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

Vigotone may have still nailed it the best

 

Vigotone, Sea of Tunes 16 and the Good Vibrations 30 Years Box between them nailed it.

 

yeah but the charm is wearing off as I don't play daily anymore.

 

Although it's still worth picking up Smiley Smile and Surfs Up as well.

 

I guess I still listen to it from time to time, mostly the sessions. So, whenever I play the album it all seems to go by in a flash 'cause you're so used to a bunch of takes

and critical comments from Brian. It all leaves me feeling a bit stranded. Worthwhile, but I'm usually ready for some Let him run Wild afterwards.

 

Am I still listening? Are you kidding?
This is one of _the_ most essential box sets in my collection, and it's magic that my three favorite albums (Pet Sounds, SMiLE, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band) all received the Deluxe treatment in one way or another.
Unfortunately I don't have got the box with me right now, but that will hopefully be corrected within a few weeks.
It's essential.
I just love the mixture of experimentalism and melodies that just melt my heart away.

 

I would say that Brian was at his creative peak during the Smile sessions but since the album was never released proper, and Brian was also going down the rabbit hole driven by mental problems and too much drug usage between said sessions I very much disagree it was the best thing he ever did.

I purchased the deluxe window box set immediately when it came out and loved going through it off and on for a few years but like many others I ended up getting burned out on it.

I have come across several Smile fanatics that don’t even like The Beach Boys and that probably adds to my puzzlement as to why an album that Brian himself ended up distancing himself from to the point he wanted nothing to do with the songs written for it for decades is constantly propped up as a masterpiece. Parts of what was created are magnificent, but how you get a proper 12 track under 40 minute album out of those hours and days of brilliant music and vocal sessions remains a mystery. It doesn’t work IMO and I’ve heard lots of people’s ideas of “how Brian would have done it” and the big picture is always missed. It was to be one record, two sides, that’s it. No matter what I’ve heard nor how it is sliced and arranged the prospect of getting all that material, much not even recorded yet at the time, into a workable masterpiece is daunting and simply unworkable.

Also, there were too many hangers on and posers Brian was hanging with and he was going off into wwaaaayyyyy too many directions while trying to top Pet Sounds. One minute he’s trying to be all serious the next minute some guy is stuck in his French horn and the next minute it’s a song about eating healthy......ok. Then Good Vibrations is a monster hit with Mike’s lyrics ( no mention of cars beaches or summer for those counting ) and to me it is then no surprise that things implode and Parks walks away and Brian is left fooling around with H&V for months on end as he did with GV to ultimately his own dissatisfaction.

Again, I’m not saying the Smile stuff wasn’t brilliant because much of it was, Cabinessence alone smokes most of Peppers to smithereens if you ask me, but so what. I’m real tired of hearing about both Peppers and Smile. I Saw Her Standing There and In My Room are brilliance to me as well.

 

I only have the two disc set, which I rarely play.

On a semi related topic, this period was brilliantly skewered in the Dewey Cox movie, along with The Beatles trip to India.

 

Much as I admire it, I find SMiLE to be a very unemotional set of songs. There’s certainly emotion in some of the singing (Brian’s and Carl’s), but that’s all.

The overall feel of Sgt. Pepper is quite different; it’s (mostly) good-natured, less self-conscious, and generally provides a more engaging experience for the listener.

I still play (and appreciate) both albums and outtakes, but get more actual enjoyment out of Sgt. Pepper.

 

Made it through it once. Have listened to Smiley Smile many many times and Brian Wilson Presents Smile a couple dozen - as well as seeing it live at Carnegie Hall

 

Nope

 

l don't think that Pepper's is less self conscious, the Beatles did a good job in making it feel less self conscious.

 

interesting point - unemotional. Wonderful may be the primary exception to that, otherwise the lyrics are pretty abstract/intellectual/expository but humor can be considered an emotion so the comic songs bring some relief to the otherwise very serious lyrical concerns. It was a 180 turn from the wear your feelings on your sleeve lyrics of Pet Sounds and you can understand how Brian had second thoughts about them.

 

I love the abstract, largely unemotional aspects of SMiLE compared to what came immediately before (of course, I admire the Pet Sounds approach too)... and I appreciate a lot of later bands whose entire careers took off from this approach: Stereolab, High Llamas, etc.

Of the later material (Smiley Smile notwithstanding), Friends comes the closest, but like I said earlier, SMiLE is so unique. In terms of their career arc, maybe it turned out to be a blind alley, but arguably it's just as influential as anything else they ever did.

 

Definitely, it just took a few decades befor that influence showed. (Because it was unreleased, of course.)

 

I probably listened to the Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE version more because it came out first and I did not own any SMiLE b**tlegs.

 

Any time I want to listen to Smile, I opt for the dvd video of Brian Wilson performing it with his 2004 band. The music comes alive more for me this way. I also saw this show twice when it toured. It brings back loads of memories.

 

I have a mint Smile Sessions box set available at a very good price. PM for details.

 

I have a question for all owners of the 2LP Smile Sessions set. Can you play "Good Vibrations" with absolutely no distortion at all? I'm really struggling to determine whether it's my cartridge or the recording.

 

I WTB this set!

 

Alright... I've got to ask.

Which songs were actually finished. Things like Do You Like Worms and Look have vocals missing of course, but there are others that weren't complete as well.

Here's those I know of:
- Heroes And Villains, a single version anyhow.
- Good Vibrations obviously
- Wonderful?
- Wind Chimes?
- Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine?
- Cabin Essence?
- Our Prayer?
- Vege-Tables?


Also, did they include the 1968 vocal overdubs on the SMiLE recreation album? What did they even add to the song for 20/20?

 

I only got the 2-CD box, and I rarely listen to anything past the end of the main album. Twenty-four takes of that riff from Heroes and Villains is twenty-three more than I need.

 

There is about 10 to 12 songs which I love. The fragments and demos are challenging to listen to

 

The lead vocals of "Cabin Essence"(CArl's and Dennis "Truck driving man" counterpoint vocal) were recorded in 1968 for 20/20, produced by Carl..The rest of the instrumental track, the backing vocals and the tag vocals were all done by December '66.

Our Prayer was done, but Dennis, Carl and Bruce overdubbed it a little for 20/20. But the Made In California/Smile Sessions version (stereo/mono) is from 1966.

For the rest of the songs you listed, everything was recorded during the SMile sessions, mostly before 1966, except quite a few vocals of "Heroes and Villains" were cut or recut during the Smiley Smile sessions, though there may not have been an abrupt line between the releases.

I think some of of the multitracks for the original H&V vocals are lost.

 

There's definitely a weird and wonderful album to be found within the tracks. Even a version as once planned, ie the strongest songs without some of the links, would be great. Or give the whole lot to Giles Martin to create a Love style Smile. Just so long as the Fire track is omitted. I have to skip that one, whatever version of the album I play. It's just dreadful.