missed the boat?

[Lonelysea30]

Was thinking, do u guys think when some of the other band members who opposed smile, heard sgt. Pepper, and its recognition think they new they missed the boat?.  Like oh, I see what Brian was doing, and f*** me, the Beatles did it and we were wrong. Take mike, he thought he was doing good by the band, but when he heard sgt. Pepper even he must of thought secretly, damm Brian was right the whole time.

[Jukka]

I've been wondering the same. There must have been some soul searching going on, and Brian had the biggest right in music history to say "told you so". I kinda wish he took the opportunity to say it.

[Lonelysea30]

Yea he def did have the right, I agree

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

I dunno if I agree... Sgt Pepper was basically a 4x4 rock album with a bit of production flair and an unusual arrangement tossed in here and there. Smile was something else entirely and I doubt the rock obsessed music press would have gotten it.... If the Beach Boys, however, could have gotten a more produced version of Wild Honey (and not in mono) out there before Sgt Pepper: that could have kept them in the game.....

[EgoHanger1966]

Nah, not at all. Don't forget Pet Sounds, that's as much of a grand production piece as, well...anything.

The Beatles didn't do anything on Sgt Pepper that the Beach Boys did on SMiLE, anyway (and vice versa), so that's another reason why this is a moot discussion.

Also, something else to remember, everybody and his mother were stepping up their game. There was a conscious effort in the pop music field to progress and produce and create on a bigger, more varied scale. It's not just The Beatles and The Beach Boys making ambitious pop records, and everyone else just watched and fell by the wayside. Even if they were not successful (commercially or artistically), you will find a "Sgt Pepper" or "Smile" directive in most 60s pop groups' catalogs.

[Ovi]

I love 'Pepper' and can't deny its influence, but I don't think that it had such a colossal effect on those who "rejected" the Smile idea. Might've gotten an "Oh my god! This is an incredible album; haven't heard anything quite like it before" reaction, but I doubt there was a perception-changing "Oh, so this is how music should be created. My whole life is a lie!" kind of thing. There were plenty of albums (even songs) before 'Pepper' that had a good chance of demonstrating those people that an artistic-orientated approach should be adopted and risks should be taken.

[Amanda Hart]

I dunno if I agree... Sgt Pepper was basically a 4x4 rock album with a bit of production flair and an unusual arrangement tossed in here and there. Smile was something else entirely and I doubt the rock obsessed music press would have gotten it.... If the Beach Boys, however, could have gotten a more produced version of Wild Honey out there before Sgt Pepper: that could have kept them in the game.....

I was about to say the same thing. Smile and Sgt. Pepper are really not very similar at all, so I doubt it caused anyone to have any regrets or questions in their decision making. I'm not entirely sure Brian would have been able to say "told you so" to anyone anyway, since it was his idea to move into the Smiley Smile/home studio direction.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

Nah, not at all. Don't forget Pet Sounds, that's as much of a grand production piece as, well...anything.

The Beatles didn't do anything on Sgt Pepper that the Beach Boys did on SMiLE, anyway (and vice versa), so that's another reason why this is a moot discussion.

Also, something else to remember, everybody and his mother were stepping up their game. There was a conscious effort in the pop music field to progress and produce and create on a bigger, more varied scale. It's not just The Beatles and The Beach Boys making ambitious pop records, and everyone else just watched and fell by the wayside. Even if they were not successful (commercially or artistically), you will find a "Sgt Pepper" or "Smile" directive in most 60s pop groups' catalogs.

You're right, but Pet Sounds didn't "rock at all (big deal)  and that's what the kids wanted no matter how else this band or that was stepping up their game,. And rocking was just about the last concern of Brians....

I wonder if Mike was sitting there thinking "Damn, we should have done a whole album of songs like Dance Dance Dance and threw some backwards tape effects in there and we'd be hailed as the second coming right now"!!...... Er, probably not.

[EgoHanger1966]

There were a lot of progressive (pop or otherwise) records that were released in the mid to late 60s that didn't rock and were very popular with the young crowd, so I'm not sure I get where you're going with that. Most of Pepper doesn't "rock", anyway. The Monkees outsold everyone in 1967 - forget that most people dismiss them as bubblegum pop, there is some real experimentation there - but they didn't "rock" either, and the kids were fine with that.

I would agree with this sentiment when the decade turned, though.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

There were a lot of progressive (pop or otherwise) records that were released in the mid to late 60s that didn't rock and were very popular with the young crowd, so I'm not sure I get where you're going with that. Most of Pepper doesn't "rock", anyway. The Monkees outsold everyone in 1967 - forget that most people dismiss them as bubblegum pop, there is some real experimentation there - but they didn't "rock" either, and the kids were fine with that.

I would agree with this sentiment when the decade turned, though.

Yeah, but the Monkees still sounded like a band! Not to make too big a deal out of it, but most of the bands your talking about still used a drum-kit and had a "beat"!  Meanwhile Brian's over there ordering Hal and Dennis not to use their cymbals..... to awesome effect, mind you. But that's not the point....

Go watch the movie "Shampoo" which is set in 1967. There's a scene at some hip Hollywood party where "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (the song) is playing, and it sounds pretty damn heavy and amazing and you can really feel what it must have sounded like at the time...

[Lonelysea30]

So going back to the original question, the overall consesus here seems that there were no regrets by the other members..but man, wild honey produced like pet sounds would of been something else.??

[Mikie]

The rawness and minimal home-brew sounding production is one reason the Wild Honey album is so great.

[EgoHanger1966]

So going back to the original question, the overall consesus here seems that there were no regrets by the other members..but man, wild honey produced like pet sounds would of been something else.??

I'm sure there were regrets, more from the Wilson Bros. than the others in the group, but your original question made it seem like they only regretted SMiLE's collapse because Sgt Pepper happened. And I don't think they are related in that sense...

As for Wild Honey a la Pet Sounds. don't think that would have worked and wouldn't want it any other way. Wild Honey is a great album with a fresh direction. He'd already done Pet Sounds -  to fall back on a sound he'd already "created" and utilised a year+ before would satisfy listeners today I think, but probably wouldn't have garnered great press (in America). Besides, those songs aren't suited to grand productions anyway.

[Lonelysea30]

Yea when u put it in that perspective prob right, wild honey is raw and prob not meant for a ps type production

[Sheriff John Stone]

If you look at subsequent (post-Pepper) tracks that Dennis, Carl, Al, and Bruce did - from "Little Bird" to "I Can Hear Music" to "Cottonfields" to "The Nearest Faraway Place" right on through Holland, I would say no, they weren't very affected or influenced.

I think it caused Brian to give up. I don't think he had enough energy left, physically or emotionally, to compete. I think a part of Brian wanted to fight the good fight, to "expand", to continue to create new sounds, but the drugs (prescribed or otherwise) were already taking their affect on his psyche.

One thing I am absolutely sure of. The Pepper/SMiLE period had NO EFFECT on Mike Love - because he didn't "get" it. And, if you listen to his subsequent interviews, all the way through to 2013, he still doesn't "get" it.

[SMiLE Brian]

One thing I am absolutely sure of. The Pepper/SMiLE period had NO EFFECT on Mike Love - because he didn't "get" it. And, if you listen to his subsequent interviews, all the way through to 2013, he still doesn't "get" it.

I think thats my problem with Mike Love in a nutshell. He just never "got" it and never will that the "formula" was stale in a changing music scene.

[Ian]

well...for better or worse-it pointed out a difference between the Beach Boys and Beatles.  The Beatles up until 1968 were a four headed person-they did EVERYTHING together-drugs, meditation, you name it-they were all on the same wave length for the most part-the Beach Boys from the beginning just weren't that close.  Even as early as 1965-insiders say Mike preferred to hang out with manager Duryea, Al went off with his first wife, Brian had his friends, Dennis did his thing, etc-they weren't that tight...So Brian's trip was his trip-whereas the Beatles were all involved in Pepper and all supported it. 

[NHC]

Two different products entirely, in my view, with different dynamics, except for the fact that each had unique and innovative features.  It's like being asked to choose between an orange and a football.  But who really knows what affect Smile would have had in 1967 on music or the band's reputation?  I bought Sergeant Pepper the month it was issued. I had nothing to compare it to from the Beach Boys.  It was a moot point. 37 years later I bought BWPS and once again had nothing to compare it to (but then again I rarely listen to any artist who wasn't around by the mid-70's so what do I know about anything).

[KittyKat]

I'm not a big Beatles fan anymore, and even I think Pepper is a much more accessible record than Smile. It's also better put together. It was finished, after all. It's also rock and roll.  Smile wasn't rock music, much. People back in those days liked the hard rocking material with crunchy guitars. I don't think Smile would have been a hit then and the Beach Boys didn't regret it. Besides which, how could they regret it? The did "Smiley Smile" instead, which included Smile songs. In many ways, Smiley is a record that fit in with times much better than Smile did, because it's more self-consciously psychedelic. It's sort of the Beach Boys' "Satanic Majesties Request."

[rab2591]

There's a story told in 'Beautiful Dreamer' where Brian is driving around with (I think) David Anderle - they hear 'Strawberry Fields' and Brian says "They beat me to it," or something like that.

No doubt that Brian, if not the rest of the guys, saw they had missed out on something important. Everyone in The Beach Boys knew there was a rivalry going on between the two bands - and no doubt they heard the similar sounding psychedelic and experimental correlations between Sgt. Pepper and Smile. Of course they sound nothing alike (they're two different bands, with two very different styles), but they both carry the same ideas of experimentation and revolutionary songwriting.

[guitarfool2002]

well...for better or worse-it pointed out a difference between the Beach Boys and Beatles.  The Beatles up until 1968 were a four headed person-they did EVERYTHING together-drugs, meditation, you name it-they were all on the same wave length for the most part-the Beach Boys from the beginning just weren't that close.  Even as early as 1965-insiders say Mike preferred to hang out with manager Duryea, Al went off with his first wife, Brian had his friends, Dennis did his thing, etc-they weren't that tight...So Brian's trip was his trip-whereas the Beatles were all involved in Pepper and all supported it. 

I think there is evidence to the contrary about the four-headed monster that the Beatles may have resembled. They were not that close, and the cracks in the foundation began to show just after John and George had their first unplanned experience with a serious dose of LSD.

Those two - at least for a time just after that first acid trip - bonded in such a way that Paul and Ringo were left out. John and George lived closer to each other in more of a country estate existence, and Paul was more in the urban, cosmopolitan hipster art circles in 66-67. And the most ironic thing is that Paul was the Beatle who caused the big controversy by admitting to taking LSD, where John and George for months after their experience had been trying to persuade Paul to experience it, and Paul resisted until finally giving in. But that initial resistance, and the feeling that John and George had shared a deep personal experience with each other, is what kept Paul in the role of "outsider".

Onto Sgt. Pepper: There is a *huge* mythology behind this album and how it was created, namely that it was wholly and "group" effort. This is simply not the case. The last group effort was the Rubber Soul/Revolver combination.

Pepper stands as mostly a John and Paul effort, with lesser original or vital contributions from George, and with Ringo contributing a solid backbeat and one classic lead vocal but little else. The primary push and driving force behind the album was John and Paul, and they were responsible for the overwhelming majority of songwriting credits, lead and backing vocals, lead and backing instrumentals, and in general the creative force behind the songs.

As much credit goes to George Martin and Geoff Emerick, who made it all possible from the technology side, and created the type of recording studio environment which allowed the creativity to flow and develop, and not have it be said to someone like Paul or John "No, it can't be done.".

In that way - the creative team of John and Paul, plus the creative and technological team of Martin-Emerick-etc., plus the lesser but still vital supporting roles of Ringo and George, made it happen.

I'd say the template of the recording process which everyone credits to "The White Album" sessions was created during Sgt. Pepper. You had entire tracks where one Beatle member's vision and direction was the driving force, and they came to the studio with the idea without the others pitching in like the old Mop Top days. You had one Beatle coming into the studio to work on his own individual parts alone, not with the group.

And also, you had entire long stretches of studio session time where Ringo would spend most of his time playing card or table games and eating with Neil and/or Mal, not being needed for the work that was being done yet being "on call" to get behind the kit when they needed him. I've read quotes where he remembers the Pepper process most for hanging out in the corner of the studio waiting or playing games with Neil and Mal.

George's contributions or lack thereof were on a similar level. Apart from the track "Within You Without You", George contributed barely any original musical ideas, and a lot of the standout guitar solos and guitar work actually belonged to Paul McCartney. Not to say Harrison wasn't a crucial member, but on Pepper he simply was not as involved or as much of a creative presence.

The irony is that in their non-musical lives, up to late '66 and the start of the Pepper-era sessions, John and George had the tightest bond through their LSD experience(s), and Paul was the outside man. Then when the music creation started up again - fueled no doubt by the LSD - Paul and John resumed their tightest bond status and George was the odd man out.

I firmly believe the myth of the Beatles being a tight and close-knit "band" who created music together a certain way and hung out as close mates ended around Rubber Soul/Revolver, and the notion of creating albums separately rather than together began with Pepper.

And I also totally agree that the Beach Boys for all intents and purposes were never quite a band with Brian, at least when you had such a driving force as Brian Wilson responsible for the creation and sound of all their records until '67.

Pepper and Smile are closer than we might think, in that you had a driving force within the group creating and pushing the creative process while the others basically waited to be called in to do their part.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

If you look at subsequent (post-Pepper) tracks that Dennis, Carl, Al, and Bruce did - from "Little Bird" to "I Can Hear Music" to "Cottonfields" to "The Nearest Faraway Place" right on through Holland, I would say no, they weren't very affected or influenced.

I think it caused Brian to give up. I don't think he had enough energy left, physically or emotionally, to compete. I think a part of Brian wanted to fight the good fight, to "expand", to continue to create new sounds, but the drugs (prescribed or otherwise) were already taking their affect on his psyche.

One thing I am absolutely sure of. The Pepper/SMiLE period had NO EFFECT on Mike Love - because he didn't "get" it. And, if you listen to his subsequent interviews, all the way through to 2013, he still doesn't "get" it.

I think we tend to overrate Brian as this ahead of the times guy and that if the other Beach Boys or pressure or acid hadn't sent him off track, he'd have been either guiding the path for everyone or fitting in well with the burgeoning rock elite... Smille was not rock music, or even pop. Brian was not Frank Zappa. Brian was not going to do Lumpy Gravy (not a bad comparison to Smile) and then go do "Freak Out". He was gonna do Smile and then probably a double album of "Old Man River" or something.... This wrecking crew/studio cat thing would have kept him just outside of the hip elite no matter what.... I hate to say it, but Mike (allegedly) wanting to keep pumping out Fun Fun Funs and Carl being a Chuck Berry obsessed guitarist and Al wanting to integrate folk with pop/rock, and Dennis just being Dennis (as in: actually cool): these elements had more a chance at grooving with the times if heads had been put together.... Maybe I'm granting too much to the other Beach Boys, but why the hell not?

[anazgnos]

It seems like nobody in the band would have actually regarded Smile as a missed opportunity because it probably wasn't even seen as an opportunity to begin with.   Smile to the group represented not just a body of material but a way of working that from their perspective was untenable and unproductive - whereas the Smiley/WH was immensely productive by contrast and allowed them to get a lot of stuff out very quickly.  Regardless of enthusiasm or support for the material within the Mike/Al/Bruce/Dennis/Carl faction, it seems like Smile was just seen as something that was unfinishable and unreleasable in the absence of a clear and decisive effort from Brian, which wasn't forthcoming.  The idea that they would see Sgt. Pepper as a somehow finished/successful version of what they'd been doing with Smile - that they would then say "hey, we should totally still be doing little disconnected fragments that we don't understand how to fit together, with no end in sight" - seems unlikely.  It's easy enough from our perspective to look at the commonality between those works but I'm sure things looked different on the ground at the time.

[Magic Transistor Radio]

First off, isn't it spelled SMiLE?

I think SMiLE would have been very successful in the spring of 67. People say it didn't 'rock', well no less then Strawberry Fields, Lucy in the Sky, Fool On a Hill, Crimson and Clover, etc.

I think there are similarities to Sgt Pepper/Magical Mystery Tour and SMiLE. Some of John's lyrics are Van Dyke type nonsensical poetry. I believe that SMiLE would have competed with Sgt Pepper, as Pet Sounds did with Rubber Soul/Revolver. Heroes and Villains might have reached top 5 had it been ready for release in Jan or Feb.

Of course, I am talking out of my ass, since I wasn't born until 77. But Good Vibrations was #1 in late 66. Surely, the masses were ready to hear what Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys would do next. But they waited too long.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

First off, isn't it spelled SMiLE?

I think SMiLE would have been very successful in the spring of 67. People say it didn't 'rock', well no less then Strawberry Fields, Lucy in the Sky, Fool On a Hill, Crimson and Clover, etc.

I think there are similarities to Sgt Pepper/Magical Mystery Tour and SMiLE. Some of John's lyrics are Van Dyke type nonsensical poetry. I believe that SMiLE would have competed with Sgt Pepper, as Pet Sounds did with Rubber Soul/Revolver. Heroes and Villains might have reached top 5 had it been ready for release in Jan or Feb.

Of course, I am talking out of my ass, since I wasn't born until 77. But Good Vibrations was #1 in late 66. Surely, the masses were ready to hear what Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys would do next. But they waited too long.

I was born in 73 and am talking out of my ass too, Strawberry Fields, Lucy In The Sky, Fool On The Hill all had Ringo on drums, thus: they rocked. Plus, Strawberry Fields has that pretty rockin ending where the drums go nuts.... Crimson And Clover is basically a soul song, thus didn't need to rock to jive with what was cool at time.... By 67, Smile (and in mono) just wouldn't have cut it.... I'm not endorsing this alternate reality. Smile blows away all the stuff I've mentioned.....