Smiley Smile vs. Smile

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by palisantrancho, Nov 1, 2019.

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  1. palisantrancho

    palisantrancho Forum Resident Thread Starter

    I'm fascinated by the Smile vs. Smiley Smile debate. Now that we have both versions to choose from which do you think is the better album? I have mixed feelings, but if I had to choose I would take Smiley Smile. I think Smiley Smile is 2 or 3 songs away from their masterpiece. I wish they would have included Cabin Essence and Do You Like Worms, and while I like the Smile versions of Wonderful and Wind Chimes I am just as happy with the weirder versions on Smiley Smile.

    I know the popular opinion will be Smile, but if there wasn't all this drama around both albums I think Smiley Smile would have done better. I'm curious why Brian chose this route for Smiley Smile. It's definitely a stranger album. I would have thought the group would have wanted to release the Smile songs over what came out on Smiley Smile. I call this album My Smile.

    Heroes and Villains- Smiley Smile
    Do You Like Worms- Smile
    Fall Breaks and Back To Winter- Smiley Smile
    She's Goin Bald- Smiley Smile
    Vegetables- Smiley Smile- love this much more than the Smile version.
    Little Pad- Smiley Smile
    Good Vibrations- same on both albums
    Cabin Essence- Smile
    With Me Tonight- Smiley Smile
    Wind Chimes- Smiley Smile- tough call as I love both but I find the stranger Smiley Smile version fits better.
    Wonderful- Smiley Smile- same feeling as Wind Chimes. I prefer the Smiley Smile version.
    Surfs Up- Brian Wilson demo

    That's a great record!
     
  2. Mal

    Mal Phorum Physicist

  3. Hall Cat

    Hall Cat Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago, IL USA
    There's no real Smile
     
  4. 905

    905 Senior Member

    Location:
    Midwest USA
    To be honest Smiley Smile. It's been over 20 years but I have fond memories of going to a record store in Granite City, Illinois and seeing it for the first time after becoming a Beach Boys fan. I remember putting the Smiley CD in the boombox with headphones on, and taking everything in .
     
  5. OldSoul

    OldSoul Don't you hear the wind blowin'?

    Location:
    NYC
    The SMiLE Sessions, for me. However, Smiley Smile is great in its own way. If they could've kept "Mama Says" within "Vegetables" and done even a stripped down version of "Surf's Up," I'd have no real criticisms of it.

    "Good Vibrations" isn't the same on both albums, by the way. It has an added section and extended coda on SMiLE.
     
  6. writteninwater

    writteninwater Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oslo
    I voted "Smile" for the completion of it, but "Smiley Smile" is creepy and weird in a good way.
     
  7. Aftermath

    Aftermath Senior Member

    Smile by a mile.
     
  8. Peeg

    Peeg Active Member

    Location:
    New York City
    I don’t think Brian was the one who “chose” anything for SS. If I recall correctly, the whole band has the production credit, and the album is kind of a salvage job. Brian wasn’t calling all the shots at this point: for example, the band insisted on putting Good Vibrations on the album against his wishes. (And they were right.) I think Brian was pretty out of it at that point.

    Smiley Smile is a fun and interesting album, but it’s kind of slight. I miss the gorgeous and elaborate production Brian was working on before it got to be too much for him.
     
    Smiler likes this.
  9. palisantrancho

    palisantrancho Forum Resident Thread Starter

    As close as we will ever get.
    Please tell. Why is it Smile by a mile?
     
  10. Rne

    Rne weltschmerz

    Location:
    Malaver
    I love both, but I prefer Smile.
    And here comes the heresy: I prefer Smiley Smile over Pet Sounds.
     
  11. Daniel Plainview

    Daniel Plainview God's Lonely Man

    Smile not finished nor clearly defined as a final product so not sure what I have to compare. I love Smiley Smile. If we're talking Cabin Essence/Surfs Up/Wonderful /Vegetables/Fire/Worms and Cantina H&V then Ok I guess I have to give the vote to Smile. But if it's that Frankensteined thing on disc 1 of the box set no thanks.
     
  12. Rne

    Rne weltschmerz

    Location:
    Malaver
    May the Lord bless Victor Frankenstein, then.
     
  13. Zoot Marimba

    Zoot Marimba And I’m The Critic Of The Group

    Location:
    Savannah, Georgia
    Love both, but I’ll go with SMiLE (or at least the SMiLE Sessions)
     
    yesteryear likes this.
  14. nosticker

    nosticker Forum Guy

    Location:
    Ringwood, NJ
    When I was first getting into the deeper cut/Smile boot Beach Boys, I remember picking up Smiley and noticing that neither Surf's Up nor Cabinessence were on it. WHY NOT?
    Just the idea that both Fire and Surf's Up were on Smile was enough for me.

    But for some reason, the Smiley version of Vegetables is THE version for me. I just don't like the piano in the Smile version, and the Mama Says part just makes it drag IMO.

    And, strangely, I am with the people who say that Smile doesn't really exist, at least not the 1967 one. Just my opinion, but I think that the album proper would have been subject to additions and subtractions if Brian had kept working on it. We have this "arrested development" version that maybe could have been what he wanted in 1967, but no one really knows. Don't get me wrong, I am a huge Smile obsessive, but albums aren't like a card game where you "call" on another player to show their hand. I'm just glad we have what we have.



    Dan
     
  15. willy

    willy hooga hagga hooga

    Need both together. And I could not do without stereo Smiley Smile with Little Pad and the eerie Wind Chimes.
     
  16. muzzer

    muzzer Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    I don’t think there’s such a thing as a finished Smile, looking at the overall history. I remember getting into the whole saga about 20 years ago, reading the Domenic Priore book, loving the way it slips through your fingers at several removes to the way it did to BW. Lost in a sea of tunes.
     
    jpgeesaman and Hall Cat like this.
  17. jwoverho

    jwoverho Licensed Drug Dealer

    Location:
    Mobile, AL USA
    It’s taken me a long time to appreciate Smiley Smile given the intricacies it largely abandoned from the Smile Sessions.

    I like Smiley now for its weird, insular vibe.
     
  18. Andreas

    Andreas Senior Member

    Location:
    Frankfurt, Germany
    SMiLE

    I prefer everything there: The beautiful recordings of Wonderful and Wind Chimes, the inclusion if majestic songs like Surf's Up and Cabinessence, even the experimental songs are more intriguing, and it has a more interesting thematic cohesion.
     
  19. mr.datsun

    mr.datsun Incompletist

    Location:
    London
    I like both very much. Different experiences. Different sound. These days i listen to Smiley Smile more often.
     
  20. Platterpus

    Platterpus Senior Member

  21. mr.datsun

    mr.datsun Incompletist

    Location:
    London

    I think the answer to this is pretty well understood, at least as a short-hand mythologicalised version of the real events.

    Wilson works on Smile with Van Dyke Parks on lyrics. Band is on tour. Smile failing to reach completion. The band came back from tour. Some of them did not like what they heard. Criticisms make it hard for Wilson to continue. Van Dyke Parks left as he did not want to get involved in the politics of the band. Wilson loses his sense of control. They needed a new album and it was decided to work on the album as a group (reducing reliance on Wilson's role as sole artistic director), producing the new simpler Smiley Smile.

    That's like saying 'there's no real Epic Of Gilgamesh'.
     
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2019
  22. YardByrd

    YardByrd rock n roll citizen in a hip hop world

    Location:
    Europe
    Agreed about SS over PS
     
    willy and mr.datsun like this.
  23. The Bishop

    The Bishop Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dorset, England.
    As a matter of fact, they’re all SMiLE.
     
  24. Celebrated Summer

    Celebrated Summer Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I'm one of the rare Beach Boys fans for whom SMiLE just does not resonate. I like the bootleg I bought of it back in 1984, but definitely played Smiley Smile more. Maybe the problem is that I got used to hearing the various SMiLE songs in their other homes on 20/20, Surf's Up, etc.

    I hate to say the bigger reason, because it's going to make me look like a Mike Love champion (which I'm not). But I think Van Dyke Parks' lyrics are, in fact, too esoteric too connect -- with me, anyway. When a lyricist needs to put out explanations of his song ("It's about a man sitting in a concert hall...") that means the lyricist hasn't done his job.

    The obscure lyrics of Bob Dylan and John Lennon (or even Jimmy Webb and Laura Nyro) often left you understanding the emotional content, even if you didn't quite get all the intellectual references. Not so with most of the Parks-Wilson stuff, where you feel like you need footnotes for practically every line. It was nice to hear these songs first, but as I said above, they never resonated on a deeper level across the decades.

    Over the years I've found myself pondering the ramifications and details of the scenario in "Girl Don't Tell Me" more than any of the Wilson-Parks numbers. In just a few lines, Wilson sketched out an entire world. It's like a Young Adult novel in two verses. That, IMO, is true artistry.
     
    limoges, Mr Sam, Suncola and 8 others like this.
  25. Two Sheds

    Two Sheds Sha La La La Lee

    SMiLE - the versions of 'Wonderful' and 'Wind Chimes' alone put it over the top.
     
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