The Smiley Smile Message Board

Hey everyone. Something to file under 'relatively small things that could have made a big difference'...I often wonder how much the album title 'Smiley Smile' affected the public perception of the BB in '67...did people think that Smiley Smile WAS SMiLE and therefore ask the question: 'Is that all they've got?'...or am I not giving Derek Taylor et al enough credit for getting the message out that SMiLE had been scrapped? If Smiley Smile had been called, let's say, 'Gettin' Hungry', would that have made a difference to the way in which the Boys (and, particularly, Brian's abilities) were perceived in '67 and the next few years?

I don't believe it would have mattered at all. The LP was so late in arriving that the opportunity had come and gone. That and the fact that the LPs graphics and musical content were so untypical for the group that most of us were "confused". I still don't understand the controversy within the group about releasing SMILE and then kicking out SMILEY SMILE instead. I just don't see where SMILEY is any more accessable. I think the years have been kind to SMILEY but it was kind of difficult to like it a lot at first after the HEROES/GOOD VIBRATIONS teasers that had preceeded it.

To me, it's just evidence that the prevailing stories about the resistance to Smile are only part of the truth, which is undoubtedly more complicated than "The guys hate it because it's weird, so poor Brian had to put it away." No conspiracy theories here. I just think that it must have been more complicated than the simple story.

(Sorry, that isn't to the point of the thread. And because I wasn't born yet, I have nothing to add to the real point of the thread. Carry on.)

You'll find the answer when you look at the difference in song writing credits from SMiLE to Smiley Smile... Notice any differences? That would be why the BB could stomach SS more than SMiLE.

Pet Sounds (Tony Asher) was supported, wasn't it? Or was there just a whole lot of personal resentment towards V D Parks?

Oh no, here we go again...

Hey, instead of 5 new pages of the same old stuff, how about reading this recent, interesting thread? It's all there! 8)
http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,3392.0.html

I was a recent Beach Boys convert (Pet Sounds and Good Vibrations) so I eagerly awaited their next album, having read i the press about "Smile."  when Smiley came out, I was confused at first about the title change . . . but expecting all the songs to be of the caliber, production wise, of Pet Sounds, Good Vibrations, and Heroes, I was sorely disappointed.  It sounded like something slapped together without much effort, the edits were glaring, the singing sloppy, the sound bone dry and harsh, and I thought . . . this is a joke, right?  After a few weeks with  the album, I started to get into the humor of it, loving Vegetables and Little Pad, and I even bought the album for some friends for them to get into it.  But the initial impression was not good.  I don't think my impression would have been different if it had been called "Gettin' Hungry," but if the album had been called "Beach Boys Party Vol 2" I might have given it more of a pass, waiting for the "real" album to come out.

In those days The Beach Boys were a great band in the Netherlands. The serious Dutch music press kept us informed about the progress of Smile and......the fact that the project collapsed and turned into Smiley Smile. That album was received quite well back then in those circles. I myself had no problem in accepting the album back then, and I wasn't even into drugs. On the other hand, I got so curious then about what the album could have been.

I was around then and listening avidly. Two things really mattered as far as this is concerned - the music scene in 66-67 was incredibly exciting, with fantastic new music coming out of the airwaves every week; and, in the UK at least, the Beach Boys had been voted top group in the world (ahead of the BEatles) after their run of monster hits culminating in Good Vibrations. Naturally when Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields/Pepper came out (not to mention evrything else that was coming out) we had huge expectations... a better way to desribe it would that it would have seemed very strange if Brian Wilson had not come up with some fantastic masterpiece a that point. Late in the summer, as everyone was going in holiday, Heroes came out, and sounded a bit, um, difficult. Then another wait, and finally Smiley Smile - which sounded a bit like 2 hit singles and a lot of very short extra tracks. People were listening to Love and the Doors instead. Wild Honey was better received but the spell had been broken.

Can't speak from then because I wasn't born but I have read a lot of press from 1967 or so. On some of the reviews for Smiley it was mistakenly portrayed as the long awaited Beach Boys LP that took a year to record. In other words some though it was Smile. I bet some fans didn't know the difference until later. Afterall not everyone read the music papers closely or watched the Inside Pop special. That's always been my impression that calling it Smiley Smile deliberately blurred the lines.