PS Backing Tracks v Smile Backing Tracks

[desmondo]

The PS backing tracks are superb and a perfect example of the genius that is Brian Wilson.

However I think the SMiLE backing tracks are even better and remarkably different from those recorded for PS just a short time before.

The SMiLE tracks are for me Brian cutting loose from the 'Spector' sound that dominated his work in 65 and early 66 - yes you can still here the influences here and there but overall there is a big change in the feel of the tracks, the arrangements and the way instruments are used throughout. And of course there is the modular way of writing and recording.

These are the real Brian Wilson IMHO

To be able to hear the backing tracks in the best quality is the main reason why I am excited by the forthcoming release.

The 66/67 tracks will I believe completely overwhelm the BWPS versions. The latter are good but the combination of Brian being on, the use of top quality session musicians and the clarity of vision (at least for a period) will I believe add up to perhaps the greatest lesson for music makers anywhere in the world at any time.

[A Million Units In Jan!]

I always felt there was just something about those SMiLE tracks that made them different from anything else. There's a sense of darkness on them that wasn't on  BWPS. The BWPS tracks were too 'clean', if that makes any sense.

[DonnyL]

PET SOUNDS has shades of psychedelia; SMILE embodies psychedelia.

[willy]

There is nothing "dated" about any of the SMiLE tracks. For example, Sgt. Pepper 'sounds like' 1967 but the SMiLE stuff sounds very fresh to this day.

[rab2591]

I always felt there was just something about those SMiLE tracks that made them different from anything else. There's a sense of darkness on them that wasn't on  BWPS. The BWPS tracks were too 'clean', if that makes any sense.

Makes perfect sense. Even though one of my top favourite albums, I still find it way too clean - it doesn't sound vintage. I mean the mix is beautiful but the way they recorded it does not sound like they used the wall of sound. Granted, as it was said above, Brian was trying to get away from this - but on songs like 'Heroes and Villains' or 'Do You Dig Worms' (from 66/67) it does sound like he was trying for that sound, and yet on BWPS that (wall of) sound is somewhat lost. Also, 'Wonderful' seemed to lose its air of mystery on BWPS - I think they really screwed up when they decided not to use a real harpsichord.

I can't wait to hear the clean backing tracks for SMiLE. I really wish that "sometime later this year" would come sooner!

[c-man]

An interesting observation (that Brian broke from the Spectorish "Wall Of Sound" approach on the original '66-'67 SMiLE sessions). 
Ironic, too, considering that Brian used Phil's favorite studio (Gold Star) more for the SMiLE tracks than for those on any other album.
For instance, on the previous three "original" albums (meaning, not counting "Party!"), only one track on "Today!" ("Do You Wanna Dance"), none on "Summer Days", and only two on "Pet Sounds" ("Wouldn't It Be Nice" and "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" were cut at Gold Star.
Yet, for SMiLE, Brian tracked the following at Gold Star:  "Good Vibrations" (at least part of it), "Wind Chimes" (ditto), "Cabinessence", "Old Master Painter/My Only Sunshine", "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow", "Friday Night/I Wanna Be Around", part of "VegaTables", and "Love To Say Da-Da".  EIGHT tracks (or parts of tracks)...a new record (plus, the original, unsed version of "Heroes And Villains was also cut there)!.  Yet, as mentioned, he avoided (either consciously or unconsciously) the epic Spector sound on most of these (only "Good Vibrations" in the verses, the "VegaTables" fade section, and maybe "Mrs. O'Learly's Cow" and the uptempo part of "Wind Chimes", to me, sound anything like the classic echoey Wall Of Sound approach).  He used Spector's studio more than ever for this project, but mostly avoided Spector's sound.

[Bicyclerider]

While the Pet Sounds tracks were dense, in comparison the Smile arrangements are much lighter, with fewer musicians and with more "air" in the music.  Child, Wonderful, Old Master Painter, wind Chimes (especially the "remake" - the original was more Pet sounds-like), Vegetables, Great Shape all fit an aesthetic where "less is more."  There are tracks that are denser but they are infrequent - the Heroes verses, Who Ran the Iron Horse (nicely contrasted with the verses which are more open and airy like the wild country they are evoking), Surf's Up Part 1 (only to again contrast with Part 2), Fire.  It was definitely a different approach than Spector's wall of sound (more like Spector's This Must Be the Night!).

[Ron]

I dunno about the Spector influence, but what always struck me about Brian's music and his backing tracks, and alluded to above, is his embracing Dynamics.  He has NO PROBLEM putting a whisper next to a tsunami. 

So I always saw his 'sparse' backgrounds that he sometimes did, as just a further attempt at changing the dynamics of the song.  Also it's pretty common knowledge that it's harder to sing softly, so the sparse stuff is Brian's way of exibiting just how great the beach boys vocally were.

I think to this day, the one thing that has stayed with Brian and not diminished at all is his sense of harmony, he still makes interesting backing vocals in all his songs, not only the stuff he has the band do but even the stuff he sings backup to.  Even if he's off key, or shouting, or whatever, his background mixes are always fantastic. 

When you make a backing track thin,... it makes it that much more impressive when the verse to H&V kicks in, for instance.  That track, vocally, is a motherf*cker to borrow from Mike Love. 

[rab2591]

Anyone here have any idea why Brian decided to shy away from the Spector influence for SMiLE? Did he ever mention this reluctance in any interviews?

[Bicyclerider]

I dunno about the Spector influence, but what always struck me about Brian's music and his backing tracks, and alluded to above, is his embracing Dynamics.  He has NO PROBLEM putting a whisper next to a tsunami. 

The often jarring transitions from section to section are indeed a hallmark of Smile, not just in terms of dynamics but often due to the following section being unrelated to the one before it - Brian was writing "outside of the box" as Van Dyke put it, and getting away from the a/b/a/b/chourus song structure of pop music.

[Dunderhead]

What's the deal with the original August 3 version of Wind Chimes
I don't think I've ever heard anything that sounded different.

[Jon Stebbins]

Anyone here have any idea why Brian decided to shy away from the Spector influence for SMiLE? Did he ever mention this reluctance in any interviews?

I doubt it had anything to do with reluctance. It was about progression. Brian was moving beyond Spector. The influence is always there, but it became a smaller part of the overall spectrum.

[Roger Ryan]

What's the deal with the original August 3 version of Wind Chimes
I don't think I've ever heard anything that sounded different.

The first track cut had a fuller band sound with a treated piano prominently featured. Ultimately, Brian just used this track for the chorus and recut the verse section with less instruments and with vibes featured prominently.

The version on BWPS returned, more or less, to the arrangement of the first session which has the drums kicking in after the piano break and the bass and guitar interplay section followed by a chorus repeat.

[Don_Zabu]

I always felt there was just something about those SMiLE tracks that made them different from anything else. There's a sense of darkness on them that wasn't on  BWPS. The BWPS tracks were too 'clean', if that makes any sense.

Darkness is right. If you wanted to be especially arty about it, you could call the whole tone of Smile "chiaroscuro"; extreme light and extreme dark.

[A Million Units In Jan!]

I doubt it had anything to do with reluctance. It was about progression. Brian was moving beyond Spector.
[/quote]

Very true. Brian says this himself in the Siegel article during the whole 'Seconds' sequence.

[A Million Units In Jan!]

I dunno about the Spector influence, but what always struck me about Brian's music and his backing tracks, and alluded to above, is his embracing Dynamics.  He has NO PROBLEM putting a whisper next to a tsunami. 

One of the coolest SMiLE moments for me is the end of DYLW, after the Hawaiian chants. As the bass lines plays, the piano is very low in the mix, almost like a ghost. Brilliant.

[juggler]

I doubt it had anything to do with reluctance. It was about progression. Brian was moving beyond Spector.

Very true. Brian says this himself in the Siegel article during the whole 'Seconds' sequence.

Brian sat down at his desk and began to draw a little diagram on a piece of printed stationery with his name at the top in the kind of large fat script printers of charitable dinner journals use when the customer asks for a hand-lettered look. With a felt- tipped pen, Brian drew a close approximation of a growth curve. "Spector started the whole thing." he said, dividing the curve into periods. "He was the first one to use the studio. But I've gone beyond him now. I'm doing the spiritual sound, a white spiritual sound. Religious music. Did you hear the Beatles album? Religious, right? That's the whole movement. That's where I'm going. It's going to scare a lot of people.

"Yeah," Brian said, hitting his fist on the desk with a slap that sent the parakeets in the large cage facing him squalling and whistling. "Yeah," he said and smiled for the first time all evening. "That's where I'm going and it's going to scare a lot of people when I get there."

[Dunderhead]

I doubt it had anything to do with reluctance. It was about progression. Brian was moving beyond Spector.

Very true. Brian says this himself in the Siegel article during the whole 'Seconds' sequence.

Brian sat down at his desk and began to draw a little diagram on a piece of printed stationery with his name at the top in the kind of large fat script printers of charitable dinner journals use when the customer asks for a hand-lettered look. With a felt- tipped pen, Brian drew a close approximation of a growth curve. "Spector started the whole thing." he said, dividing the curve into periods. "He was the first one to use the studio. But I've gone beyond him now. I'm doing the spiritual sound, a white spiritual sound. Religious music. Did you hear the Beatles album? Religious, right? That's the whole movement. That's where I'm going. It's going to scare a lot of people.

"Yeah," Brian said, hitting his fist on the desk with a slap that sent the parakeets in the large cage facing him squalling and whistling. "Yeah," he said and smiled for the first time all evening. "That's where I'm going and it's going to scare a lot of people when I get there."

Would that be Rubber Soul or Revolver? I don't think I've ever heard Brian mention Revolver, only Rubber Soul. But when Brian was working on SMiLE Revolver was the current Beatles album, so...

[A Million Units In Jan!]

Would that be Rubber Soul or Revolver? I don't think I've ever heard Brian mention Revolver, only Rubber Soul. But when Brian was working on SMiLE Revolver was the current Beatles album, so...

Revolver was released in August. So Brian was talking about Revolver in this case. Although I never really heard people talk about the album in terms of 'Religious'. I guess he considered 'Tomorrow Never Knows' as a religious song because it's about LSD, which Brian tied in to religion.

[Joshilyn Hoisington]

An interesting observation (that Brian broke from the Spectorish "Wall Of Sound" approach on the original '66-'67 SMiLE sessions). 
Ironic, too, considering that Brian used Phil's favorite studio (Gold Star) more for the SMiLE tracks than for those on any other album.
For instance, on the previous three "original" albums (meaning, not counting "Party!"), only one track on "Today!" ("Do You Wanna Dance"), none on "Summer Days", and only two on "Pet Sounds" ("Wouldn't It Be Nice" and "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" were cut at Gold Star.
Yet, for SMiLE, Brian tracked the following at Gold Star:  "Good Vibrations" (at least part of it), "Wind Chimes" (ditto), "Cabinessence", "Old Master Painter/My Only Sunshine", "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow", "Friday Night/I Wanna Be Around", part of "VegaTables", and "Love To Say Da-Da".  EIGHT tracks (or parts of tracks)...a new record (plus, the original, unsed version of "Heroes And Villains was also cut there)!.  Yet, as mentioned, he avoided (either consciously or unconsciously) the epic Spector sound on most of these (only "Good Vibrations" in the verses, the "VegaTables" fade section, and maybe "Mrs. O'Learly's Cow" and the uptempo part of "Wind Chimes", to me, sound anything like the classic echoey Wall Of Sound approach).  He used Spector's studio more than ever for this project, but mostly avoided Spector's sound.

I think that's the real difference right there:  Pet Sounds is a Western album and Smile is a Gold Star one.  In some ways, the IJWMFTT is the most Smile-y sounding Pet Sounds track, you know?