Forty years after the original recording of Smile, the great lost album by 60s pop group The Beach Boys that was cancelled mid-recording, and the 'unfinished symphony' is finally getting an official release.
Forty years after the original recording of Smile, the great lost album by 60s pop group The Beach Boys that was cancelled mid-recording, and the 'unfinished symphony' is finally getting an official release. The album has been heard before due to bootleg reconstructions and a 2004 rerecording by the Beach Boys producer, co-songwriter (alongside Van Dyke Parks), vocalist and all round genius Brian Wilson, but this is the first time we can hear the album in a finished form by The Beach Boys themselves There are numerous rumours and reasons why the Smile sessions were abandoned in the first place: Brian Wilsons depression, vocalist Mike Loves disdain for the Beach Boys new sound (especially after the commercial failure of Pet Sounds) and the release of The Beatles Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club band, an album Brian Wilson thought was so great that he couldnt beat it if he tried. After forty five years I doubt well ever really know why. Presented in either a two CD or five CD box set, The Smile Sessions contains the original album on the first disc and some stereo outtakes (the first disc is entirely in mono) and alternate versions of tracks on the other discs.Smile starts straight away with some textbook harmonies on Our Prayer, a track which features no actual vocals or lyrics, just The Beach Boys harmonising. It then launches straight into Gee a song reminiscent of a barber shop quartet. These tracks are great but its not until Heroes and Villains another barber shop inspired track that we hear the Beach Boys do what they do best, launching into an odd mix of harmonies and vocals, pianos and twee, making a collage of sounds that sounds like nothing else Ive really heard before. We then go through a couple of great piano led, harmony driven songs in Do You Like Worms' and Im in Great Shape, leading up to Barnyard and My Only Sunshine a couple of tracks that merge straight into each other, with Barnyard featuring animal noises and My Only Sunshine a cover of the childrens classic. As we rattle through the middle part of the album, some of the best tracks include Cabin Essence another cute song which jumps between piano driven, harmony laden and sax and choir and Look (Song for Children)', a mostly instrumental track for its excellent production. The highlight of the middle part of the album though, has to be Surfs Up a psychedelic track designed to be the centrepiece of the entire album. I can certainly see why. The final part of Smile though has to be the best, with the experimental, instrumental track I Wanna Be Around which leads into Brian Wilsons attempt at humour in Vega-Tables. We then hear a couple of other great instrumental tracks: Holiday and The Elements (Fire). The final track on the album is definitely the best song on the album, probably the best Beach Boys song, maybe the best song ever recorded: Good Vibrations. The perfect mix of the psychedelia of the music at the time and the harmony led pop and wall of sound production that the Beach Boys did best. Good Vibrations is music at its best.One of my favourite things about Pet Sounds, the albums predecessor is how it manages to sound both happy and melancholy at the same time, mixing together pitch perfect harmonies, introspective lyrics and superb Phil Spector inspired wall of sound production. Smile manages to take this to another level adding LSD influenced psychedelia to the mix. This is best heard on the albums closing track, Good Vibrations which has to be a contender for the greatest song ever recorded. However if Pet Sounds is perfection, the greatest album ever released and the benchmark we are weighing Smile against, I cant honestly say it is as good.