The Smiley Smile Message Board

Imagine SMiLE had been released. What would Brian have done next to follow it up? I personally think that a better produced version of an album like Wild Honey would hve been released, but still as a 'cool down' album.

I could have seen Brian scoring films...that's  what Run James Run was all about.

I think every single person on this board has run this scenario through their minds a zillion times.

For me, I think there's basically 2 routes

1) Brian finishes SMiLE, it's a failure in the US and big in GB (like PS). The band/label are upset and "x" and "y" happens. The toll it takes to complete is overwhelming, and in light of its perceived failure he continues copious drug intake/mental decline and dies from one of many possible causes. WH never happens as the band is devastated and disintegrates for a period.

2) Brian finishes SMiLE, and it's a smash hit and/or at the very least a moderate success in US, and huge in GB. The band/label say, hey! that wasn't so bad - let's have more please! Brian (having learned from his mistakes) goes on to work with the BB's streamlining his production for perhaps the true prog/psychedelic movement beating Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Hendrix et al to the punch, do the Monterey festival and BB's retain their street cred. Eventually the BB's grow up and move off into the same WH direction, Brian taking a backseat role in the band if at all, instead moving on to produce the greatest acts of the 70's. He never really gets involved in drugs, and the huge boost to his ego keeps his mental state in balance for decades to come. And of course, Dennis is still with us. Sometime in the latter part of the first decade of the 21st century after producing dozens of hit bands and scoring a hundred films he creates his first album in years "Gershwin Re imagined".

One thing I feel strongly about, though I have no proof obviously, is that had Smile been released in Dec'66/Jan'67, there's no way it would have been an out and out "flop".  I cannot accept that at that time, with the attention it would have recieved, songs like Cabin Essence and Surf's Up would have been ignored or been recieved with a "so what?", "big deal", "that sucks", "it's too weird".  attitude.  No way.   Maybe some of their audience would have departed, but I think it might have brought in a whole new audience to replace them.

But (my apologies) this is a thread about afterwards....perhaps he and Van would have continued working together, be it Beach Boys related or outside projects?   Who knows, the possibilities are endless.

What exactly is "Run James Run"? Never heard of it before.

maybe he would have ended up doing "wild Honey" and "friends" but the songs would have been produced way differently..maybe some different songs...

Working title for the track Pet Sounds.

He wasn't THAT bad or out of control at that point.

Longer, more ambitious tracks.
There would have been a 10 minute 'Can't Wait Too Long' and
a 10 minute 'Cool Cool Water/Little Pad' on one side,
and a 15-20 minute 'Diamond Head'-like audio collage with massed Church-of-Hawaii harmonies on the other.

Then to stripped-down RnB for the album after.

This is an interesting topic, because anytime I read what people suggest, it just sounds terrible.

If Smile succeeds --

1.) Brian becomes Randy Newman! That is, he somehow learns to write film scores, because everyone knows how artistic that is. Actually, its a musical dead end and virtually no one does anything worthwhile in it these days. The real issue: Where did Brian ever acquire the musical knowledge to actually score a movie? And why would he have sought it out after a successful album?

2.) Brian becomes a producer/writer for other acts. That is, he becomes David Foster or Phil Ramone or Burt Bacharach. Does anyone actually think this would have been artistically freeing for him? Wouldn't it just have ended up being as stifling as the group ever was? And why did none of his outside productions ever become hits, anyway? He certainly tried.

3.) Brian founds prog rock! Now, I enjoy me some prog, but to envision BW as part of a proto-Pink Floyd avant garde is kind of terrible, really. This is a pop genius. Even Smile's most complex tunes are generally single-length.

All of these sound awful!

Now, I do like the idea that he would create a somewhat slicker version of Wild Honey. I can go for that. And he might well have found the courage to step out as a solo artist in the early 70s, rather than the mid-80s.

But in some ways I think this question really overstates the importance of Smile. I don't know if it really would have changed everything the way we think. Brian led the group before and after Smile failed. He had mild mental issues before and after. The only thing that changed was a frittering away of public goodwill, but it's hard to say for sure how that would have played out. Things were changing fast in the late 60s, and would the group have navigated it any better with Smile out? Maybe. Maybe not.

I would be perfectly happy with a reality in which Smile was released and he moved right on to Wild Honey and Friends, as they basically exist.  From there the big question becomes what would have happened if he'd been able to stay in a leadership/producer role after Friends.

The first time I heard Todd Rundgren's A Wizard, a True Star, I thought that this in my wildest dreams is what a fully-functional Brian Wilson would have been doing in 1973.

I think that's ultimately the question. Smile is a red herring in this story, I think. The real issue is what would the group, what would Brian have done if he hadn't given up his leadership role / gotten seriously ill.

We've conflated the abandonment of Smile and Brian's abandonment of his post. But they are actually a year or two apart, and not necessarily directly related.

You're right - the only x-factor that Smile presents is, would the "confidence boost" alone have been enough to somehow buoy Brian through the rough patch of '69?  It does seem to be putting too much weight on it. 

My donut is on they still would have been in the home studio because of the Brothers/Capitol situation and Brian would have gone with a Smiley mood and approach and on to WH etc, just as did happen when he released what he wanted to of SMiLE.

Yeah, and that's just impossible to know, unfortunately. But given the most optimistic scenario, how long-lasting or profound would the commercial success of Smile be? He still grappled with questions about the musical direction of Smile after releasing Good Vibes, which was an immense hit! Maybe the BBs have a year or two more of cutting-edge popularity, but every band has to face some wilderness years eventually.


But if Smile were released, as the thread suggests, I don't know if he would have felt it necessary to release Smiley.

It wouldn't have been the Smiley we know in my version, it would have been something like the non-SMiLE bits plus something else that would have been created. It probably isn't a given that SMiLE would have been any more of a band success than Smiley. It very well could have bombed.

Another central question. And again, one that we can't know the answer to. Depends on when it came out, probably, and what form the songs would have taken. I see arguments for its success -- a full record of "that Good Vibrations sound" -- but the music scene was moving at light speed then.


Maybe. But if Smile hadn't been so late -- say, it actually came out in late 66 or January 67 -- would Brian and the band have needed to release two more 1967 LPs? Maybe there would have been some sort of hybrid album, combining the Smiley chants that BW was getting into, along with more of the R&B influence of Wild Honey.

Wild Smiley!  If you add up the non-Smile-related bits of SS & WH it's just around 40 minutes of music.  There's a hypothetical single LP to be made out of that set of material.

With a lengthy Can't Wait too Long as the centerpiece, absolutely. And getting rid of How She Boogalooed It.

I don't think anyone can doubt the would have been commercial success of Smile.  Capitol was promoting the hell out of it, and the Beach Boys, popularity wise, were right on par with the Beatles.  In the UK, Smile would have been a smash hit undoubtedly.  And if the Beach Boys play Monterey, who knows what else would come?  Though, I highly doubt they really move to the R&B scene, I feel the Smiley Smile chants are definitely a more likely candidate, if not with much better production and quality compared to what was actually released.  After that, I don't think anyone can really predict what would have happened...

 Now, what I would LIKE to believe is that Smile would have changed the pop music scene like Sgt. Pepper did, and that the Beach Boys would have gone down as forever the gods of popular music. However, the ONLY way this could have ever happened is if the Beach Boys broke up before 1970.  Not EVERY band slowly moves towards unpopularity and into the "wilderness years" (i.e. The Beatles).  If the Beach Boys break up before 1970, at the peak of their careers after releasing a monumental achievement like Smile, just as the Beatles did, then perhaps they are perceived today just as the Beatles are.  The Beatles never released a BAD album. They never descended into the depths of awful commercial success and were never seen as an oldies band re-playing their golden years.  Their identities were preserved, and they have since been hailed as the most influential band...ever.  However...even if the Beach Boys were the greatest rock and roll group ever and they split before the 70's, we would never have the post-Smile material that we have today, and I can't say I would sacrifice post-Smile albums for commercial success and a preserved Beach Boys identity. I think everything played out just fine the way it did...barring Dennis's tragic death and the death of Carl as well.  And really, it doesn't matter one bit because we can't change the past  ;D

Yeah, I'd keep that one and get rid of "I Was Made to Love Her".  It's a fine rendition but they don't need to be mucking about with covers with such a fine surplus of original material.

I've never gotten the Boogaloo hate.  It rocks.  The organ sound is killer.

Removing a song with Carl singing like that is also criminal imo.

I still think, what with the home studio thing happening, he would have done something just like Smiley Smile but with a few different tracks--no full-fledged Smile retreads (Wonderful, Wind Chimes, the singles). The general thing that seemed to happen in the late 60s was: big wild trip followed by rootsy return home.

I think the bigger question is: what would have happened after that? Would Brian have still wanted to control production, or would he be more into handing out tasks as he did in "this timeline"?

I dunno. I still could do without "Wild Honey" as it stands (and I suppose I'm one of the few that can't abide Carl's "I Was Made to Love Her"--it just suffers soooo much in comparison to Stevie), and would prefer that they would have moved straight on to some sort of hybrid of 20/20, Sunflower, and Surf's Up--with more Brian dominance.

Duh, he would have become international Breakdance champion of '68 and spent the rest of his days learning to how to play the tubular bells with his schlong before dying tragically in the Challenger Disaster.


Which is to say, these threads are kinda redundant.

God Only Knows.

:lol

I think we get hints of where he was going. I think that Friends was a logical follow up to SMiLE, but if the songs were 3 to 5 mins long. In other words, that feeling, but a 40 min album instead of a 29(?) min album.

Soon after, songs like Life of a Tree, My Solution, At My Window and Til I Die seem like another step foward.

Then the way he added the moog in songs like Had to Phone Ya, Sweet Mountain, Funky Pretty, and the Fairy Tail. Love You would've been similar with much better lyrics. Male Ego sounds like a logical 80s step foward to me after that.

In other words, I see a logical progression there. Imagine if he continued to make full albums with the quality of his best stuff that we DO have from those years.

Very Good Post :) ..I've always imagining him doing themed albums after smile sort of how "The Who" and "The Kinks" did with many of their albums.

Working title for the title track of Pet Sounds. It was originally pitched for an upcoming James Bond movie (what would become You Only Live Twice, judging by the time period).

If SMiLE was his hash/LSD album, then he would've done his cocaine/heroin album after SMiLE.

What would Brian have done after Smile?

He would have done an album to cool out by.  Smiley wouldn't have been released or maybe a couple of songs integrated into the Wild Honey album.

Chuck Britz said that as soon as Brian moved to the Bellagio house in April 1967, he wasn't the same guy.

Brian has a list of "he was never the same after(s)" a mile long, it seems.

"20something American man who gets incredibly rich, incredibly quickly, takes drugs and has stressful life experiences, undergoes change! Pictures at 10!"  ;D

i think brian completing smile is less important than him losing interesting in writing great music. obviously they're connected but BUMMER

I don't know if he's ever lost that. But interest in competing on a national stage with it? Interest in producing the music to its fullest potential? Interested in following through on an album-length basis? Then yeah.


They're less connected than we think, though. He kept at it for another couple of years after Smile, so you probably have to look instead at mental issues and the tepid public reception to Wild Honey and Friends. But yes, a bummer.

I think what Britz was alluding to was the fact that after the move to Bellagio, Brian was no longer motivated to get up and go down into Hollywood into the studios with the old gang of musicians and hold pre-scheduled sessions to record a good album. Since the studio was now at Brian's house, he became lazy, could get out of bed (or stay in it) whenever he wanted, smoked dope, did coke, did whatever, but ultimately lost his focus on recording a good album like the old days. It was Britz's opionion, and I can see his point.

And I keep thinking what Marilyn said about post-Smile in the "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" documentary. About Brian's attitude, "You think you can do it, then you go do it", referring to The Beach Boys.

My optimistic hypothetical post SMiLE Brian is as follows;

He would do one more album with The Beach Boys in the 60's, this album would further his modular recording technique, there would be the usual adversity during the sessions for this album where Brian would leave the band, he would go on to join Redwood with Danny Hutton and they would be hailed for their masterwork with "Time To Get Alone". During the 70's he would release a few solo albums until going into a kind of retirement to spend time with Marylin and the kids. In the 1987 while working on a comeback album he composes a track with Jeff Lynne, after a little persuasion, Brian is persuaded to join The Traveling Wilburys for their second album in 1990. After hearing some preliminary tracks for "Summer in Paradise" Brian decides it is time to intervine before Dennis puts John Stamos through a window (in this parallel exstance, Dennis never got heavily into drugs since he was never around our Brian in the late 60's). This album is regarded as The Beach Boys' true masterwork. Later in the decade, Brian becomes an advocate for Pro-Tools and it's uses for making modular recording easier, SMiLE II is released with a new band (featuring Dennis, and members of The Wondermints) to universal acclaim.

Sounds familiar :)

It would be a little like trying to predict what the Beatles would have done after Sgt Pepper.

The album would have been a hit because it would have included Good Vibrations and some other very strong music (and in my opinion what we hear in the Smile sessions only gives a hint of what the properly finished album would have sounded like).

I don't buy the idea that the Beach Boy's "old" audience of cars/girls/surf music would have been lost when Smile came out. The people who bought these records aged and moved with the times along with Brian. And most BB fans like both types of music anyway.

I predict that Brian would have stayed on top of his game for another 5-6 years and then faded a bit (as all great musicians tend to) which probably means 4 or more quality albums under the "Beach Boys" name.  Their sound would have changed and evolved however- it wouldn't be the same 3-part harmonies all the time. I can then see him getting involved in other musical projects, perhaps going solo or forming other groups, as he matured. Eventually, I could have seen him working as a top producer.

If he had stayed well and kept working, I think he would have been much more of a "household name" than he is now. And there were probably a few more number ones in him which we will never get to hear !

I think Brian would have needed to split from his bandmates at some point otherwise the scenario would have played out much the same way, except that a later album would have been aborted (Smile 2, Friends) with the same results. The other Beach Boys just could not go along the same artistic path he was taking. He was in the wrong band for the type of music he was making.

However, I also don't see how Brian could have recovered from the lifestyle he was leading in 1967. I think he was another Syd Barrett in that respect, the unraveling was just a matter of time. Neither of them had the mental strength to absorb LSD without disintegrating.

Wild Honey

To be fair to Mr. Newman, he started scoring movies because it pays the bills in ways writing songs from the point of view of a stalker or drunk or racist do not! Brian was at this point already a well established and obviously very successful pop craftsman who may have skirted some of the conventions of the genre but clearly not in the same way as Randy. As for me, I think counterfactual history like this -- especially for this kind of situation -- is hopeless!

I think so, too. The earliest version of Good Vibrations already points in that R&B direction. The bad thing about Wild Honey is the bad sound which would not have been like that had Brian not been overcome by his mental problems and had instead stuck to the studios he used before. If you want to know just how bad the sound is, play Aren't You Glad from WH and then the live version from 1968. This alternate world WH would have sounded rather like the early GV or the later ressurrected Soulful Old Man Sunshine.

SMiLE would certainly have fared better commercially than Smiley, especially had it been released closer to the success of the GV single. But I doubt it would have done much better than Pet Sounds, although there is no way to know of course.

And IMHO the Beatles actually released two bad albums: Abbey Road and Let It Be. You're free to disagree. :wink

Well, maybe after SMiLE, Brian would have done a Christmas album to chill out, and then do a more laid-back, less modular, autobiographical album about life in L.A.

Oh, wait a minute...

stereo Wild Honey anyone?

I want to hear the WH sound better, is there a stereo Wild Honey boot anywhere? I managed to get a stereo Smiley Smile awhile ago, and its absolutly dazling! completely epic and does as much credit to Smiley Smile as the stereo remaster of Pet Sounds did to that album.

I know there is a stereo Let the wind blow, and I recall hearing a stereo Country Air on youtube a year or two ago.

I have stereo mixes of Wild Honey, but I converted them all to mono and destroyed the original disc I got them from.

Now that's just mean :lol



Touche

:rock

I agree with Let it Be, but Abbey Road is one of my favorites. Songs like Because and Sun King are mind blowing!

Well, part of me fantasises about BW becoming the an LA pop/ rock combination of George Gershwin and Popol Vu, (German prog rock band with spiritual harmomies and instruments)  :smokin

But then, after Sgt Pepper and Mystery Tour, the Beatles went 'back to basics' more or less with the White Album and Let It Be. Once you've gone into the wild blue yonder of psychedelic abstraction, going back to basic rock and roll instrumentation and attitude makes all the sense in the world. Otherwise, you turn into Sun Ra or loose your fanbase.

Best to go from one extreme to the other, to contrast and show versatility.

Your avatar, with the signature below, is hilarious. :lol

If SMiLE happened then Brian would have continued his subjective/personal artistic album thing.

The contents would have been determined by his life experiences & his instincts as to where things were heading.

Attempt to write an album with Banana.

Project breaks down when Mike takes issue with Banana's lyrics, and Banana refuses to explain them.

Mike asks Banana what a certain lyric means and Banana responds by taking a crap in the sandbox.

He would have gone to Disneyland.

Any way I can imagine it, the story still ends with Summer In Paradise!

That said....

I agree with the common idea that Wild Honey would have followed. Perhaps a bit more "produced" Wild Honey, but still the same animal. Even if Smile had been completed, the toll of completing it would have resulted in the same situation (a burned out and depleted Brian) only with an album called Smile on the racks.

I'd love to assume that it would have been a smash, but I just dunno. Sgt. Pepper wasn't really in any way more advanced or earth shatteringly unique when compared to Smile (Smiley was actually more out there). Though it had it's twists and turns, it was still grounded in the basic Beatles 4x4 blues rock/ballad template (Within You Without You aside) which is what the kids dug. Therefore, no matter how SMILE Smile would have been, Pepper still would have steamrolled it.!

Think about it? Smiley was a victim of Smile hype and never had a fair chance. It is a whacked out, scary, freaky, and just plain wrong album, in all the best ways. Yet is sank like a stone! Wild Honey did better, but IT retains the basic 4x4 blues template, therefore it clicked. Most people are purists about rock and roll without likely even realizing it. Pet Sounds and Smile are VERY un rock and roll and this is the problem. I'm not condoning this at all, but kids in every day and age want something to bop their heads to.

I've been thinking over the last couple of days; how different would Van Dyke's life of been with a successful release of SMiLE?

I think he'd of been much more popular with Song Cycle getting the classic status that it deserves, aside from that, things would probably of been pretty much the same, just with him being a much more popular name.

LOL!!

I was under the impression that his solo deal, and Song Cycle itself, were things that he parlayed directly out of his involvement with Brian and Smile. 

Well, Pet Sounds was a success, and has continued to be a success, and Tony Asher basically never wrote lyrics for major rock groups again. Neither did Roger Christian (I think, would love to be proved wrong), and Gary Usher took to producing.

Van Dyke would have carved his own path anyway, as he had to do when SMiLE didn't come out. He was involved in the Laurel Canyon scene much more than BW was, more in tune with the world around him. He's a smart and talented musician, no wonder he stayed around the scene. Brian if anything was one project of many that just happened not to work out - he went on in the next year to produce and arrange so much more.

I think you're probably right on that one.  What I think would have happened with SMiLE in '67 is that it would have gotten respectable reviews but sold a little less than Pet Sounds.  It was so far out of the mainstream, and such a leap away from anything the Beach Boys had ever done, including Pet Sounds, that the public at large would not have gotten it.  BUT--and it's a big "but"--a '67 SMiLE would have grown more and more respected with passing years, and by the early '70s would have probably already become as influential as the unreleased SMiLE became by, say, the mid-90s.  What would Brian have done if he had been able to keep himself mentally and emotionally healthy after a '67 SMiLE?  Now that's the million dollar question.  Again, God only knows...

Speaking of this sort of thing, Brian was obviously influenced by Southern California's theme parks. The photograph in the TSS book showing him seated on the bench with the plaster Old West gals is taken at Knott's Berry Farm in Anaheim. I sat on that same bench for a photo about four years after Brian sat there. Much of the thematic Americana material on SMiLE can be found at these parks: Old West, farms, pirates, trains, Hawaiian floor shows, etc.