The Smiley Smile Message Board

First own many of you like Smile?  Second what kind of of music is Smile i mean is it

Psychedelic rock, baroque pop, psychedelic pop, folk rock, avant-garde, experimental, Americana

I love SMiLE! And it's all of the above bar folk rock (and possibly avant-garde)

When I light one and listen to teh Smile, the thoughts that go through my brain are:
1: This is amazing
2: There is nothing else like this
3: How did he come up with this
4: Back to 1

Smile can't really be classified, it's just...Smile  :3d

I've often tried to think of what genre Smile fits into, and I don't really think there is one. It's not psychedelic like most other music going on at the same time, it doesn't have that certain "baroque" sound to it, it never truly gets experimental enough to be avant-garde. I definitely wouldn't call it folk rock or Americana, but maybe "experimental" is the closest we'll get.

It really is unlike anything else.

This.

Same here, love Smile as much if not more than anything else my favourite band recorded. There have been periods in my life when it's all I listen to.

Agree with Bambu Dennis that it ain't folk rock. Not sure that it's any kind of rock or pop, and I think it's something else entirely. Baroque - yes. Psychedelic - yes; psyche-delicate, even, I think Brian once called it. I think, to my ears at least, Brian's 2004 interpretation also re-envisioned the whole as children's music, by removing some of the darker edge to parts of the music and framing it with lighter, jolly sections like On A Holiday and Blue Hawaii.

Defining it is a complicated affair!

Acid alliteration set to music made whilst stoned out of one's mind.

I'm all Smiled out.

BW's masterpiece.

Yup, that's about right !

Go have a listen, then come back (let's say 7pm, after tea) tell us what you think it is.

There's something that's quoted often, about Brian being the Mozart Of Rock and Roll; If I remember correctly,  somebody also made a quote once (Anderle, Vosse, one of the other BB's?) about how Brian was trying to bring classical music into Rock/Pop music. That, to me, is what SMiLE is; it's the sound of classical music combined with Pop/Rock music.

  Modern classical music of a sort?

SMILE?

MORE LIKE PILE...






...OF SONGS THAT WERE UNFINISHED AND NEVER GOT TO BE PUT TOGETHER IN A MANNER THAT MAKES SENSE TO BOTH THE PRODUCER AND LISTENER.

Smile is an unfinished album of classic songs by the pop-rock band known as The Beach Boys.

Depends on the songs. Some are psychedelic - frightenly so. Others are baroque pop. Some are just art songs. It undefinable under one blanket term.

I don't hear baroque or for that matter rock.  Avant garde Americana pop seems the best description to me, as exemplified by Cabinessence, OMP, Wind Chimes, etc.

Disney on acid (think Fantasia)

this.

Ah, maybe more like Disney On Hash; we ain't splitting hairs, though  :-D

Ah, maybe more like Disney on hash, speed, and Reddi-Whip.

Very good points Verlander and Daddy (ooh my!  :lol), so perhaps the term Psychedelic Disney would be a better all around description.  :)

And what's almost tragic is to think of what Brian could've accomplished working in that idiom for a few more years. As brilliant as Smile is, there is a sense that he almost got in over his head at moments, and occasionally his experiments don't quite connect. That said, had Brian not been such a perfectionist or what have you, he could've seen that he still had an amazing 10-12 song album on his hands. There's no doubt that songs like "Cabinessence", "Wonderful", "Heroes & Villains", and "Surf's Up" work amazingly as is. But I can't help but think that he could've done even better with a second go at a similar concept.

That's what drugs do to ya. Like he said, he just got beside himself with it and junked it. Ever smoked hash or some real good pot or done acid? There's your answer.

Paranoia big destroya!

I've smoked pot and done shrooms. Still think I could've summoned the courage to release Smile, considering I would've had the gumption to release Smiley Smile. I agree with Van Dyke Parks' comment that drugs are the biggest "red herring" in the Smile story.

Hey, I'm just relaying it from the horse's mouth. Ask Brian. See the video from the It's OK special.

And without any suggestions prior, I asked Marilyn Wilson the question of why Smile was scrapped. Without hesitation she replied, "Drugs".

But without drugs, Smile never happens. It's a convenient scapegoat. Rather than implicate people, blame drugs. Simple and easy.

Sure. Tell Brian and Marilyn that.

Drugs are like a balancing act, there is a point where the scale tips from a positive experience to a negative one. There is a big difference between recreational use and abuse. Whether it is smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol or ingesting drugs, there is always a tipping point where it becomes a detriment to your health and well being.

I need a beer!

Right arm, man.  As Brian once said, he experimented himself right out of action.

I don't know whether that is true or not, but it is a fact that with drugs, SMiLE didn't happen. Smiley Smile did.

Except for Surf's Up and Wonderful, the music tends to be characterised by two-chord movements, sometimes three like in Heroes and Villains. Each song has these movements with distinctive verses, choruses, bridges and tag endings joined together by hard edits, not via fading. The instrumentation and vocals tend to use chromatic scales within these two or three chord movements to build complexity out of simple musical patterns, hence why the music sounds ornate yet easy to follow. Let's face facts, SMiLE is a work of genius, requiring modern-day digital editing to pull together in 2010/11 what was recorded in 1966/67.

Personally, I still, after more than 20 years of listening to every aspect of this record, cannot get my head around the way it was recorded. Next time you have a listen, think for a moment, you are listening to instruments and vocals mixed live, without separation, which required hours of rehearsal to balance the sound.

And some people say Brian Wilson had drug or mental issues during this period? Yet he produced Good Vibrations, Cabinessence, Heroes and Villains, Vegetables, Wind Chimes and Wonderful, not to mention the first movement of Surf's Up, it was beyond incredible!

But he had. Those issues just didn't keep him from doing his thing. Not yet.

I'm just over ignorant conclusions of what happened during this period. No doubt, Brian had these issues, but they didn't get in the way of the music, agreed...that was my real point.

It's unique for sure. I would say Americana themes.

Don't forget the verses to Cabin Essence - great chord structure. Personally, there's too many two-chord stuff to rate SMiLE over Pet Sounds for me.



Yes, but these issues kept him from finishing all that stuff. I mean, after that first version of Wonderful, why rerecord it 4 times? And it wasn't due to technology, as the only completed GV proves.

I'll just say that I disagree with drug counterarguments. I'd get into more detail, but I know you get pilloried around here if you debate the consensus for too long.

Around this period I always pictured Brian on a drug high buzzing around the studio with a million different ideas coming out of his head at once but then hitting a comedown before he'd nail the perfect version. But very little got 100% finished because by the time he was back in the studio again he was on another drug buzz with another million different new ideas to try out.

Wrong thread: :wink

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,17691.msg464491.html#msg464491
http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,17691.msg464554.html#msg464554

Of course, yes,  these verses also use the famous Gm7/D - Dm7/G opening chords in Surf's Up!


After reading Keith Badman's chronology on this era, I stood amazed at how many sessions were done for these songs. I concur, Wonderful didn't need 4 version attempts. That obsession with perfection proved too much for Brian!

I need to correct myself: I stated Wonderful was rerecorded 4 times - actually after that perfect first version it was rerecorded inferiorly only 3 times, which makes 4 versions in total in various states of completion. Thank you for your patience. :)

Is he working toward perfection or just thinking of a sound he likes better than the previous version? Or are some of them inserts for an existing version?

I would say that if you're somebody who already had some psychological issues, and you're smoking hash and popping uppers, that's probably going to do something to your brain. I'd say that it played a role in the album never coming out; his inability to find perfection in any of the music he was making. The drugs of course influenced his opinions.

Rather trying to get a new sound, I guess, but still the Rock me Henry version, the April version and the Smiley version all seem so unnecessary to me after that perfect first one. I think it is plausible that all this was because the drugs clouded his mind. Or for the drug defenders, the drugs gave Brian more creativity than he was able to handle...