Smile has become greater than it ever would have been

[ghost]

Smile has gone from a vague concept of a follow up to Pet Sounds to a lasting myth involving an entire generation and a band and the fans and everything under the sun. Smile is an interactive piece now, it's out of Brian's hands. It's ours, mine, yours. We rearrange the pieces like a child with lego. We are Brian Wilson. We are producer. Smile is our puzzle to solve. The smile that you send out returns to you. Indian wisdom.

Let us all thank time and each other for sustaining a living mythology in the modern age. Smile.

[MBE]

For better or worse (worse at the time, better as the years passed) you are spot on.

[The Shift]

Very well put.  We've all fed it, nurtured it… now we have the pleasure of watching it grow.

[Heysaboda]

I agree w/ Ghost in that, what we are getting on Nov. 1/Oct. 31 is probably 1,000 times better than what would have been released in 1967.  SMiLE in 1967 could have been a "rush job".  Confused, uneven.

Now, it will be fully realized as the genius work that it is.  A worthy successor to Pet Sounds and the equal or better to Sgt. Pepper.

To me, BWPS is the "key" to SMiLE.  I will understand the Beach Boys' SMiLE better after having heard and seen (and loved) BWPS.  Besides being a beautiful record, BWPS also solidified the story and sequencing.

"It all made sense to me after BWPS."

Call me crazy!   

[thevigilanteoflove]

I agree with you for the most part. I really wish it could have just been released back in 1967. It would have most likely been critically acclaimed, possibly sold well, or at least better than Pet Sounds, due to the success of Good Vibrations, and then remastered and re-sold tons of times afterward. This long 44 year wait has given it an almost mythical status, and I think people who go in thinking it's going to change their lives may be disappointed. I'm trying to go in with the mindset that I have probably heard most of this stuff before, but not nearly at the quality of sound, convenience, or organization; and more importantly, the first 19 songs on the first disc is the closest we'll ever get to a true SMiLE album recorded by The Beach Boys. I could never ask for more than that.

[Iron Horse-Apples]

It's funny, I went to bed last night thinking about that exact same thing.

Had it been released back in the day, I think it would have been huge. Then the psychedelic phase would have past. It would have gone in and out of vogue, made top ten best album lists in the 90's and settled into old age as a classic 60's album.

However, by not releasing it it has become the great unimaginable. The lost chord. Musica Mundana - the music of the spheres.

When I started out writing music, it was wonderful being inspired by something I could only imagine, a concept. Making whole albums out of tiny fragments with only a myth to guide me.

SMiLE to me  sums up everything great about art that inspires. It is just a feeling, albeit a feeling of perfection.

I think the greatest thing that SMiLE - The Myth taught me was that music can be so much more. Brian went back to the baroque period for good reason during the SMiLE era. That was the apex of western musical development. When there was music for the sake of music. Unfettered by meaning, set free by structure.

With SMiLE Brian gave us a new structure, and we should be running with that.

[JohnMill]

Smile has gone from a vague concept of a follow up to Pet Sounds to a lasting myth involving an entire generation and a band and the fans and everything under the sun. Smile is an interactive piece now, it's out of Brian's hands. It's ours, mine, yours. We rearrange the pieces like a child with lego. We are Brian Wilson. We are producer. Smile is our puzzle to solve. The smile that you send out returns to you. Indian wisdom.

Let us all thank time and each other for sustaining a living mythology in the modern age. Smile.

You are very much correct.  In many ways it is the embodiment of he phrase "Music Belongs To All Of Us".  Abandoned and obscured it was picked up, held up and sustained by the care, love and attention of fanbase that never stopping enjoying and believing in the music.  Although Brian and Van Dyke were the creators of the these wonderful pieces of music in many ways they handed it off to the fans in essence saying "Here we're taken this music this far, we'll leave it to you to sort out, to enjoy and to ultimately remind us of how great the music was that we recorded all those years ago".

As far as the "Smile Sessions" box itself?  I mean look at it!  It's a thing of beauty with a beautiful annotated booklet, a double LP, a double CD, sessions galore and in some cases a box that lights up and a flaming surfboard.  Nobody could've even imagined album packaging like this back in 1966.  This is going to be tremendous.

[Roger Ryan]

Of course, had the album been released in '67 we would have had complete vocals on everything that was supposed to have vocals.

Apart from that, I think SMiLE will really hold up as a substantial work despite not being finished. It will be interesting to hear the response from folks who are unfamiliar with the tracks to see if they judge the work with the same importance. I supposed it will be similar to how people responded to BWPS.

[theCOD]

Very true, and it's about to get even more exciting. It will be hard to resist mentally sequencing the ULTIMATE SMiLE mix as I listen to the box for the first time. First order of business will be tacking on the piano/jazzy fade to CIFOTM and Bag of Tricks to the beginning of MOLC. The BWPS versions sound incomplete to me without them.

[Empire Of Love]

A question and a comment:

Reading through this thread it struck me that though Brian and Van Dyk clearly didn't intend for their art to be interactive, the fact that it was left incomplete combined with the leaked boots, it did in fact become interactive.  This led me to the thought that it would be awfully cool if an artist were to begin an "album" with this concept in mind from the beginning.  Just imagine if nothing had ever been released, save Good Vibrations.  Then 40 years later Brian releases thousands of fragments of sessions and lets "us" do what we please with them.  I don't know enough about the pieces (and how piecemeal it really was) to tell whether this is nonsense or not, but it doesn't matter because my real question: has anyone (of note) ever done something like this?  Has anyone ever released a bunch of fragments for a group of unheard songs and let the fans have at it?  It would be kind of cool.

I think the greatest thing that SMiLE - The Myth taught me was that music can be so much more. Brian went back to the baroque period for good reason during the SMiLE era. That was the apex of western musical development. When there was music for the sake of music. Unfettered by meaning, set free by structure.

Are you saying that the baroque period was unfettered by meaning?  I would have thought that just as the structure was fairly rigid in the baroque period so too was the meaning.  Am I wrong?  Or perhaps you meant something else?

Regardless, I enjoyed your post.  Thanks.

mps

[puni puni]

SMiLE in 1967 could have been a "rush job".  Confused, uneven.

I agree with this. It would have been an avant garde mess.

At least the multi-tracks would have a better chance of surviving.

[monicker]

Iron Horse Apples, have you checked out Moondog yet?

[hypehat]

A question and a comment:

Reading through this thread it struck me that though Brian and Van Dyk clearly didn't intend for their art to be interactive, the fact that it was left incomplete combined with the leaked boots, it did in fact become interactive.  This led me to the thought that it would be awfully cool if an artist were to begin an "album" with this concept in mind from the beginning.  Just imagine if nothing had ever been released, save Good Vibrations.  Then 40 years later Brian releases thousands of fragments of sessions and lets "us" do what we please with them.  I don't know enough about the pieces (and how piecemeal it really was) to tell whether this is nonsense or not, but it doesn't matter because my real question: has anyone (of note) ever done something like this?  Has anyone ever released a bunch of fragments for a group of unheard songs and let the fans have at it?  It would be kind of cool.

I know Todd Rundgren did this in the late nineties in the dark days when people thought the CDROM or internet would change things... How right he was, yet how wrong 

I coulda sworn Prince did one of these as well, but I can't find anything. Maybe I'm imagining things....


Todd = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_World_Order

[monicker]

It seems like something The Residents would have done in the era of CD-ROM, but i don't know. Just a guess.

[theCOD]

It seems like something The Residents would have done in the era of CD-ROM, but i don't know. Just a guess.

Now that you mention it, it's kind of surprising they didn't do something like this. It would have been much more interesting than any of the multimedia projects they did release.

[Bill Tobelman]

I think that by SMiLE not coming out in 1967 we were presented with a mystery. What was this SMiLE thing?

Add to that the idea that the album itself was to be a mystery. That's two mysteries for the price of one.

[18thofMay]

Still not getting of that cloud are you Bill.

[Bill Tobelman]

18th said:

"Still not getting of that cloud are you Bill."

I do have a problem of seeing the bigger picture. Maybe you can send me some blinders.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

Am I an idiot to wish there was an accompanying Smiley Smile sessions boxset coming out too?

[18thofMay]

18th said:

"Still not getting of that cloud are you Bill."

I do have a problem of seeing the bigger picture. Maybe you can send me some blinders.

Sometimes Bill when that picture is contained within a frame that is as far as you should look. The picture has the depth and takes you on the journey, it can be what ever you want it to be . But it can never be what it is not.

[monicker]

Am I an idiot to wish there was an accompanying Smiley Smile sessions boxset coming out too?

No. That would truly be a dream come true. A stereo mix. Remastered new mono mix. Sessions. Alternate versions. Unreleased stuff. Amazing.

[OneEar/OneEye]

18th said:

"Still not getting of that cloud are you Bill."

I do have a problem of seeing the bigger picture. Maybe you can send me some blinders.

Sometimes Bill when that picture is contained within a frame that is as far as you should look. The picture has the depth and takes you on the journey, it can be what ever you want it to be . But it can never be what it is not.

But if the original picture was never completed and framed, then who can say what that picture is not? 

[bsten]

Scuse me [while I kiss the sky] I'm from Sweden so my English is not so good... Anyhow...

What were the limitations back then? When Smile was about to be released the 33 rpm vinyl album - with an A-side and a B-side, and 5-7 songs on each side - was the only format available. Also, most of the songs back then were supposed to be 2-4 minutes long. No-one wanted "symphony-long" tunes in the 60's. There was however a break in the late 60's, with songs like Eloise (5 min - Barry Ryan), Mac Arthur Park (7 min - Richard Harris) and of course Hey Jude (7 min - Beatles). I am quite sure the limitations - vinyl albums, short songs - were _part of_ (please note - part of) Brian abandoning the project. Otherwise perhaps we could have had an interactive sort of release. There's the excellent Smile Project cd floating around which is a good example of how it could have been. 

[ghost]

18th said:

"Still not getting of that cloud are you Bill."

I do have a problem of seeing the bigger picture. Maybe you can send me some blinders.

Sometimes Bill when that picture is contained within a frame that is as far as you should look. The picture has the depth and takes you on the journey, it can be what ever you want it to be . But it can never be what it is not.

So what is Smile then? You are so quick with one liners aimed at Bill when he posts but I can't recall your perspective on Smile other than it being "just an album". Bill sees the metatruth of Smile - that its non-release left a mystery for the fans. Smile was hyped and then never was - Smiley Smile came to be from it. But what was this Smile thing? Smile for many years was an absence. These days we're awash in Smile music. How can something come from nothing?

[OneEar/OneEye]

Scuse me [while I kiss the sky] I'm from Sweden so my English is not so good... Anyhow...

What were the limitations back then? When Smile was about to be released the 33 rpm vinyl album - with an A-side and a B-side, and 5-7 songs on each side - was the only format available. Also, most of the songs back then were supposed to be 2-4 minutes long. No-one wanted "symphony-long" tunes in the 60's. There was however a break in the late 60's, with songs like Eloise (5 min - Barry Ryan), Mac Arthur Park (7 min - Richard Harris) and of course Hey Jude (7 min - Beatles). I am quite sure the limitations - vinyl albums, short songs - were _part of_ (please note - part of) Brian abandoning the project. Otherwise perhaps we could have had an interactive sort of release. There's the excellent Smile Project cd floating around which is a good example of how it could have been. 

  I don't see that it had to be a sprawling album with long tracks.   Brian himself commented at the time that (paraphrasing here), "when you're stoned 20 seconds of music seems like hours."   Stoned or not, this music has that effect of extending time, to me anyway.  Smiley Smile seems to go on much longer than its actual length (again, to me anyway) , and I think Smile would have been similar - a two sided album of short pieces strung together  (as either individual "songs" or possibly linked together)  - bing bada boom, and you're out of there, only in less time than it seems.