What Would Brian have Done After SMiLE?

[Reverend Rock]

God Only Knows.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Duh, he would have become international Breakdance champion of '68 and spent the rest of his days learning to how to play the tubular bells with his schlong before dying tragically in the Challenger Disaster.

[Magic Transistor Radio]

I think we get hints of where he was going. I think that Friends was a logical follow up to SMiLE, but if the songs were 3 to 5 mins long. In other words, that feeling, but a 40 min album instead of a 29(?) min album.

Soon after, songs like Life of a Tree, My Solution, At My Window and Til I Die seem like another step foward.

Then the way he added the moog in songs like Had to Phone Ya, Sweet Mountain, Funky Pretty, and the Fairy Tail. Love You would've been similar with much better lyrics. Male Ego sounds like a logical 80s step foward to me after that.

In other words, I see a logical progression there. Imagine if he continued to make full albums with the quality of his best stuff that we DO have from those years.

[Newguy562]

Very Good Post ..I've always imagining him doing themed albums after smile sort of how "The Who" and "The Kinks" did with many of their albums.

[Curtis Leon]

I could have seen Brian scoring films...that's  what Run James Run was all about.

What exactly is "Run James Run"? Never heard of it before.

Working title for the title track of Pet Sounds. It was originally pitched for an upcoming James Bond movie (what would become You Only Live Twice, judging by the time period).

[Mahalo]

If SMiLE was his hash/LSD album, then he would've done his cocaine/heroin album after SMiLE.

[Mikie]

What would Brian have done after Smile?

He would have done an album to cool out by.  Smiley wouldn't have been released or maybe a couple of songs integrated into the Wild Honey album.

Chuck Britz said that as soon as Brian moved to the Bellagio house in April 1967, he wasn't the same guy.

[anazgnos]

What would Brian have done after Smile?

He would have done an album to cool out by.  Smiley wouldn't have been released or maybe a couple of songs integrated into the Wild Honey album.

Chuck Britz said that as soon as Brian moved to the Bellagio house in April 1967, he wasn't the same guy.

Brian has a list of "he was never the same after(s)" a mile long, it seems.

[hypehat]

"20something American man who gets incredibly rich, incredibly quickly, takes drugs and has stressful life experiences, undergoes change! Pictures at 10!"  

[Runaways]

i think brian completing smile is less important than him losing interesting in writing great music. obviously they're connected but BUMMER

[Wirestone]

i think brian completing smile is less important than him losing interesting in writing great music.

I don't know if he's ever lost that. But interest in competing on a national stage with it? Interest in producing the music to its fullest potential? Interested in following through on an album-length basis? Then yeah.

obviously they're connected but BUMMER

They're less connected than we think, though. He kept at it for another couple of years after Smile, so you probably have to look instead at mental issues and the tepid public reception to Wild Honey and Friends. But yes, a bummer.

[Mikie]

I think what Britz was alluding to was the fact that after the move to Bellagio, Brian was no longer motivated to get up and go down into Hollywood into the studios with the old gang of musicians and hold pre-scheduled sessions to record a good album. Since the studio was now at Brian's house, he became lazy, could get out of bed (or stay in it) whenever he wanted, smoked dope, did coke, did whatever, but ultimately lost his focus on recording a good album like the old days. It was Britz's opionion, and I can see his point.

And I keep thinking what Marilyn said about post-Smile in the "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" documentary. About Brian's attitude, "You think you can do it, then you go do it", referring to The Beach Boys.

[GuyOnTheBeach]

My optimistic hypothetical post SMiLE Brian is as follows;

He would do one more album with The Beach Boys in the 60's, this album would further his modular recording technique, there would be the usual adversity during the sessions for this album where Brian would leave the band, he would go on to join Redwood with Danny Hutton and they would be hailed for their masterwork with "Time To Get Alone". During the 70's he would release a few solo albums until going into a kind of retirement to spend time with Marylin and the kids. In the 1987 while working on a comeback album he composes a track with Jeff Lynne, after a little persuasion, Brian is persuaded to join The Traveling Wilburys for their second album in 1990. After hearing some preliminary tracks for "Summer in Paradise" Brian decides it is time to intervine before Dennis puts John Stamos through a window (in this parallel exstance, Dennis never got heavily into drugs since he was never around our Brian in the late 60's). This album is regarded as The Beach Boys' true masterwork. Later in the decade, Brian becomes an advocate for Pro-Tools and it's uses for making modular recording easier, SMiLE II is released with a new band (featuring Dennis, and members of The Wondermints) to universal acclaim.

[Magic Transistor Radio]

My optimistic hypothetical post SMiLE Brian is as follows;

He would do one more album with The Beach Boys in the 60's, this album would further his modular recording technique, there would be the usual adversity during the sessions for this album where Brian would leave the band, he would go on to join Redwood with Danny Hutton and they would be hailed for their masterwork with "Time To Get Alone". During the 70's he would release a few solo albums until going into a kind of retirement to spend time with Marylin and the kids. In the 1987 while working on a comeback album he composes a track with Jeff Lynne, after a little persuasion, Brian is persuaded to join The Traveling Wilburys for their second album in 1990. After hearing some preliminary tracks for "Summer in Paradise" Brian decides it is time to intervine before Dennis puts John Stamos through a window (in this parallel exstance, Dennis never got heavily into drugs since he was never around our Brian in the late 60's). This album is regarded as The Beach Boys' true masterwork. Later in the decade, Brian becomes an advocate for Pro-Tools and it's uses for making modular recording easier, SMiLE II is released with a new band (featuring Dennis, and members of The Wondermints) to universal acclaim.

Sounds familiar

[XXXCD]

It would be a little like trying to predict what the Beatles would have done after Sgt Pepper.

The album would have been a hit because it would have included Good Vibrations and some other very strong music (and in my opinion what we hear in the Smile sessions only gives a hint of what the properly finished album would have sounded like).

I don't buy the idea that the Beach Boy's "old" audience of cars/girls/surf music would have been lost when Smile came out. The people who bought these records aged and moved with the times along with Brian. And most BB fans like both types of music anyway.

I predict that Brian would have stayed on top of his game for another 5-6 years and then faded a bit (as all great musicians tend to) which probably means 4 or more quality albums under the "Beach Boys" name.  Their sound would have changed and evolved however- it wouldn't be the same 3-part harmonies all the time. I can then see him getting involved in other musical projects, perhaps going solo or forming other groups, as he matured. Eventually, I could have seen him working as a top producer.

If he had stayed well and kept working, I think he would have been much more of a "household name" than he is now. And there were probably a few more number ones in him which we will never get to hear !

[harrisonjon]

I think Brian would have needed to split from his bandmates at some point otherwise the scenario would have played out much the same way, except that a later album would have been aborted (Smile 2, Friends) with the same results. The other Beach Boys just could not go along the same artistic path he was taking. He was in the wrong band for the type of music he was making.

However, I also don't see how Brian could have recovered from the lifestyle he was leading in 1967. I think he was another Syd Barrett in that respect, the unraveling was just a matter of time. Neither of them had the mental strength to absorb LSD without disintegrating.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Wild Honey

[Myk Luhv]

To be fair to Mr. Newman, he started scoring movies because it pays the bills in ways writing songs from the point of view of a stalker or drunk or racist do not! Brian was at this point already a well established and obviously very successful pop craftsman who may have skirted some of the conventions of the genre but clearly not in the same way as Randy. As for me, I think counterfactual history like this -- especially for this kind of situation -- is hopeless!

[Micha]

Imagine SMiLE had been released. What would Brian have done next to follow it up? I personally think that a better produced version of an album like Wild Honey would hve been released, but still as a 'cool down' album.

I think so, too. The earliest version of Good Vibrations already points in that R&B direction. The bad thing about Wild Honey is the bad sound which would not have been like that had Brian not been overcome by his mental problems and had instead stuck to the studios he used before. If you want to know just how bad the sound is, play Aren't You Glad from WH and then the live version from 1968. This alternate world WH would have sounded rather like the early GV or the later ressurrected Soulful Old Man Sunshine.

SMiLE would certainly have fared better commercially than Smiley, especially had it been released closer to the success of the GV single. But I doubt it would have done much better than Pet Sounds, although there is no way to know of course.

And IMHO the Beatles actually released two bad albums: Abbey Road and Let It Be. You're free to disagree.

[Reverend Rock]

Well, maybe after SMiLE, Brian would have done a Christmas album to chill out, and then do a more laid-back, less modular, autobiographical album about life in L.A.

Oh, wait a minute...

[Cabinessenceking]

stereo Wild Honey anyone?

I want to hear the WH sound better, is there a stereo Wild Honey boot anywhere? I managed to get a stereo Smiley Smile awhile ago, and its absolutly dazling! completely epic and does as much credit to Smiley Smile as the stereo remaster of Pet Sounds did to that album.

I know there is a stereo Let the wind blow, and I recall hearing a stereo Country Air on youtube a year or two ago.

[runnersdialzero]

stereo Wild Honey anyone?

I want to hear the WH sound better, is there a stereo Wild Honey boot anywhere? I managed to get a stereo Smiley Smile awhile ago, and its absolutly dazling! completely epic and does as much credit to Smiley Smile as the stereo remaster of Pet Sounds did to that album.

I know there is a stereo Let the wind blow, and I recall hearing a stereo Country Air on youtube a year or two ago.

I have stereo mixes of Wild Honey, but I converted them all to mono and destroyed the original disc I got them from.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Now that's just mean

Well, maybe after SMiLE, Brian would have done a Christmas album to chill out, and then do a more laid-back, less modular, autobiographical album about life in L.A.

Oh, wait a minute...

Touche

[rab2591]

Well, maybe after SMiLE, Brian would have done a Christmas album to chill out, and then do a more laid-back, less modular, autobiographical album about life in L.A.

Oh, wait a minute...

[Magic Transistor Radio]

And IMHO the Beatles actually released two bad albums: Abbey Road and Let It Be. You're free to disagree.

I agree with Let it Be, but Abbey Road is one of my favorites. Songs like Because and Sun King are mind blowing!