The Smiley Smile Message Board

I’ve always wondered this. Obviously the time limit of vinyl is short, most LPs max at between 20 and 24 minutes a side. But thats the thing. Most BB albums are extremely short. Especially the albums between Surfin' Safari and Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!). Excluding the 1964 concert LP, none of these even reach 30 minutes. Hell, some don’t even reach 25 minutes. But the question is, why? The albums from several of the BBs fellow artists around the same time were much longer. Some pushing it over 40 minutes, but the BBs are all still barely 12 minutes a side. Why?
Which leads me to this question, why did this trend continue on.
We know that several of their early 70s albums have tons and tons of outtakes, but the albums are still so short. Surfs up isn’t even 34 minutes, but Dennis can’t even get a track.
Holland had one of its songs booted off to make way for another, but the albums only 9 tracks and 35 minutes.
The late 70s are weirder, KTSA was only 32 minutes.
And there is historical evidence that there was huge arguments on what songs would make the final cut of an album, when really these arguments shouldn’t have taken place, because all these albums are way shorter than necessary.
They didn’t release an album that passed the 40 minute mark until 1979, and didn’t do it again until 1992.
Was there some kind of stipulation in the contract that said they couldn’t release an album that exceeded a certain amount of time?
I don’t know, it just seems so weird to me that they have so many unreleased tracks, but then you look at their albums and they’re all barely 30 minutes, and it’s like, well no wonder. Even their big 15 year 15 song album doesn’t reach 40 minutes

I think I can offer some insight here.

1. Artistic reasons. Just because you can fit more music on a record doesn’t mean it will work. I’ve personally released a record that was 10 songs at about 24 minutes, even though there were two additional completed songs that I liked more than some of the songs that were included. The reason was I simply could not get them to sit right in the sequence and they just didn’t feel right or hang together with the group. It could be there is a sameness or too many songs in a particular key, with a certain kind of tempo etc, and they’re choosing the ones that work best in the sequence.

2. Regarding the early LPs - 12 tracks were their standard, and BB tracks were quite short On average (“Little Deuce Coupe” is 1.5 minutes!). There is no incentive for a record company to include more tracks than they need to in order to move units (quite the opposite).

3. Regarding the Reprise era - while it’s true you can fit up to 45 mins comfortably on a record, quality is better if you can keep it under 30. To me, there seems to be a conscious effort for this era records to run around 35 minutes.

I think Mt Vernon & Fairway being a separate disc from Holland sort of confirms points 1 and 3.

One man’s opinion.

I think they're all the better for being so short. Today! isn't even 30 minutes long but it's an incredibly strong record. Same goes for All Summer Long, Friends, or Wild Honey, the list goes on. Also love how short some of their very best songs are, like Little Deuce Coupe which was already mentioned in the post before. It always leaves me wanting more! To pick another example, there's so much happening in This Whole World and then it's not even 2 minutes long. That is true brilliance!

The point about song length is also relevant. Brian was writing tight songs in the early years, and ones that didn't feature any extended instrumental solos. If your songs are 2:10 to 2:20 (aiming for the early 60s' ideal "hit single" length), and you write 10 songs (or have your record company only release 10 tracks and stockpile 2-4 others for inclusion on the next LP) you'll have a short LP.

Which brings up Capitol's greed. They infamously carved up the Beatles' EMI LPs to create "extra" US LPs to pad their coffers, and they pushed Brian to write and record songs in 63-64 to get as many LPs as possible out of their "cash cow." 3-4 LPs a year seems to have been the goal; remember that BEACH BOYS PARTY was concocted to give Brian more time to work on PET SOUNDS, which took ten whole months (!!) to follow up SUMMER DAYS (AND SUMMER NIGHTS).

I think Donny has it right with LPs in the Steve Desper era--with more sophisticated recording techniques evolving, there was an emerging audiophile mentality that argued for LPs of moderate length (no more than 15-16 minutes per side). Those types of considerations remained baked into people's brains until CDs changed that landscape in the early-mid 80s; remember that KTSA is right at the tail end of the initial LP era, so it's following the established rules in place at the time.

I would agree with you, except for the fact that LALight is 41 minutes. Also, this trend continued even after they started putting new albums on CD.

The reason that it was a separate EP was because the rest of the band thought of it as a completely separate product. They also considered releasing it on its own, but compromised by packaging it with the LP. Originally, Brian wanted the entire Holland album to be centered around that fairytale, but everyone else had other ideas like California Saga and The trader that just didn’t fit with that idea. Also, this goes without saying, but the majority of the band hated it.
But it was probably just the record company being completely greedy to be honest. 
Nowadays it’s actually the opposite, the more tracks that are on an album, the more the record company makes. Because streams of a song go towards album sales, an album that has 12 tracks makes them way less money than if that same album has 20 or 24 tracks. that’s why you see so many new artists releasing new albums that are like 1 1/2 hours long.
As for songs fitting on the album, during the early 60s I think that might be kind of true, but I think it also might be just because they didn’t have a lot of material. As you said, they were being demanded an album every three months or so, and that’s why the 1963-65 have a lot of filler instrumentals and random skits and stuff like that just thrown on there.
Also, when it comes to them deciding what tracks to put on the album, I don’t think there was much artistic intent with the running order when it comes to albums like CATP and MIU. Example: the two Dennis tracks that are just shoehorned into the B-side of CATP. On their own, they’re great songs, but they don’t fit into the album, so it’s very jarring.

There was a time in the cd era where I thought it was great that artists could put out longer albums, but I have changed my mind. There were very few times when longer meant better. I love the Kinks Phobia album from 93, which clocks in at something like 70 minutes; and I love all 70 minutes of it. Generally, though, I prefer short, concise statements. How long was Meet the Beatles? I had Here's Little Richard on last night, and that clocked in easily under 30 minutes.
Quality, not quantity. People are busy, we don't have endless hours to sit and listen to music.

This is soley due to the disco track IMO. '70s BB albums are all "around 35 mins", give or take. Some closer to 30, some closer to 40. This is more consistent than the number of songs (8 on So Tough vs 15 on 15 Big Ones). This is different from a lot of artists of the era, whose average might be something like 45 mins.

Maybe Stephen Desper can chime in. I would bet money that getting the best sound quality on vinyl was a factor in these decisions - particularly if Carl and Desper were guiding them.

But isn't that what makes an album? Vs just throwing a collection of recently-recorded tracks that can fit on the disc? Concept, continuity, vibe, tempo, tone, etc ...

Main point is Mt Vernon technically could have fit on the main Holland disc if they wanted to do that. The likely reasons they didn't were because of concept/continuity/artistic preference, and consideration for sound quality.

Squeezing 13 minutes on a 7-inch includes significant compromises too, but as this is largely spoken word w/ quiet musical passages, it sounds pretty good. You'll notice it was cut at a lower volume than the main Holland record. Presumably, these decisions were factored into how it would be presented (you don't press a 7 inch at 33 RPM without considering the pros/cons and practical considerations of 33 vs 45 vs. 10" vs. 12" etc.). The idea of Mt Vernon being on the main record might have been considered at some point.

You clearly don’t understand what I meant when I said that they booted tracks off of Holland. Originally, the first side started with Steamboat and ended with a track named We Got Love.
However, when the label added Sail On, Sailor to the LP, We Got Love was completely scrapped. it’s weird too, because the band are clearly fond of it that song, they performed it live and included it on the live73 album. also, it was completely possible for We Got Love to make the final cut, and be placed somewhere on the LP. This is clearly some type of label politics that forced them to keep that album to 9 tracks.
Also, most people don’t know this, but We Got Love was officially released in 2015. It’s an iTunes and Apple Music exclusive bonus track.
As for Mt. Vernon and Fairway, my understanding is that Brian wanted to make the entire LP Center around this theme or idea. And all the songs would be interconnected with the Mt. Vernon and Fairway story. However, The other members of the band were not a fan of this idea at all. They all already had their own songs that made up the Holland album. Brian was obviously upset by this, but Carl helped him finish the Version that we know.
And as a compromise, they decided to include Mt. Vernon and Fairway along with the standard LP as a bonus.
So technically, Holland and Mt. Vernon and Fairway are two completely different things. They have nothing to do with each other in the state that they’re in now. The only thing that keeps these two things together is that they were both packaged together, and they were recorded around the same time.
Obviously, now days they are thought of as basically the same entity because on CD and download releases of Holland, Mt. Vernon and Fairway is literally listed as part of the album. It’s listed as tracks 10 through 15, and it starts playing directly after Funky Pretty. This has always annoyed me, because the two products are just that. Two products. They’re not the same album. The least they could’ve did is put a minute or two of silence between Funky Pretty and Mt. Vernon and Fairway (Theme), or even put Mt. Vernon and Fairway on a separate disk, but nope. It’s stuffed on the same disk, and labeled as the same album.
I know this is kind of an unpopular opinion, but the most recent releases of the BBs Core studio albums are a bit of a mess.

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I'm well-familiarized w/ the history -- your question was why are the albums so short. The reasons are IMO as I stated in my initial post, and they are different depending on the era.

Obviously label politics will play into it, but I do not believe Reprise's issue with the record had anything to do w/ "We Got Love". If Reprise disliked the song, why would they allow it on In Concert later in the year? IMO it was simply a matter of none of the initial tracks being good candidates for a single. "Sail On Sailor" solved that problem. The group removed "We Got Love" for whatever artistic reasons they had ... why -- most likely continuity, keeping the sound quality standard high on the vinyl format, and possibly group politics.

Take a look at this:

http://www.rainborecords.com/mastering.htm

Optimum time for sound quality on a 33 1/3 LP is 17 mins per side (34 minutes total). BB records of the '70s tend to fall around this mark, give or take. Also keep in mind, it's not the total time but *time per side*. "We Got Love is a 5 min track. Side 1 of Holland runs about 19 mins. Keeping "We Got Love" and adding "Sail on Sailor" would bring that to 24 for Side 1, or 23 for Side 2 (give or take). This also creates an imbalance in running time between sides 1 and 2, and/or re-sequencing to accommodate.

Though I disagree Holland and Mt Vernon are separate products, my main point is you are essentially supporting what I am referring to w/ regard to "artistic reasons". Unless you are introducing the concept of group politics as a primary factor, which I agree was a factor for sure. I'd personally say something like LA (Light Album) is more representative of a "political" sequence ... Holland feels to me like someone (probably Carl) was kind of keeping the artistic continuity in place more so than political considerations. We know Carl and Dennis had an argument about the sequence of the Surf's Up LP, which caused Dennis to pull his tracks. This seems to be me to be an example of an artistic consideration ... and also suggests Carl was the one overseeing the sequence more than others IMO.

To summarize my opinions on why the albums are "short" -

1- Artistic reasons (could include "political" here, though I don't think this is as applicable in most cases) - all eras
2- 1962-1965: 12 song standard w/ short songs
3- 1966-1969: Artistic preference
4- 1970-1980: Keeping around 35-min mark for optimum vinyl sound quality

I think it's that simple personally - does not seem mysterious or questionable to me.

The original vinyl release also says "This *ALBUM* includes one 12-inch and one 7-inch 33 1/3 RPM disc, or one and one-half long playing records". I think it's pretty clear Mt Vernon is a "suite" that is part of Holland.

Sorry, but you’re wrong. The only reason that it was included with the album was specifically to please Brian. The rest of the band we’re not a fan of it at all, and if they had it their way, it would not be anywhere close to this album. they even considered releasing it on its own, but obviously they didn’t have enough funding to put out two products with two different marketing strategies, one of them just 13 minutes. Therefore, they were just slap together. Like I said, while the recording of the two projects did overlapped, this project had nothing to do with the actual album.

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Are there some direct quotes or contemporary reporting on the rest of the band not liking Mt. Vernon?

And regardless, I don't quite understand the conflict here?  The suite can simultaneously be part of the Holland record while still being there for certain complicated reasons borne out of compromise?

Yeh I guess I don’t really understand where you’re getting this info from.

Mt Vernon had  everything to do with Holland - it was Brian’s main contribution to the project, and he wrote it while in Holland. Also, Carl was obviously heavily involved in the creation of Mt Vernon, and the entire group sings on it.

Also agree w Joshilyn that I’m not quite sure what we’re debating. I don’t personally believe the group hated  it and only included  it to please Brian ... I’m open to that angle but it doesn’t change the main points I made initially regarding album length. Again, one man’s opinion.

Anyway, since Brian himself considers it part of the Holland album, that’s good enough for me:

"I kind of like The Beach Boys Love You, 15 Big Ones, and Holland," he notes. "Those are the three albums I think were the best."

Although 1973's Holland received solid reviews and went Top 40, recording the album in Holland nearly bankrupted the band.

"I can't tell you exactly why I like Holland so much, but I think the fairy tale made the whole album for me," says Wilson, referring to "Mt. Vernon & Fairway," the autobiographical fairy tale that came with Holland on a 7-inch EP. "That was a great fairy tale."

https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2000-07-21/77984/

Brian likes 15 Big Ones. Interesting, seeing as in 1976 he gave several interviews saying that it wasn’t that great.

His answers change from year to year...or day to day.

If you ask him on the right day, he’ll put SIP as the cream of the crop

I would love to see an interviewer as Mike about that "giant turkey of an album" (I believe those were his words for Brian's 1988 album).

2015, someone did ask Mike about it.
He refused to talk about the actual album, but he did mention that he loves the title track, and called it something like “an anthem for the environment.”

so maybe he does recognize it as the colossal failure it was?
The title track is the one song from SIP that the guys continued to play long past the expiration date. It's not a bad song, really.....<can't believe i'm saying this> <gag>..the live version on the MIC is olay, despite the visions of Stamos and bikini-clad 18 year olds it conjures <gag>.

I think it was in his famous Crawdaddy interview that David Anderle said that Brian had recorded enough instrumental tracks for Smile for 2 or 3 albums.  And, by gosh, it was true.  And maybe that was a huge part of the problem, editing the whole thing down to his customary ~30 minutes.

Easy answer that hasn't been said yet. In the early era, they were pushed to put out 2-3 full length albums each year. This resulted in shorter albums that also included an amount of filler material just to push it up to an acceptable level. As the years went on and this industry practice went away, when subsequent albums were short, it was often the end result of dysfunctional band politics.

Also the fact that this was before digital editing.  I imagine if Brian had access to today’s technology SMiLE would’ve happened as planned.

Well, to be fair, pet sounds was over 30 minutes. I believe it was 36 or 37, I am not entirely sure at this moment.
But Smile would have definitely been longer than 30 minutes. Also, it’s always been unclear, but I’m pretty sure that it was supposed to be multiple albums.
A sound effects album, a humor album, a self care album.
That’s why there was things like “ Psychedelic sounds” and the tracks with Jasper Dailey.
Nowadays, for some unknown reason, probably the whole mythology of the whole thing, that entire block from August 1966 til May 1967 is thought of as the Smile era, when it probably would have developed into several different projects.

I actually think digital editing would have made it worse for Brian, in a way.





I don't think development was ever going to be possible -- Brian was too capricious, too manic, too indecisive to ever have any of his ambitious concepts turn into anything concrete.  Smile was all of those things and none of them.  People want to play around with alternate histories, but to make them plausible you have to remove Brian Wilson from the picture, and then of course, you are left with nothing.

You may be right..it made have made him more obsessive in regards to edits and experimentation. I myself have been guilty of that over the years ...it’s an easy trap to fall into. Bryan Ferry had the same issue , working on an album for years until scrapping it and releasing Mamouna instead, and that was with older digital technology . So yeah for Brian it may have made things worse. Good point

For 33 1/3 12" LP's, even pressing plants  today state "Timing for optimal sound quality is 12-14 minutes per side but can contain up to 18-22 minutes with some sound and volume drop off." Plus, having to (contractually) release three albums a year will cut down on quantity of tracks per LP too.

Right. They settled on a standard 12 track album for business reasons. Even if Brian had produced hundreds of songs per year, Capitol still would have packaged them 11-12 at a time. They infamously did this with the Beatles catalogue after coming late to the party. Read this article from March 1967 (the very first article, continuing on pg 10) just to get an idea of the record company perspective. They talk about publishing rate issues, not being able to get away with going lower than 10 tracks, and call 30 minutes a "full" album.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=CykEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=CykEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false)

By the way, they are talking about lowering the number of tracks even further in this article. The next two studio albums released by the Beach Boys only had 11 songs (SS, WH). All previous studio albums had 12 songs (except PS).

On point one - I disagree to some extent. When Brian himself went back to work on Smile with Darian, who had all the fragments we speculated on for years loaded into a DAW where he could randomly link sections together in about 1-2 seconds, the thought was imagine if we had this kind of technology available back in the day. It wasn't about obsessiveness or being indecisive, but rather about having the tools to audition things instantly. Previously it was a case of having to dub down a test acetate, or a test reel, then take that home and try to figure out if the day's work in the studio produced something usable...and then, do test edits to see if the flow was there to combine them in a smooth transitional and musical way. It was a process that took literally hours rather than under a minute. And in terms of how Brian was writing and arranging various Smile tracks, such instant testing may have been the missing piece of technology needed to speed a completion, minus the other issues including those with the band.


Point two: Good Vibrations seems to dispute this by the sheer fact it not only got done, but it hit #1 on the charts around the world. If being capricious, manic, and indecisive was an issue, all of that added up to one of the biggest achievements of the band's career and one which Brian still points to as his greatest achievement as a producer, or at least his proudest moment when he knew he captured lightning in a bottle.

We can look back on all the recording and changing and rejiggering of the many Good Vibrations sessions and say it took a long time and a lot of effort, etc...but that's how Brian worked. It was taking what became standard practice for major artists and how they recorded (and the process in general) years into the future versus trying to capture a hit record in a 3-4 hour studio session. Brian knew what he wanted, and instead of being satisfied with an earlier version for time's sake or even for budget reasons, he kept going until he had what he wanted and knew it was right.

And it was right, and he was right, as were his methods. Good Vibrations stands as the achievement and success it is. But the caveat is to not forget how limited the available technology really was - and how we don't know how many hours Brian spent away from the studio listening to the various sections, trying to place one fragment against the other, etc. We just don't know.

Then factor in trying to do this on a more grand scale with even two songs like Vegetables or Heroes, with associated tracks on a full album, and add in deadlines and all the other trappings of being on a schedule. For those playing around with alternate histories, just remember to get all of the facts on the table first and not selectively cherrypick details to suit agendas or theories. Available technology was a big factor, and Brian himself suggested that during and after he completed Smile in 2004. I wouldn't say it was as much indecisiveness or being "manic" as it was the guy ran out of time to do what he truly wanted to do, as one factor out of several. The Good Vibrations methodology which worked well on a single was not available due in part to limitations in technology and time to spread out over multiple tracks on an album.

My point was that better technology and/or more time would not have resulted in us currently having a Beach Boys Humour Album, A Beach Boys Chant Album, A Beach Boys sound effects Album, A Beach Boys Health Food album, and a Beach Boys pop music album.  As amazing as that would be.

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I think that's a good point.  Other than H&V there is really no question of how a song was going to be laid out.  Something like Cabinessence or DYLW, as you say, was set in stone structurally.  If Brian didn't edit the sections together at the song at the time, it wasn't because of technology, it was because he lost interest, IMO.

There are no indications that any such "Beach Boys" albums were ever planned beyond Brian mentioning the ideas in random interviews - and there was a possibility that hardly anyone entertains that such albums if they were to be started may not have even been the Beach Boys at all. Brother was being designed to do music, film, and other media and was not at all going to be limited to releasing Beach Boys music, that was the whole design of the Brother concept.

I think the tendency is to proscribe heavier meanings to plans and designs for the Beach Boys and things Brian had in his mind at various times in late '66 and early '67 that were never there beyond catching Brian in an interview saying he wanted to do a humor album, or a whole album about health. Maybe that week he did! Just like the plans for Brother Records went far beyond Beach Boys records, and that's what gets lost in the discussions a lot of the time.

It would be like finding an interview with Steve Jobs from the early 80's - The true innovators and mad geniuses as some would call them have a mindful of ideas for the future. It's not like they were saying "I'll do this, and that, and this..." in a 1983 interview and were planning to have all of them done by December 31, 1983. It's the same with these random Brian interviews from "The Smile Era", he wasn't saying all of this stuff was going to come out in 1967 or whatever, it was just a snapshot of things he had in mind.

The technology issues have nothing to do with such hypotheticals that weren't even going to be Beach Boys projects for all we know, especially if they were primarily spoken word with sound effects or whatever, going on the Smile era models just for discussion rather than hard evidence, and the technology issue pinpoints directly to the songs being worked on for the Smile album especially with editing capabilities in 67 versus the digital era.

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I agree that most of Smile was not in the "modular" style that some have tried to describe it. A lot of the songs were stand-alone songs with a definite form. But the technology related to specific parts of the project that ended up bogging it down for too long was in fact an issue, and stretching the availability of facilities to record and work on it as a technology issue, that was a factor too. Remember how a recent comment from Mr. Desper told us how Wally Heider would open up a room for Brian to work on mixing and editing even before his facilities were fully open for clients to record? That says Brian needed both the time and the facilities to work, and if it were readily available, he wouldn't have been in an ad hoc room set up for him by Wally, even after "Smile" was a main priority.

I disagree about Good Vibrations - Yes it was a specific song form as we came to know it, but look at all of the unused sections that we've known now for decades. Are all of them able to be "fit" into a specific section of the song? Absolutely not. And look at the ones that were not used. It's just like Heroes, only with a lesser number of sections. Eventually Brian had to go in and organize all of them, and what we don't know is how many times he did a "test edit" of sections at home or away from a studio session that got logged, and in what order he put those sections.

It's like comparing the "Humble Harv" Miller demo performance of Heroes to what eventually came out. The skeleton of the basic song foundation is there, with some added sections. Now go back to "take 1" of Good Vibrations...the basic foundation was there too, but in no way did the parts after the stock verse-chorus sections give a glimpse of what was to be added. That early version is a stomping R&B style tune that turns into a jam, basically. Nowhere to be found are some of the most beautiful later sections of the song, and nowhere are the variations of those main sections that were compelling on their own but which never made it to the final edit. In other words, all that stuff Brian recorded from Take 1 through to the final edit and mix.

I see GV and Heroes as a parallel projects and designs, the only difference is that "Heroes" went beyond being a standalone single and began to morph into what was going to be a modular collage built around a theme and several related motifs that ostensibly shows up throughout at least one side of a projected album.  

In no way do I see Good Vibrations having been constructed as a traditional song from the beginning, because we have audio proof that some of the most key elements in the final version were recorded and edited together at later dates rather than included in the full song form all along. And in that way, it's just like Heroes in that the KHJ demo has the foundation and some variants to follow, but in no way was that going to be the final edit.

I do think elements of the Smile project would have been hampered by technology, I'll stand by that all day because it's basically what Brian didn't have available that would have cut potentially hundreds of hours and a lot of hassle booking studio time *IF* hypothetically he had the editing tools available when he revisited the project with Darian and they could audition sequences instantly and edit on the fly...and hear the results immediately, as well as undo them if it didn't work.

An aside - This trend of analog purism in recording is often presented untruthfully. Even those artists who fans think are pure analog will readily admit that the be-all-and-end-all killer app of the digital world is the ability to edit fast and precise, and the ability to save and recall with one click. I seriously do not know anyone who would prefer to revert back to the days of editing and mixing from the 60's unless the schtick is being purely old-school. It saves so much time and is a better tool overall than the razor blade and tape...if you're working in the business and not doing it as retro schtick.

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Count me as one who does not believe the "technology" of the era had anything to do with Smile not being finished.

Main reasons I feel this way:

1. In order to blame the limitations of multi-track recording of 1966-67, we have to accept that somehow the scope of Smile was that the entire album would flow together as one piece (is there any hard evidence to that affect? I honesty don't know), OR we have to accept that Brian was so indecisive and/or it would take so long to audition each piece within a song that he just couldn't do it. I think at best, it was potentially one factor, but not a primary factor. While we do have fragments that move around from song to song, the overall impression that I get as a listener is that the fragments are increasingly scattered, as in they do not add up to a whole or tell a story -- which to me, suggests more Brian losing the plot as opposed to having too many technical limitations to complete it. After all -- why would a section of "Do You Like Worms" be interchangeable with "Heroes and Villains"? To me, it seems that there is artistic confusion happening -- lack of clarity and purpose.

2. I hold the (unpopular) opinion that Smiley Smile *is* Smile. That is, this is the closest we have to a finished Smile-type album in 1966-67. The idea that technology was a hindrance in including relatively straightforward, nearly completed songs like "Surf's Up" and "Cabinessence" while something like "Vegetables" incorporated pieces of actual Smile tracks and was included, tells me that this has more to do with some kind of particular aversion to particular songs or recordings. I personally believe Brian became fearful of some of the Smile music. Some of the music does legit sound scary IMO, and if you believe in music containing metaphysical power (I do), then this is valid IMO.

3. I don't personally believe the BW Presents Smile or Smile Sessions sequence is as Smile would have been released if released in 1966-67. To me, is is mostly the same sequence that most fans would have expected, and seems like a revisionist kind of approach. Thus the idea that somehow, at last, Brian was able to fully realize the vision from 1966-67 is mostly PR IMO. I think the ghosts that guided Smile turned it into Smiley Smile. and 20/20, and Surf's Up, and Sunflower, etc. ... and the entire mythology.

Heroes has 2 full mixes from 1967 - One was to be a single but scrapped, the other was the single that was released in July. Both of them match exactly to what Brian played for Humble Harv in 1966 when they were "still working". It was the other sections that came later where the variations happened. I'd say Good Vibrations followed the same path. After verse-chorus times two, it was those sections that were added and removed later in the process where the song developed.

The problem is all of those sections of Heroes that came later...Those are what is being debated and what always will be debated. I think you can reasonably suggest there were two separate plans on the table. One was the single, which again we have an unused "Cantina" mix and the July released mix. All of that other stuff? Debate what and where those would go. But I think the sheer volume of fragments and sections suggest that was going for something other than the single mix all along.

And that's not to say the single mixes didn't have their share of parts that came and went, but it was all of those sections recorded under the Heroes catch-all umbrella which I think bogged down the project related to the album versus getting something compact enough and recorded the same way as Good Vibrations to follow it up. Clearly Brian wanted a single that used the same methods as the #1 smash hit the band was sitting on as 1966 turned into 1967. And no accident similar work went into Vegetables when *that* was even being suggested as a single.

If there is doubt Brian wanted to repeat the same winning method he used to create Good Vibrations...I don't know what other evidence can be offered other than the way in which he recorded both songs that were named as singles after GV.

And Heroes, after the first minute or so, really didn't change from the first time Brian played it for Harv Miller in 66.

Would you consider Mark Linett's opinion a definitive one on the topic, or at least one which could be weighed heavily considering he was the one who did more work on those tapes than probably anyone except Brian himself in terms of the technology?

Not saying technology and lack thereof was *the* reason, that's obviously not the case at all. But to dismiss it entirely in terms of the ability to do certain things in 1966 and 67 when there was no technology to do it seems a bit extreme.

For consideration, here's one of quite a few interviews Mark gave regarding the Smile Sessions box where he touches on those issues, this from 2011:

https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/472565/beach-boys-engineer-mark-linett-talks-smile-release (https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/472565/beach-boys-engineer-mark-linett-talks-smile-release)

Excerpt:

How much of this project was completed before it was abandoned?

We are still working on the sessions so we haven't begun assembling what would normally be considered an album, which in this case will only be a representation of where the project got before it was put aside by Brian and the group. All of the tracks were recorded. A lot of the vocals seem to not have been completed.

Brian spent a tremendous amount of time on "Heroes & Villains". [There's] even a slightly longer version of the one that was released as a single, which includes several extra sections doesn't even have to begin to encompass every variation of that song. And I should point out that the most interesting thing about "Smile" is that it took Brian's original concept, which he first used with "Good Vibrations,"-he would record the song in sections in different variations and then sort of like a jigsaw puzzle, assemble the final backing track before going on to vocals.

So Brian spent most of his time on "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes & Villains"?

"Good Vibrations," if memory serves, was recorded twice as a complete songs. After the first two sessions, he started to record pieces. They would do a verse, a chorus, a bridge at various sessions and in different ways. "Good Vibrations" was extremely complicated, I can't remember exactly how many sessions were actually used to create the final backing tracks but it was quite a few - I think there were in excess of 20 backing track sessions that were considered for that song.

I am always astounded that if you listen, as I have, to the entire recorded output on that song; and then look at what was assembled as the final backing tracks and some of the experiments that didn't get used-it was an amazing accomplishment. I am just amazed that not only was he able to put that together, but of course it was so influential and successful at the same time. And originally, the song was much more of you would describe a Wilson Pickett kind of R&B number in the chorus and that ultimately didn't get used. When he got to "Smile," "Heroes & Villains" took that a step further and recorded enormous amount of different pastiches of themes both vocally and instrumentally.

What will the changes in studio technology bring to "Smile" today?

[Brian] was doing this with very primitive technology that we now do on a daily basis with digital recordings, reusing sections and moving them around. Its interesting to surmise if he had the current technology what might have happened. It would have been so much easier to do these experiments.

The advantage that we have now is digital editing that we didn't even have in 1996 when we were editing for the "Pet Sounds" boxset; it was still on tape with razor blades. So it goes a lot faster but there is still about 20 times as much material [on "Smile"]. But that almost makes it 20 times as interesting to present that much material.

"Smile" is one of the most bootlegged albums of all time. What will be new for the listener?

For most of them, the whole thing will be new. The Beach Boys have an enormous amount of material from their whole career and [since] we have been actively doing an archive project for about 10 years, there are things that we have discovered that the bootleggers missed.

And the other important thing is bootleggers tend to present every single take... We are obviously going to use the best versions and there are things that we can do that was just technologically impossible when those bootlegs were made in the 1980's.

For example, we can put Brian's vocal back into "Surf's Up," which was a group track in the 1970s [on the "Surf's Up" album]. Brian recorded a basic track with a full band for part one. And he also recorded a sort of a demo version, its just him double-tracked and a piano track. What the band did was they used the part one backing track and tried to fly Brian's vocal into that, but the technology at the time really made that impossible. So what happened was that Carl sang the [lead] vocal and overdubs were added [forthe Surf's Up album version]. And for the second half, they used Brian's piano vocal piece and added very few additions.

With the technology we have today, its much much easier to take Brian's vocal for part one and put it onto the backing track. I have done it and its quite nice. Now we have the ability to shift time things very easily so those synchronizations can be accomplished.

Will there be one complete version of the album in the way it was presented 2004 and will that album serve as the guide line for the "Smile" Sessions track listing?

We have gaps, we have missing vocals. We aren't missing any music which is heartening. All the songs were recorded. Most of it is there. I can't be sure that we won't still come up with something because we do know that there were other things recorded, but the tapes are no longer in the group's possession. And unfortunately they may have been destroyed years ago.

We have some rough mixes from 1966, which will probably become part of the quote album. There seems to be less of that than you might expect. That also leads to believe, it really wasn't close to being finished when it was put aside to go to the next project.

If you take Brian's 2004 version as a blueprint, [it will have] all of that music, all of the significant parts and even the little segue ways. For the most part, that project was heavily researched by myself and others to make sure Brian had available all the parts that had been recorded back in 1966 and 1967. Some lyric additions were made in 2004 that hadn't been completed before the project was abandoned. That's some of the questions that we have to do deal with. How will we are going to present those few pieces. But there really aren't too many. The biggest one is the song that became Blue Hawaii, which started out as a thing called "Loved to Say Dada," which is sort of the water section of the piece. That had background but no lead vocal.

What will you do. Will you add vocals?

Don't know yet. The general consensus appears to be not to do any recording just because this is a historic piece, but its a little premature because we are still trying to get 30 hours worth of sessions down to some kind of playable length. Even at that, it will be at least 3 CD to represent the sessions.


This line from Mark: "Brian was doing this with very primitive technology that we now do on a daily basis with digital recordings, reusing sections and moving them around. Its interesting to surmise if he had the current technology what might have happened. It would have been so much easier to do these experiments."

...is a line I've seen repeated in various forms from others including from those actual participants in the project. It isn't so much saying technology was the main factor, but it was a factor enough for those who worked with the same material in the modern digital era to cite, and also marvel sometimes at how Brian worked using a modern digital recording and sequencing mindset and workflow in an era of razor blade and tape. And not only worked with that mindset, but also created something like Good Vibrations. I heartily believe the notion of stretching that across a full album without the technology we take for granted today was a factor in the project becoming too overwhelming to see through to completion as Brian envisioned it during the process.

I think this type of thinking is what I am referring to - it's completely logical, and gets one to thinking "what if ..."

I would just say that if we look at Smiley Smile and Wild Honey, the modular techniques continue. And they have their origins in Pet Sounds (inserting older mixes for certain sections, etc.), and came to full fruition on "Good Vibrations" ... which was fully completed. This is where my previous points come in. While it might have been a factor in *slowing things down* ... I don't think it would have prevented Smile from being finished, and I don't believe that if Brian had full access to Pro Tools, that Smile would have been finished in 1966-'67. I don't think Brian was interested in putting "Surf's Up" into the world in 1967. Nor "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow", etc. ... He said, "I don’t have to do a big scary fire like that ... I can do a candle and it’s still fire. That would have been a really bad vibration to let out on the world, that Chicago fire. The next one is going to be a candle.” The candle was presumably "Fall Breaks". I just don't see this having anything to do with technical limitations.

Definiteness of artistic purpose. It was there for Pet Sounds, "Good Vibrations", ... Smiley Smile. It was notably lacking, or became increasingly foggy, in Smile. To me, this is just in line with basic principles of what you might call Universal Law.

My humble opinion is that at the time, technology was not seen as a limit. At the time, it’s just there was so much recorded, and so much material that Brian basically shut down whenever he thought about having to piece it all together into a 12 track 30 minute LP.
Also, as mentioned by several other people, there was tracks that he just did not want the world to hear at that time.
Not only that, but it was also the time limit that was bothering him a lot. Obviously, as several people have pointed out, they had to put out 2 to 3 albums every single year.
PS was released in May 66... and a year later they still had no new album to release.
At that time, there was ways that it could technically get finished, it’s just that none of those ways were any good.
Looking back, it’s obvious that with the technology we have today, making this album would have been way easier, and much more manageable. but you can say that with literally any album from back then, it would’ve been much easier to make today. I mean, that’s just an obvious statement. Technology has advanced so much in 50 years.

Worth pointing out that on average, albums have take progressively longer to complete as more and more options have become available. According to what is usually referred to as the Paradox of Choice, more choices do not necessarily mean more efficiency, less time, or better results. Often the opposite.

Just a quick reply before the other more general comments, to the comment in bold:

Brian did put Surf's Up into the world in April 1967 when CBS showed him playing it during the Inside Pop broadcast. It blew minds in '67, and it still blows minds for people watching it on YouTube. If anything Brian putting it out there stoked the fire for people wanting to hear more of this new music - It was simply unlike any other popular music surrounding it at that time, and that includes the big names of Brian's peers. It's a tour de force both in song construction and the solo performance of it as broadcast. Brian was close with Surf's Up, but he couldn't get it in time as planned. Worth noting Mark's comments about when the Beach Boys revisited the song for the Surf's Up LP, how they tried to fly in the vocal from Brian but technology prevented them from doing what is now a relatively standard  digital edit and time stretch. So even several years later the lack of technology, according to Mark, was a factor in that case of the vocal.

I understand the comments and reactions about technology - However one of the main points to consider is that Brian was literally breaking new ground in the areas of recording and producing hit pop records when Good Vibrations got made and released. You can't compare Good Vibrations to anything because no one producing pop music was making records like that.

For proof of this, try to name one pop artist or producer actively working and charting hits in 1966 who did anything like Brian did in constructing Good Vibrations using that many studios and that many different reels of tape. I say specifically pop artists or producers because comparing Brian's methods which actually sold records and got on the radio to some experimental tape artist working in an audio lab in Sweden in 1960 is bogus. I mean Brian's peers in pop, rock, country, easy listening, whatever genre who were actually selling records.

And the answer is no one was doing what Brian did to make Good Vibrations. So if you take that concept, that working method as a template, then consider where Brian wanted to take that method in order to create a much larger scale work on that same level as he did with a 3:35 pop single, it may suggest that what he envisioned with the editing and sequencing techniques simply did not exist in a practical enough form in 1966 and 1967 to accomplish what he really had in mind.

And of course it is but one factor in a literal shitstorm that enveloped the project, from lawsuits to getting sh*t from band members to his own hang-ups to anything else that we can rattle off the list...but limited technology was possibly a factor. And ultimately it's hard to dispute that the way Brian did Good Vibrations (and Smiley, and parts of WH) in segments was like the ProTools workflow and application decades before ProTools and digital sequencing and editing of live (not computer or MIDI based) audio was even a thing.

When you jump from Pet Sounds which was still mostly a live band recorded playing through a full take as the foundation into using multiple studios and interchangeable sections and precision editing within months...that's moving beyond where most if not all of the industry was in 1966 and beyond where the right tools to do that kind of job efficiently existed.

Brian was a trailblazer and innovator (as much as some may want to downplay that for whatever reason), and the great "what if?" is indeed what if he had the tools that are on a basic laptop today to create his music back then when his innovation was running at light speed.

A lot of interesting comments here


Agree with this; that technological limitations are/were relevant.  It made a difficult situation harder for Brian, or at best not any easier for Brian.

But even if the technology had been there, there would have been problems; unlikely he would have finished it. 


This comment really is quite spot-on; it supports the idea that technology, in the end, wouldn't have made the difference.  No matter what alternate scenario we envision, there's always the critical constant factor, which is the Brian Wilson of 1966-67; who he is at that time.  I myself have thought about ways in which Smile could be completed at the time - including, certainly as a solo project - and each time it ends up being inherently contradictory, because the Brian Wilson who finishes is no longer be Brian Wilson, but some other person you wish he could be. Which is to say, the guy who finishes Smile c. 1966-67 isn't the person who could conceive and construct the music in the first place.   

To be blunt about it, imagine better technology. So then you have a guy who is severly abused, and at the same time obligated to put food in the mouths of his abusers. He's living a total lie, but doesn't know it.   He's paranoid, hearing voices, and drinking chocolate milk out of a baby bottle. Does improved technological capacity push him over the finish line? Doubtful, but it might have gotten him closer.

(It was all hopelessly paradoxical for Brian, because to become the kind of artist who can complete Smile, Brian had to first complete Smile.)



This is my opinion also, though perhaps for different reasons. If you keep in mind the context of what had recently happened. You have Beach Boys Party at the end of 1965, after which point Brian basically takes the ball and runs with it - it's his music now, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.  Smile crashes, because Brian crashes.  This was not their failure, it was his failure, because it was his music, not theirs. He coudn't finish Smile, but the collective Beach Boys could, and they did: Smiley Smile.  They are reverting to the group we had last heard from on the Party album.  Smiley Smile is basically the Smile concept and sound and feel, but awkwardly married to the Beach Boys Party concept. That is, Smiley Smile is a strange mash-up of Smile's advanced conceptual and musical sophistication (and stoner vibes) with the half-assed, minimalist buffoonery of Beach Boys Party.  This is the true group version of Smile.  The Beach Boys finished Smile . Only the solo artist Brian Wilson failed to finish. 

While I did use "Surf's Up" as an example, the basic point is that there were particular tracks that Brian was uncomfortable releasing ... "Surf's Up" in particular is documented as being one (the 1971 Rolling Stone article details this to some degree), however "Mrs. O'Learly's Cow" would be a better example. I would put things like "Cabinessence" in there with these as well. Main point is that these songs were not really based on crazy modular arrangements like "Good Vibrations" - they seemed to have been more or less arranged, it was just a matter of conceptualizing the finished track and wrapping things up. In these cases, I don't believe technology was a limiting factor at all in these examples. Additionally, I would not consider the TV appearance to be on par with releasing the song on record.


Not to get too granular, but the technology did exist at the time. And I don't think it's too terribly inconvenient, just takes a bit more care on the part of an engineer and a bit more time. Cross-fading tracks into other tracks could easily be accomplished on 8-track, 4-track, or even 2-track since Brian was working in mono ... when you hear records from the '60s or '70s that have crossfades, they just made a standard stereo mix then dubbed it onto a 4-track, cross-fading the finished 2-track masters back and forth between the tracks. They would then mix the crossfade intros/outros to a separate 2-track tape, and splice that in with the original mixes. Obviously, we are familiar with tape splices so that wasn't a big deal in the many other examples in which the group utilized modular recording. In any case, "playing around with it" and testing things out quickly would indeed have been the limiting factor, and I think we're all in agreement that this might have been a factor. But my argument is I believe it would be a minor one if a true reason at all.

What I challenge I guess is that the Smile Sessions Smile record is what Smile would have ended up like had it been released (1/3 of it would have been cut, for example), and if it were, it is not particularly challenging in terms of doing that all-analog if it were needed ... the only part I can think of that would have been a problem in analog is that section from the *Smiley* version of Wind Chimes, which was speed corrected digitally. So I guess I kind of think of this idea as a bit of revisionism -- the idea that the technology of the time made it so Brian just couldn't get it together, and it would have been a different story if Pro Tools had been around. But you know my biases -- I don't like digital recording at all, and don't think it lends toward greater creativity personally.

IMO this is like making the argument - if only Brian had unlimited time, and had a studio in his home, he would have been able to finish Smile … :D

I think you made good points. I personally believe Brian fully produced Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, and Friends though. 20/20 is the first record that sounds like Brian did not bring any of the songs to completion (even "Time to Get Alone", "I Went to Sleep", and "Cabinessence"). I believe Carl took over that role beginning with 20/20 - bringing tracks to completion from a production standpoint. This is regardless of label credits.

I don't believe the technology was the problem with Smile. Time was. Look at how long it took to complete Good Vibrations to Brian's satisfaction. That's 3 minutes and 36 seconds of music. Now you want him to do a full half hour of music in the same style?
If Capitol had been willing to wait until 1972 for a completed Smile album, then yes, it could have been done.
But what do the Beach Boys do in the meantime? Crank out a few more Party albums? Tour as an oldies act?
The business was not going to support such a venture in 1966/67. And the group would have been left even further behind than they were releasing stuff like Wild Honey and Friends.
It's two worlds fighting against each other; the creative, artistic side, which only cares about making the best music possible; and the business side, which says you have to have a new single out every 3 or 4 months, and a new album at least twice a year.

Donny, I know where you're coming from - I'll gladly agree to disagree because points are valid on both sides. I agree with a lot of your examples and reasoning, but I do think it's too drastic to dismiss the notion of the technology playing a part entirely. I also agree that sometimes limitations lead to innovations...as we saw with Brian Wilson especially in the year 1966, and the fact that the man is deaf in one ear yet could still make absolutely amazing soundscapes in the studio!

But at the same time, you can plug in any number of sayings to make the same point about technology or art in general...if a painter only has two colors on the palette yet uses that limitation to innovate somehow, then yes: The limitation led to something unique as a result. However, flipping that a bit, what would that same painter have done if you provided a third color, or even 15 more colors? There is no answer, the art flows from the artist no matter what is working against them or working in their favor.

Do I think recording as a whole was more innovative and creative especially in the mid to late 60's? Absolutely, 110%! Do I think the limitations of what they had to work with inspired some of that creativity? To some degree...but at the same time the "what if?" exists in asking of someone like Geoff Emerick what if Abbey Road had sprung for an 8-track and allowed its use prior to Sgt. Pepper. Again, we can do what-if's all day but for a lot of the people who had to work with the limited technologies, almost to a man they will say how much longer and more difficult their jobs were - and in some cases how unsuccessful they were when the attempts failed because the gear they had couldn't do what they needed - because of technology that was not up to par where they would have liked it to be.

Technology is one thing, getting into individual tracks is another in terms of the big picture. So much is made of Mrs. O'Leary's Cow due to the aura it gained after a few articles describing what happened, like Seigel. The most basic fact is Brian recorded something and scrapped it - as simple as that! All bands and artists do that, but in this case some will try to tie it into the legend of Brian's paranoia, and drug use, and all that stuff...when perhaps it's as simple as he recorded this Fire piece, didn't think it would work *at that time* with what he was doing, and put it on the shelf. Ironically when it did finally come out under his own name, he won a Grammy for it! So maybe he was right in shelving it at that time, for a Beach Boys project. Who knows. Or maybe the conflict at that time was how to weave it into what he had planned for the other "elements", and maybe, yes, it was "too scary" for a Beach Boys record. "Fire" is seeing a tree instead of the forest, I think: The forest was how to organize all of his trees both on tape and waiting to be taped and those still being conceived in his mind into some kind of cohesive whole. And that's where I differ from your opinions and suggest if he had something similar to what Darian had decades later that could allow him almost instant editing and sequencing, *maybe* his ideas could have been fleshed out in a way more suited to the way his mind worked at that time.

A lot of my opinions come from the various descriptions, most published and perhaps some not as widely spread, of when Darian had all those Smile segments loaded up into his DAW and sat down with Brian to audition various sequences, trying to figure out what went where and what goes where to make that elusive, cohesive whole. I know most of the sentiments at the time were "imagine if we had this back then...", coming from Brian too, and it of course suggests pure fantasy but to me it also suggests a piece of what was lacking in the overall process and what could have hindered the process beyond everything else to where it got too overwhelming.

And the technology I'm referring to was not crossfading or hard edits...it was the way in which Good Vibrations was created overall, along with what Mark said in that interview. I still ask who else in the pop field who was actually selling records was using the studio and tape the same way Brian did in 1966, and I can't think of a single one. Look at all the accolades and awards Bones Howe got for "Age Of Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In" in '69 and that was only 3 different sessions edited together. It was terrific, yes, but compared to the miles of tape Brian had for Good Vibrations? Same with Bohemian Rhapsody...after trying for years, along with many others, I still have no idea how they mixed that thing without automation and how they kept track of all the drop-ins and how many hands manned those faders, etc. But in 1966, to do it as Brian did, is still amazing to consider how he did it so well.

Exactly the point, yes. For what they had to work with, and all other considerations and factors, it took, what, 6 months to complete Good Vibrations - and Brian envisioned an album that would feature some of those same techniques (not all...but some) while the demand was so strong for new product. Part of the equation is he ran out of time - Which is also ironic because in today's world, a band like Tool can literally go years trying to craft their next album, and the fans think it's terrific that they take so much time and care working out every note on their albums...but in 1966 and 1967 that simply wasn't the case.

So yes, just my opinion, but apart from his own personal working methods if Brian was able to do what he wanted to do *faster* in both a technological sense and in a practical sense in terms of being able to book studio time on demand as I think he had been used to doing when inspiration struck, maybe the story would have been different. Notice how later in 1967 they specifically tried to remove one of those barriers from the process, so that issue isn't as trivial as some might suggest.

So much of it comes down to art versus commerce, you're exactly right. In this case I'd also factor in art versus expectations from those in the inner circle, but that's topic for another discussion.

Yep I think we’re dealing with opinions and theories, not facts mainly. We each have our own viewpoints and conclusions. In my case, no doubt influenced by own experience in the analog realm and opinions on the results of the digital music age.

Fair segue while we’re on the topic - is there any documentation that Brian at any point was going to structure the entire album as flowing through as 2 side-long “tracks”? To me, this is the only way the argument could potentially make sense. But something tells me it would have been 11-13 tracks at 30-35 minutes anyway.

The only documentation I think any of us have seen, up to and including Mark and Alan who sifted through as much as was available to make the box set, was that lone tracklist memo written in Carl's handwriting, made public I think in LLVS for the first time. I know this is all old info that has been repeated many times, but even the back cover didn't have an accurate tracklisting and had an addendum to see inside for the order! So Capitol didn't know when they made the slicks.

Do I think the scenario you mentioned could have been on the table in 66-67? Absolutely. But it's pure guessing, I seriously don't think anyone knows and if something did exist it would have been part of the box set. Now the other question to ask even in spite of all that has already been said is how closely did the 2004 presentation mirror what may have been on the table back in 66-67, even if conceptually and in that regard, partially? Topic for more discussion.  ;D

I do focus on something Mark said in that same interview, with the heads-up that there are quite a few interviews from these projects that may go even deeper but this one just happened to be convenient today:

Will there be one complete version of the album in the way it was presented 2004 and will that album serve as the guide line for the "Smile" Sessions track listing?

We have gaps, we have missing vocals. We aren't missing any music which is heartening. All the songs were recorded. Most of it is there. I can't be sure that we won't still come up with something because we do know that there were other things recorded, but the tapes are no longer in the group's possession. And unfortunately they may have been destroyed years ago.

We have some rough mixes from 1966, which will probably become part of the quote album. There seems to be less of that than you might expect. That also leads to believe, it really wasn't close to being finished when it was put aside to go to the next project.

If you take Brian's 2004 version as a blueprint, [it will have] all of that music, all of the significant parts and even the little segue ways. For the most part, that project was heavily researched by myself and others to make sure Brian had available all the parts that had been recorded back in 1966 and 1967. Some lyric additions were made in 2004 that hadn't been completed before the project was abandoned. That's some of the questions that we have to do deal with. How will we are going to present those few pieces. But there really aren't too many. The biggest one is the song that became Blue Hawaii, which started out as a thing called "Loved to Say Dada," which is sort of the water section of the piece. That had background but no lead vocal.


Pulling it out of the answer: We have some rough mixes from 1966, which will probably become part of the quote album. There seems to be less of that than you might expect. That also leads to believe, it really wasn't close to being finished when it was put aside to go to the next project.

This statement suggests while the majority of music was recorded and in the can, as in not much was "missing" as also shown in 2004, and a lot of vocals existed but not as many as instrumental tracks existed waiting for vocals...doesn't this suggest the burden if not the hindrance was in the mixing and sequencing process? When Mark says there were less *rough* mixes than expected, which meant obviously no final mixes, yet most of the tracks could be considered finished and a relatively small number of vocals overall would need to be added beyond what was on tape already...doesn't it suggest the sticking point was whatever was planned for the final mixing and sequencing, as in the process of putting it all together? The exact words from Mark lean toward the post-production being the bugger of the whole process.

Is this correct... the only piece of BWPS for which there's no analogous 1966-67 instrumental track (in circulation, anyway) is Surf's Up, Part 2?
(unless we count Brian's solo piano).

Could be, but ... considering how they worked in ‘66-‘67 (including Smiley and WH), I would say that everything was kind of done as they went along - seems to me that the most obvious answer is Brian lost the plot. To me, you can kind of hear the thing start to unravel and the sessions almost lead in to what became Smiley Smile. Even the Smile tracks cut toward the end seem to be more based around snippets, riffs, and chants more than songs. Then we see much of this come into focus on Smiley Smile.

I think it's pretty obvious that Brian was still in charge for Wild Honey and Friends, with assistence by Carl and probably some production ideas thrown in here and there by some of the other guys, like Alan (can't picture Mike being too involved in any of this however, other than suggesting some finger popping or whatever). On 20/20, Do It Again, Cotton Fields and I Went to Sleep sound like real Brian (co-) productions. Sunflower already sounds very "un-Brian" in terms of production to my ears.

I forgot about “Do It Again”, you’re right that definitely sounds like Brian completed it. Though I was referring to the tracks sounding like a “complete” BW production. A good half of 20/20 has definite Brian produced sounds, but none of them sound like his style of mixing/completing a track to me, except “Do It Again”.

I would include “Break Away” ... and
Actually “Celebrate the News” sounds kinda like Brian too, so wonder if I’m nuts. None of Dennis’ 20/20 tracks sound Brian produced though (IMO).

"Be with Me" sounds closer to "Time to Get Alone" than anything that Brian did on that album I think, production-wise. So I guess Carl co-produced "BwM" with Dennis. On Sunflower, the tracks that sound like Brian had some major input would be "Add Some Music", "At My Window" (together with Al) and maybe "Our Sweet Love" and "Cool Cool Water" imo, though I'd guess Carl was the #1 producer for the latter two.

Brian solo produced the basic session for This Whole World for certain.

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That's cool to hear, I love that song! Always felt a little unsure about whether Brian had a hand in its production apart from vocal arranging.

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Yes, but labels give artists much more time and much higher budgets to work with.
It’s not that albums take longer to make, but now days its not uncommon to see bands take 4 or 5 years off between albums.
It’s not that the album took 5 years to record, but the recording process is more spread out.

Also, a lot of people forget that Brian recorded a new Surfs Up demo during the Wild Honey sessions.
It was hidden at the end of the tapes for Country Air

.

Just to clarify re: production -- I am referring to *completing* the production in particular. My impression is that Brian produced sessions and was very involved (particularly in lots of Sunflower stuff), but to me, it sounds like Friends was the last LP that has that final "BW touch". "Do It Again" and "Break Away" also have it, but I'm not sure I hear it after that. We have Carl's "Mixdown Producer" credit on Love You, and I think this is telling.

Two things I haven’t seen brought up are:
A: Capital wanted a follow up to GV, and none of the Smile tracks are as easily accessible to a wide audience as GV. H&V is an amazing song, 10 out of 10. But, as several people noted, it “confused people.”
Putting everything else aside, lyrically, GV is sweet, catchy, simple and relatable.
I’m no Mike Love fan, but he’s absolutely correct when he says that his lyrics for GV connected with people. Of course they did, because if you really look at GV, it’s a song about infatuation. Everyone understands infatuation. And it helps that the song is super simple and catchy.
The rest of Smile is not like that at all. The 2 closest tracks are Vega-Tables and Wind Chimes, and even then, the lyrics are still extremely obscure for most people.
So either way, I don’t think that the BBs would have had another #1 with any other Smile tracks.
B: Brian has even said that if he had another year to work on Smile, it would have gotten finished. But Capital had just spent 6 months waiting for GV, PS wasn’t exactly well received financially, so they were not about to let Brian have an entire 2 years to work.
If all this happened today, Brian would have as much time as needed, but 1967 was a different time.

Consider that the timeline of what was done in the studio as you mentioned "toward the end" falls into line directly with the same working method Brian had been using for the past year. The band had a big European tour in May 1967 which saw them gone for roughly a month. Just prior to them leaving on that tour, Brian had them in the studio doing vocals for Vegetables, April 1967. The band leaves on tour...no vocals can be cut while they're gone obviously. The next sessions Brian holds are with the Wrecking Crew, for Love To Say Dada, in line with how he had been recording the other Smile tracks. Listen to the session tapes from this time, there are no indications Brian was anything less than in control and doing what he does in the studio contrary to some opinions suggesting he had fallen apart or something.

So the band returns from Europe later in May '67. While on that tour almost every band member is quoted in the press saying a variation of the statement "we don't want to be rushed, we want to give the fans our best work, etc..." regarding questions about the delay in releasing their "new" single and the dust-up over EMI putting out "Then I Kissed Her" from the vaults as a placeholder. The running theme was they needed the time to put out the best product they could for the fans, in terms of both the single and the upcoming album.

Worth noting, that May '67 tour also saw them take quite a bashing in the European press over the sound of their concerts not measuring up to the sound of their records. This also happened to some extent during their Fall '66 European jaunt, but in May '67 it was heavier criticism and more consistent. As I've said before, that had to hurt. And their tangles with the union over adding the string players didn't help matters.

Oh, and meanwhile as the band was telling the press about their new album, Derek Taylor issues a press release saying the new album (Smile) had been "scrapped", a statement that was seemingly not backed up by the band as they were giving interviews during the tour, though unfortunately none ever directly commented on Taylor's statement but their own statements contradicted him.

The band returns from the European tour, late May. They almost immediately go into both Western for several sessions and also one at Sound Recorders, and work on With Me Tonight, Cool Cool Water, and resumed work on Vegetables which was suspended due to them leaving on the tour.

In short, nothing had changed in terms of how Brian was progressing on tracks associated with Smile. Brian cut those instrumental tracks using the same studios and same musicians he had been using all along, the same working method of him preparing the backing tracks to which the band would add any vocals after they returned from the tour. Vegetables was picked up again where they left off in April. With Me Tonight, Cool Cool Water...again, tracks that we could speculate were or were not part of Smile proper, but doesn't it add up anyway that they were in the usual pro studios doing what they left off doing back in April according to the usual schedule?

Then...something radically and drastically changed literally within a week, that week after those final group sessions at Western. When they regrouped, the entire game changed. They were in Brian's living room with cables running all over the floors going into a gates Dualux radio broadcast mixer instead of a pro studio. The entire workflow changed. Heroes changed. The production credit would see a shift to "produced By The Beach Boys" rather than "produced by Brian Wilson" even though Brian was still calling 99% of the musical shots as we can all hear on the tapes recorded at the house.

For me, and I'll go to the grave probably never knowing for sure, whatever happened that one week between the last pro studio session and the first session at the house is *key* to understanding what happened and why such drastic changes were made literally in a week's time. Whatever the answer may be, whoever or whatever can be pointed to, *something* happened to cause such a shift and it can be narrowed down to basically one week in time as outlined briefly above.

So what exactly happened? I'll repost the quote from a July '67 Derek Taylor piece where events of that week in June '67 are mentioned:

"In one inspired decision, (Nick) Grillo and the Beach Boys were able to a. Make use of Brian Wilson's new house, b. restructure the attitude and atmosphere at recording sessions and c. remove the problem of availability of commercial studios. They built their own 8-track studio in the Spanish house."

It's the part about restructuring the attitude and atmosphere at recording sessions that sticks out for me. Read into that how anyone pleases. But it can't be denied that *something big* went down during that week in June that changed the entire game, focus, outlook, structure, sound, etc...

And I'm still waiting to hear an authoritative answer as to what that something big actually was. I'm not holding my breath.

But back to the last comments in Donny's post, if Brian was working exactly as he had throughout Smile in May '67 and recording the full DaDa track, and if the band after returning home jumped right back in to adding vocals and picking up with Vegetables, doesn't it suggest the same plans were still in place despite what Taylor's piece suggested in early May, especially if the exact same "Pet Sounds-GV-Smile" working methods were followed as evidenced by the schedule of sessions? And, that the songs worked on were as far as anyone knew still part of Smile? Could it have been that those riffs and snippets were just part of what had to be added for various parts of the album, similar to any of the other riffs or chants that had already been recorded? And Vegetables/DaDa worked on in May '67 were not snippets or riffs, they were full tracks which had multiple parts being added to fill them out, again in line with the existing working methods.

It wasn't until that next week when the whole thing changed.

Just food for thought.

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GV was a triumph but at $50K or whatever. I think all these points

"In one inspired decision, (Nick) Grillo and the Beach Boys were able to a. Make use of Brian Wilson's new house, b. restructure the attitude and atmosphere at recording sessions and c. remove the problem of availability of commercial studios. They built their own 8-track studio in the Spanish house."

revolve about the basic fact, that though doubtlessly Brian was creating very interesting and worthy music, the sessions and his non-productivity in terms of no results (album, 2 singles) meant Brian's cosy set-up drained money. Most probably, the guys had a talk. Some unsubtle intrusion from Capitol?

What I'm suggesting is not that Brian had personal problems that made it so he could not work on Smile ... as I've indicated previously in this thread, I think he was fully capable, willing, and interested in producing records through Friends. Clearly, he made a conscious effort to "quit the production race" however (removing his name from the Producer credits is the biggest indication here IMO).

What I am noting is that in my observation, there is a distinct transition into the Smiley Smile concept on the last few months of Smile sessions. We have these lighter/"sillier"/more humorous kinds of songs, along with the more chant-like snippets. Conceptually - similar to Smiley; sonically and performance-wise - different due to the transition to the home studio and more reliance on the band members themselves.

Brian losing the plot = artistically, the material that made up Smile became increasingly difficult to tie together, and his original vision for what the album was supposed to be was becoming increasingly less possible or feasible to realize ... and thus, he re-conceptualized it into Smiley Smile. As Brian explained upon the release of Smiley Smile: "We did it in three weeks. We had about six months before that we were doing different things that we junked … and ended up doing the whole thing here at the house, with sort of an entirely different mood and approach than we originally started out."

I remember that Mike Love said that Brian went downhill after Heroes and Villains, his productions were never the same after that.  The drugs were taking him over and his ability to write and produce were compromised.

What needs to be considered though is both the sessions and the sum total of what was already on tape for Smile versus what needed to be done.

It stands out how during May '67 there wasn't a change at all in how Brian was tracking, DaDa is a full track and a pretty fully orchestrated one at that using the Wrecking Crew in pro studios. It began life months before as "All Day", and here was Brian fleshing out that initial idea with a full orchestration. I doubt he'd do that just for the sake of doing it, and it felt like it was still part of the workflow. Factor in having the Beach Boys come back in for a pretty decent round of studio vocal sessions most notably restarting work on Vegetables from April before the tour, and as of late May literally days after returning from the tour they were back at it.

Consider perhaps both Brian working on DaDa and the vocal sessions the Boys did with him after returning were attempts to fill in some of the missing pieces that still needed to be done for Smile? Not trying to say that's fact, but the case can be made with what we absolutely know they did during May '67.

Mark and others already said most of the instrumental tracks were there and we can all hear that, and it would make sense for Brian to go back to his original "All Day" idea and flesh it out as he ended up doing. Same with the vocals, picking up where they left off in April and adding new material that may not have been grand-scale stuff, but was also possibly some of the additions needed to keep adding missing parts.

And then, there was a very clear and pointed dividing line where the whole focus changed.

Note too that as April ran into May and again into June, there was an added pressure to get a new single out, and that pressure was coming on top of the legal battles with Capitol that were eventually resolved enough so that Heroes could be released on Brother. So the focus overall perhaps had to shift at some point from the overall album work to the immediate pressure of finishing up a single. More of the issues swirling around this time obviously.

Time To Get Alone, Can't Wait To Long/Been Way To Long, and the Ol Man River sessions prove otherwise.

That's kind of what I'm challenging. Smiley Smile, Wild Honey, and Friends sort of prove that wrong IMO. I think he made a conscious, intentional artistic change for the '67-'68 era. After that, I think he lost interest in completing tracks.

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I don't particularly disagree with this, but I'd say that "Smile" getting shelved was more than just an intentional artistic change. Something fell apart there. The Smile-to-Smiley Smile path was not the same as Summer Days-to-Pet Sounds, etc.

I don't agree with how Mike grossly generalizes about Brian's demise in that era, but I don't think it's crazy for the other members of the band to feel in retrospect that things changed after "Smile." The fact that, intermittently over the years, band member seemed to minimize the post-PS/Smile stuff has to do with many factors. Brian not being 1966 Brian was one of them. But I also think we have to remember that the band members embracing and performing later 60s and 70s material in concert, and looking back at those tracks via boxed sets and whatnot, is a relatively recent development. Mike wasn't going to do "All I Wanna Do" or "Surf's Up" at his licensed concerts in 1999.  For most of the 80s and 90s, Mike thought a lot about "Kokomo", a lot about diminishing album returns, a lot about increased concert revenue, and stewed on numerous slights from Brian or folks related to Brian. So in 1998 for instance, it totally makes sense that Mike was thinking of "Heroes and Villains", and then not much else musically for a few decades after that. I'm generalizing as well of course. A few post-66 songs became standards in the setlist.

I think it's important, especially after getting hunks of SS and WH session tapes, to remind fans and scholars that Brian was still running those sessions, that he didn't go to sleep in his bedroom in 1967, and that maybe SS wasn't as much of a "meh, let's just record an album with a washboard and water jugs" and did have some deliberation behind it. But certainly it's plausible to me that, even if Brian ran those later sessions, the band felt Brian was different in drive on SS and WH, etc.

Brian's motivation for making those albums surely was different. As I think Howie Edelson posted concerning the 67/68 era, a lot the Brian stuff from then was almost devoid of contemporary influences. Brian was just doing his own thing, vibing a bit on Bacharach maybe, and just following his own muse. In produced great stuff that I wouldn't ever want to give up. But if the guys in the band were to tell me Brian wasn't *as* dynamic in creating that material, I'd have no problem believing it.

Interesting stuff.

Regarding the decision to change the production credit - is the source for that decision known? Was it Brian's idea? Was the organization taking away his stripes? A collective, family decision whose specific origin can't be determined?

That was, from my understanding, a Brian Wilson decision that happened right around the time that they started recording in his house.
He wasn’t using session musicians very much anymore, the entire band was still involved, so he decided to make the credit more democratic.
However, SS and WH are very much “produced by Brian Wilson.”
Friends was also mostly a Brian project, with the exception of the two Dennis tracks.
20/20 was the first completely democratic album, with every track being written, produced and arranged by different members.
Sunflower was very similar, except that Carl acted more like “ Executive producer.” He may not have produced every track, but he had some type of hand in every track. Carl’s EP went even further with Surfs Up, CATP and Holland.
And then obviously we know where things went later on

Just pulling this out so say yes indeed, as I wrote in several posts above, something drastically changed, and we can pinpoint it directly to the week after the Boys returned from Europe and were tracking vocals in the pro studios, and suddenly after that mysterious week in early June '67, Brian's living room had a radio broadcast board and rented studio gear and they were recording there instead.

The information and dates are out there and pretty set in stone - The mystery remains just what did happen during that week to cause such a seismic shift in direction. Read between the lines and there had to be a band meeting or meetings that led to the entire process and direction changing within a week after they got home from that tour.

Must have been some heavy stuff.

I go back to a comment made by ex-wife Marilyn in the Don Was documentary, where she described how Brian eventually had enough of the band members getting on his case over this and that in the studio, and eventually said something to the effect of if you don't agree with what I'm doing, do it yourselves, f***ers. And apart from the "nicer" version that suggests it was to bring a more democratic vibe into the process, and I agree that played a part in the production credit decision to some degree, what Marilyn clearly spelled out was Brian's frustration with the other guys' nitpicking finally boiled over.

I know that's not a popular sentiment among some revisionist circles who would like the public to believe the band members supported Brian at every step, but that's how bad it really was even if you don't hear about it as much. His former wife spelled it out on camera.

The other point which is perhaps even more important to consider is that Brian had been pushing Carl and Dennis to take a bigger role in production overall, at least since late '66 as you can hear Smile era sessions booked for Carl and Dennis to experiment in the studio and learn the trade. I'll always suggest Brian was trying to mentor them into learning how to make records, also falling in line with what the plans for Brother were, namely the outlet for the band members to find, develop, and produce outside artists besides the Beach Boys and make money doing it. I zero in on Carl and Dennis because we have audio proof of them in the studio (sounding a lot like what Brian was doing) learning how to cut records, Al maybe but he didn't give it a go until a few years later, Bruce had a track record of producing records if he was to be included in the Brother roster, and Mike couldn't produce his way out of a wet paper bag.  Brian has said he wanted to pull back from being the #1 go-to guy and get the others on board producing *and* writing to take some of the load off and develop Brother according to plans, and I think we can trace some of the ways he was doing it.

So combining the practical with the emotional reasons, there may be an answer in there somewhere.

Don’t forget the “pickle brothers” sessions... >:D

Well also, I may be wrong about this, but I recall reading somewhere that Brian had a plan post Smile.
His plan was to finish GV, then finish an album, then after that album, the next album would be more of a group album with contributions from everyone.
So if everything would have gone to plan, the timeline would’ve looked like this:
October 1966: GV is released and goes #1
Jan 1967: H&V is released as a single, with the album following.
Spring / Summer 1967: Brian backs off to let the rest of the band provide contributions to the next album.

Obviously this is not what happened, but if everything would’ve gone the way that I read that it was supposed to, it would’ve been similar to this. obviously, Brian would have still been the leader, but they would’ve worked on more of a “beach Boys” album rather than a “brian’s beach boys” album.

This quote from Carl is of the intriguing variety that keeps uber-fans' imaginations spinning at night...

"We didn’t scrap them,” Carl said. “We just haven’t used them yet. We did it all from scratch when we started again. We actually had finished the album but then a lot of things didn’t turn out the way Brian liked. We all didn’t agree on different types of things. We decided to do something new.”

The easiest thing to say about this is that Carl's statement is simply untrue.  Who knows why he said what he said, but they had not "finished the album," not even close.  And that's that. False statement.  Move on.  And that's certainly the accepted wisdom now among anyone and everyone... at least everyone whose opinion matters.

But I've been a fan long enough to know that it hasn't always been totally accepted wisdom.  I can remember 20-30 years ago hearing rumors along the lines that, although Smile had never been "finished finished" in the sense of a completed master tape, that it, or at least parts of it, may have at one time existed in a more finished form than what exists now. There were at one time, for example, rumors that Brian had done a test-mix of one whole side of Smile.  Someone even claimed that Brian had played that "side" in a radio station interview in late spring '67.  The fact is that if a tape of such a test mix was lost, stolen or intentionally destroyed, who would know about it or remember?   I remember reading David Leaf once say in the early '90s something along the lines that "the vaults have been raped.  Tapes that I saw in the vault in 1976 are gone."

I think you’re onto something. The stories of Brian tossing tapes, Erasing tapes, the lack of completed Mixes in the tape libraries, etc. ... gets one to thinking.

Oh to have been a fly on the wall when Mark and Alan discovered that.

I'm guessing there were chins on the floor.

I too think that he made a conscious decision around that time to go for a somewhat minimalist, less passionate approach. At the same time I feel he kind of made a virtue out of necessity. It's obvious he was feeling exhausted and that feeling is all over those records (which I think are all fantastic). His singing style also mirrored that feeling, especially on Friends.

I always feel that, after the demise of Smile, Brian had a short attention span in the studio. He would go in with the group and whoever, and produce something that sounded nice enough, but as Mike says, he became more passive. He'd do enough, and then Carl or the others would come in and try to take it to the level of Brian's earlier productions. This, I think, has remained true for the last 50 years. 15 BO and Love You are Brian working without anyone else stepping in to "complete" his productions; where, for the most part, what we have gotten as far as released albums have been "a little initial inspiration from Brian", and then someone else - Andy Paley, Joe Thomas, Don Was,etc - stepping in to "complete" the recording.
Brian loses interest in things real fast now, which is why someone else always has to take over on co-writing and production. Is this a result of drugs he took in the 60's and 70's? A result of drugs Landy prescribed for him in the 80's and 90's? Or just natural aging? Your guess is as good as mine.

In one of those BB/BW documentaries (can't remember which one) Van Dyke Parks shared a story of how Brian once said to him (quoted from memory): "My work is done; I worked hard when I was young and I did a lot of good work". That one I think is very telling with regard to Brian becoming more passive after the group's golden era in the 60s (and I do believe that he regained his passion for studio work for a short while when he did 15BO and Love You, despite Carl's co-production credit).

Yes some tapes are gone but what if there were no completed mixes from the get-go. Brian worked on the album and the next big one after GV, H&V. The only known finished mix of H&V was the Cantina alternate from February 10th. But that one does not resemble a single mix, as it has no chorus. It has three verses in a row, the "Cantina" section which serves as one of the bridges but in effect is the continuation of the H&V "story" (hence it's "Part 2" moniker), other verse and bridges-tags-pick-ups - whatever; there is a fade - everything is here but a chorus. And then we have chants. People thought "Cantina" was the planned A-side and the chants with whatever would form the B-side, and it seems nobody has raised a question, what good a single without a chorus would be.

Then from closer to the end of February, Brian returns to the "Bicycle Rider" chorus he had been trying in a combination with an already developed verse, but somehow he set it aside, not using it in "Cantina" - even if it's marked as a H&V master from January 5th. It's interesting that some of the chants are based on BR. But these aren't choruses. Chorus is a very definite thing, either there is one or there's nothing.

Suddenly, he starts to remake the verse, the fade, the chorus. This is when he starts working on H&V as the single. But, suddenly the work is stopped in the beginning of March. After that, he works on Vegetables which is clearly the single and clearly has a chorus. A couple of other songs were briefly in the works and also Dada, but these could be written off in the larger picture. What counts is:

- there never had been a proper "villanous" chorus of H&V before he came up with "Bicycle Rider" - "Heroes" being described in the verse, "Villains" in the chorus. "Cantina" served as the development of the story. That's why he blew off the first deadline, and then the next deadlines. But, he worked on H&V as the centerpiece of the album all this time. He just did not work on the H&V single.

I think (this is in Priore's second book and may be elsewhere) this has to do something with their litigation with Capitol; apparently, the band wanted to withhold the single. Everything about "the single is finished" is just false statements. He started working on it in earnest from the second half of February, and abandoned his work. When the band resumed work post-Smile, it was on his February design.

Cam Mott has turned our attention to the fact that all the ingredients of H&V single are collected on the master 57045, starting from the BR chorus which started this master on January 5th. Everything else bar the earliest works such as verse is on the master 57020. This raises a question whether Brian worked on a "Part 1-Part 2", "Side 1- Side 2" scenario, as tapeboxes attest to that. But, as there is no mention of a chorus on these tapeboxes, and the glaring existence of a chorus-less "Cantina" mix, the only way this scenario can be explained is - Brian inventing "Sgt. Pepper" before "Sgt. Pepper" by wanting to place a version of H&V on each side - not of a single, but of the album.  

The most moot moment is not what killed off Smile between May and June, but what killed H&V in March. That took care of Smile as well. I don't buy the idea that Brian was too overwhelmed with his creation, as he worked on the single proper, and resumed the work along the same lines in June. There was an unwelcome intrusion from the band or from the company which made him to abandon his work. Very probably, the monetary considerations. Priore quotes H&V costing $40K, while GV only $10-15K and not $50K which is a much older quotation.

Having been reminded that the song "vegetables" was slated to be a single… Does anyone think that if Paul McCartney had actually munched celery on a single version - and that fact had been played up and used in marketing in '67 - would that have had any impact on chart success? A '67 Beatles cameo, even if it was a very unusual type of cameo appearance?

In terms of songs without a chorus there are plenty of examples that are now considered legendary songs: To name but two, Hey Jude and Bohemian Rhapsody. No chorus to be found in either one. I'd argue one of Brian's earlier triumphs All Summer Long has no specific chorus section, and I'd also argue neither does Wouldn't It Be Nice, which borrowed it's structure and groove from The Lovin Spoonful's "You Didn't Have To Be So Nice", which I'd *also* argue has no chorus yet was a hit single.

But most relevant to "Heroes And Villains", as has been mentioned many times, when Van Dyke heard Brian play the initial idea, he thought of a Marty Robbins ballad and the lyrics began to flow. Specifically, in this case, Marty's "El Paso" which was a number one crossover hit as a single on the country and Hot 100 charts back in '59. If you listen to El Paso you'll hear the influence both lyrically and in the rhythmic flow.

And Marty Robbins' "El Paso" has no chorus, yet was still a number 1 smash hit.  :)

It's not like H&V never had a chorus - Brian had found a very good one in BR. It's the Cantina version which is strikingly chorus-less. I feel there were reasons for him to delay the work on H&V as a single, and these were political.

Marty Robbins had a hit in his chosen idiom, while Brian wanted to confirm his newly-found ability to come up with something on par with his previous "tower of song". "Hey Jude" is a great sing-along, there's no reason such song wouldn't have been a hit. "Bo Rhap", likewise, but on the opposite basis - too technically excellent. Also, these songs are extremely hummable and of a certain anthemic quality. While H&V sounds good on an ear, it has nothing in those departments. Now Wouldn't It Be Nice, it's both hummable and rather anthemic. It has two different hummable themes, so the main property of a chorus is here at work.

On a separate note, I think he was well aware of Phil Spector's fall with something as great as "River Deep, Mountain High". To risk everything with a track which has no chorus? highly unlikely IMO.

And, naturally, he came back to his senses very soon. I wonder why Brian rejected those "mixing experiments" of verse into BR. If he felt he needed some middle part inbetween, it wouldn't have been too hard for him to think one up. BR theme sounding too spooky? he could coat it with something.

So I think it's highly likely there never had been that much more than what we know of. No mystical H&V single of two parts, no Smile being ready for finalization on that May 19th session, no nothing. And what we have is more or less "it".

Brian did borrow nearly the same rhythmic groove and a similar backing track as Spector used on River Deep, so regardless of eventual chart performance he definitely took more than a bit of influence from that record for Heroes.

Here's the conundrum: Brian was kicking down doors and innovating in terms of pop music in 1966 and into 67, as some of his peers were also doing. The "formula" on how to both write and produce a pop song was being thrown out the window in some cases, and that was the whole point. The way music was performed live was following suit - It was no longer guys in suits playing on a basically bare stage through a PA system. Radio was changing too.

I honestly believe as much of a pop sensibility as Brian Wilson had - and his was one of the best in the business - at this exact time I think he was trying to push the outside of the envelope with the music he was making. And in terms of the old format where a song had to have a verse-chorus-bridge-etc, he had already made some pretty classic records which didn't follow that form alongside many that did, and I think his entire concept going into what became the Smile project was to make music that was different and new, not the same accepted pop song structure and format. It was more forward-thinking.

Cue the obligatory "Art Versus Commerce" sidebar.

But consider how Janis Ian appeared alongside Brian on the Inside Pop broadcast, April '67, was featured singing her song "Society's Child"...and against all conventional pop formula and commercial music expectations, from that broadcast the song actually became a hit on the pop charts. Janis' song follows barely any normal conventions of what should make a hit record, in almost all areas of the song's design and sound. Yet it was good enough and caught enough ears in 1967 when CBS featured it that people started requesting and buying it.

And no accident, there was Brian at the end of the broadcast performing his own new and different composition which unfortunately was not available to request or buy in 1967.

Just pointing all that out to show that non-traditional songwriting and production was capable of connecting to an audience without the standard formulae in place, and one of the best comparisons happened on the same April '67 TV broadcast where Brian appeared premiering what is perhaps the crowning achievement of the Smile project.

Please refresh my memory, where or when did someone suggest there would be a Smile ready for finalization on May 19th (1967)?

I never suggested that anybody suggested that (the importance of that last cancelled session) :-D that tale is really old.

I wholeheartedly agree that what Brian did was ahead of the times. The music is so good, that till a couple of days ago I never had a thought about what is strange about "Cantina".

I've wondered how much Phil's very quick fall from the charts (and grace) affected Brian's own self-confidence at that time, when he really needed confidence boosting like never before.

I've read that DJs had a silent strike for Phil's record because he acted snooty toward them or something. And we have H&V radio "demo" maybe because of that. 

I doubt Brian had any lack of confidence due to the commercial failure of Phil's River Deep. His feelings on Spector went beyond whether one record sold or not.


That's not quite how it was with the "demo". Brian was very close with the guys on KHJ radio. There were examples of Brian taking a final mix literally "hot of the press" to KHJ for the DJ to play it, and they did. KHJ TV got the exclusive premiere on Good Vibrations before anyone, and KHJ would play that record on the air before stations even had it, with program director Ron Jacobs whispering "KHJ exclusive" over parts of GV so other stations couldn't record it and play it themselves. That's how hot these new singles were, and that's how competitive the market was in the mid 60's. Brian enjoyed a great relationship with KHJ because he'd hand deliver new records to them, and KHJ loved it because they could be the first and only station playing it.

DJ's like Real Don Steele, Robert W. Morgan, Charlie Tuna, earlier Roger Christian (Brian's former co-writer as we know), some of the lesser knowns like Bobby Tripp...they had an amazing staff. "Humble Harv" Miller did the early evenings after Don Steele (afternoon drive time slot), and was also one of the best who was allowed more freedom to play what he wanted to a degree, and have his own niche personality. Brian inviting Miller in to hear the new song being developed was part of the relationship he had with the guys at KHJ.

Well worth seeking out...there is a lot of info on KHJ on this board, just search my screen name and "KHJ" and I hope you find a lot of cool info. The "general public" got a taste of how good KHJ really was with Tarantino using their airchecks in a lot of the scenes of his "Once Upon A Time In Hollywood".

But the so-called "Humble Harv Demo" was just Brian hanging out and talking with his DJ friend from KHJ off the record, nothing more.

Thank you, I was aware of Jim Morrison's KHJ promo, it's just, I am not that much into the history of pop broadcasting as such.