Other Pop Composers Who Have Written in Sections?

[harrisonjon]

Not sure if he was influenced by Smile, but IIRC David Bowie had a style of composing in the 70's where he wrote random sections and threw them together - and somehow it worked.

A Day In The Life (Beatles) is obviously two songs stitched together.

Any other examples?

[Billgoodman]

Try some Guided By Voices, for instance Alien Lanes.

[theCOD]

Mr. Bungle

http://youtu.be/SAtZTQw3lcw

One of my top 5 favorite bands. They do it almost as well as the man himself.

Oh, and the guitarist covered H&V and GV on the Smiling Pets album, so I'm pretty sure they were influenced by Brian.

[soniclovenoize]

The Olivia Tremor Control.

They have a number of songs that were obviously pieced together (Holiday Surprise 1, 2 and 3, The Game You play is in Your head 1, 2 and 3, Paranormal Echoes, Green Typewriters, etc.)

Also, their second album Black Foliage is heavily influenced by SMiLE, in that there's a reoccurring musical theme (The bass riff of the title track) that is woven through the whole album, and always reminded me of the Bicycle Rider Theme...

[Jason]

I don't know if he truly counts, but Bill Holt. His Dreamies album is basically stitched together from excerpts of three songs mixed with sampled news/radio/field recordings.

[Roger Ryan]

Several of the Fiery Furnaces albums are created from stitched together sections.

[monicker]

Isn't all music written in sections?

[Tristero]

Frank Zappa often used this kind of a collage style back around the same time as Brian (see Absolutely Free, We're Only In It For The Money, Lumpy Gravy, Uncle Meat).  In many ways, Frank and Brian were polar opposites, but they employed some similar working methods back then.  They were both fond of working variations on a theme and then splicing them together.

[Iron Horse-Apples]

Me.

Can't think where I got the idea from 

[TdHabib]

McCartney, especially on the (terrific) Ram album.

[matt-zeus]

Quite a few of Freddie Mercurys early songs are written in this 'sectional' style - listen to 'March of the Black Queen' and 'My Fairy King' to hear good examples of this. The sections never repeat either just one new thing after another, totally mindblowing...some more examples would be 70s Black Sabbath especially around the time of 'sabbath bloody sabbath' and 'sabotage' - great multisectional songs there. Also early Genesis - 'Suppers Ready' and 'the musical box' being fine examples...

[exposedbrain]

10CC wrote songs that were like 10 incredible pop songs in 1. Granted they also had 4 really good writers in the band

this is a good example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB3ivplADe4

[Cam Mott]

Did Brian write in sections or record wholey written songs in sections? It seems to me he had the song written and then recorded it in sections. It seems an important distinction but maybe not. How else would you write a song that has sections [ie. verse, chorus, bridge, etc.]?

Then when he replaces sections it is in a controlled way, he records a discreet section with their place predetermined and the song already rewritten. There was no undesignated recording, no confusion, or excess, or complusive recording. It was all planned and identified at recording as to its place and function in which rewritten song. That is my interpretation of the evidence anyway. Did I make too much out of nothing?   

[The Demon]

Mr. Bungle

http://youtu.be/SAtZTQw3lcw

One of my top 5 favorite bands. They do it almost as well as the man himself.

Oh, and the guitarist covered H&V and GV on the Smiling Pets album, so I'm pretty sure they were influenced by Brian.

Secret Chiefs 3 considered doing a Smile covers album, too.

[runnersdialzero]

Holy f***, I hate Mr.Bungle.

[stevemc90]

Laura Nyro and of Montreal come to mind, and to an extent, Chicago, Rundgren/Nazz, XTC, Rufus Wainwright. Zappa's an obvious one but I think we can all agree you can't put any label on his music. In the hip-hop there's Madvillain/MF Doom.

[Iron Horse-Apples]

Holy frig, I hate Mr.Bungle.

[soniclovenoize]

of Montreal come to mind

Oh yeah, of course!     I've always thought their album Coquelicot Asleep In The Poppies is about as close to "the SMiLE sound" as you can come actually (but on speed and sung by an elf).  I highly suggest that album if you haven't heard it (it sounds very different from their newer dancey stuff if you're familiar with it). 

[guitarfool2002]

Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins said in an interview back in the early 90's that he had been listening to Smile tracks, and was going to try to do a modular piece where he'd write and record in sections, then piece them together to form a long suite as Brian had set out to do with Heroes. So there was a definite influence from Smile's writing style being cited. Unfortunately the track never made it to an album, I think it was only on a compilation of some kind. Too long, perhaps.

I think it's easy to be stretching the definition of writing in sections a bit too far, because I think all musicians and songwriters experiment with sectional writing and possibly modal writing at one time or another.  Songs are written and constructed in sections by design, going back to classical form, sonata form, etc., into any song form that doesn't follow 20th century pop standards of AABA or verse-chorus-bridge-coda song forms.

[soniclovenoize]

Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins said in an interview back in the early 90's that he had been listening to Smile tracks, and was going to try to do a modular piece where he'd write and record in sections, then piece them together to form a long suite as Brian had set out to do with Heroes. So there was a definite influence from Smile's writing style being cited. Unfortunately the track never made it to an album, I think it was only on a compilation of some kind. Too long, perhaps.

As a former psycho-SP fan, I can't really say any SP song really fits that description, released or otherwise.  Possibly "Thru The Eyes of Ruby", but that seems more like a continuous perseverance with many overdubs, a la "Soma"...  Maybe the b-side "Apathy's Last Kiss"...  There's been a few songs with a middle section that seems inserted into a longer piece, like "Starla" or "Glass and The Ghost Children"...  The later is specifically three pieces stuck together, but still nothing in a true modular approach like SMiLE or H&V... 

[guitarfool2002]

Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins said in an interview back in the early 90's that he had been listening to Smile tracks, and was going to try to do a modular piece where he'd write and record in sections, then piece them together to form a long suite as Brian had set out to do with Heroes. So there was a definite influence from Smile's writing style being cited. Unfortunately the track never made it to an album, I think it was only on a compilation of some kind. Too long, perhaps.

As a former psycho-SP fan, I can't really say any SP song really fits that description, released or otherwise.  Possibly "Thru The Eyes of Ruby", but that seems more like a continuous perseverance with many overdubs, a la "Soma"...  Maybe the b-side "Apathy's Last Kiss"...  There's been a few songs with a middle section that seems inserted into a longer piece, like "Starla" or "Glass and The Ghost Children"...  The later is specifically three pieces stuck together, but still nothing in a true modular approach like SMiLE or H&V... 

It exists and I was hoping someone would chime in with the song title. This was in a magazine interview I read with Corgan in the early 90's after Siamese Dream, where he specifically said he was working on a piece influenced by Brian and Smile's modular writing and recording style, and about a decade later I asked if anyone knew the piece on a previous incarnation of this board. Some people did chime in, with a song title that appeared on either a box set or a compilation of some kind, but I do not own that set and I cannot remember what that song was called. Ultimately I think whatever Corgan did try may not have reached the goals he thought it could reach, and it got placed on a compilation with little fanfare. A failed experiment?

Whatever the case, I read that Corgan interview during a break from classes in a Store 24 in Boston, and I was too broke at the time to actually buy the magazine, so I don't remember what it was...but I do remember exactly where I read it. That's odd...

[prefect319]

I want to go a little deeper into some artists already mentioned. I'm just going to rant here for a minute but i promise it all relates
frank zappa is probably brian's closest  relative as far as sectional writing goes. I've become a pretty huge zappa fan and if you get bootlegs of his early stuff you realize he was doing this to the same degree as smile.  We're only in it for the money especially has this. There are tons and tons of edits of songs from that album and lumpy gravy with different sections placed differently. I  guess maybe thats what struck me first about zappa, how much like brian he was. It was easier for him because he didn't have people telling him what he could and couldn't do, and also he never took drugs.

Maybe the smashing pumpkins song you guys are all talking about is through the eyes of ruby. That one has two distinct parts in it.
miles davis's early fusion albums relied heavily on edits. Its a slightly different situation since most of those pieces were composed in sketch form and then soloed on top of. But its still the same concept isn't it?

Well thats all for now. Comments?

[monicker]

The most extreme and probably obvious example is John Zorn's Naked City, although there are no edits, it's all played live in one shot. And while i know that Zorn is a fan of the Pet Sounds box set, the Naked City stuff really has nothing to do with Smile.

[soniclovenoize]

It exists and I was hoping someone would chime in with the song title. This was in a magazine interview I read with Corgan in the early 90's after Siamese Dream, where he specifically said he was working on a piece influenced by Brian and Smile's modular writing and recording style, and about a decade later I asked if anyone knew the piece on a previous incarnation of this board. Some people did chime in, with a song title that appeared on either a box set or a compilation of some kind, but I do not own that set and I cannot remember what that song was called. Ultimately I think whatever Corgan did try may not have reached the goals he thought it could reach, and it got placed on a compilation with little fanfare. A failed experiment?

Oh sh*t, of course, is it Pasticio Medley?  That song is a sound collage of 70 different unreleased fragments...  But that's not really BW's modular approach--Corgan took just 6-second clips of 70 instrumentals that hadn't gone anywhere and made a 20-minute collage of them.

As perfect13 just said above (and I had mentioned) it could be Thru The Eyes of Ruby.  There's existing bootlegs of the in-studio writing/recording of it, and it did exist in a pretty different form, and the song has multiple sections to it.  But, as I had said, the way they recorded Mellon Collie was a more of a live-band feel, partially because they wanted to capture that sound and also because they literally had about 40 or so songs to track in a few months time.  So possibly Ruby was written in sections, and then pieced together, but they seem to have recorded the song as one piece with multiple overdubs (like 40 or so). 

[tansen]

The Olivia Tremor Control.

They have a number of songs that were obviously pieced together (Holiday Surprise 1, 2 and 3, The Game You play is in Your head 1, 2 and 3, Paranormal Echoes, Green Typewriters, etc.)

Also, their second album Black Foliage is heavily influenced by SMiLE, in that there's a reoccurring musical theme (The bass riff of the title track) that is woven through the whole album, and always reminded me of the Bicycle Rider Theme...

Yes, yes, yes and utterly yes. And don't forget of Montreal's "Coquelicot asleep in the poppies' and 'The Gay Parade' - all though both more conceptual than 'in sections' i guess.


EDIT: Just realized someone beat me to it. But man, do yourself a favour and check out these bands. Anyone who is into SMiLE is bound to love this stuff. I'm sure sonic agrees with me.
(btw sonic, I'm 'psychedelia' on what