. When I was in high school, we played several of the songs from the musical, so I was familiar with the music. Maybe that familiarity helped this techno remix of the lead song work its way into my head. See what you think.

Here is the AMV I watched all those years ago if you want to see. (→Here)

The Seatbelts - Tank

I've shared a track from these guys before. They were assembled by Yoko Kanno for the anime series Cowboy Bebop where they played a little of everything; not just bebop jazz, as the title suggests, but blues, funk, pop, rock, bluegrass, and more. They were quite versatile. They did various other things after the series ended and they continue to reunite sometimes. This may be their greatest track, a hard bop big band piece featuring an absolutely amazing alto sax solo. Sit back, close your eyes, and jam!

Brian Wilson - Good Vibrations (SMiLE version)

You all know the 1966 hit single by the Beach Boys, composed by Brain Wilson with lyrics by Mike Love (may we forever curse his name). It was an immediate hit in the US, UK, and many other places. It was made building on the ideas of Pet Sounds and was intended to be part of the album Smile. It's an amazing song. It's still an amazing song, constantly being listed as one of the greatest and most important rock songs of all time.

What you may not have heard is the Brian Wilson/Van Dyke Parks version. To make this as brief as I can, the album surrounding Good Vibrations, Smile, never happened. Brian, who was always the mastermind behind the Beach Boys, was abusing LSD and that combined with Mike Love's taunts and insults pushed him over the edge into mental sickness. The other Beach Boys released the songs Wilson had completed, but without him at the helm it was just a pale imitation of what had been planned.

Years later after he emerged from his mental sickness, Brian started playing again, but separate from the Beach Boys this time, who Mike Love (may we forever curse his name) had taken over and made into a joke. Eventually he was persuaded to take a look at the Smile project again. A few people nudged him in that direction, including Paul McCarthy, who has long been a huge Brian Wilson fan. Long story short he did eventually finish the album and released it. It's a great listen. It's much different from what the original would have been, according to Brian himself, so that's a little disappointing but I guess to be expected when one returns to an album after 30 years and after battling mental illness. At any rate, it's a really fun listen. I wouldn't call it as good as, say, Pet Sounds, but it is a lot of fun.

Included is a version of Good Vibrations with lyrics by Van Dyke Parks, who was the original Smile lyricist. There are also a few other differences than the lyrics and a few sound changes to tie it more into rest of the album. To me this is now the definitive version of the song.

If you enjoyed that and want to hear the entire album, here you go. Enjoy!

So what's your favorite?

❦

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.