Is this the greatest unreleased LP ever?-- "Smile" by The Beach Boys

[spotlightkid]

Is Smile by the Beach Boys the Greatest Unreleased lp ever,many of the tracks did see the light of day but only the cover art was done.i don't know the story so well-could some beach boys fan give us the story while Smile was never released-was it Capitol records or Brian Wilson's decision to halt the release.Also what other unreleased lp would you call-legendary.

[Joe Koz]

I picked up a boot of "Smile" on Sea of Tunes label this weekend. And I must say, after listening to the cd, now I know why Brian didn't put the album out.

[Steve Hoffman]

"Smile" never really floated my boat. I understand that parts of the songs are quite clever and the instrumental tracks are neat, but on the whole, everything sounds disjointed. Kind of a giant puzzle with no possible ending or solution, or a sandwich with a lot of condiments but no meat.

I'm sure I'm offending most of the Beach Boys lovers here by even stating thoughts like this, but in order for a single song to work, certain rules of form have to be followed. Since "Smile" is mostly snippets of song-like tidbits, it leaves most of us going "wow, clever stuff". But I want to be moved, darn it!

Anyone else?

[Matt]

Jimmy Guterman once compared the hype around "Smile" with giving a student an A when he never actually finished his homework. A bit harsh, but I think he has a good point.

I haven't listened to any bootlegs, just the half CD worth of material in the Beach Boys box set, and there are really good parts in there, but it's hard to see how they would've fit together. From all the material I've read, it seems that the album just got out of hand, way beyond Brian's (and maybe anyone's) ability to make something coherent out of those fragments. Ideas about representing the elements, American history, God, etc....I'm not sure if his plans for the music changed or simply grew to contain all those themes, but it gives me the feeling he never had the album he imagined completely in his grasp.

I guess it would've really helped to have a good, complete set of lyrics to the album. "Vegetables" and a bunch of other mostly-wordless tracks on the box feel insubstantial.

Still, when you hear all those parts to "Heroes & Villains" and then hear either the 45 version or the alternate mix on the box, it's really impressive to hear how it's all finally put together.

[Matt]

Outside of Prince's "Black Album," (even though it was eventually released and one track was saved for "Lovesexy") and maybe some Neil Young albums, I can't think of any other unreleased Lp's that have claimed 'legendary' status. There are tons of albums that were dramatically changed or edited, but I don't think there are too many albums that were scrapped after having been completed.

[Vivaldinization]

Zappa had tons of unreleased albums (Crush All Boxes, Chalk Pie) and his "Lather" was certainly legendary for a while, if only due to the nightmarish logistics of the entire situation.

-D

[vinylrec]

Originally posted by Steve Hoffman
Since "Smile" is mostly snippets of song-like tidbits, it leaves most of us going "wow, clever stuff". But I want to be moved, darn it!

Anyone else?

Steve, I wouldn't say that Smile was mostly song tidbits. There were quite a few completed tracks, or nearly completed tracks. Check out the Beach Boys Box Set. Who really knows what Brian had in his head for completion. And who really knows how the tracks would have been pieced together. We’ll never know.

Many factors came into play in the demise of Smile:

1) Van Dyke Parks leaving to do his solo album (Brian felt he couldn't Smile finish without Parks)
2) Pressure from the Beach Boys. i.e. Pressure from Mike Love not to **** with the formula
3) Pressure from Capitol for more product (What in the world would Capitol have thought when Brian delivered Smile. Capitol didn’t like Pet Sounds for that matter…) Smile was way overdue
4) The release of Pepper
5) The Drug use
6) And who knows what else….

[Sckott]

The fire helmet too. Once Brian put that on, all went to mush.

[CM Wolff]

I agree with the assessment of Smile - the individual pieces that have come out are interesting as curiousities, but not as a realized album.

As a huge Springsteen fan, his scrapped albums are legenday to me, although only Bruce himself truly knows what is still in the cans. However, he has scrapped completed or close-to-completed albums, with some of the material being salvaged for other releases. "The Ties That Bind" was mastered and then pulled at the last minute, eventually being transformed into The River (and I am still pained that the track "Cindy" has not seen the light of day); pristine versions of the original album are pretty easily found. Similarly, apparently the album Murder Incorporated was finished before Born in the USA. Also, there are now the legendary "western swing","hip-hop", "relationship" albums from the 90's that are in the cans, while some others might be figments of overly active imaginations (the electric Nebraska). From Bruce's Tracks compiliation and all the high-quality material that is easily found on boots (again, more pain everytime I listen to songs like County Fair, Sugarland or Follow That Dream and realize that they are not commerically available), you know he is sitting on a mountain of scrapped material that could put many artists' released albums to shame.

I always thought Prince was in the same bucket (he has always been rumored to have completed alternate followups to 1999, etc.), but most of the stuff that came out on Crystal Ball was pretty poor to my ears. The Black Album was a disappointment.

Bob Dylan's alternate vesion of Blood on the Tracks can be thought of as legenday to many Dylan fans. Similarly, he is still sitting on a mountain of unreleased material that fans continue to drool over. (Two installments of the The Bootleg Series in 11 years doesn't even qualify as a "series" in my book...c'mon Bob and Sony!)

Finally, I prefer the completely alternate verson of What's Going On that came out last year. My favorite album of all time.

[dbryant]

Steve, yer breakin' my heart, buddy! If you can listen to "Surf's Up" and "Cabinessence" without getting a chill, you're a better man than I! Granted, I can't praise an album that doesn't exist, but a lot of the released material does a good job of simultaneously stimulating my head and heart.

Re: "certain rules of form have to be followed", the sophisticated formal elements of the completed songs are some of the most enjoyable aspects of the work, for me. They flow seamlessly into each other, and while in some cases, the verbal and harmonic associations are subtle and abstract, they're in proportion with each other and (eventually) work to a very satisfying (for me) resolution. But yeah, the cobbled together unfinished bits on the boots and boxed set are just that.

Sorry, I just hated to see you use your influence to encourage impressionable young people to follow rules. When it finally comes out, you'll still master it, right?

[Steve Hoffman]

I'd master it for nothing!! In the blink of an eye. Probably save it from being no-noised and tweeked!

I'm still mad at Brian for not releasing the thing way back when.

An artist should always have a producer. You can't be both for very long. No one to tell you "Hey, enough already. Finish the sucker. Don't use three studios for a four minute song", etc....

I call it the Wilson/Dan syndrome. Or the Brian Steely syndrome.

:rolleyes:

[David R. Modny]

As has been mentioned, I think it's important NOT to think of SMILE as a "lost album", per se, because it was never finished and nobody (no matter how much people like to speculate) completely knows how Brian *would* have finished or assembled it. What we have now are either unfinished (or nearly finished) fragments, as well as the overdubbed pieces finished by the band subsequently (i.e. Cabinessence, Our Prayer, Surf's Up, Cool Cool Water) and the Linett session edits. (We also have the SOT session boots of course)

As it stands now, I think SMILE is simply breathtaking in its unfinished state. The original Brian-vocal version of "Wonderful" gives me freaking chills. The H&V sections, the great "comic melodrama", are as amazing as they are brilliantly insane. Futhermore, listening to the session edits of "Good Vibes" - the development and final realization of that song - is , for me, the greatest pop symphony of sound ever committed to tape.

I also believe that the formentioned latter overdubbed ("finished") tracks are amazing how they turned out, The Capitol Studio 68 overdubs of Prayer and Cabinessence make the completed songs stand on ther own - even without the Smile origins. Ditto for "Surf's Up" in '71.

For me, the magic of the record IS its unfinished state. One of the rites of passage for most hardcore BB's fans - is to make one's own SMILE comp. It is what we want it to be. : )

[Cousin It]

Originally posted by Steve Hoffman
"Smile" never really floated my boat. I understand that parts of the songs are quite clever and the instrumental tracks are neat, but on the whole, everything sounds disjointed. Kind of a giant puzzle with no possible ending or solution, or a sandwich with a lot of condiments but no meat.

I'm sure I'm offending most of the Beach Boys lovers here by even stating thoughts like this, but in order for a single song to work, certain rules of form have to be followed. Since "Smile" is mostly snippets of song-like tidbits, it leaves most of us going "wow, clever stuff". But I want to be moved, darn it!

Anyone else?


Agreed !!!
Brian Wilson's masterwork was/is/forever will be PET SOUNDS.
SMILE is clever but even if BW ever finished it would NEVER have been the album Pet Sounds was.That album moves me from beginning to end.Mike Love had evey right to complain about some of the nonsense lyrics on Smile.I really do like some of the instrumental sections of Good Vibrations that went unreleased though,it shows that Brian's outtakes are 10 times better than most everybody's masters.

[Steve w]

Don't forget Buffalo Springfield's Stampede. Even though there was never an official track list, the unreleased tracks on the box set are pretty interesting.

[David R. Modny]

I'll just add....for the SMILE addicts out there - a great companion piece to the SOT box and single disc is an "import" (that's the politically correct term) titled "Heroes and Vibrations". SOT/Master tape quality. Some of the vocal tracking sessions were made a moot point after we got the new stereo mix of H&V...but it's still a great boot....I mean import.

[jligon]

None of us have, and never will, hear what Smile was supposed to be. We've heard some of the throwaways and demos but that's about it. From what I understand, the majority of the best stuff was covered over by Brian without making any safeties.

He wanted Smile to be a fun album (thus the title) and it was going to be different that anything we'd ever heard before. In retrospect, especially to those who take their rock music too seriously, the pieces that remain probably do seem fragmented and half-baked. But I don't think these pieces, taken out of context, are a true indication of the final product that Brian had bouncing around in his head.

I don't see, however, after hearing what Brian had accomplished up to this point, how you could simply assume that Smile was 'hype." I think it would have been a very great album that would rank next to Pet Sounds as his best and alongside Pepper & Revolver as the greatest ever.

[jligon]

Originally posted by Cousin It


Mike Love had evey right to complain about some of the nonsense lyrics on Smile.

Be careful. You're treading on hallowed ground there!

Besides, Brian wrote very few of the lyrics for this album and Pet Sounds.

Mike Love; don't get me started! :rolleyes:

[Holy Zoo]

Easy:

Lifehouse - The Who

Of course several songs landed on Who's Next, but one can only wonder what kind of album this might have been Pete was able to stay with the original idea of another concept album.

[Craig]

Easier :

Get Back - The Beatles

......before Phil got ahold of the tapes.

-Craig

[Holy Zoo]

member member bobember! Ha!

Now THATS funny! (and brilliant! for about 2 seconds there you had me thinking you'd hacked the system!) ;)

[Patrick M]

Originally posted by Steve Hoffman
An artist should always have a producer. You can't be both for very long. No one to tell you "Hey, enough already. Finish the sucker. Don't use three studios for a four minute song", etc....

A-freakin'-men. I agree completely. I could run off a string of artists who needed someone kicking their *** in the studio, saying "no," and keeping them on task.

[Dugan]

Originally posted by David R. Modny
For me, the magic of the record IS its unfinished state. One of the rites of passage for most hardcore BB's fans - is to make one's own SMILE comp. It is what we want it to be. : )

I agree completely. The first CDR I ever burned was my edit of SMiLe. Since no one, Brian included, will ever know what the final tracklist would have been. A lesson called make your own Beach Boys CD. Collect the tracks, see what flows and decide the running order, make your edits and burn. The only thing that's already done is the cover art. Have Fun :D

[Sckott]

There's a bootleg Smile going around with this track listing:

All mostly in Stereo (if not all)
ST-2580

1. Prayer
2. Heros & Villans
3. Wonderful
4. Medley: Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine
5. Child Is Father of the Man
6. Do you like Worms?
7. Cabin Essence
8. Good Vibrations
9. Vega-tables
10. Love To Say Da Da
11. Wind Chimes
12. Fire
13. I'm In Great Shape
14. Surf's Up (overture)
15. Surf's Up

(Bonus:)
16. Look
17. Chant from Water sessions
18. Good Vibrations Stereo Baking Track (Not from Pet Sounds box)

This got duplicated heavilly with psyudo-Capitol art, and was sourced from Mp3 originally. The original poster went on usenet and posted this in WAV format in Feburary.

While I like the Mono mix for a stronger sound, this version is easier to listen to, and is in stereo. But it's an album that most everyone has played around with, track listing-wize.

[Henry Love]

I always thought Heroes And Villains was one of the greatest pop songs ever made.There was a supposed a better version that was not released. I'd settle for that one.The old sunny southwest.

[jligon]

Nobody mentioned Big Star's Third album. I think it had a Smile-like history to it.