While I mostly agree with BJL, I have a reservation. Namely, IS Pet Sounds perfect because it's complete or do we rather CONSIDER it perfect because it's complete?

Same for Good Vibrations? And Cabinessence?

Opinions about music are opinions about music. But *my* opinion is that Pet Sounds is perfect because it's perfect. One of very few perfect things in this world.

I'm about to go into full heresy mode here... I'll tackle maybe the biggest totem, Good Vibes. As unbelievably awesome as it is, there was always  something slightly unsatisfactory for me. It is too perfect-sounding, too clean-cut, too carefully calibrated to the millimiter... to the point it ends sounding a bit dry to my ears. It lacks just a bit of breathing space.
I actually prefer the more "dishevelled" GV we hear in BWPS: the additional chant and the wonderfully airy ending add just that breathing space.

When I first listened to Heroes in 1967, liked it a lot, but sensed that something was really amiss. It sounded exactly like what it really was: an abridged version of a longer song. Againg, a bit too dry, but drier. When I discovered the Cantina version, was like: "Now THAT is more like it!"
And, if you leave off for a minute the "idolatry" for the officially released product, you could even admit this: GV and H&V share a feature, i.e. being longer songs forcefully compressed into 3-minutes format, albeit with different results.

I don't find it shocking or heretical to love the "looser" take on Good Vibrations. I love those versions too. I also have a deep, deep love for the instrumental sessions outtakes (the version on the Smiley twofer is the one I fell in love with), which are also pretty damn perfect in their own way. But the song Good Vibrations in its finished form is an astonishing creation. There's really nothing else like it.

But my point is not really that the produced down to the tiniest detail final mix of Good Vibrations is *better* than a looser, faster, less perfectionist takes would have been. It's that in 1966, Brian Wilson was interested in creating that kind of highly developed, perfected production. It's obviously what he was aiming for with not just Good Vibrations, but most of what he recorded in the fall. Obviously, he would move in a dramatically different direction in 1967, but if we're thinking about the album Brian was writing and recording when he did most of the work on Smile between Sept. and Dec of 1966, I think we need to consider that perfectionist-Brian was likely in the driver's seat.

I agree with you 100% on the Cantina mix of Heroes. I've always been underwhelmed by the released single, and I've always loved the Cantina version. Which funnily enough, because my introduction to Heroes and Villains was the Good Vibrations boxed set, I basically discovered both versions at the same time.

If you ask me what's the perfect song, the one where I would not change a single note, it's Wind Chimes. Smiley Smile version.

Can't fault you there.

[3.]

3. OMP was 56866 on 11/14, but the fade recorded on 2/10 is 57020. (How interesting too, that the fade was done during the period we commonly assume only singles were on the menu.)

Pretty sure that 2/10 date was just the new vocal overdubs (presented vocals only on disc 3 of the Smile Sessions), and that that the instrumental was recorded with the rest of OMP on November 14, so the change to a Heroes master number makes sense. Then on 2/28 he recorded the section over from scratch, but still for heroes of course.

Master numbering only really had relevance to Capitol keeping track of recordings they'd paid for. A number would be associated with a title in their own files and usually on union sheets, but it wasn't something the artist had any input to. It would often be messy and inconsistent, especially during the Smile era, and generally didn't communicate meaning.

Not disagreeing at all, but it's interesting in and of itself that the paperwork was messy and inconsistent, I feel like. I wonder how normal that was in the industry at this moment, or if it was a phenomenon of the Smile working method. Because you'd think under normal circumstances that a record company would, in fact, want to know what expenses matched to what songs and it would be someones job to get it more or less right. Obviously Smile was not normal circumstances. And also maybe the record industry back then was just generally sloppy with paper work.

Beautiful and very moving Brian vocal and strings version of Still I Dream of It. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqO92f6EySY

Gorgeous. I've always loved the Still I Dream of It arrangement, and it's cool hearing the strings this way. Such a lovely part.

[I was hoping there would be an overwhelming consensus and admittedly I haven't deeply analyzed these findings yet, but at a glance it seems all the AIs found their own rationales for how to use this info, and only this info, to complete SMiLE. Same with the chords, it's very interesting and useful data that maybe someone could use as the basis for some kinda new inventive mix.]

I was hoping there would be an overwhelming consensus and admittedly I haven't deeply analyzed these findings yet, but at a glance it seems all the AIs found their own rationales for how to use this info, and only this info, to complete SMiLE. Same with the chords, it's very interesting and useful data that maybe someone could use as the basis for some kinda new inventive mix.

Totally agree that this is a fascinating way you might maybe think about some kind of new mix, but I think it's worth considering that a big part of the point of modular recording was to emphasize contrasts in instrumentation, so thinking about similarities or resonances across sections or songs isn't necessarily going to get you closer to what Brian was thinking, since you could just as easily make a creative case for thinking about difference across sections, or songs sequenced so as to emphasize a strong contrast in instrumentation or style.

[3.]

3. OMP was 56866 on 11/14, but the fade recorded on 2/10 is 57020. (How interesting too, that the fade was done during the period we commonly assume only singles were on the menu.)

Pretty sure that 2/10 date was just the new vocal overdubs (presented vocals only on disc 3 of the Smile Sessions), and that that the instrumental was recorded with the rest of OMP on November 14, so the change to a Heroes master number makes sense. Then on 2/28 he recorded the section over from scratch, but still for heroes of course.

'We know a hell of a lot more about Great Shape than we did 30 years ago, but we still have absolutely no idea how Brian gets from the pieces we have to a song that belongs next to Cabinessence, Good Vibrations, or the cantina mix of heroes'

I think IIGS would have been a whimsical collage - the barynyard suite mentioned in '66 - so would never have had the horsepower of those songs.  I think it was supposed to be humorous.  I honestly don't think it would have been that great - more like an 'interval' amongst the heavy stuff.

Same with Elements a bit - a collage although that seemingly would have had some very impressive sections - MOC is obviously brilliant.

Well, yea, but that's exactly my point. Of course that's what looks most likely. I'm not trying to say you're wrong, by any means. It's what we hear. It's what exists. It's what makes sense. And so yea, I can't fault you for saying IIGS would have been four whimsical, vaguely connected fragments of funny farmyard music cut together, a little underwhelming humor interlude.

Or maybe Brian would have cut one or two sections completely, written a new section we can't even imagine, added a mind-bending a cappella break and created something spectacular. Given Brian's perfectionism, his high ambitions for the album, the speed with which he was working, the fact that he clearly considered himself and Van Dyke Parks not to have finished the writing process, and where he took Heroes and Villains and Vegetables in 1967, I've slowly come to believe that fans have been too willing to accept what we hear on the tapes as what Smile would have been. The temptation is just too overwhelming to resist. How can my theory that's based on music that was never recorded possibly compete with your theory based on what Brian put on tape that we've all heard?

But there isn't a moment on Pet Sounds that isn't perfect. I believe Smile would have had a strong humor element, but I don't think it would have had a medley of half-developed fragments run back to back without a clear musical through-line, just because Brian had them laying around and wanted to use them. That's the logic of a bootlegger or a fan mixer - use what you have - it's not the logic of a creative genius working at the height of their power.

I remember Mike's Beard. And Dancing Bear. And Nicko1234, though he had no "Bear" or "Beard". For the record, Mike Love's actual beard had way more sense.

Poor Brian, what fans he had. How right was Voltaire!

P.S.
I had gotten so wary of "Bea" in a nickname that rereading this thread I was pleasantly surprised that Bean Bag was actually a good guy.

There were a lot of good posters here, once upon a time. Still many today of course, but yeah that's partly why reading these old threads has been such a trip. Captain, Sheriff John Stone, leetwall and Summertime Blooz in addition to those you mentioned, plus many others Im sure Im forgetting. In hindsight I regret the way I treated some, like Cam Mott. His Mike apologism was annoying at the time but if I'd have known what great insight he had in the Smile Shop days, pre-'13 in this forum and later to come in PSF & even EH, I would've seen the fuller scope of what he had to offer. I think he just felt the need to stand up for someone who was already beaten-up on enough.

I wonder what caused the great schism to make so many leave--some to PSF/EH (including myself for awhile) and others off the forums entirely. For me it was personal drama with some of the people who were here at the time but that can't account for everyone else? I know there was a lot of drama regarding NPP back in the day too. Ah well. Nobody answer that, just reminiscing...

I was more of a lurker back than, but it's wild to think how many years I've been following this board. I never had a great grasp of what happened (and like you don't have any real desire too know), but I've always felt like it was pretty depressing thing that even the hardcore Beach Boys fans of the world couldn't all share a message board without an irrevocable schism. The universal Catholic church didn't stand a chance in hell.

And I was very sympathetic to the pro-Mike crowd back in the 2000s. I think it probably sounds sort of crazy now, but my sense is that back then embracing Mike was somehow part of a process of rehabilitating the late 60s and early 70s albums, realizing that David Marks was actually important, understanding that the Beach Boys actually *did* play on their hits until like the middle of 1965, basically just that the Beach Boys were a *band*, not just a bunch of random puppets fulfilling Brian's vision. Which wasn't the line at all when I first got into them.

Oh I meant more about the tunes not the lore.  I just think the content of the tracks isn't as mysterious as once thought.  IIGS was once a complete mystery but not now for instance.
 

I don't think Smile is as mysterious as people think.  When you look at the tracklist and session logs and contemorary press and hear what was recorded I think there's a pretty clear picture.

Details are missing but the body of it is there I think.

Yes and no. The music's all there minus the ~5 (I think) missing reels and handful of unfinished parts like CIFOTM' vocals and SU' second half backing track.

I mean, I agree on one level. But there's another part of me that thinks we've just tricked ourselves into thinking we understand this music and what it might or could have been. Tricked ourselves into thinking what we have is close to what would have been.

But look at the difference between the Good Vibrations early takes and session outtakes and the actual final record. Like, all the pieces are there, and its incredible in all its versions. But the final record, it has a focus, a concentrated power, as if it's truly determined to fit a symphony's worth of musical ideas into three minutes, that's almost unique to Brian Wilson's music from this era. Or look at the difference between Cabinessence and Do You Like Worms. One is finished, one is not. That's it. That's the only difference. They're both amazing, and yet, on some hard to define level, they're light years apart.

We just can't handle the uncertainty of the most likely version of reality, which is that... I'll put it this way, there are songs on Pet Sounds that stand obviously, for lack of a better word, above the rest. But there's no song that doesn't fit, that doesn't sound finished, polished, like it 100% belongs on the record and it would be foolish to change a note. (Kind of like the difference Julia was describing in this thread between a movie that's perfect and movie that you can see how it could have been perfect). There wouldn't have been on Smile, either. We know a hell of a lot more about Great Shape than we did 30 years ago, but we still have absolutely no idea how Brian gets from the pieces we have to a song that belongs next to Cabinessence, Good Vibrations, or the cantina mix of heroes. But I absolutely believe he would have, in a world where he finished Smile in 1967.

Last week Julia went on something of a brilliant fools errand trying to reconstruct Part 2 of Surf's Up from Brian's experiments. Which is like trying to write a history of the first Lee administration after the South wins the Civil War. There are no answers, because there were never answers, because it didn't happen. BUT Julia's work was the opposite of a waste of time. At least for me, personally. For my actual life. Because in light of Julia's enthusiasm and research and ideas, I listened to a mix of Surf's Up with the moaning horns overdubbed (which Julia later told me actually wasn't timed nearly as well as it could have been!). And for a moment, I was totally persuaded. I heard a song I've probably listened to 1000 times with fresh ears. And I imagined an alternate reality. Call it Smile alternate reality No. 7,563.

In this alternate reality, Carl asked Brian if they could put Surf's Up on their next album in 1971, and Brian said no, I don't think so. And Carl said, okay Brian, obviously I'm not going to try and finish Surf's Up without you because that would be literally insane and sooooo disrespectful (see Julia's influence again there?). And so Brian didn't remember / didn't have the new idea (because actually we have *no* evidence I know of that it was a 1966 idea) to put the Child vocals on Surf's Up, and the song remained unfinished. Fast forward to the 90s, fan mixers and bootleggers divide themselves into two camps. One camp uses the piano demo on their mixes. It's what we have, they say, it's all we know. It's perfect how it is. The other camp says, look, we have this whole other Surf's Up session! We can't just pretend it doesn't exist! Look how well these moaning horns fit! Obviously this was what Brian planned for Part 2! And it's strange and wild and a little Sonic Youth or whatever, and so all these bootlegs from the 90s have moaning horns overdubbed onto Surf's Up. And so obviously in 2004, when Darian plays Surf's Up for Brian, that is what he plays. And Brian, who does vaguely remember recording something like that, says oh yea, that was it!! It was gonna have all those moaning horns, yea, and moaning strings too, and then the version of Surf's Up on BWPS is filled with insane chromatic horns and like, Day in the Life style strings, and everyone is like, whoa, damn, so that's what it was.

And that alternate reality is just as likely as the one where Brian finishes Surf's Up in 1966. Just as likely.

Which is also why no, I don't think any other fandom is like this one. Because the Beatles, you know, they were a band releasing albums. A great band releasing great albums, but it's all there, what they did, what they accomplished. Anyone can listen to it. Whatever the hell the Beach Boys were or mean, they were so much more than a band that released albums. They were something else, they mean something else.

Someone mentioned other band biopics, particularly the ones about Queen and Elton John. I never saw the former but heard bad things--I think the problem is it was authorized. I saw the latter on the recommendation of my dad and it has sentimental value as it was one of my first dates with my now-husband but I could go the rest of my life never seeing it again. It was good not great. I realize re-reading this post I may've come off as too down on L&M. I'd still give it a solid ~7 out of 10 for a fan, maybe slightly lower like 6 for someone with no knowledge of Brian going in. It's a solid, good movie with moments of greatness. My misgivings are I think it could've been a 10/10 all-time masterpiece if it focused on what worked best and cut the semi-confusing (at least mildly disrupting) dual-story structure.

For what it's worth, I took your initial review as fair, respectful, and considered. I think the reason you got such a strong response from a few posters isn't because your review was negative, but because of the question in your title. You asked for the fan consensus, and so I for one wanted to be a part of that consensus by expressing how deeply I loved the film at the time.

Anyway, I thought your take on the movie was not exactly negative. After all, you basically said, it's good, but it's no Lawrence of Arabia / Goodfellas / Ed Wood etc. The fact that you felt you could make such a comparison speaks volumes. Can you imagine saying, of the Elton John movie (which I also very much enjoyed as a date at the theater), it was good, but it was no Lawrence of Arabia? Of course you couldn't, no one would ever say that. Just saying a movie *doesn't* belong on that list is a high compliment!

When it first came out I saw it like 4 or 5 times in the theater. That probably sounds insane (and it really may be) but I just remember thinking, “I finally have a way to show my friends and family why The Beach Boys are so important to me” - so I went with various friends and family during the few weeks it was in the theaters. Sadly, I haven’t really felt a pull to rewatch it much since it was in the theaters. I did buy the blu-ray immediately when it came out and watched it a couple times, but it’s been almost a decade (wow!) since I’ve seen it fully.

First I want to say that this movie was a blessed gift to us fans. Honestly the pieces coming together for this film is a miracle…And especially after stint of made-for-tv Beach Boys biopics that are terrible, and the Aaron Eckhart Dennis Wilson movie that was never realized (perhaps thankfully), I think us fans were kinda not expecting much (if anything at all) and what we got was a masterpiece (relative to other music biopics). While there is room for criticism in everything, I think this project absolutely could’ve been a bonafide disaster, and instead we got a coherent and beautiful film that didn’t stick to the usual music-biopic trope (at least, in terms of artistic vision and chronological narrative)…and thus this movie receives mostly praise and thanks from me.

Second, the crew that worked on this film is a dream-team. Bill Pohlad, being one of the producers for Malick’s ‘The Tree of Life’, was a bold choice (as he had no real standout directorial work before ‘Love & Mercy’ to my knowledge) - but being close to Malick’s work made me hopeful about this choice (and it seemed to pay off well). The editor is most famously known for his work on ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ (incidentally another movie that weaves back and forth through a timeline) did a phenomenal job. Atticus Ross doing the score was a perfect choice. I mean, we could’ve gotten a movie with some ‘London Symphony Orchestra covers The Beach Boys’ but instead, we got an incredibly well thought-out and deep score that wasn’t stereotypical and yet it still had a powerful impact on the film.

Why have I not seen this film in a decade? Honestly, I think it’s that the last ten years of the fandom have wore me out. Partly, I have had incredible changes in my life and I have less time for this music. But also, the cliques, drama, over-the-top opinions have just grated on me for years and I’ve slowly realized that the world of the Beach Boys music doesn’t bring me the joy it once did. I think this movie just reminds me of a darker time in my fandom life when there was a lot of petty drama going on, and those memories are just attached to this movie for me, and thus I kind of avoid it.

Also regarding the 7.4 IMDB score (from 45,000 people), I don’t know how that is calculated, whether solely user reviews or what, but Rotten Tomatoes (which shows both critic review averages and user averages) gives it a critic average of 89% from over 250 critics, and an 85% from over 10,000 users (which is pretty incredible). Not that that has any bearing on the IMDB score, but just wanted to throw out some other review scores so we didn’t just see the lower one. I remember after Brian Wilson died the movie rocketed up to or near #1 on Apple's top-selling movie chart - so obviously regular people do watch this movie as well...I think it's just like any music biopic, you can't really expect it to be on the public scope for a long period of time.

There is a video from Elliot Roberts, here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j68ZIE2YRW4) that has over half-a-million views that makes the case for why ‘Love and Mercy’ is the best music biopic ever made. I did watch this video some 4 years ago when it came out, but I kinda forget what his points are - though I remember agreeing with them at the time - but if anyone wants to check it out, I do recommend it.

I could basically have written this post! I didn't see it quite so many times in theaters, and I wasn't worn down by the fandom so much as just slipped out of it naturally. But other than that... I remember watching that Elliot Roberts video when it came out! Also completely agree that Atticus Ross's score is perfect and adds so much to the experience of the movie.

I haven't seen it in ten years... so I can only share my impressions from then. I planned to re-watch it this summer, actually, but my watchlist is so long and I didn't end up getting to it.

What I will say, is that at the time I thought it was a goshdarn miracle. I absolutely loved it, and considered it immediately amongst my favorite movies, although always with the caveat that as a rabid Beach Boys fan I am an inherently compromised judge, of course. But I consider it among the best narrative movies I've ever seen about music. And as an officially authorized biopic of a major baby boomer musician - I mean, compared to the Queen and Elton John and whatever other biopics of that ilk? Amazing. Just the fact that they decided to make an art film and not a Beach Boys blockbuster was a major win. I think in terms of how the movie is and will be seen by general audiences, it was pretty obviously aiming to be a cult kind of film - more for the Portrait of a Lady on Fire audience than the Marvel audience. In that context, I imagine it still does and always will have a level of interest, because people interested in Brian Wilson will seek it out, and because it has close to career-best performances from two pretty legendary leads.

I don't want to say too, too much about the film itself, because like I said, I haven't seen it since 2014. But at the time, I did not think the 60s scenes were better than the 80s scenes. I mean, on some level I enjoyed them more as a fan because of what they inherently are. But I felt that what made the film so powerful was the balance and contrast between Dano and Cusack's performances, and ultimately I think I definitely would have said then that giving the two stories equal weight was the right call. And my recollection is that I felt some of the best scenes were in the 80s section (that double date scene!)

Re: John Cusack, I remember reading reviews at the time and thinking exactly what you say, that Cusack absolutely nailed Brian's mannerisms, and that reviewers who saw his acting as affected were actually just struggling to wrap their minds around the *reality* of how Brian Wilson looked and acted at that moment. I definitely felt at the time that Elizabeth Banks and Melinda's character were the film's weak point, and that it was the writing's fault at bottom, so I would have agreed with you there. As far as Landy - he is the only person in the Beach Boys story that I believe really was evil. I mean, obviously he was an intelligent, complicated person with complex motivations, but what he did was truly just... evil. He was a psychiatrist who took advantage of a mentally ill patient in an absolutely terrible way in order to feed his own ego and make money, and he didn't do it in a gentle way, either. Everything about his behavior in that period was despicable.

I wouldn't recommend it as a movie to a casual movie fan (but again, I really don't think that was the intended audience. This was a ten million dollar movie that made 30 million dollars. It wasn't trying to be Rocketman, a 40 million dollar film that made 200 million). But I do and have recommend it to people who like art and independent cinema. And I absolutely believed at the time it would stand the test of time. Hopefully I will have a chance to watch it again this winter and see if I still feel that way!

I don't think the key thing means anything, it's not even a matter of being "against the rules". (Any piece of music can technically be transcribed in any key, after all, just a matter of more accidentals But whatever key your software decides those overdubs are in doesn't really tell you much when you're only looking at one piece of a larger arrangement, especially when you're dealing with chromatic harmony, which by definition isn't really in any key. All of which is to say, if it sounds good, it's fine.

Listening to your Voynich mix, I'm not entirely sold on the second movement, though it does work on some level, but the fade sounds really amazing. In its own way, as beautiful as the usual vocal tag, really. That said, Brian couldn't have intended these sections to be *literally* overdubs for part 2, because no basic track for part 2 had been recorded yet, right? The piano track you're overdubbing onto was recorded like a month later, and working on tape especially, the idea of recording an overdub before the basic track just doesn't really make sense. And in that context, I really don't think the minutia of the timing makes any difference either, whether something is a few seconds off, because that would change in the final version. I can really only see it as something Brian was doing as he tried to work out the arrangement idea in his head, in preparation for recording the final track.

Thanks for the feedback, that's good to know!

I totally get it, SU is ultimately a hodge podge of pieces that doesn't represent what would've been the ultimate plan. As you say, we're using Brian's guide vocal (is that the right term?) with a piano that wouldn't necessarily be part of the arrangement. It's just a matter of doing the best we can with what we have. Like you said, maybe this wasn't a matter of laying down the definitive take he'd use to overdub the second movement but trying out some ideas while he had the musicians in the studio. Like, the main thrust of the session was to get George Fell on tape, same as the Hal fight was its own dedicated session, but he figured he'd try out these weird overdub ideas while they were getting paid by the hour. Get his money's worth. That would make sense to me.

I think the timing of where the horns come in on the fade in Voynich was off in hindsight. I fixed that in some of the experiments I've been doing today. It's possible the entirety of the "moaning horn" section wouldn't have been used any more than the entirety of the laughing and playing sections were. (How many individual instances of the laughing sound do we hear, especially in the 9 minute version on some bootlegs, compared to just that one single instance used in the finished part 1 track?) This could've been like that, where he may've used a quick snippet of the moaning sound, perhaps over "a choke of grief" or something else to emphasize the lyric? Could the "moaning" have been a "choking" instead?

I think all of this makes sense. On a larger level, what I think is really obvious just reading your ideas and listening to your old mix is that these experiments need to be taken seriously as a crucial part of the overall picture of the songs development, which I don't think they really have been.

I'd have to hear it - from the TH takes I can't imagine it.

There's versions of it in my Voynich SMiLE & Dumb Angel Romestamo fan mixes but I wanted to punch up the edits a bit anyway for my new mixes. I'll upload versions with just SU proper and these horn overdubs & with the horn overdubs, string overdubs and "Child" vocals. I finally found a version of SU online that had the CIFOTM reprise vocals without the "their song is love and the children know the way" parts I was avoiding. I'll post these hopefully soon.

Right now I made a new version that adjusts the volume levels a bit and slowed the "wailing horns" overdubs on the fade down 3% (admittedly it cuts out just a smidge before the vocals which was distracting me on subsequent listens--not sure offhand if that's all Brian recorded of that section or if that was a boxset trim).

In the interest of fairness I'll point out some potential flaws with this theory Im noticing in playing around with Surfs Up in audacity again:

1) Neither the "moaning horns" part nor the "wailing horns" part match the pitch of the sections I overdubbed them to. (I "know" this by highlighting the section, going to "change pitch" and it tells me what key its in with an option to change it to something else). However, coincidentally, the wailing horns part I use for the fade is in the same key as the "dove nested towers..." thru "...broken man too tough to cry" parts. ANYWAY, I tried transposing them to the same key as the song proper and they sounded noticeably worse, while I still think they sound good in different keys. Is this a no-go for music composition, or is this an example of a "Brianism" where he did something that shouldn't work but somehow did against the "rules" of music theory?

2) Chink in the armor--I first made a version of this edit in like 2015 and have more or less been using it ever since. I only just noticed now that I actually took the "too loud" first take of the "moaning horns" overdubs, de-amplified it, then stitched it on to make it fit over the "broken man too tough to cry" lyric. So, unless this horn exercise was longer in the unedited master tapes and the boxset shortened it, that may be a hole in this theory, I admit.

^Despite these potential hiccups I still firmly believe in the idea. Otherwise I think we need to come up with a theory for what these last two horn exercises on Talking Horns are for. (I personally dont believe Brian ever recorded anything in the studio he didn't intend to use in some way at some point--like, he might've changed his mind the next day sure, but when he got things on tape at that moment there was a plan or tentative first stages of one in his head. Every recording had a purpose and tells the story of how the music evolved in some way.)

I don't think the key thing means anything, it's not even a matter of being "against the rules". (Any piece of music can technically be transcribed in any key, after all, just a matter of more accidentals But whatever key your software decides those overdubs are in doesn't really tell you much when you're only looking at one piece of a larger arrangement, especially when you're dealing with chromatic harmony, which by definition isn't really in any key. All of which is to say, if it sounds good, it's fine.

Listening to your Voynich mix, I'm not entirely sold on the second movement, though it does work on some level, but the fade sounds really amazing. In its own way, as beautiful as the usual vocal tag, really. That said, Brian couldn't have intended these sections to be *literally* overdubs for part 2, because no basic track for part 2 had been recorded yet, right? The piano track you're overdubbing onto was recorded like a month later, and working on tape especially, the idea of recording an overdub before the basic track just doesn't really make sense. And in that context, I really don't think the minutia of the timing makes any difference either, whether something is a few seconds off, because that would change in the final version. I can really only see it as something Brian was doing as he tried to work out the arrangement idea in his head, in preparation for recording the final track.

It probably isn't worth getting into this here in too much detail until it can be published with quotes and citations in a proper resource. But the short version is, when Frank said it was June in 2005, he gave an off the cuff answer and years earlier had engaged in a much more thorough correspondence drawing on key dates and events to figure out his place in it.

Frank believed that he met Brian and was commissioned at most about three weeks before starting the fall semester at the Otis Art Institute on Sep 19, and from that thought it may have been the last week in August. Some of his work was done at home in Pasadena and the rest was finished within a couple of weeks of moving to LA to begin the semester. He was told from the outset by Brian that the album title had originally been Dumb Angel, but was now being changed to Smile, and that was the concept he'd work from. Van Dyke started by giving Frank the lyrics for the few songs they'd finished, plus prospective titles for other ideas. More were communicated over the following weeks and Frank worked on each illustration start to end in an eight hour day immediately after receiving the latest work. His involvement tells us a great deal about the order and timeline of the songwriting.

I'm so excited for all of this research to be made properly available. Not having a precise or clear understanding of the timeline has made it so much harder to talk about pretty much any aspect of how the project evolved. And as it is, the facts of Smile are scattered through so many and so many different kinds of books and forums and articles, and the balance of interpretation versus straightforward showing what happened is all out of wack, so that you're constantly looking at sessionographies like AGDs or the one in the Smile Sessions book with basically *no* interpretation or context, and trying to measure them against sources that are basically *all* interpretation. It makes it so easy to put forward theories that don't really make sense without realizing it!

I dunno, when I was a kid I had Back to the Beach and How Deep is the Ocean (what can I say, I was a weird kid), and one of those two (or both? - once again I'm away from my books) had descriptions of the Paley sessions that made them sound absolutely epic. At some point I actually heard them (Napster, maybe? Were they out then? Maybe it was later...) and I was like, okay. The best stuff is as good as the best stuff on the first solo record. I think in the end it was the mundanity of the story and the mediocrity of a big chunk of the music, not all mind you, but too much of it, that undercut any potential legend in the offing...

Haha, well to each their own. I first heard the Paley stuff after marathoning BW's solo output over a few days and in that context it absolutely blew me away. It was like pure, raw, analog Brian again after hours of over-produced Landy and digital-autotuned Thomas schlock.

Getting in Over My Head is on the shortlist for my favorite post-SMiLE Brian song. Might even be #1 in that category.

I've never had as much trouble as a lot of fans hearing through the production choices on the 88 record or on Imagination to the often very beautiful songs beneath. Which isn't to say I'm happy about said production choices (although I've come around to the 80s production more or less, because in a strange way it does suite the material. That whole 80s wall of synth sound in popular music in general was pretty deeply influenced by the Phil Spector records Brian loved so much, in my view). Imagination really is a sad case, because often you have a gorgeous song and strong vocal arrangement but instead of just, like, a boring or phoned in arrangement, you have an arrangement that actively interferes with what's working in the song and just totally refuses to stay out of the way. Pretty sure you could improve a track like Cry dramatically just by mixing out all the busy aspects of the arrangement and bringing up the drums and bass a little and letting the vocal arrangement and melody carry the thing.

But man do I agree with you about Getting in Over My Head, my favorite song of Brian's solo career, or at the very least in the top 3.

It's interesting how much less info there is to go on for Adult/Child and Paley compared to SMiLE. We should probably thank the lucky stars that Derek Taylor and David Anderle encouraged so many writers and hip outsiders to hang around the sessions in 1966 or else we wouldn't have gotten the myth, the intrigue and tantalizing details we have with that album. We'd just have the same one-paragraph basic summary of "someone in the band didn't like it."

There's an alternate timeline where Jack Reilly or someone with media savvy is still the band's manager during the Brian is Back era and decides to host journalists at the studio to show them the byline is true and not empty hype. And those publications keep a man there either to chronicle the amazing comeback or the fascinating trainwreck, going into the followup that never comes to pass. And then forever more we obsess over the Tom Nolan or Nick Kent article "Goodbye Summer, Hello Broadway" and Brian sings a throwaway line in an interview "oh how I love me some tomboys" and we debate whether it's a secret vintage lyric to Hey Little Tomboy, or we hear a new buried recording of Brian singing Shortenin' Bread in a different key with oboe overdubs and declare "this is the true second movement to SB!"

Eh, maybe A/C doesn't have that kind of pathos and lore to carry such interest. But I think the Paley sessions might've had Brian been of more sound mind to present the songs in a polished solo form (enough to show their brilliance but where we'd wonder how the BB harmonies could carry them to the next level) and talk to the press. By the 90s, between the Landy and Melinda periods, there just wasn't enough interest in the band nor any outside observers to carry on the tale for a proper Paley mythos to develop...

I dunno, when I was a kid I had Back to the Beach and How Deep is the Ocean (what can I say, I was a weird kid), and one of those two (or both? - once again I'm away from my books) had descriptions of the Paley sessions that made them sound absolutely epic. At some point I actually heard them (Napster, maybe? Were they out then? Maybe it was later...) and I was like, okay. The best stuff is as good as the best stuff on the first solo record. I think in the end it was the mundanity of the story and the mediocrity of a big chunk of the music, not all mind you, but too much of it, that undercut any potential legend in the offing...

Hey Little Tomboy & Shortenin' Bread are the last good Beach Boy songs, after that it was all downhill.

Ill even go as far as say I think if you purged all the post LY albums sans TWGMTR (and if you'll indulge me, perhaps a completed Paley though that's irrelevant for my larger point here) then the band's reputation would be far stronger. I may ruffle some feathers but I dont think there's even a single song from MIU through Stars and Stripes worth saving--a few "yeah it's ok" types maybe but nothing I couldn't live without. Even 15BO has "Had to Phone Ya" which is unironically a great little song.

I disagree with your first point but totally agree with your second point. I like a lot of songs on LA Light Album (and think the two Dennis songs are amazing, though in a world where the album hadn't come out, they would still exist as part of Dennis's solo career). I also secretly like Sumahama (sacrilege, I know). I also listen to and enjoy the Beach Boys 85 record now and again, and have a particularly soft spot for Brian's songs and Carl's songs, especially It's Gettin Late which is weirdly excellent on its own terms. I also like Kokomo and Somewhere Near Japan. But I 100% completely totally and without reservation agree that if they had simply broken up and stopped releasing albums in 1977 their reputation would be far stronger. Absolutely. As individual songs some of these are fine, and I enjoy listening to pieces of this part of the catalogue now and again. As directions for a legendary band to be moving in, they're a complete and total disaster in every way.

[1)]

I think it's a mistake.  With this last "Brian's Back" campaign that began in 1998, they've positioned Brian to the general public as if he was the same guy he was around Today/SD&SN, when many of the diehards rather he be built up as the quirky guy who put out quirky, Love You-style music.

On TLOS you have a team of musicians and management running around making sure what is released is palatable, acceptable, within the boundaries...do people realize this? I know they don't over on Brian's board. Love You is the last example of Brian being engaged, in control, and revealing his stuff on almost his own terms...its HIS stuff, not a little dash of his stuff blended in with Scott Bennett or whomever else is creating the shiny Brian facsimile. TLOS is a good record, and Brian is a big part of it...but compared to Love You its not at all genuine Brian Wilson. With that said there are parts of TLOS that put a major lump in my throat, in a good way. But I'd just love to hear something closer to the source, even if its disturbing.

This is a great buried old thread from a bygone era where people were more honest about Brian and his management. (Im not sure what happened in the '10s but it feels like there was a time there where it was anathema to say some of the things I see here.)

The problems I've had with Brian's solo career are threefold: 1) the BB harmonies and shared leads are sorely lacking--after 10+ tracks in a row of later-day Brian vocals I start to really tire of his voice. It's not gruff enough to be Dennis, Bob Dylan or Johnny Cash but neither is it his old pristine falsetto--it's just kind of a whiny monotone to my ears a lot of the time. 2) There's no hooks. Almost none of the solo songs sticks with me the way the old hits or vintage (pre-78) Brian material does. I couldn't hum the melody of a single song off BW88 or Sweet Insanity if you held a gun to my head and I've heard them several times over the years. That's to say nothing of the Thomas tunes... 3) As other posters have said, it doesn't sound like Brian anymore, it just sounds like generic Tin Pan Alley vehicle #47. Anyone could've written, sung or produced the shlock that is on Imagination and beyond. Even the cover arts are generic and cheap looking, including (especially?) BWPS, sorry Mark London.

I think the problem is the people who managed Brian including (especially?) Melinda weren't actually fans of Brian's core, true identity as a musician. They liked Brian the genius who made Pet Sounds, Brian the one man hit machine who made the quintessential Summer songs of '62-'65, Brian the family friendly guy whose songs played in the background when you took your kids to the seashore. They didn't want or like Brian the half-crazed occultist who made SMiLE (except to cash in on "finishing" rock's most famous unfinished LP), they wanted to pretend Brian the man-child wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt or bathrobe never existed, they were embarrassed by the likes of LY & A/C, they actively quashed the Paley sessions. Melinda and company actively put Brian in a box and I think if we could've looked in his heart of hearts he wasn't too happy about a lot of the stuff they made him do. Imagination it sounds like he was quiet-quitting during production, he clearly sabotaged GIOMH, admitted openly "my wife and managers said to" finish SMiLE, I suspect VDP was driven away by goings-on behind the scenes with TLOS, (as the BB were for TWGMTR) and he needed a cast of flash in the pan losers (Katie Perry anyone?) to carry him over the finish line in NPP. Some might say "yeah but without that, Brian wouldn't have done anything!" And I say "ok...so? He was retirement age and had more than proven himself, was rich, why does he need to tour and make shlock if he doesn't want to? If he has some great artistic endeavor he WANTS to do, fine, but clearly that's not what was happening post-90s more often than not.

Fun quirky Brian is best Brian. Even the golden oldies had a lot of weirdness and eeriness about them. Telling Brian to sand down the "rough" edges that produced Busy Doin Nothing and Shortenin Bread is to kill his artistic spirit, hence the completely forgettable dreck we got that might as well have been made by anybody. It'd be like telling Mike not to reference Good Vibrations or Kokomo, telling McCartney not to be romantic, telling Jim Morrison not to be dark n gritty...it's who they are as artists. Oh well.

I think it's more complicated than this, I really do. Not that this isn't part of the truth, but that it's just more complicated. Some ways in which it's more complicated, in my view:

1. The psychiatric drugs Brian very obviously needed very likely dulled his creativity and engagement.
2. The fact that Brian created a lot of the quirky music of the 70s and 80s from a place of immense pain, though he also obviously found solace in the music at that time, and created the music of the mid-60s from a much happier place.
3. The fact that Brian himself wanted his music to be popular, and that he was a touring artist who was seeing first hand at every show what went over and what didn't (I think this is a huge reason why Smile ended up happening, and suspect it was a factor inhibiting a return to Love You style recording.
4. There is a rawer, quirkier version of TLOS, we know exactly what it would have sounded like: Oh Mi Amor, Good Kind of Love, Message Man, three songs Brian wrote solo and that have been released in roughly their demo form. Oxygen to the Brain and Morning Beat are two more that in their Paley-sessions spirit seem to reflect what a "quirkier" Lucky Old Sun would have been. Now maybe both the fans and Brian would have been better off if That Lucky Old Sun had just been an album of songs like that, with no big statements a la Midnights Another Day or song-cycle pretensions. But it wouldn't have been *that* different, and it almost certainly would have had a much more muted public response - something that Brian cared about too, not just his managers.
5. The Gershwin Project was by all accounts very close to Brian's heart, and accounts from the band at the time indicate that Brian was very hands-on in producing the basic tracks and giving the vocals everything he had. I really don't think that what was stopping the other Brian albums from having that extra oomph and creativity in the arrangements and productions was pressure from management. If anything, I think that the Gershwin record suggests that when Brian was *most* engaged, he was tapping back into the old professional-record-producer habits of the mid-60s, and *not* the quirky Love You style music of the fraught 70s.
6. The idea that Brian Wilson did not want to tour has been thoroughly disproven, in my view. Those tours did not make money in any meaningful way relative to Brian's Beach Boys fortune. I think the Brian Wilson band's genuine love for the man is pretty obvious, and they've all said the same thing: he loved touring. He loved being on the bus, hanging with the guys, staying in hotels, getting room service, the adulation and affirmation he got from audiences, and, probably, you know, feeling like he was still doing something with his life. I think the obvious interpretation of what we all saw in 2022 and 2023 was an old man who didn't want to let go when it was obviously time, NOT an old man being forced to work when he wanted to be at home.

Again, I don't disagree with you entirely. I think Imagination was a major misstep (although there are some absolutely gorgeous melodies and harmony arrangements hiding in those tracks, which was pretty clearly Brian's contribution to the thing). (Also, we know in that case what a "quirky" Brian solo record would have sounded like in the mid-90s, because he actually recorded the whole damn thing with Paley!) But Brian was obviously much more interested in the vocal sessions than the tracking sessions for Imagination, and I don't know that we really have the information to ascribe that to not liking Joe Thomas's heavy hand, versus Joe Thomas's heavy hand following on from Brian's lack of interest.

And despite the dodgy Mike precedent, I don't really think Brian would have let Smiley Smile go out with Van Dyke not credited if he didn't feel that at least the spirit and larger share of it was his.

I have to take this back; I'd forgotten Brian didn't credit Parks for Wonderful, either. Ouch.

Also I think the fact that Brian asked Van Dyke Parks to rework Mike's lyrics and Parks declined is relevant, though I'm not sure exactly what it means. Does it mean that Brian saw the song as an integral part of Smile, and thus wanted Parks to bring it more in line with the lyrical tone of the other songs? Or does it mean that Brian thought it was totally out of place.... and thus wanted Parks to bring it more in line with the lyrical tone of the other songs!

This is how I've always felt too, unless you use Veggies as a song about the Mid-West breadbasket, a "part 2" to Barnyard. But even then, as I recall, Veggies is the major SMiLE song that shares the least amount of chords with the other SMiLE songs, which was very surprising. It's almost an island to itself. However while Veggies fits the fitness/element/humor and arguably Americana themes despite its musical isolation, WC is just kinda out by itself in terms of subject matter. You could look at it as a song about death (chimes are used that way in Eastern cultures) "dust in the wind" and joy in the simple things, maybe isolation, of the day/life passing you by, to fit the Cycle of Life motifs but it's not as seamless a fit as the other tracks in that group. What it does have is the "crying horn" leitmotif I feel the CoL/Innocence songs share: with Wonderful's being the girl crying at her bad encounter with a non-believer boy, CIFOTM with the baby crying, SU with the "broken man too tough to cry" finally sobbing after his revelation, and WC has the pivotal lyric "now and then a tear rolls off my cheek."

So in short, WC and VT do have some things that tie them to the rest of SMiLE but it's not as clean as the other major songs. GV has absolutely no connection at all besides modular recording and lush arrangements. That's the true odd one out, and while it definitely would've been included at Capitol's insistence, in our circumstances where commercial pandering are no object, I think it makes more sense to leave it off nowadays. (Somewhere a crotchety old boomer just felt a twinge of loathing and didn't know why.)

I actually think Good Vibrations fits *better* than wind chimes, though I wouldn't leave either of any personal Smile mix.

I don't know how relevant this is, really, but I think it's not entirely irrelevant that the other great concept album of 1967, Sgt. Pepper, played fast and loose with its concept, for the simple reason that the Beatles were far more interested in making a great record than staying true to any kind of concept, and weren't going to leave off a song for conceptual reasons any more than they were going to phone in a song for conceptual reasons. And I think the same was almost certainly true for Brian. Yes, he had all these concepts and he was obviously excited about them, but I don't think there's any universe where Brian was going to let conceptual concerns get in the way of musical concerns, if that makes sense. Nor do I think conceptual "purity" was of any concern at all. If he had a song about Wind Chimes he wanted to put on who the hell was gonna stop him?

Nor do I think we can deduce from the lyrics or music that Good Vibrations was only on there for commercial reasons. As I'm pretty sure Julia said somewhere else, though not in these exact words, if Good Vibrations being on the album was a done deal, than whether or not it fit creatively wasn't really going to be an open question. But I guess what it comes down to for me is that *I* think it fits musically and lyrically and belongs on the album, and so it rubs me ever so very slightly the wrong way when people who don't share that opinion treat it as a historical fact rather than a musical opinion, if that makes sense.

In Tom Nolan's long piece "The Frenzied Frontier of Pop Music" (LA Times magazine, November 27, 1966, as reproduced on LLVS, p. 169), Brian Wilson is quoted saying the following:  "And another thing that interests me... who was it, Karl Menninger, who said, 'The child is father of the man'? That fascinates me! Anyway, that's another song, Father of the Man."

Let's parse these statements. Frist, Brian credits the saying not to Wordsworth nor to VDP but rather to psychiatrist Karl Menninger.  I have no idea if Menninger ever used the saying or quoted Wordsworth or if Brian is just off-base, but Menninger did write a lot on the subjets of child psychology and child development, so Brian's attribution isn't insane.  The fact is that BW had an interest in psychology, was apparently an avid reader and often mentioned that he was studying psychology courses at El Camino Junior Colelge before he dropped out to do the Beach Boys.  It's very possible that VDP truly suggested the CIFOTM title, just as it's very possible that he suggested the cellos on Good Vibrations. But note that Brian says, That fascinates me!"  ME, not my friend Van Dyke Parks.  The other interesting thing is that this Brian says, "[T]hat's another song."   SONG, not track, not half-baked fragment, not chorus but SONG. In fact "Good Vibrations" and "Father of the Man" are the only specific songs mentioned by Brian in that piece.

 I'll put forth the hypothesis that in the fall of 1966, CIFOTM was a more fully realized song (probably with verse lyrics) at least in the mind of Brian Wilson. And Brian was likely demo-ing it to Dennis and others. The instrumental track of course was recorded along with the chorus vocals.   And then, for whatever, reasons the lead vocal didn't make it onto tape, Smile collapsed in the spring of '67, and the lyrics were lost and/or forgotten.

I agree with every word of this, except for the insinuation that the lyrics had to exist in anything like a finished form for all of this to be true. I think Brian *absolutely* conceived of Child as a song, and (unlike the impression I get from some of the Heroes / I'm in Great Shape / Elements related pieces), it feels to me like the track mix Brian did at the time represented his intentions, which was for a 3 minute song with verses and a chorus. I just don't think he needed to have finished verse lyrics to think about it that way. Brian had demoed, tracked, and otherwise highly developed songs that didn't have full lyrics yet before. It wasn't the most common way he worked, but it wasn't unheard of either.

That said, I'm more persuaded than I was, certainly, that maybe the lyrics were as likely to have existed in some form as to never have been written, that maybe we just can't know. But I don't think I can be persuaded all the way across to it being more likely they existed than not!

The fact that the moaning part ends exactly on "too tough to cry" to emphasize this pivotal line is what clinches it for me, especially knowing Brian wrote this one part of SU's lyrics himself according to VDP in the new book. Everything fits. It all makes perfect sense now and I'd argue there is no stronger theory with the pieces/info available to us. It sounds great too, it's just a lot of people are too attached to the song as-is to accept it any other way, so anything "new" sounds bad. I understand their position on that, but I think with time and exposure this will come to be accepted as the definitive understanding of SU. (Perhaps someone more talented at audio mixing than I might make a version so perfect it's undeniable, I think any flaws in sound from the takes I've put out are representative of my limits in this field rather than flaws in Brian's intent.)

Ladies and gentlemen, if I may be so bold, I submit that the mystery of the second movement has hereby been solved. Maybe not "note for note this was everything Brian planned" but close enough with the pieces we have. Add the string overdubs from BWPS and what else is there to do? While those specific notes may not necessarily be vintage, I don't think the string parts Brian would've done in 66 could be more "flashy" than what we have without overpowering the song. The strings, I think, were meant chiefly as pictorial-audio "flourishes" here and there to illustrate that the speaker was seeing things clearly for the first time, and that rays of light from heaven were guiding him toward epiphany. We know Brian's whole shtick at this period was bisociative arrangements meant to evoke specific imagery, and I submit this song about a disillusioned man noticing the misguided social paradigm (and/or soulless, corporate, overly-produced "for and by the rich" aspect of music), then resolving to restore the innocence we'd lost with more genuine music going forward, could not be conveyed better in any other way.

But that's just a theory...a SMiLE theory.

Do you know of an available fan mix that uses the horn parts you're describing over the solo piano track without the 70s additions? Would be curious to hear it! The way you describe this sounds incredibly compelling. I've definitely heard mixes that incorporate those horn parts but I don't know if I've ever heard a mix that sounds quite like what you're describing.

I think that with the information we have, yea, this is a great and fascinating theory. But I also think it's worth considering that what we're doing is a little like, if all we had were the basic track of Don't Talk (Put You Head on My Shoulder), but knew something more elaborate was planned before Pet Sounds was tragically scrapped. And then a bootleg came out with the Don't Talk vocal snippet, and we were like, ohhhhhh so that's what it was going to be!

But then someone else was like, no! Because Brian gave an interview in the 70s where he said it was going to be just strings! And then there was a big fight about it.

The point is, we would know a lot more than before we found the vocal snippet on one level, but on another level, we would actually know *less*, because it would trick us into thinking we could know what Brian was intending or what the song would have been, but we would be wrong...

Good points, thank you both.

I guess I just do have a continuing quibble with the logic of "no one remembers it," "no one heard it in such a way that it stuck with them," "no one ever wrote it down," "no recording of it has ever surfaced"... ERGO... "it never existed."   The reason, again... it just seems like such random, dumb (-angel) luck that we know certain other Smile lyrics such as those of "I'm in Great Shape."  I'm old enough and a long term fan enough to confidently say that for 31+ years of Smile lore... until 1998 when the Humble Harv demo was found, no one, including Brian Wilson and all relevant Smile associates, ever suggested that IIGS lyrics existed (other than a few people mistakenly believing that the "eat a lot, sleep a lot" lyrics from Vegatables/Mama Says might be IIGS).

It's a genuinely good point, and I don't disagree entirely. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I wouldn't be the least surprised if four or five lines of Child is the Father of the Man suddenly appeared, though now that the surviving material has been so well examined, it seems increasingly unlikely. Certainly, we have no evidence that lyrics *weren't* written by someone other than Van Dyke Parks, although I think Park's words establish fairly clearly that he didn't write them, and since he apparently came up with the title, it would be a little strange for Brian to turn to someone else. But maybe not that strange, after all, as Julia's has repeatedly expresses, it is pretty strange that Van Dyke Parks didn't finish his work on the album in all that time, by all accounts. In any case, you are absolutely right that absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence.

But that snippet of I'm in Great Shape didn't really solve the mystery of what exactly I'm In Great Shape would be at all. We still don't really understand the song, how it evolved, or how it related to the other fragments. It seems unlikely to me (not impossible, certainly!) that the lyrics of Child were actually finished, in the sense that were they to be found, we would have a completed song that made sense, because it's such an important piece of music, and Brian devoted so much time to it, that it seems like if the lyrics were done someone would have had an inkling. On the other hand, it feels perfectly plausible that more was done than we know about.

This makes no sense.  Brian and Derek are in L.A.  Mike is in the UK, POSSIBLY giving tour reports to Derek Taylor.  He tells Derek Smile is scrapped maybe.  Derek wouldn't call up Brian to confirm that?  He would go with what Mike says, with no additional confirmation?  Does Capitol understand it's scrapped?

The next illogicality is, why would Mike say it was scrapped?  Whether Mike wanted it scrapped or not, how does making a public statement that it's scrapped help the Beach Boys PR or help the bottom dollar, his primary concern?

None of it adds up.

Im slowly making my way through this thread because I have no life, and yeah this more or less sums up my thoughts on this tangent.

Earlier, Cam cited Derek Taylor's book ("As Time Goes By") which until just now I never knew existed. I assume the book doesn't spell out an answer for us or he probably would've quoted it, right? (Isn't it funny how this info that means so much to us is often so inconsequential to the principals they don't even bother to mention it in their tell-all books??) There's a limited preview on Internet Archive and doing a search within the text it seems that what Cam quoted is the only significant discussion of the BB--the focus is on the Beatles it's not an all-encompassing autobio.

I have a lot of trouble believing Taylor would just go with something Mike said on the matter. 1) The only proof I've ever seen for this claim is Priore, whom I don't trust as a source at all. 2) The overwhelming impression I get, which admittedly could be wrong, is that Taylor was hired by and worked primarily with Brian. Plus, everyone knew Brian *was* the Beach Boys at this time. It stands to reason Taylor would be deferential to Brian's instructions and most likely run any memos he got from other BBs by the big guy. 3) Taylor knew about the inter-band drama and Mike's tiff with VDP as referenced in quotes from that same Priore 2005 book. More reason he'd want to double and triple check an "announce it's cancelled!" command especially coming from Mike.

I think, probably, the decision just came from Brian or it was a group consensus. I lean towards the former because there's quotes from at least the Badman book (and Im pretty sure at least one other source) that the BB fully expected SMiLE to come out during their second European tour and were surprised it wasn't released yet when they heard as much from the press. I think either this was another misguided legal maneuver to bargain against Capitol or, more likely, evidence of Brian's erratic behavior at a time when all acknowledge he was mentally unwell. This is the guy who wouldn't come out to see Anderle and caused him to quit BRI as a result, the guy who'd rather remake the album in the least commercial style possible than just record the damn vocals and rush out what was already in the vaults. (Finishing some form of the SMiLE songs couldn't have taken that much longer than Smiley.) I think he felt he needed to take that weight off his shoulders even if it wasn't a rational decision for the reasons I just described.

Otherwise, if Brian really was blindsided by the announcement, maybe Taylor was hoping that the outcry might light a fuse under Brian's ass and get him to stop farting around recording Jasper Dailey garbage. Taylor seems to be at least a little snarky towards the group and VDP in his quotes I've seen. VDP accuses him of being a spy for the Beatles and I've never seen Brian or anyone else in the group speak particularly highly of him. Unlike Anderle, Vosse & Paul Williams, Brian didn't keep in touch with Taylor as far as I know. So, something sneaky and potentially ruinous may not seem too farfetched if you look at it that way. But if Taylor did this, he deserved to be fired as that was not his call to make and such an announcement could and arguably did have serious ramifications. That might have even been grounds for the BB to sue him, and certainly blacklist him in the industry--would he take that risk just for a lame, desperate gambit or to burn some clients he may not've particularly cared for? Color me skeptical. 

There's still a tendency to want to blame everything bad on "outsiders" or Mike and absolve Brian of his shortcomings. While I totally understand where that sentiment comes from, Mike and even Taylor are easy to dislike looking at interviews, it just doesn't ring true to me without some clear evidence. And even then, I'd have to believe Brian was aware the order came and would have countermanded it or whined about it over the years. Other BBs I think would've pointed the finger at Mike if he'd taken so active a hand in sabotaging an album which they all must've known years later was their commercial/critical turning point. No, I say it was Brian and we're trying to make sense out of a person who, by all accounts, wasn't acting fully rationally at this time.

I've said it many times before, but I really and truly think people way overthink this aspect of the Smile saga. Derek Taylor was a publicist working for the Beach Boys. Brian Wilson was the leader of the Beach Boys who was producing their new album Smile. Taylor published that Smile was scrapped because Brian Wilson told him that Smile was scrapped, there's no other explanation that makes any sense, and that explanation makes *perfect* sense. And Brian *didn't finish* smile for a million reasons, obviously, but he almost certainly declared it scrapped at that moment because he was frustrated and demoralized, had obviously totally lost the thread of the project, and wanted to start over working in a different way. Which is exactly what he did. No shenanigans from anyone else are required to make sense of that decision. Did Mike and the band's resistance play a role, sure, but it almost certainly played its key part in the drama in December, when the idea that Brian would respond to Mike criticizing his direction by scrapping the whole fucking album would have, in light of the band's entire career dynamic up to then, seemed like absolutely the least likely thing that could possibly happen. Which isn't a defense of Mike, just the obvious interpretation of what was going on if we resist the temptation to read what happened later back into the time before it happened.