My Ultimate Theory about Smile and the Beach Boys

[John Stivaktas]

You do realise that Metacritic took an aggregate review score of Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE and The SMiLE Sessions, 7 years later. They scored 97 and 96 out of 100 respectively. I have listened to hours and hours of SMiLE music for the last 25 years and I can't recall thinking any of it was anything less than brilliant, even the small fragments that were recorded and discarded. Your viewpoint is very much in the minority, contrarian and cannot be even for one minute taken seriously.

What really matters is this...the fact that SMiLE did not see release in 1967 remains a tragedy, both personally for Brian Wilson and for the Beach Boys as recording artists. Its release would have cemented their critical success that began with Beach Boys Today! and continued through to Pet Sounds. Try to understand that Brian Wilson gave it his all, as a member of the Beach Boys, as a recording artist, as musician, songwriter, producer, arranger....by 1967 he had nothing left. What I feel is that few people around him could empathise with his workload. Perhaps his friends were taken in with the notion that he was a gravy train with no end. History proved them wrong.

[Cam Mott]

SMiLE theories are like a**holes, we are all one.   

[c-man]

SMiLE theories are like a**holes, we are all one.   

Umm, shouldn't that be we all HAVE one? 

[Cam Mott]

SMiLE theories are like a**holes, we are all one.   

Umm, shouldn't that be we all HAVE one? 

No. 

[wilsonart1]

Fishhead or MonkDunder, did I get that wrong?  Hope you never come to bat with the bases loaded and game on the line.
 .

[sockittome]

I've been trying to think of a polite way to respond to DunderMonk's initial post (as if politeness really matters around here!)  Sounds to me like somebody has gotten burned out on SMiLE and perhaps needs to move on to something else.  I've been listening to my favorite stereo fanmix for years and it is still as breathtaking as the first time I heard it.  I could never NOT be completely amazed by it, no matter what mood I'm in.

But I shouldn't have to defend my love for SMiLE.  It's all a matter of opinion and taste.

DM takes up a lot of space talking about what was going on with Brian at the time he was working on this masterpiece.  There are so many versions of the story, so much myth, so much mis-remembering from some people who were there, all sprinkled in with the little bit of proven fact....it's hard to know what to believe.  Our resident Beach Boys researchers most likely have the best idea of what took place (are there any left on this board?)

The bottom line is, the story behind SMiLE should not affect someone's enjoyment of the work.  The proof is in the work itself.  I never perceived SMiLE as brilliant merely because everyone else was saying it was so.

[Bicyclerider]

Dunderhead takes the germ of a good idea - Brian was trying to impress his friends - and then goes over the top with it. 

Van Dyke considered himself the genius, not Brian?  Ridiculous,nothing to support this.  In fact Van Dyke has always credited Brian with 100 % of the music of Smile, and has always praised Brian as a composer and songwriter until perhaps the last few years - don't want to get into why that might be, probably more to do with Van Dyke's situation than anything to do with Brian.  At the time there was no evidence Van Dyke considered himself "above" Brian, quite the contrary.

The "industry people" Brian surrounded himself were not all "Wannabees" - for example David Anderle was an accomplished "industry" person who didn't need Brian to achieve success.

I see no evidence the Posse Vosse "labelled everything he did "uncool" - in fact the music Brian was making was blowing their minds, and was the new definition of cool.  Some in the Vosse Posse resented the way Brian treated them - basically as playtoys available at all times to indulge his every whim, musical or otherwise - and Van Dyke was subject to this as well.  But no one was holding a gun to their heads to make them stay - and Van Dyke left twice.  Brian actually didn't care about being "cool" when a new inspiration or idea came into his head - although ultimately Dunderhead is right that he wanted the "cool" people to dig his music - and that's not just the Vosse Posse, but the Beatles and the general public as well. 

Why is there an Elements suite?  Because Brian came up with the idea, NOT because one of his friends said so - don't understand where you get the concept someone else made Brian think of The Elements.  It wasn't Van Dyke who was never particularly supportive of the Elements suite idea and has said he had nothing to do with those sessions.

Brian's ideas were concocted out of discussions - yeah, sure, just as they were with Tony Asher for Pet Sounds.  Nothing sinister or strange about that.  Musically it seems almost everything came from Brian - but lyrics and lyrical themes no doubt came from Van Dyke and Van Dyke's discussions with his and Brian's hangers-on about American imperialism, revolutions and youth changing society, American history as a theme to counter the British-centric music scene, etc. 

[Tacos]

Smile sucks. When you get right down to it, it's just not that enjoyable to listen to. The material has never been presented in anything more than a barely adequate way. I have listened to every fragment a million times, and truth be told, most of them aren't really listenable in any meaningful sense. Many of the experiments are utter failures, despite their nigh mythical status.

To each his own. I find no common ground with you in regards to your dislike of Smile, feeling it equals and even surpasses the mythical status afforded it over the years. Every once in a while a contrarian view resonates with me, but this isn't one of those times. I agree with Henry Rollins, who said that Smile is so "astonishingly good you might find yourself just staring at your speakers in unguarded wonder, as I have." I am sad for people that can't see the beauty and greatness in songs like Our Prayer, Heroes and Villains, Do You Like Worms, Cabin Essence, Wonderful, Child is Father of the Man, Surf's Up, Vegetables, Wind Chimes, Love to Say Dada, or Good Vibrations. I also don't believe for a second that Brian was a puppet of any sort, or kowtowing to the "in" crowd. I think Brian cared far more about the music than the motley crue.

Well said.
Been listening to versions of Smile regularly for 20+ years and it still blows my mind every time. To me it's a miracle. Never gets old.

[18thofMay]

Ahhhh Fishmonk..... It's been a while!

[pixletwin]

I think Smile is left open for interpretation by its listeners. In attending the premier, I can say that as a piece of music in three movements, it is sequenced in a form that is dazzling. The second movement is brilliant. The other two movements are inspired  as well. It does not hit some Beach Boy listeners as finished. There is room for interpretation. I would examine every piece of Smile in its creative time. It definitely moved me in ways that no other Brian music can, including his other pieces that are long form. Long may it present itself as a piece for performance that now exists, regardless of its part  in music categories that become blurred in an experimental piece like Smile.

Point for point, I agree with Peter.

I remember Fishmonk. Good to see you back, however briefly.

[SteveMC]

I just want to say I'm very impressed with your analysis. In totality, I also never liked Smiley Smile or Smile Redux though I always loved Wonderful with Carl's vocals and With Me Tonight. Surfs Up is incredible.

Pet Sounds is the masterpiece, fully realized.

Hello there fellow travelers. I haven't posted here in a while, but some of you might remember me as "Fishmonk,"

Truth be told I haven't listened to The Beach Boys much in the last 2 or 3 years, been busy with other things. And with blogging on other, more interesting parts of the internet. But recently I was induced to once again take up the topic of band, their successes, their failures etc. Now that I have a little more perspective on the band, and am perhaps able to be objective about them, I feel as if I have reached my Ultimate Fan Theory regarding why Smile didn't work.

Smile sucks. When you get right down to it, it's just not that enjoyable to listen to. The material has never been presented in anything more than a barely adequate way. I have listened to every fragment a million times, and truth be told, most of them aren't really listenable in any meaningful sense. Many of the experiments are utter failures, despite their nigh mythical status.

I feel that Brian's primary aim in creating Smile was to impress some of his friends. The only problem with that: Brian's friends considered him to be a bit of a fool, and listening to many of them today, it's clear they never respected him very much. I've emailed with Loren Schwartz, he's an asshole. And given Van Dyke Parks' later-day ingratitude towards Brian Wilson, it's hard not to catch a whiff of some long-festering resentment about his person. He was always a bit of a mooch, creatively. He associated with many talented musicians and songwriters, but never amounted to particularly much. As bad as Smile is, Song Cycle is much worse, and Van Dyke has struggled to eek out a legacy using it.

Van Dyke is an old Southern aristocrat at heart. One gets the impression that much of his artistic and public persona is stolen from Truman Capote. One often hears that he was a musical prodigy, and that he played violin for Einstein as a child. In his mind, he is the true creative, not Brian. He was the genius, not Brian. Brian wasn't smart enough to be a genius. And I think that's a sentiment that some of Brian's Smile-era friends shared, that Brian was a bit of dunce. It is almost embarrassing how hard Brian tried to impress these people.

Brian's friends during the Smile Sessions were some pretty insufferable people. Brian wasn't hanging out on the Strip, with Buffalo Springfield and Love. He surrounded himself with industry people and wannabes. They were pretentious. I mean, can you imagine wanting to be friends that badly with Curt Boettcher or somebody like that? If you ever listen to the discography of someone like Gary Usher, there's a really weird vibe of sanitized mysticism. It's incredibly lame stuff. There's a novelty factor that makes it enjoyable, sure. But is it 'cool'? No way.

Here's what I really think happened during the Smile era. Brian became enamored of a bunch of hipster-losers, and then he paid them all to be his friends. They all thought he wasn't truly capable of 'getting it,' in the way that they were, and came to deeply resent his influence upon their lives. Brian, with all his might, tried to tune in, or whatever. He tried to 'get it,' he wanted to be hip. But he's just too naive a person, and the whole scene that he wanted to be a part of so badly was simply too cynical in its constitution for him to ever enter very naturally into it.

Really what I'm saying is: these people Brian courted possessed no substantive beliefs other than an affected contempt for everything 'uncool'. Brian wanted to be cool, and they probably thought it was fun to perpetually label everything that he did 'uncool' in order to torment him. With Smile he wanted to make something that appealed to these people, this was his true and core audience. Smile was never made for the world at large, it was made for his immediate circle of dependents. Commercial success was only once factor that Brian thought might impress these people, because they leaned towards being industry types.

The problem came about because Brian really looked to them for help work shopping ideas, and they frankly weren't good at that, despite all being promoters and producers and wannabes.

Consider this: We take other people's words over Brian's. Why is there an Element Suite? I ask you. Because one of Brian's friends intimated that there was. These aren't Brian's ideas, they were often concocted out of discussions. Brian asked them "is this cool? what should I do? what's cool?" and they fed him a constant stream of lame brained ideas. At the end of the day, you can construct anything out of that. It's a fool's errand.

[SteveMC]

That's a logical fallacy.
Argumentum ad populum– concluding an argument is true simply because lots of people think it’s true. We see this on commercials all the time: “9 out of 10 doctors recommend Acme Brand Toothpaste,” or “3 million Brand X Customers Can’t be Wrong! Buy Brand X Today.”

Other's people's/critic's ratings doesn't actually prove it's quality but I respect that you love SMiLE.

//rock onwards dunder

You do realise that Metacritic took an aggregate review score of Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE and The SMiLE Sessions, 7 years later. They scored 97 and 96 out of 100 respectively.

[Magic Transistor Radio]

I for one think Smile is the greatest collection of music ever put together in pop music! And no one is paying me to say that! I'm not even Brian's friend! But it is my real opinion on the matter!

[Lonely Summer]

I just want to say I'm very impressed with your analysis. In totality, I also never liked Smiley Smile or Smile Redux though I always loved Wonderful with Carl's vocals and With Me Tonight. Surfs Up is incredible.

Pet Sounds is the masterpiece, fully realized.

Sunflower is the masterpiece.

[sockittome]

I just want to say I'm very impressed with your analysis. In totality, I also never liked Smiley Smile or Smile Redux though I always loved Wonderful with Carl's vocals and With Me Tonight. Surfs Up is incredible.

Pet Sounds is the masterpiece, fully realized.

Sunflower is the masterpiece.

[RangeRoverA1]

That's a logical fallacy.
Argumentum ad populum– concluding an argument is true simply because lots of people think it’s true. We see this on commercials all the time: “9 out of 10 doctors recommend Acme Brand Toothpaste,” or “3 million Brand X Customers Can’t be Wrong! Buy Brand X Today.”

Other's people's/critic's ratings doesn't actually prove it's quality but I respect that you love SMiLE.

//rock onwards dunder

You do realise that Metacritic took an aggregate review score of Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE and The SMiLE Sessions, 7 years later. They scored 97 and 96 out of 100 respectively.

I share this view. Well said.

[ash]

I for one think Smile is the greatest collection of music ever put together in pop music! And no one is paying me to say that! I'm not even Brian's friend! But it is my real opinion on the matter!

Hey, I was gonna say that. Been listening to Smile since about 1987. It still completely blows my mind and one of the many things I like about it are how it's led to reading about American history, novels, books, films, getting into Charles Ives, Orson Welles, other great artists unfinished projects.....it's the gift that keeps on giving.

Fishmonk's entitled to his opinion but what we really need right now is the Great Shape/My Children acetate and someone (Al/Darian ?)  to bug Brian about that Do You Like Worms melody line heard on the Smile box.

[Cool Cool Water]

I wonder what AGD would of had to say about this thread if he was still around. 

[Bicyclerider]

I wonder what AGD would of had to say about this thread if he was still around. 

Our punctuation and grammar would be mocked and the bad logic of the OP's argument would be laid out in excruciating detail.

[Smilin Ed H]

Looking back over this, I'd have to say that the best songs on Smile are as good as any of their other stuff (and better in the case of one or two), but I find it hard to see this as a unified whole.

[KDS]

Looking back over this, I'd have to say that the best songs on Smile are as good as any of their other stuff (and better in the case of one or two), but I find it hard to see this as a unified whole.

That's pretty much how I feel about Smile. 

The great parts are amazing (Our Prayer, Heroes & Villains, Cabinesscence, Wonderful, A Song For Children, Child is the Father of the Man, Surf's Up, Mrs O'Leary's Cow, Good Vibrations).   But as a whole piece of work, there are some weak spots IMO (Barnyard, You Are My Sunshine, Workshop, Vega-Tables).   

[CenturyDeprived]

Looking back over this, I'd have to say that the best songs on Smile are as good as any of their other stuff (and better in the case of one or two), but I find it hard to see this as a unified whole.

That's pretty much how I feel about Smile. 

The great parts are amazing (Our Prayer, Heroes & Villains, Cabinesscence, Wonderful, A Song For Children, Child is the Father of the Man, Surf's Up, Mrs O'Leary's Cow, Good Vibrations).   But as a whole piece of work, there are some weak spots IMO (Barnyard, You Are My Sunshine, Workshop, Vega-Tables).   

If these parts would have been masterfully edited in as brief snippets within a single song, part of a more cohesive whole, the way Brian most likely would have in 1966/67, they probably wouldn't seem weak. If one takes a brief session snippet of, say, Good Vibrations, I'm sure someone could qualify some short incomplete snippet as weak, but in reality when assembled in the whole totality of the song, it's a different story. IMHO.

Just listening to some of krabklaw's mixes, it's been a revelation to think of how the interchangeable parts could have fit together, and previously inessential snippets and parts have (and have always had, since their creation at the time of recording) potential to be rad components. But I'll concede that listening to some parts by themselves - without context - can make them seem a bit weak.

[KDS]

Looking back over this, I'd have to say that the best songs on Smile are as good as any of their other stuff (and better in the case of one or two), but I find it hard to see this as a unified whole.

That's pretty much how I feel about Smile. 

The great parts are amazing (Our Prayer, Heroes & Villains, Cabinesscence, Wonderful, A Song For Children, Child is the Father of the Man, Surf's Up, Mrs O'Leary's Cow, Good Vibrations).   But as a whole piece of work, there are some weak spots IMO (Barnyard, You Are My Sunshine, Workshop, Vega-Tables).   

If these parts would have been masterfully edited in as brief snippets within a single song, part of a more cohesive whole, the way Brian most likely would have in 1966/67, they probably wouldn't seem weak. If one takes a brief session snippet of, say, Good Vibrations, I'm sure someone could qualify some short incomplete snippet as weak, but in reality when assembled in the whole totality of the song, it's a different story. IMHO.

Just listening to some of krabklaw's mixes, it's been a revelation to think of how the interchangeable parts could have fit together, and previously inessential snippets and parts have (and have always had, since their creation at the time of recording) potential to be rad components. But I'll concede that listening to some parts by themselves - without context - can make them seem a bit weak.

Perhaps if truly finished, it could've been a great album. 

I think the two versions we have (Brian Presents Smile and The Smile Sessions) are both very good.  When I mention weak parts though, I'm referring to listening from start to finish. 

[CenturyDeprived]

Looking back over this, I'd have to say that the best songs on Smile are as good as any of their other stuff (and better in the case of one or two), but I find it hard to see this as a unified whole.

That's pretty much how I feel about Smile.  

The great parts are amazing (Our Prayer, Heroes & Villains, Cabinesscence, Wonderful, A Song For Children, Child is the Father of the Man, Surf's Up, Mrs O'Leary's Cow, Good Vibrations).   But as a whole piece of work, there are some weak spots IMO (Barnyard, You Are My Sunshine, Workshop, Vega-Tables).  

If these parts would have been masterfully edited in as brief snippets within a single song, part of a more cohesive whole, the way Brian most likely would have in 1966/67, they probably wouldn't seem weak. If one takes a brief session snippet of, say, Good Vibrations, I'm sure someone could qualify some short incomplete snippet as weak, but in reality when assembled in the whole totality of the song, it's a different story. IMHO.

Just listening to some of krabklaw's mixes, it's been a revelation to think of how the interchangeable parts could have fit together, and previously inessential snippets and parts have (and have always had, since their creation at the time of recording) potential to be rad components. But I'll concede that listening to some parts by themselves - without context - can make them seem a bit weak.

Perhaps if truly finished, it could've been a great album.  

I think the two versions we have (Brian Presents Smile and The Smile Sessions) are both very good.  When I mention weak parts though, I'm referring to listening from start to finish.  

I know what you mean. In the context of those two versions of the album, there are parts that seem weaker and less essential than others. But have you listened to the krabklaw mixes?

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,23855.0.html

I just spent about an hour last night doing so, and it totally blew my mind. I'd gotten so used to listening to the reconstructed album version of SMiLE from TSS for the last several years, that I almost forget that it is, while an admirable and Herculean effort, not the final word on the album (despite modern-day Brian's stamp of approval), and that it isn't necessarily as good as it could have been. And I say that with all due respect to Boyd/Linnett.

All I know is, listening to some of the krabklaw mixes has made me rethink the album, and realize that the mindblowing level of awesome potential that I always thought SMiLE had going for it was not even as amazing as I had realized, and in all likelihood, most every piece of recording snippet parts could have been utilized in ways that could make us rethink both the project as a whole, as well as newfound appreciation for the (relatively speaking) lesser snippet parts. It's almost like a companion piece to The White Album, two years early. I guess even a project like The White Album certainly had stronger songs than others. And that would have been the case for SMiLE too. Still, some top tier fan mixes give much better hypothetical ideas of context for the lesser parts, that make things gel much better than TSS or BWPS.

[buddhahat]

I thought David Anderle was spot on when he described Smile as Brian's cubist period. Imo he is really exploding song form during this time and these beautiful fragments all sound endlessly fascinating to my ears. I think problems arise when they're sequenced into a conventional album structure and we start applying album critiques such as 'weak tracks' and 'filler'.

I like to view the disc one sequence from TSS as a sort of extended sampler of the best bits of Smile (a bit like the vocal track). Within this context, fragments such as Barnyard and workshop still shine for me.