Educate me on Smile from The Beach Boys

Thanks for (wind) chiming in!

 

I do have to say that, while not a SMiLE scholar in the slightest, I (tried) to put together a solid SMiLE EP , and i'd just now uploaded it on YouTube. I'm by no means a professional or even exceedingly proficient in audio editing, but some feedback would be nice!

 

Except this statement is not correct. The BW version is anything but a scrapbook. Its a finished masterpiece with crucial musical links and song lyrics which were never developed in the original sessions. It's BW in 2004 able for the first time to envision it. What was envisaged in 1967 is largely irrelevant. It never happened and no one knows now anyway including BW.

When I heard the BB Smile sessions for the first time those parts appeared to be glaring omissions. You can't easily forget them or write them off. They are as valid as any other part of Smile. Think of it as an album gestating for 37 years with unfinished session recordings and then they record it all again, fully and properly arranged and complete for the first time. Normally speaking no one would question the validity of the approach but because this is BW / BB and there is so much mystique about the whole era and his mental breakdown, people who have had access to the sessions for decades will not let it go. The bootleg versions are ingrained in their minds (and ears).

I'm not really sure why diehard longtime BB fans appear to struggle with the idea that BWPS is the only fully realised released version of Smile. It's not the first recording but those BB legacy recordings were never finished, released or anything else. Bootlegs don't count. It had no shape either. Who was ultimately responsible for the BW version happening is irrelevant too. Its not as though a fan or outsider working with Brian is somehow an alien or undesirable dilution of his vision. That's a purist's stance.

If BW had given permission to a third party artist to re-record, assemble, finish and release it, that would still be the original RELEASED version and the definitive one. The BB recordings, however great, are not the complete work, with better vocals or not.

 

Emil is correct.

 

But “fully realised” by whom? I could be wrong, but I get the impression BW was pretty much a passenger on the 2004 recordings rather than leading the process of completion/reassembly. The involvement of VDP gives the project some validity, but in many ways it feels like a (very good) fan mix.

I prefer the original sessions because of the sense of possibility; the incompletion is an asset, it sort of invites you to be an active listener. And, though I dig the new lyrics (like “In Blue Hawaii”), the original music is pictorial and evocative enough even in its unfinished form.

 

That vocal passage before "Good Vibrations" is just a bit of "Our Prayer" repeated, though. Although you're right in a sense that "Love to Say Da Da"/"In Blue Hawaii" is arguably the most embellished of the original tracks with new vocal material.

 

Let's say for arguments sake it was fully realised by you with Brian's agreement and co-operation. Would that make it any lesser an achievement? Without someone collaborating with him it would never have been released in 2004 nor the subsequent original sessions release in 2011, which it is not coincidental, follows the BWPS model to the letter.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad the BW Smile exists (though I enjoyed it more as a concert than an album), but I don’t really see it as a completion, it’s more of another version/variant, one with new bits.

I wish they hadn’t felt obliged to mimic the BW version in the Smile Sessions box, the pieces can’t really be corralled into that shape very effectively (the bits of vocals dropped into “Barnyard” make me wince).

 

SMiLE
A bouquet of baroque pop fragments that sadly Brian didn't have the effort to put together.

Brian Wilson presents SMILE
Darian Sahanaja finds a way to put them all together.

 

I changed my mind, if I had to choose one I’d choose BWPS. As people have said, it’s the complete, definitive version, and most importantly, I enjoy listening to it.

 

That's interesting and I have to admit I feel privileged to have been able to hear BWPS in 2004 for the first time with fresh ears without ever having heard any bootlegs of the original material. I was a Smile newbie and not a great BB fan at the time. I knew the legend of Smile but apart from Heroes & Villains and Good Vibrations the material was all new to me. Maybe knowing the original recordings from boots might have spoilt my appreciation of it as a finished album?

But as for it not being a completion I'm slightly puzzled by this view. Was it not released as a complete album and suite of songs and music? What isn't complete about it? I think there is a wider tendency to view the era with misty eyes due to the mystique of the counter culture. Taking something out of that time and fuzting with it in the modern digital era doesn't ring true with some people, clearly. I just see it as an experimental aborted project without a clear vision to pull it together and complete it until some help arrived in 2003 by which time it had to be re-started / re-recorded. Credit is due to whoever was responsible for it happening as otherwise there would still be no Smile today.

 

You might find this interesting and all that you might want ......

Albums That Never Were: The Beach Boys - SMiLE (upgrade)

 

1. Brian Wilson's SMiLE
   48 vote(s)
   
   
2. Beach Boys' 2011 SMiLE
   127 vote(s)

 

Definitely the Smile Sessions. Mrs. O'Leary's Cow with those beach boys harmonies right in the middle of the fire is one of the damndest things I've ever heard.

 

As someone may have said earlier, there is a really great sounding Stereo version of the Smile sessions on YouTube that someone did, it’s my go to.

 

It has a certain vibe. I like to fall asleep with this on.

 

Has the download link been removed from this page? I'm not seeing it anywhere...

 

All of the newly written vocal parts actually follow instrumental lines that were already in the old recordings, so you’re not really getting new parts that fill in the gaps, just words that duplicate elements that were already there and were probably meant to stand alone, while the now-lost melodies would have been independent of any instrumental line.

 

I cut my teeth with that fantastic 3 LP Vigotone set in the 90s- gave it away at some point- dumbest decision ever. I rolled my own from that and enjoyed a couple friends' attempts too. I liked the tracks on 1993 Good Vibrations box set but my mind was truly blown hearing the mix of Wind Chimes in 2011. 93 GV box mix fades too early.
I have to admit I've not been able to make it through BWPS in one sitting and it looks like, after all the time I've put into the original sessions, I'll probably never be able to listen without ... cringing. it just seems a bit cloying and too cutesy, courtesy of strangers' voices to me, but maybe someday I'll try again. Meanwhile, 2011 Smile Sessions 2 LP/or other format is essential and that's what I'd recommend to a beginner.

 

So I listened to both the BB Smile sessions and the Brian Wilson version. I liked both to be honest. The BB one was more haunting and of course the vocals were better. The Brian Wilson version I liked for the instrumentaiton.. I can see why people say you need to hear both. Thanks for the help on this I appreciate it

 

Both are essential. My favorite work of the entire 1960s - ahead of any Beatles album. It is spectacular. Full of wonderments (literally in the BWPS case).

 

When it comes to SMiLE you need both versions - BWPS and SMiLE Sessions. Heck, you even need the deluxe editions of Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, Friends, 20/20, Sunflower, and Surf's Up for all the variations that were worked on. It's all Brian's genius, but there will never be a definitive version that will please everyone.

 

Well you're well you're welcome!

 

That's my beef with the new vocal melodies, except for do you like worms. They're IMO predictable, boring and workmanlike.

Is that what could be done in 2004? Fine. But it's not what a 66/67 Brian would have done. If i want to listen to Smile I'd rather have the unfinished takes.

 

Yes, Do You Like Worms is the one completed song from the 2004 version that is superior to the original -- and even that one, it turns out, could be better since we now know what the true original melody would have been, as we can hear BW (or is it VDP?) sing it from the studio control room on one of the discs in the Smile Sessions box.