Unanswerable Question?

[MyGlove]

Ok, what i'm about to ask is of course impossible to know for sure. But I'm curious about your opinion on this matter. Let's just say Smile was released in January 1967 as originally planned, it had very good critical and commercial reception and all that jazz. What would the Beach Boys have done from there? Go back in the studio and try for another one? Take a breather and make an album like Friends for 1968? Would they have even stayed together? How would their musical peers have responded? Obviously Sgt Pepper hadn't been released by that point. But what about that whole Beatles vs Beach Boys thing? What would have happened to them? Or anyone else. People say the whole psychadelic thing ended with The Rolling Stone's psychadelic album, but i think it's really fair to say that the release of Smiley Smile instead of Smile kind of affected the musical community's attitude toward that whole movement at least. I think that could've seen a lot more success in the years after that. I'd like to think that the Beach Boys would now be considered among everybody the best band ever, but idk if i'm willing to go that far. What about your opinion? Have you ever even thought about it?

[Nicko1234]

A massive problem that I have with the question is you're immediately supposing that Smile would have had a very good commercial reception. Pet Sounds didn't particularly and I don't think Smile would have either.

If Smile had been released then Brian would still have suffered severe mental health problems and things wouldn't have been too different.

[Iron Horse-Apples]

A massive problem that I have with the question is you're immediately supposing that Smile would have had a very good commercial reception. Pet Sounds didn't particularly and I don't think Smile would have either.

But Pet Sounds wasn't released on the back of a huge worldwide smash hit single, not to mention Derek Taylor's new direction of publicity.

If SMiLE had been released, and released at the right time, then I think it would have been huge.

And to answer the initial post. I think we would have had a Wild Honey type album next, but with the production values of "Can't Wait Too Long"

Moot question though. We have what we have. And it's fantastic. And SMiLE has been hugely inflential despite of and because of it's non release in '67

Has spell check been disablededed?

[Chocolate Shake Man]

A massive problem that I have with the question is you're immediately supposing that Smile would have had a very good commercial reception. Pet Sounds didn't particularly and I don't think Smile would have either.

But Pet Sounds wasn't released on the back of a huge worldwide smash hit single, not to mention Derek Taylor's new direction of publicity.

Well, they weren't as big as Good Vibrations but Barbara Ann had been a huge smash #2 hit five months earlier and Sloop John B was a smash #3 single a few months earlier. They had pretty good momentum at that point. Also, I'm pretty sure Derek Taylor was doing publicity work for them at that point.

Ultimately, I think it's impossible to really say but I don't think there would have been a Wild Honey kind of album. Wild Honey really came about because Brian changed his process and method. I am pretty sure he decided that it was the production race that had really been part of the problem with Smile - it was ultimately what stalled production for so long and I think part of the feeling was that he could either keeping aiming for perfection and never put anything out or simply get on with things and construct songs that didn't need such overwhelming production. So if Smile had been released successfully, I just don't see him really writing songs like the Wild Honey songs - which, incidentally, are incredible songs. And if I could tell you what kind of songs he'd have written, I'd probably be a successful songwriter myself. And I'm not.

[Ron]

If they would have released SMiLE, it would have been great like Pet Sounds was.... and THEN Brian would have lost it, 6 months later.  He went as long as he could, he wouldn't have held up much longer even if he hadn't started breaking apart. 

The big jump in quality, and creativity... was before Pet Sounds.  SMiLE wouldn't have changed their paths, Pet Sounds already had. 

[pixletwin]

I personally think Wild Honey would still have happened. Perhaps Brian's collapse wouldn't have come so soon. Or perhaps the success would have accelerated it?

[Mike's Beard]

In a strange way Smile had more of an impact by being abandoned than it ever would have had, had it been released. With Brian junking it, it achieved mythical proportions. Had it came out, it would have been just another great album in a year of many great albums.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

If they would have released SMiLE, it would have been great like Pet Sounds was.... and THEN Brian would have lost it, 6 months later. 

Did Brian really "lose it" around this time? I mean, he lost focus certainly but it was nothing like the real kind of collapse that occured after the Friends album. I think (and this is really more hypothetical than anything else) that part of his eventual collapse was his inability to have control over things like he once did and part of that had to do with not being able to put out Smile but also other things like the growing irrelevance of the band, his father selling his songs and so forth. I think that Brian releasing Smile would have at least kept him in some kind of control for a while.

But I do ultimately agree that he was susceptible to breaking down. I just don't think it would have necessarily happened around that time.

[pixletwin]

If they would have released SMiLE, it would have been great like Pet Sounds was.... and THEN Brian would have lost it, 6 months later.

Did Brian really "lose it" around this time?

He did do a stint in a mental hospital in 1968.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

Yes. That's the collapse after the Friends album that I was referring to.

[Ron]

There's no such thing as a 'mental breakdown', but he did 'lose' it, obviously, while recording SMiLE.  I think basically he lost confidence in his own abilities, before that time he was at least still capable of finishing what he began, I believe he was unable to decide how to finish the smile album. 

[Chocolate Shake Man]

There's no such thing as a 'mental breakdown', but he did 'lose' it, obviously, while recording SMiLE.  I think basically he lost confidence in his own abilities, before that time he was at least still capable of finishing what he began, I believe he was unable to decide how to finish the smile album. 

I think he did lose confidence in his own abilities to a certain degree but it wasn't to such an extent that it stopped him from still writing a lot of songs and being a significant figure in the studio for Smiley, Wild Honey, and Friends. The very existence of those records, to me, suggests that he was still fairly confident as a songwriter. I do think though that he had a difficult time responding to the pressure of making the next "BIG" album and it started to become a bigger pressure as deadlines were missed and there was a real need to put something out ASAP. But that's a fairly reasonable response, I'd say. His choices were either keep going in this direction, to hell with deadlines, pressure from record company to put something out soon; rush (by his standards) out a record he'd been pouring his heart and soul into for months and have it not entirely the way he likes it (which probably seemed like a waste of all that effort); or, just go on and do something else that would require less time and energy. His choice seems to make some sense. I'm really not so sure I would classify it as "losing it."

[lee]

I believe he was unable to decide how to finish the smile album.  

I agree. Smile was a collaboration between Brian and Van Dyke. I think once Van Dyke left, and Brian didn't have him to bounce ideas off of, he wasn't sure how to finish it.

[SBonilla]

There's no such thing as a 'mental breakdown', but he did 'lose' it, obviously...

I think you've lost something.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

I believe he was unable to decide how to finish the smile album. 

I agree. Smile was a collaboration between Brian and Van Dyke. I think once Van Dyke left, and Brian didn't have him to bounce ideas off of, he wasn't sure how to finish it.

That's my own personal choice for Smile's death knell.

What would Brian have done if Smile had been released? Really hard to tell, considering that Smile material would populate much of their albums over the next several years.  That said, his material in the immediate post Smile/Smiley Smile era was excellent. Wild Honey was a great album, and if it had been released in pristine sound...watch out. Still don't understand why the sound on the SOT release was so much better than the actual album, though. In any case, there was no decline in his abilities at that point. I think the real killer was whatever happened in 1968. Apparently Brian came out 'different' after his release, which makes me wonder what happened...

[Lonely Summer]

A massive problem that I have with the question is you're immediately supposing that Smile would have had a very good commercial reception. Pet Sounds didn't particularly and I don't think Smile would have either.

If Smile had been released then Brian would still have suffered severe mental health problems and things wouldn't have been too different.

I've never understood all these years how a top 10 album can be considered a commercial failure. As far as I know, the Beach Boys never had an album that was number 1 for weeks and weeks like the Beatles did, yet they were considered "popular". Never had a gold record until "Good Vibrations", yet were supposedly one of the biggest selling acts of the era. I'm gonna guess that Smile would've done at least as well as Pet Sounds, far better than the eventual Smiley Smile did...and having gone all the way with Smile in '67, Brian would've been faced with the challenge of "okay, I topped PS with Smile...now how the hell do  I top THAT?" At some point, an artist has gone as far "out" as they can, and has to settle back down to earth. So I would guess that a Friends or Wild Honey type album was gonna come anyway, or Brian may have just given up completely. We are fortunate that he didn't give up, and we got Wild Honey, Friends, Sunflower, Holland....

[b00ts]

A massive problem that I have with the question is you're immediately supposing that Smile would have had a very good commercial reception. Pet Sounds didn't particularly and I don't think Smile would have either.

If Smile had been released then Brian would still have suffered severe mental health problems and things wouldn't have been too different.

I've never understood all these years how a top 10 album can be considered a commercial failure. As far as I know, the Beach Boys never had an album that was number 1 for weeks and weeks like the Beatles did, yet they were considered "popular". Never had a gold record until "Good Vibrations", yet were supposedly one of the biggest selling acts of the era. I'm gonna guess that Smile would've done at least as well as Pet Sounds, far better than the eventual Smiley Smile did...and having gone all the way with Smile in '67, Brian would've been faced with the challenge of "okay, I topped PS with Smile...now how the hell do  I top THAT?" At some point, an artist has gone as far "out" as they can, and has to settle back down to earth. So I would guess that a Friends or Wild Honey type album was gonna come anyway, or Brian may have just given up completely. We are fortunate that he didn't give up, and we got Wild Honey, Friends, Sunflower, Holland....

Wow. A topic that has come up innumerable times on this board, and you just gave the definitive answer. This should be posted on the Smileysmile.net homepage. Excellent post.

[Amanda Hart]

A massive problem that I have with the question is you're immediately supposing that Smile would have had a very good commercial reception. Pet Sounds didn't particularly and I don't think Smile would have either.

If Smile had been released then Brian would still have suffered severe mental health problems and things wouldn't have been too different.

I've never understood all these years how a top 10 album can be considered a commercial failure. As far as I know, the Beach Boys never had an album that was number 1 for weeks and weeks like the Beatles did, yet they were considered "popular". Never had a gold record until "Good Vibrations", yet were supposedly one of the biggest selling acts of the era. I'm gonna guess that Smile would've done at least as well as Pet Sounds, far better than the eventual Smiley Smile did...and having gone all the way with Smile in '67, Brian would've been faced with the challenge of "okay, I topped PS with Smile...now how the hell do  I top THAT?" At some point, an artist has gone as far "out" as they can, and has to settle back down to earth. So I would guess that a Friends or Wild Honey type album was gonna come anyway, or Brian may have just given up completely. We are fortunate that he didn't give up, and we got Wild Honey, Friends, Sunflower, Holland....

I think you'll have a lot of people agree with this. Also, consider that popular music as a whole started moving to a "roots rock" type sound after '67. No matter what happened with Smile, Brian and the Boys would have moved to this more lo-fi sound with the rest of their peers in the next year or two anyway.

The band's credibility hit came down to many more factors than just Smile, including their stage outfits, skipping on Monterey Pop and their past image and music. Their decline was nearly inevitable and Smile's release wouldn't have changed things too much, imo, either in '67 or in how they are perceived now.

[DonnyL]

I actually believe the answer is pretty simple:

Things would have gone essentially the way they did otherwise.  SMiLE would have probably done better than SMILEY (commerically and critically), but this idea that the group's demise was tied to SMiLE's non-release is overstated in my opinion.  Times were changing and the Beach Boys were bound to change along with them.  This includes the stripped down sound which was inevitable for most bands following the overblown Flower Power scene.  The following albums would have ended up slightly weaker without the SMiLE tracks to pad them, that's about it.

[Lonely Summer]

Looks like we're all on the same page here. Even the Beatles "stripped down" a bit for the white album - although they still took an incredibly long time in recording it by 1968 standards - to the point where they couldn't stand each other anymore! But that's another subject for a different thread. 

[DonnyL]

A massive problem that I have with the question is you're immediately supposing that Smile would have had a very good commercial reception. Pet Sounds didn't particularly and I don't think Smile would have either.

If Smile had been released then Brian would still have suffered severe mental health problems and things wouldn't have been too different.

I've never understood all these years how a top 10 album can be considered a commercial failure. As far as I know, the Beach Boys never had an album that was number 1 for weeks and weeks like the Beatles did, yet they were considered "popular". Never had a gold record until "Good Vibrations", yet were supposedly one of the biggest selling acts of the era. I'm gonna guess that Smile would've done at least as well as Pet Sounds, far better than the eventual Smiley Smile did...and having gone all the way with Smile in '67, Brian would've been faced with the challenge of "okay, I topped PS with Smile...now how the hell do  I top THAT?" At some point, an artist has gone as far "out" as they can, and has to settle back down to earth. So I would guess that a Friends or Wild Honey type album was gonna come anyway, or Brian may have just given up completely. We are fortunate that he didn't give up, and we got Wild Honey, Friends, Sunflower, Holland....

Pet Sounds was certainly popular by pop music standards.  And while chart position doesn't tell the whole story, its performance was disappointing compared to previous releases, including the previous PARTY album.  And Capitol rush-released the first of the endless 'BEST OF' comps within a few months of Pet Sounds.

[MyGlove]

I actually believe the answer is pretty simple:

Things would have gone essentially the way they did otherwise.  SMiLE would have probably done better than SMILEY (commerically and critically), but this idea that the group's demise was tied to SMiLE's non-release is overstated in my opinion.  Times were changing and the Beach Boys were bound to change along with them.  This includes the stripped down sound which was inevitable for most bands following the overblown Flower Power scene.  The following albums would have ended up slightly weaker without the SMiLE tracks to pad them, that's about it.

Do you really think so? Its so hard to figure out cuz EVERYONE has a different freakin opinion about what actually happened. Very Confusing. I think it had to have at least affected their popularity. I mean I don't really think it affected the quality of the future music, considering the music that they did release after that. Top notch. The weird thing tho is that it does seem kinda like what someone else said, that Smile is more popular cuz of its unreleased status than it would have been released. That almost seems true. But idk.

[Ebb and Flow]

If Smile had been a success and more importantly a positive and fulfilling experience for Brian I think there would have been little or no reason for Brian to ditch the way he'd been recording for years and move to the home studio/give the group more control of the reins.  Regardless of what music they would have recorded after Smile, continuing to record at Western/Gold Star would have changed their history and the way their 60's albums sounded...no question.

[DonnyL]

I actually believe the answer is pretty simple:

Things would have gone essentially the way they did otherwise.  SMiLE would have probably done better than SMILEY (commerically and critically), but this idea that the group's demise was tied to SMiLE's non-release is overstated in my opinion.  Times were changing and the Beach Boys were bound to change along with them.  This includes the stripped down sound which was inevitable for most bands following the overblown Flower Power scene.  The following albums would have ended up slightly weaker without the SMiLE tracks to pad them, that's about it.

Do you really think so? Its so hard to figure out cuz EVERYONE has a different freakin opinion about what actually happened. Very Confusing. I think it had to have at least affected their popularity. I mean I don't really think it affected the quality of the future music, considering the music that they did release after that. Top notch. The weird thing tho is that it does seem kinda like what someone else said, that Smile is more popular cuz of its unreleased status than it would have been released. That almost seems true. But idk.

I mean, I understand the "Heroes & Villains" single that came out was not quite what was originally imagined, but I think it provides insight into the kind of reception that would have greeted SMiLE: reasonably better reaction than SMiLEY, but generally a similar outcome.  The Beach Boys were still The Beach Boys; there's a certain stigma there regardless.  Ditto playing Monterey.  They were just kind of out of step with the times.  SMiLE would have still sounded like a 'psychedelic barbershop quartet' to Hendrix.  SMiLEY was only such a weird disappointment to those who were following the group.  Otherwise, it's just a weird Beach Boys album.

Personally, I feel these 'what if' scenarios are interesting, but I don't believe SMiLE was ever finished (now or then, or in 2004) ... just listening to the sessions, there is an aimlessness there.  The thing was sort of doomed from the beginning.  I don't think it was ever, nor will it ever be, possible to put together a cohesive album in the way it was envisioned.  You can tell BW was losing it during the sessions, perhaps (sadly) never had it.  Part of SMiLE's appeal is in this reality ... the intangible.

For one shining moment, it all worked ("Good Vibrations").  Then the darkness came.  Then light at the end of the tunnel (SMILEY).

I'm of the opinion that SMILEY is SMiLE, as finished and released in '67.  Things progressed from there in the only way possible.

[hypehat]

... just listening to the sessions, there is an aimlessness there.  The thing was sort of doomed from the beginning.  I don't think it was ever, nor will it ever be, possible to put together a cohesive album in the way it was envisioned.  You can tell BW was losing it during the sessions, perhaps (sadly) never had it.  Part of SMiLE's appeal is in this reality ... the intangible.

This becomes incredibly obvious when listening to the sessions in chronological order, especially with the humour stuff - those particularly add to the feeling of him losing control of the situation in some respects, especially since before these start cropping up the sessions are progressing in a logical fashion - Worms, Wind Chimes, Cabin Essence, Wonderful, Holidays, and what we have to assume was the working order of H&V are all tracked in order, and then the thing just gets increasingly minute and fragmented...