Absolutely horrible. Most of the songs seem like half-assed attempts at repeating the success of Kokomo. The problem is that 4 years had passed since Kokomo was a hit, and by then this sort of thing sounded extremely dated. The production just screams 80s. Most of the songs go on for way too long. The two remakes are atrocious (well, I never liked Surfin' too much to begin with, but Forever was one of my all-time favorite Beach Boys songs). This album has no redeeming qualities. I don't normally give albums ratings, but I'll gladly give this a 0.

Now this is remarkable. not the review, which is as one would expect. But to have one's first ever post on the board be about SIP?! Wow. Better than the two guys whose first posts were MIU. Congrats. Welcome aboard.

Well, I made my review because I thought there was something to defend! 

no no no! The only people that need to defend anything are people who LIKE SIP!

Not sure if this link has been posted here before but I get a good chuckle out of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18Ua3pPr2gY&feature=player_embedded

Well after watching the music video, it's alot easier to see how this song didn't become a hit. Christ, it's awful! That shot where all the band members are posed together is cringe worthy. That and the single edit messes up the beginning

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LE3dpoTOvA

Here's the full song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4TcSzPIWiU

"Somewhere Near Japan" is the best song ever recorded.

I'm listening to it for the fourth time in a row, and as much as I adore "Pet Sounds", "SMiLE" and the rest of the greatness that is 60s and early 70s Beach Boys, I think this is the best thing I've ever heard.

Just listen to it, it's the PERFECT guitar pop song. The achingly beautiful melodic guitar lines, Carl Wilson's absolutely soaring vocals, the perfect mixing and production, Mike Love's great performance, this should have been the #1 hit, not bleepin' "Kokomo." I could burn a CD that just plays this song over and over again until space runs out and play it the whole way through every time. Sure Brian was way more innovative and consistently brilliant, but for 4 minutes and 53 seconds Bruce Johnston and Terry Melcher have him beat. In fact they beat everyone in my books. I'll be amazed if I ever find a better song.

But that raises the question, if "Somewhere Near Japan" is so perfect, why do all the other 80's BB songs suck so hard? Well "Living With A Heartache" is pretty nice but that's about it.

Obviously he isn't in the band anymore and didn't appear anywhere on "Summer In Paradise." I'm leaning towards thinking that his role strictly as producer of "Stars And Stripes Volume 1" doesn't constitute him being an official member of the band for that release anymore than George Martin was a member of The Beatles. Wikipedia says his involvement with the group declined severely after the '85 album, but it's very difficult to pin down an exact year where Brian Wilson stopped being a current member of the Beach Boys. Perhaps his last live appearance with the band? Last recording session?

You guys are the experts, what's your verdict?

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mjzbdzj4w2z

It may appear to be one massive 42 minute song but it's actually just a bunch of small songs with small segments linking them together. I didn't want to mess up the segues somehow so I just left it as one long song.

I've been told by one guy who's listened to it that it reminds them of a video game soundtrack. I guess that's a close enough description. I don't really know what to classify it as myself. It's almost completely instrumental.

If you want I can upload the individual songs some time.  Hope you enjoy it.

"Somewhere Near Japan" is the best thing the Beach Boys have done since 60's at least, possibly even since the SMiLE sessions. 2 stars for that it's such a great song.

The rest of the album needs to rot in a hole somewhere. Even the 3 tracks from other albums sound worse here than they do on the original albums for some reason. It's like they're embarrassed to be on the same tracklisting as "Wipeout" and "Island Girl."

Interesting alternate history if just for its zaniness. I doubt, however, that the BBs release albums after Brian commits suicide (wow, I hate that image) that have the exact same names as what they released in our real history.

Well probably not, but it's impossible to tell exactly what would be released in some alternate universe with a 1967 SMilE in it, so I just used the real life album titles as "placeholders" or whatever.

To be honest, if you can find any redeeming value in this album your Beach Boys fandom has gone too far.  This album actually made me dislike the entire concept of music for a few hours after I heard it. Even my favourite songs did nothing for me immediately after finishing SIP. Early BB albums are the soundtrack to summer, this album tries to be as well but it's more like the soundtrack to a dentist's waiting room. All the magazines are several months old and don't look interesting at all and the radio is set to 106.5 SNOOZE FM "Playing all your bland, boring and inoffensive favorites."

This thing isn't even enjoyable for a few laughs at how bad it is. It's just so pathetically mediocre and unappealing that even Mike's rapping on "Summer Of Love" fails to get any reaction out of you at all, not even a "wow that's horrible and cheesy." The bland non-appeal of the whole thing manages to actually suck the beauty out of everything around you and bring it down to it's level. At the Louvre and looking at the Mona Lisa? Play this on your iPod and you'll soon look at it and think "So what? It's just a painting." Camping in the Rocky Mountains? Play this and you'll think "Meh. Lots of trees around here. There's a lake and that's a big mountain I guess. I see a lot of trees and water every day though and mountains are just really big rocks really. I don't get it."

I guess there is one neat thing about this album though is that I can now say that The Beach Boys are my favourite and least favourite band on earth simultaneously!

I gotta ask: if the other Beach Boys thought Smile was too strange to unleash on the world, why was this okay to release?

Probably just got so fed up with a year's worth of recording sessions they just said "screw it" and recorded what they could with what was left of Brian's mind at that point as quickly as possible

It's more a 4.5 but I still voted it a five because, lets face it this album feels like pure magic. "Do You Wanna Dance?", "She Knows Me Too Well," "Please Let Me Wonder," pretty much every track on the album hits me in the same spot the Disney films I saw when I was four years old do.

The Bull Session is a pretty awful way to end an album (why did every album from the early to mid 60s absolutely HAVE TO have 12 tracks, no exceptions?) but there's a 20 minute version of it I've heard that's absolutely hilarious. Here you've got the Beach Boys, a band that's seen by most as a pretty inoffensive act, nowhere near badasses like the Stones at any rate, and 1965 still has a lot of that squeaky clean corniness from the 50s as far as I can tell. But golly gee whiz can these guys swear like sailors, theres a whole bit talking about how much p*ssy Mike gets on the tours (it's the receding hairline,) and some of the jokes they crack even today might raise a few eyebrows. It is awesome. The 2 minute album closer is pretty boring though.

I tried this out actually. Holy crap this way better.  Up that tempo and kick up the bass, this is awesome.

If your curious to how much better it sounds, you can PM me and I'll... give you the instructions, yes, yes.

Well, Brain's often been quoted as saying he killed SMiLE "because it was killing him." Maybe he didn't mean it as literally as I took it. 

Hello, long time lurker here. Being the Beach Boys obsessive I am, I've developed a hypothetical scenario over the past few months of what might have happened if the greatest album never made had come to fruition. After seeing the incredible knowledge displayed by some of the users here, I more or less expect to have to make some revisions when I find some of my facts to be wrong.

Well here it goes:

On December 13th, 1966,  a week after a particularly ugly dispute between himself and Van Dyke Parks regarding the song's lyrics during a session for "CabinEssence", Mike Love announces that he is leaving the Beach Boys in favor of a solo career. This is usually marked as the beginning of the end for Brian Wilson.

Finding a musical collaborator, Mike Love writes the lyrics for a feel-good single that sounds reminiscent of the group's "surf" phase, although lyrically somewhat more mature and with a bit more of a "rock" edge to it. Released in late February of 1967 with a cover for the B-side, the single peaks at #18 on the charts.

In the meanwhile, although emotionally crushed by his cousin's departure, Brian soldiers on with his project. While still maintaining his professionalism in the studio, his mental deterioration continues to progress at an alarming rate.

On (or possibly a day or two after) February 17th, Brian hears the new Beatles single "Strawberry Fields Forever" for the first time while driving his car. He is so taken aback bu what he hears that he pulls over his car to listen to it, remarking to his companion that The Beatles "Got there first."

Work on SMiLE abruptly shuts down for two weeks. At one point it seems that the entire album would never see the light of day. Fortunately, Brian, mentally hanging by a thread, is slowly coaxed back into the studio by the other Beach Boys, Van Dyke Parks and several of his close friends. Although recording resumes by mid-March, the sessions are much more infrequent and cover less ground. The "Heroes And Villains" single is released in July like it was in "real life", also like the musical world we know, it peaks at #12 on the charts.

The "SMiLE" finally released on August 24th, 1967, one year and four months after the first recording session, has the same track listing as the one Brian Wilson released in 2004. Although Bob Dylan released the double album "Blonde on Blonde" a year previous, Capitol is extremely reluctant to release two LPs of new Beach Boys material. As a compromise, the fourth side is used as sort of mini greatest hits compilation, featuring six of the Beach Boys' most successful previous singles to help ensure sales. This goes through despite Brian's heavy objections. Mike Love's voice can be heard on about half of the tracks on the album.

The album receives huge amounts of praise from critics, reaching #4 on the Billboard charts. Follow up singles "Wonderful" and "Wind Chimes" peak at #9 and #15 respectively.  Paul McCartney remarks in an interview his astonishment that Brian Wilson was actually able to top "Pet Sounds."

Despite all this, Brian still feels that the Beatles have won the musical war, the release of "Sargent Pepper's" in particular, leaving with barely enough wind in his sails to add the final few details to "SMiLE." He is completely and utterly defeated.

Much to surprise of everyone though, Brian begins work on a new song. "Can't Wait Too Long" is paired up SMiLE sessions reject "He Gives Speeches" for release as a single on December 4th, 1967. It reaches #19. In the meanwhile, the other Beach Boys have also been working on new songs as well as "Can't Wait Too Long"

On January 12th, 1968 the mental and emotional roller coaster Brian Wilson had been on for the past year comes to an abrupt and tragic end when he is found dead in his house. Investigators rule the cause of death as a suicide. The remaining Beach Boys are thrown into mourning and complete, utter chaos. Nobody knows what to do after this. The album that the group was working on, entitled "Wild Honey" (inspired by a comment Brian made once that it was a really good title for a song) is released in March. Obviously this album bears absolutely no resemblance to the "Wild Honey" we know, featuring 8 songs written by Al, Bruce, Carl and Dennis as well as "Can't Wait Too Long", "He Gives Speeches" and "Heroes And Villains" B-side "You're Welcome" to add some Brian songs and to fill out the album's length. It hits #28.

Feeling enormously guilty for not making amends with Brian before his death, Mike* does so with the other Beach Boys. The five of them decide to record the album "Friends" as a tribute in Brian's memory.  Released at the tail end of 1968, the album is by far the saddest and most emotionally intense collection of songs in the Beach Boys catalog, even if it's somewhat uneven. It peaks at #64.

Afterwards, the Beach Boys continue to release albums with a couple fan favorites each release, but worse and worse sales figures. The group eventually disbands in 1973 with their final album "Holland." All the Beach Boys except Al hae sporadic solo careers afterwards. In 2003, Rolling Stone names SMiLE #1 on it's list of Greatest Albums of all time. "Pet Sounds" is #3 and "Today!" is #91.

Holy crap I spent too much time writing this.


*by the way, his solo career didn't go very far after that first hit. Maybe a couple more singles barely hit the top 40 and an album that goes nowhere.

**Blondie Chaplain and Ricky Faatar still appear on the last two albums if you were wondering.