If SMiLE had been completed in 1967, who thinks it would have blown Sgt. Pepper out of the water?

I think SMiLE was about 80% completely recorded, with a LOT of decisions left to be made by Brian. I think there are a few things we know.

1. Our Prayer was to lead it off, but would not be listed as a track
2. Good Vibrations was to be included
3. The 12 song handwritten track list was THE list. Some try to dismiss it, but those were likely correct.
4. It would have been individual songs, not a cross faded suite. That was simply not how Brian did things.

So how complete were the songs?

Our Prayer - 100% - when released later, they just overdubbed some more voices, but there is no guessing on what it was to sound like, or where it would go on the album. However, Gee would likely not have followed it.

1. H & V - 100% - Either way you look at it, H & V was either the complete Cantina version, or the one song Brian tinkered with to his satisfaction with the single version, depending on what release date you want to give the album. I love the train whistle into Cabin Essence, but would Brian have put it there?

2. Cabin Essence - 90% - Just missing the lead vocals, it was of coursed finished under Brian's supervision in 1968.

3. Wonderful - 85% or 95% - It may have been ready, except for putting it together like the SMiLE Sessions did, or Brian May have planned on more vocals. But the actual song is complete.

4. Do You Like Worms? - 95% - Missing only the lead vocals, which we have the lyrics for. A vintage melody was found, but was different than the one Brian provided for his version. I still wish they would let Al record the lead vocals for it.

5. Surf's Up - 50% - The music for the second part is missing. The tag was missing, and also lead vocals. Thankfully, Brian finished the tag in 1971, and his demo vocals sound incredible as is. It is stunning as we have it now, so we have a pretty good idea how it would have turned out.

6. Vega - Tables - 75% or 100% - Either the single version which Brian completed, or another combination from earlier on. The parts are all there for this one, but the decisions of assembly leave many questions.

7. I'm in Great Shape/Barnyard - 20% - we have very little of this song, and it is a guess if Barnyard was to go with it. Not to mention we don't have studio lead vocals for Barnyard. If "Shape" was not on the handwritten track list, no one would have guessed it was a song title.

8. My Only Sunshine - 85% - The parts are all complete. If they would have went together just as we have them we can't be sure.

9. Child Is Father Of the Man - 50% - Backing track only. No known lyrics or lead vocals. But if Brian had them, it was much closer than believed.

10. Wind Chimes - 100% - Completed. I love the "tinkling winds" on the front of this track, and it seems obvious to put it there. But would Brian?

11. The Elements - 25% - Questions galore. We know Fire was completed, but what were the other parts? Dada? Worms? Did Brian unlock the water portion with "Water Chant" in late 1967? If Worms was "earth", why was it listed separately on the track list? Mind boggling. My version has Fire/Water Chant.

12. Good Vibrations - 100% - Perhaps the greatest pop single of all time, and the basis for the entire SMiLE album.

The artwork was also complete and ready to go.

What is very interesting to me, is that the major pieces of SMiLE did not require many decisions, or much work. Brian could have finished off Worms and Cabin Essence in one session. He already had a finished version of Our Prayer, H & V, Good Vibrations and Wind Chimes. Wonderful could be released as is, and My Only Sunshine needed few decisions. He went to more trouble recording the Vegetables single than simply piecing together what he had. I think he knew exactly what he wanted for Surf's Up. Who knows on Child, Great Shape, and the rest of the Elements? But, I do feel a 12 track version laid out as above does give one an excellent idea of what would have been released.

 

Bottom line, it's hard to compare an unfinished work to a prepared album.
I would think that even the staunchest Beatles fan will concede that Brian was operating at a level from 65-67 that was nothing short of remarkable. What makes it even more striking is that he was doing it with very little help. He had lyricists to help him articulate his ideas, but he was the producer, arranger, composer, and performer.
He could even wipe the group's vocals and redo all the parts himself if he wasn't satisfied with the results.

The Smile material is childlike, spooky, silly, joyful, and beautiful. There are moment where Brian peers over the edge and sees into the beyond. He was able to translate that into remarkable music. This was music of a density rarely heard in pop music. It was leap forward from even Pet Sounds in that it took the modular techniques of Good Vibrations to the next level and translated it to an album format.

I'm thankful we're able to hear the artifacts of the sessions, as at one time it was thought they would never be released or only after Brian's passing. The praise and accolades the Smile releases received must surely have been healing for Brian.

 

Although I voted "no" I wouldn't necessarily say "impossible. If Brian did some more structured song development at the time and every song was " consistent" with Good Vibrations much in the way most of the cuts on Pet Sounds were "consistent" with God Only Knows, who knows. "God only knows"

My tune has changed a bit after revisiting the live Smile performance last night. It was stunning and Brian was in great form.

 

Good lord the Wikipedia page for Smile is a friggin' novel.

 

The 1967 man on the street could tuck in to Sgt. Pepper and get something out of it. I'm not sure Joe Citizen could do so with Smile in 2015. It's just too weird.

 

Listening to the "Smile Sessions", I just don't see it. I don't think it's that good. Obviously it's not actually what it was intended to be, but I still don't see what all the endless praise it gets comes from. To me, Pet Sounds remains the one and only good/great album the Beach Boys ever put out.

 

Rubbish! Beach Boy's run from 1962 - 73 is one of the greatest in the history of any/all music!

However: I agree that SMILE is overrated.... Pepper might be overrated too, but at least when all is said and done, it's a damn good little album by a rock band that kicks .... SMILE not so much.

The Beach Boys AND Brian are dorks who made dorky music. When embraced as such, there is an entire universe of awesomeness to behold, but trying to prop them, or rather Brian, up like avant guard/hip/pioneers is a losing battle .... Sure, there are elements of such, but it's that very dorkiness and humanness that gives the music it's magic.

 

Agreed! Do you think Paul or John could have written and released a song about, say, David Frost?

 

This just may be the most ridiculous comment that I've ever read on a message board. And that's saying something.

 

Prefer 'Today ' to 'sMILE.
Think the legend of SMILE is greater'than the actual songs/concept.

 

I met them in 1971, less Brian, after idolizing their music for years. At least that night, he's sadly correct. Dorks.

 

Pepper is one of my least favorite Beatles albums. SMILE seems like it would have been one of the Beach Boys strongest efforts as an overall album though it could not touch a good one cd hits compilation by the Beach Boys as Brian Wilson's true genius IMO was as a composer of catchy 45s with cool vocal harmonies.

Had Endless Summer been released in 1967, it would have come closer IMO but still would have fallen short.

Basically the Beach Boys are right up there with the Beatles for the first three letters, but it is all downhill once you get to the "ch Boys" part.

 

It's a completely untrue story. A few people on the Smiley board looked into it. None of The Beatles were in the US at the time Derek Taylor was while the Smile sessions were happening.

 

A lot of credit is due to Al Jardine for one of the three tunes of Pet Sounds with the power to focus my attention.

Apart from that, WIBN and GOK, my attention wanders each time I complete the rock journalism 101 homework assignment of attempting to appreciating PS from end to end. It could have been a great EP

 

I can't really make a connection between the two. I really like The Smile Sessions but I don't know what the equivalent Beatles record would be, or if there even is one. Abbey Road maybe? Just because, even if it was inadvertent, Abbey Road was kind of a song cycle in it's own right. In that case, I would probably give Abbey Road the win, just because the material isn't as tortured and was such a return to form for the Beatles at the time.

For me, Sgt. Pepper will always be inextricably linked to Pet Sounds and that's always been an easy one for me, as Pet Sounds is the Beach Boys finest hour and I'm pretty meh about Sgt. Pepper, though I have come to appreciate it more now that I've heard the mono version.

 

Smile not being finished in 1967 is one of music's greatest frustrations. I would love to see how Smile would have impacted (or not impacted) music and/or The Beach Boys' future output. If I'm remembering correctly, Brian once said that that he wasn't even completely satisfied with Heroes and Villains, one of the most complete and fleshed out songs on Smile. If that was the case, then Smile, as pictured in Brian's mind in 1967, might have been impossible to fully realize.

I consider Smile to be my favorite album. "But your favorite album wasn't even finished!" I suppose. But the music is incredible and the backstory is infinitely fascinating. With all those alternate takes, extra tracks, and different track orders, Smile becomes a project for the listener. Even though one could say just to listen to the 2 disc Smile Sessions and be done with it, I think to get the full effect of Smile you have to experiment with it. In a way, Smile not being released is a positive because we wouldn't have this "interactive album" today.

Sgt. Pepper is one of my favorite Beatles albums. After I listen to it, my thoughts are "Wow, this is an incredible psychedelic rock album!" But it doesn't lift my spirits and have me in complete awe like Smile does. I don't know what it is, I just connect with Smile emotionally in a way that I can't with Pepper. Smile somehow manages to capture the charm and dreaminess of childhood, and it resonates with me. Yes, a lot of the lyrics are abstract, but so are childhood dreams.

As for critical/commercial reception in 1967? I don't know, I wasn't around then. I assume Smile would be critically acclaimed, maybe later down the line like Pet Sounds was. Maybe The Beach Boys would be extremely popular in the public eye? We'll never know.

I'm starting to stop asking myself the "what-ifs" regarding Smile. With all of the infinite fan mixes/tracklistings/versions of songs out there, one can create an album with some of the most beautiful music ever recorded. And that's all that really matters.

 

Both Carl and Bruce were very much into it too.

 

It is frustrating he/they didn't finish it, but falling into a black hole while surfing universal consciousness is what it is.

Brian got trapped in the dark back room of the sunny Smile shop and wouldn't come back out.

The back cover should show the shop windows soaped over.

'Back in 45 years... Maybe'.

 

I think that came later after the sessions were done with. I know that Carl wanted to resurrect at least some of the SMiLE songs.

 

And I guess Jan And Dean's Little Old Lady From Pasedina would have
would have blown Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone away as well.
Surfs Up !!!
Glen

 

You don't know what you're talking about, do you.

 

It did for me.

 

Someone else has probably already pointed this out, but ...

LONDON — The Beach Boys, crowning the re-emergence of American artists in the British charts following the domination by British talent since 1963, by astonishingly beating the Beatles in the annual reader poll conducted by the 250,000 circulation U. K. consumer pop weekly, New Musical Express.

The Beach Boys were right up there on the top shelf of elite artists and if SMiLE had been finished for a Christmas '66 release it would have been a major event. It is quite possible that it would have gotten more attention in England where the weekly music press wielded great power, but Good Vibrations had been HUGE and blown many a mind. Even as a 12-year old I was fascinated by the complexity of it. SMiLE would have been wrapped-up under a lot of Christmas trees that year.

The album was going to be packaged with an insert booklet... serious stuff and something of a first at the time. It was going to be marketed as a major artistic statement and cultural event. The terrain of 1966 cannot be clearly seen through the rear view mirror in 2015.

 

Take some Windex to that mirror. When that poll was taken in late 1966, the Beach Boys had just toured Europe and England with great media hype, while the Beatles had not appeared live in the UK since a very brief tour a year before, concentrating their live efforts on the U$. In the middle of the voting, the NME reported the close tally and speculated in print how amazing it would be if an American group won for the first time since the Beatles' reign. The Beach Boys were riding the wave of the popularity of Pet Sounds and the then-just released and chart topping Good Vibrations. In contrast, Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane and the wonders of Sgt. Pepper's were yet to be heard by anyone. The Beatles, ensconced in Abbey Road, were the subject of rumors that they were breaking up. After the misery of the bigger than you-know-who U.S. Tour and the tumultuous stop in the Phillipines that summer, not to mention an expired recording contract, those rumors appear to have had some basis. Just ask George.
Oh, the Beatles were ultimately outvoted by the Beach Boys by a total of 100 votes.
Context is everything.

 

Exactly, it is merely an unfounded and incorrect rumour.