SMiLE Sessions box set!

[hypehat]

http://twitter.com/#!/hasitleakedsite 

[Shady]

Nope, hasn't leaked. All the torrents posted so far are fakes

[JMZ]

I just googled "smile sessions leak" and came up with 3 sites offering it all upped within the last 3 days. Anybody here brave enough to chance it? I'm going to wait until I get home to my own computer.....

IMO, it's either the mere Mojo vinyl rip, or some fake (or something like UM17) ...  

[rogerlancelot]

I knew it had to be too good to be true. 

[Shady]

If Rolling Stone don't give SMiLE the cover story when it's released, I give up

[Jason]

If Rolling Stone don't give SMiLE the cover story when it's released, I give up

As opposed to calling the cops? 

[kirt]

Rolling Stone is just a political rag.

[brother john]

The abstract, experimental stuff just doesn't work. Its not what Brian Wilson does. He is master of the beautiful, haunting melody and the beguiling chord change. With Fire and such like he was out of his depth.

I don't agree - I think Brian was all about the abstract on many occasions. It just took for a more sophisticated audience to bring it out of him. The Fire motif , and similarly discordant songs, resurface a few times at later times: Fall Breaks, Transcendental Meditation, My Solution. Then we have more experimental stuff like the Fairy tale Msuic. Abstract is not a hat he was trying on - it's one facet of his work. During Smile he was pushing the boundaries of his music as art. I think the flaw that shoots through it is the inability to pull it all together and focus it into a whole, which Dirk McQuickly did so effectively with Sgt Pepper. I think Smile really needed an organiser - a secretary. Brian was just not disciplined enough in the end imo.

The beautiful haunting melodies and beguiling chord changes you describe are there in spades: The hawaiian chant in Worms, the verse melody of Child, the Cantina section, the whole of wonderful and Surf's Up, the doings in Cabinessence, the minor key shift of OMP, the sun dappled jauntiness of Barnyard - it goes on and on and far outweighs Pet Sounds for beautiful moments imo. What is so exciting about Smile is, as Anderle said, the fact Brian has taken the form of his work and chopped it up into the abstract - like cubism. He just blew it apart but couldn't focus enough to tie it all together into a coherent whole.

Yes, I agree, Brian really did need a musical secretary, and it is a shame he couldn't manage to pull it all together on his own. And it wasn't Brian's discipline that stopped him finishing Smile it was because he cracked under the hopelessness of it all.

However, I think - in the way I meant it - abstract is a hat he was trying on (for the right reasons) and Fire, and all the grunting and sawing and Swedish frogging were experiments that we all assume are more significant than they were. The Brian Wilson who wrote Pet Sounds would never have used that stuff, and all the nursery stuff of Holiday etc., because it was either weak or didn't work musically.

You mention other 'abstract' work, and mention Fall Breaks and Transcendental Meditation, (not sure about My Solution...) but the difference is, these were songs - (Ok, TM only just...) whereas Fire and the material I'm thinking of isn't. I don't consider FBtW or TM as 'abstract' they're just songs, allbeit unconventional.

And you must have noticed that in my post the list of Smile material I agree is great...? Again: 'Surf's Up,  Heroes And Villains,  Cabin Essence,  Wonderful  and  Child is Father..., plus Da Da and Our Prayer of course. Its a great shame 'Child...' never acquired full song status - if it had a proper worked up set of vocals it could have been another Surf's Up.'

The SMiLE vs. Pepper argument is a non-starter, for one glaring reason -- Pepper was actually finished and released, and SMiLE wasn't. So Pepper wins, if only by default. Yes, it may be true that Pepper (like SMiLE) only had an "EP's worth" of mind-blowing classics, complemented by stylish and classy filler, but where Paul (and John and George Martin) succeeded was in NOT being swallowed up by the "concept" of their album, while Brian did. Sgt. Pepper was originally (rumored to be) a song cycle about childhood and Liverpool -- an idea that was gutted when the two best tracks ("Penny Lane" b/w "Strawberry Fields") were released as a non-LP single. Then Paul had the idea about the fictional Sgt. Pepper and his band, and even went so far as to invent a "guest star" (Billy Shears) and write a song for him. At this point, the album was going to be a "concert" by Pepper, Billy and the band -- and if Paul had gone mad trying to make it work, and the LP never came out, and all we had were stories and hearsay about how amazing this faux concert album was going to be, we'd be debating all the same issues we debate with SMiLE: track order, link tracks, sound effects, suites, segues (or "segue ways" if you're a Billboard proofreader), etc.

But Paul (or more likely, John) quickly realized how much WORK the "Pepper" concept would entail, and the Peedles almost immediately scaled it back -- you had the Pepper intro, Billy's song, audience laughter at the end of "Within You" and the "Pepper" reprise before "A Day In The Life." They didn't even TRY to shoehorn the rest of the tracks into the original concept; they just sequenced a great album of individual songs. As it turned out, the cleverness of what they DID do was enough to wow the critics and the fans, and people called it a "concept album" anyway -- a myth that persists to this day. As John once said about the "Pepper" conceit, "It worked because WE SAID it worked" -- meaning it didn't hold up to careful scrutiny, but as long as it was executed with skill and bravura, people bought into it.

As many others have said, Brian needed an "Executive Producer" on SMiLE, someone to get him to focus on the big picture and not get lost in the details. Had he realized in, say January 1967, that he didn't have the time, the technology or the organizational skills to make SMiLE match what he heard in his head, he still could have chosen the best dozen songs and put out a killer album. It wouldn't have mattered if he never completed the "Americana" suite or the "Elements" movement -- the HINTS of them would have survived, and people would still have been impressed, if not blown away. I totally disagree with the notion that there were only a handful of good tracks, and the rest were all "silly" or incomplete. "Holidays" would have worked as a standalone instrumental, just as "Pet Sounds" (the song) had. Had he not gotten sidetracked/obsessed with "Heroes And Villains" he could have completed fragmentary gems like "Child Is Father" and polished a few others and released a classic LP. Maybe it would have rocked the world, or maybe it still would have been overshadowed by Sgt. Pepper -- but it's time would have come eventually, much like the Kinks' Village Green.

The best example I can think of where an artist scrapped elaborate plans for a concept album and STILL emerged with a classic, is Randy Newman's Good Old Boys. (Who's Next is another one, obviously.) Newman mapped out and even demo'd the tracks for "Billy Cutler's Birthday," the story of a southern misanthrope reflecting on his life and the South on his birthday. Randy quickly realized he was over-reaching, and pared it down to the best core songs, and recorded them as-is -- leaving characters and dangling plot lines in place. The resulting album (Good Old Boys) was brilliant, and arguably the best thing Randy's ever done -- strengthened perhaps by all the extra detail that came from the original concept that went unexplained in the released album. It gave the album a sense of "place" and mystery and created an atmosphere that drew the listener in. I wish Brian could have realized that he didn't HAVE to fully realize his vision to "complete" SMiLE -- all he had to do was complete 12 tracks and let the released album create it's own mythology.

Whatever we get in September might be great, might be a lot of fun to listen to, but it will be as accurate a representation of the 1967 SMiLE as a modern-day painting of the Mona Lisa based on a few sketches and contemporary descriptions of the painting in progress. Imagine if all we had from Sgt. Pepper was "Penny Lane," "Strawberry Fields," "Sgt. Pepper" (intro and reprise), "A Little Help," and "A Day In The Life" -- and backing tracks for another half-dozen songs. Perhaps "Lucy In The Sky" was finished for the Magical Mystery Tour project, and maybe "Within You Without You" ended up on the Wonderwall soundtrack. Perhaps Paul adds some overdubs and sticks "Getting Better" on the White Album, and John (at a loss for songs) submits "Good Morning, Good Morning" as the opening track of Abbey Road. (In this scenario, of course, Yoko jumps out of her bed in the studio and says she "hears" animals stampeding at the end of the song. John loves it, George Martin rolls his eyes, and we have a classic "tag" to the song.) But I digress...

Imagine the wild "Pepper" comps we'd all be dreaming up 30 years later -- and they'd all be wildly off the mark, of course. And to make matters MORE complicated, imagine that Paul resurrects the project in 2003 and releases "Dirk McQuickly Presents Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"! Oh my God!! "A Day In The Life" is in the middle now! "Mr. Kite" is a pirate!! All we've known for 35 years has been wrong!!! (Cue gargling, strangling sounds as "Pepper Nerds" choke on their cherished theories.) I don't envy the task that Mark Linett and Alan Boyd have accepted, and I dread the backlash that awaits them courtesy of the more self-righteous and less generous fans after the set is released. (Hell, people have already suggested running Linett out of town over 0.5 seconds of "Cabinessence" on a giveaway 45!)

Very smart and entertaining post, but again, I did originally praise the obvious gems such as CiFttM etc.

In terms of Sgt Pepper I think its well over-rated and has less good songs than Smile! 

The abstract, experimental stuff just doesn't work. Its not what Brian Wilson does. He is master of the beautiful, haunting melody and the beguiling chord change. With Fire and such like he was out of his depth.

"The abstract, experimental stuff just doesn't work."

Jesus galo gobbling Christ on a pogo stick.

I don't think I've ever read a more ridiculous statement on this forum and everyone knows that the Beach Boys' fan base is a collective cesspool for ridiculousness at times.

For one, if you think Smile is the only "abstract, experimental stuff" Brian ever worked on, you have a very tunneled view of the Beach Boys' music. I would argue that the "abstract, experimental stuff" was showing up in pieces on things like In My Room, Drive-In, When I Grow Up, Please Let Me Wonder, California Girls, Let Him Run Wild, and the whole of Pet Sounds. Smile wasn't exactly Brian pulling the carpet out from under everyone although it was indeed more radical than the stuff before it, sure. But to say that the "abstract, experimental stuff" just doesn't work is to negate the impact of not only the Smile music, but many of the Beach Boys' hit singles, not to mention a little inconsequential "abstract, experimental" ditty like Pet Sounds.

Come on, dude. Even in my defense of Michael Love I haven't made such a ridiculous statement. I'd say the Smile sessions are best left unreleased and not wasted on the likes of you.

Clearly my use of the words 'abstract and experimental have been widely miss-interpreted. I think its a bit far fetched to describe IMR and WIGU and the rest as 'a & e' but that's a discussion for another time perhaps. I just get no joy from listening to Brian writing non-musical music such as Fire and Frog, and think that the nursery/fairground stuff was musically so much beneath what he was obviously capable off.

My feeling is that Smile Smile (one of my top 5 BB albums) accomplished what Brian set out to do with Smile, and that while it hasn't been treated that kindly by history (though I know it has its supporters around here) it is a towering achievement that combines the beauty, the difficulty, the humour, the musicality etc. that never quite made it into a cohesive form on Smile.

I know lots of people will disagree with me, and I know I got a few backs up with criticising the hallowed ground that is Smile, but give me Surf's Up over Holidays any day.

P.S. Sorry about the massive quotes, I know they make the board a bit unwieldy...

[bsten]

So, the consensus is that the Smile box is coming our way - sooner or later.
But then what? No more boots? End of discussion(s)? "This is it"?
/B

[juggler]

Just posted this message on the Steve Hoffmann SMiLE tread:

Browsing through the new issue of Uncut magazine in Tower Records Dublin today, at the end of the new music review section, beside recommendations, has a box which notes three upcoming reviews in next months edition: Beach Boys.........SMiLE sessions.

AGD's educated guess of September release looking more likely........

I was in the exact same tower records today and caught that little nugget..

SMiLE is coming and it seems it's coming very soon 

How did the biggest smile news in months get completely bypassed lol

Question for those of you with some experience in this field....  To put out a magazine review a month from now, at what point would Uncut need to be in possession of an advance copy of the Smile Sessions?  Would they have it already?   Any chance they're just blowing smoke?  

[Andrew G. Doe]

Just posted this message on the Steve Hoffmann SMiLE tread:

Browsing through the new issue of Uncut magazine in Tower Records Dublin today, at the end of the new music review section, beside recommendations, has a box which notes three upcoming reviews in next months edition: Beach Boys.........SMiLE sessions.

AGD's educated guess of September release looking more likely........

I was in the exact same tower records today and caught that little nugget..

SMiLE is coming and it seems it's coming very soon 

How did the biggest smile news in months get completely bypassed lol

Question for those of you with some experience in this field....  To put out a magazine review a month from now, at what point would Uncut need to be in possession of an advance copy of the Smile Sessions?  Would they have it already?   Any chance they're just blowing smoke?  

These days, with DTP and the like... maybe a week before street date.

[c-man]

If Rolling Stone don't give SMiLE the cover story when it's released, I give up

I'm betting they'll give it a feature story, with a headline on the cover, but I really doubt it will be "the" cover story.

[rab2591]

If Rolling Stone don't give SMiLE the cover story when it's released, I give up

I'm betting they'll give it a feature story, with a headline on the cover, but I really doubt it will be "the" cover story.

Agreed. I hear Snooki is leaving Jersey Shore; that will take top precedence in the Rolling Stone world of music for the next few months.

[Shady]

Yeah but smile coming out along with The Beach Boys 50th,  absolutely criminal to not devote the cover to that

If Rolling Stone don't give SMiLE the cover story when it's released, I give up

I'm betting they'll give it a feature story, with a headline on the cover, but I really doubt it will be "the" cover story.

Agreed. I hear Snooki is leaving Jersey Shore; that will take top precedence in the Rolling Stone world of music for the next few months.

 

 Funny because  it's true

[hypehat]

Brother  John, I feel you are hugely wrong about the musical values of something like Fire or Holidays - Holidays is a great arrangement over some odd changes, with the flute beginning/bridge being an absolutely masterful chord sequence - try playing Holidays on a piano.

Or dissect the string arrangement of Fire, for that matter. How is that simple?

[earcandy]

If Rolling Stone don't give SMiLE the cover story when it's released, I give up

Yeah, but when Rolling Stone does it, it will probably be like this...

[Myk Luhv]

I would read the f*** out of that!

[Shady]

If Rolling Stone don't give SMiLE the cover story when it's released, I give up

Yeah, but when Rolling Stone does it, it will probably be like this...

 

Brilliant, what a great read that would be

[rab2591]

I would read the foder out of that!

Brilliant, what a great read that would be

And thus begins earcandy's two-week long marathon of creating an entire Mike Love edition of a Rolling Stone magazine.

[earcandy]

I would read the foder out of that!

Brilliant, what a great read that would be

And thus begins earcandy's two-week long marathon of creating an entire Mike Love edition of a Rolling Stone magazine.

LMFAO!    Mike Love quote: the Elements was totally MY idea!

[earcandy]

I would read the foder out of that!

Brilliant, what a great read that would be

And thus begins earcandy's two-week long marathon of creating an entire Mike Love edition of a Rolling Stone magazine.

Gotta be more accurate than Mojo! 

[earcandy]

If Rolling Stone don't give SMiLE the cover story when it's released, I give up

Yeah, but when Rolling Stone does it, it will probably be like this...

 

Brilliant, what a great read that would be

Forgot to add...Phil Cohen's take on the box set....

[Shady]

Forgot to add...Phil Cohen's take on the box set....

"Why I was wrong"

 

[Mark Dillon]

If Rolling Stone don't give SMiLE the cover story when it's released, I give up

Yeah, but when Rolling Stone does it, it will probably be like this...

earcandy: That's bloody classic!

[Andrew G. Doe]

I would read the foder out of that!

Brilliant, what a great read that would be

And thus begins earcandy's two-week long marathon of creating an entire Mike Love edition of a Rolling Stone magazine.

For f***'s sake don't encourage him !