Are You Still Listening to Smile Sessions 5-CD boxset version?

For me, this is technical overkill, but I am fairly sure all of that is worth listening to at least once — if only to understand how much time, work, energy, and spirit had been invested in these creations.

I believe, that this is one of the few albums that does merit a whole boxset of such length all to itself.

"Smile" was such a fascinating project that even the demos and interrupted studio takes are exciting on their own, as you watch these songs unfurl before your eyes.

 

I keep meaning to set aside a night to play the whole thing in the dark.

I love the bits that I’ve heard. I’ve basically just played the vinyl a few times.

My only issue is the missing vocal on “Do You Like Worms” - I know they never recorded one back in ‘66 but that melody line is so essential. Blew my mind when I saw Brian at the Royal Festival Hall and heard it for the first time.

Also I would’ve loved a recreation of what the December 1966 version might’ve been. A 12 track version with actual gaps between the songs would be interesting.

 

No. Even as a Beach Boys fanatic, I don't find this period that interesting. What I enjoyed about the Beach Boys were the pop songs with great harmony, not experimental instrumental fragments. I think Brian should have gone solo with this stuff.

What I do listen to all the time are the session tapes people put on YouTube that show the band working out songs like "When I Grow Up (To Be A Man)" and "Please Let Me Wonder" from start to finish.

I also like the unofficial "Behind The Sounds" series, which shows how the songs from Pet Sounds came together. If someone did one of these videos for every song in the catalog 1961-1985, I'd probably listen to them all, but the SMiLE stuff gets me bored after a while.

 

I have put the entire thing into an iTunes playlist and often have it on in the background as I’m working. A never ending “box of tricks”.

Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks. The Beach Boys. SMiLE.

 

Every now and again. There's a few on there I could do without, but much of it I like.

 

I only own the single-disc version, but I enjoy it enough.

 

Still? Always!

 

No. I didn't find it all that much interesting unfortunately. Have the 5 cd mp3 and 2 lp vinyl.

 

To be honest, as a lifelong Beach Boys collector, I much prefer the "Pet Sounds Box" over
this. Plus, on the Pet Sounds box, it was the first time we got a true stereo disc of the album.
SMILE, to me, never had the big an impact on me. But, again, it's a personal preference.

 

I still put on my favorite bits from time to time. This period of BBs and Smiley Smile creeps out my gf, so I don't play it often. The only thing I avoid is the "recreation" of Smile, which was surprisingly disappointing, riddled with amateurish errors and poor judgment calls.



Dan

 

Played it once and put it away

 

More often than most albums or box sets in my collection.

 

Yes! It’s a go-to for certain.

 

Would love to have an official stereo release. Can’t fathom why this hasn’t happened yet.

 

Along with Pet Sounds, one of the very best pop albums of the 60's. Sgt Peppers level and all. So yes. (I'm talking about the single CD version, i never cared for the bonus material).

 

Select songs like Wind Chimes pop up on shuffle but as a whole,no not any longer.

 

No, got bored with it quick. I also have the two-disc set, of which I only play disc 1 anymore. Having said that, I love disc 1 and play it at least once a year.

 

After I made my own version of the album from it, not really, but I do enjoy looking at the book that came with it

 

Please elaborate on this.

 

Sure! She lumps all of that in together. That lots of it is sparsely produced, relentless Baldwin organ, even just Wind Chimes. The defense rests.


Dan

 

I listen to the sessions about every two years, though iLIhave ordered the tracks chronologically, which tells a story in my opinion: of a brilliant album that got destroyed by Brian’s quest to make “Heroes and Villains” top “Good Vibrations.”

various SMiLE versions, including my own, i listen to a few times per year. I love it.

 

Really? Brian lost his marbles working on the mono mix initially and you can't imagine why they haven't attempted a stereo mix?

 

Most of it has been released in stereo already. The music does not cause people to lose their marbles, that happened because Brian was mentally ill.

 

So — always the tempting question — could the album, as it is now presented, be the supposed equivalent of Sgt. Pepper?

Clearly, it would have been less accessible. There is simply too much going on here: with most of the songs consisting of several parts, plus additional instrumental links tying them together, the kaleidoscopic ambitiousness would have been too much for most people — at times, it seems as if Brian were competing not so much with Lennon/McCartney as he was with Frank Zappa.

Sgt. Pepper cleverly knew where to stop; SMiLe knows no limits.

 

Definitely less accessible.

I think that the following songs: "Our Prayer", "Heroes and Villains," "Wonderful", "Wind Chimes", "Good Vibrations","The Elements: Fire", "Surf's Up", and "Cabin Essence" on a rarefied level of all-time classics that "A Day In the Life" from Sgt. Pepper is. Simply some of the greatest songs of the twentieth century.

And "A Day in the LIfe" is by far the best song on Pepper.

A song like "Vega-Tables" is about par with most of the songs on Sgt. Pepper's.

Some of the songs like "Do You Like Worms" are unfinished, but they would probably fall into the first "masterpiece" category or the second tier, like "Vega-Tables".

The in-between songs,though, the little snippets and half-baked ideas are, well, little snippets and half baked ideas; perhaps they might have worked a little as segues had the album been finished, but they are clearly fairly inconsequential, though some are more or less enjoyable.

But for me, the 8 songs above are already better than 12/13ths of Sgt Pepper's, so I definitely like even unfinished SMiLE better -- but I agree it would never have been the blockbuster that Sgt Pepper turned out to be -- Sgt Pepper's is just a much, much, much more poppy, more commercial album which appeals to just about everyone and anyone.