Is the SMiLE Sessions [disc 1] just an official fanmix, not a finished version?

[AaronReturn2005]

This is all judging by the fact it follows a modified Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE structure, except not directly unlike most of the popular pre-Sessions/post-BWPS fanmixes back then, specifically Purple Chick's "stereo reconstruction".

[SMiLE Brian]

BWPS is SMiLE....

[juggler]

BWPS is what it is.  TSS Disc 1 is what it is. Each is great in its own ways.
But neither is or can be a "finished Beach Boys Smile album" ... Too many of the 1966-67 tracks lack vocals.  The Elements will always be vague.  A final, definitive version/mix of Heroes & Villains remains elusive.  A vintage instrumental track of Surf's Up 2nd movement has never surfaced.   I think that Mark & Alan did a wonderful job with TSS Disc 1, particularly doing things like "flying in" Brian's demo vocals for IIGS & Barnyard, but without lead vocals on CIFOTM or Worms and for a bunch of other reasons, it's always going to be unfinished.

[The Heartical Don]

BWPS is SMiLE....

Ah, I can empathize -

I think BWPS is a completely satisfying and completed version of SMiLE by the composer, singer, and musician himself.

So: it is well possible to live with two truths simultaneously: BWPS is superb. The Smile Sessions Box Set is superb for all its wealth and all its rarities and extras.

What's not to like love here?

[Rocky Raccoon]

I wouldn't call it a fan mix as Mark Linett and Alan Boyd had already been working with The Beach Boys for over a decade by that point, I think they were looking at the sequencing from a professional lens and not based on personal preference (though I'm sure personal preferences do come through, they still had Brian's approval and he trusted them). It was mostly based with a few exceptions on the 2004 sequence that Brian and his band had put together and that is the true finished version. Linett and Boyd wisely chose to use that as a blueprint since no other complete version of Smile ever existed, definitely not in 1966/67.

It's also worth noting that they occasionally used elements recorded in 66/67 that didn't appear in Brian's 2004 version, like the instrumental tags to My Only Sunshine and Vegetables, the Twelfth Street Rag part of Look, and the piano/vocal intro of Child is Father of the Man so while they mainly used the 2004 sequence, they still honored the original recordings as much as possible.