Smiley Smile

[Mahalo]

Did you ever notice the the beginning of Getting Hungry sounds like an alarm clock??? It makes sense because the first lyric is, "I wake up in the morning, just to...."

Little things like that make this album really special. There are a lot of layers for such a sparsely produced album...that is very beautiful and expressive to me.

[Chris Brown]

Did you ever notice the the beginning of Getting Hungry sounds like an alarm clock??? It makes sense because the first lyric is, "I wake up in the morning, just to...."

Little things like that make this album really special. There are a lot of layers for such a sparsely produced album...that is very beautiful and expressive to me.

Actually I never thought of that way, but you're right, it fits really well.  I'm actually not a huge fan of Gettin Hungry, but just for the effect it gives after the Wind Chimes tag, I always listen to it anyways.

[Vega-Table Man]

I've really been trying to capture a "Smiley" vibe in my latest recordings, and its a lot of fun.  The difficulty is trying to straddle the line between being inspired by the techniques and outright copying them.  But I just find it so fascinating to see what can be done with only a de-tuned piano, organ, bass and some voices. 

Cool. I'd love to hear your recordings.

I'm in the planning stages for some new recordings myself, and at least one or two are good candidates for Smiley-type sounds, which will be fun to try to capture. (I'm waiting for delivery of a Hammond M3 organ before I start ... it ain't the Baldwin, but at least it's no synth!)

[Chris Brown]

I've really been trying to capture a "Smiley" vibe in my latest recordings, and its a lot of fun.  The difficulty is trying to straddle the line between being inspired by the techniques and outright copying them.  But I just find it so fascinating to see what can be done with only a de-tuned piano, organ, bass and some voices. 

Cool. I'd love to hear your recordings.

I'm in the planning stages for some new recordings myself, and at least one or two are good candidates for Smiley-type sounds, which will be fun to try to capture. (I'm waiting for delivery of a Hammond M3 organ before I start ... it ain't the Baldwin, but at least it's no synth!)

I'll be sure to post them whenever I'm finished (might be awhile hah).  Unfortunately all I have to work with is my Yamaha keyboard and the synths that come with it.  There's actually a really cool sounding de-tuned piano (I don't even have to manually de-tune it), and there are some decent organ sounds as well.  Nothing that sounds as cool as a Baldwin, but maybe I can get closer with some EQ tricks. 

The nicest part about recording Smiley style is not having to worry about too many instruments overloading the mix and having to fight for space.  I tend to over-orchestrate and then I have trouble separating all the different sounds.  So its definitely nice to just have a few simple instruments to worry about, and thus be able to focus more on vocals. 

I'd love to hear your stuff too whenever you finish it!

[Vega-Table Man]

I tend to over-orchestrate and then I have trouble separating all the different sounds.  So its definitely nice to just have a few simple instruments to worry about, and thus be able to focus more on vocals. 

Wow, are you ... me? 

I'll try to post mine too when I'm done.

[the captain]

I tend to over-orchestrate and then I have trouble separating all the different sounds.  So its definitely nice to just have a few simple instruments to worry about, and thus be able to focus more on vocals. 

Wow, are you ... me? 

I think it's a common curse of anyone who has the tracks to spare. And since the advent of digital recording especially, we all have the tracks to spare. That self-discipline is a bitch to exercise.

[Chris Brown]

I tend to over-orchestrate and then I have trouble separating all the different sounds.  So its definitely nice to just have a few simple instruments to worry about, and thus be able to focus more on vocals. 

Wow, are you ... me? 

I think it's a common curse of anyone who has the tracks to spare. And since the advent of digital recording especially, we all have the tracks to spare. That self-discipline is a bitch to exercise.

Yeah I think you're totally right about that...I just made the move up to 24 track and my first reaction was that I had to fill them all!  I had an 8 track before so I was really limited in what I could do as far as number of instruments, so now I have to resist the urge to throw everything I can think of in there.

[Mahalo]

I read all 68 pages of this thread today, and I learned absolutely nothing. NOTHING.

[Aegir]

You learned that you have plenty of time on your hands.

[TimeToGetAlone]

Smiley Smile is a very difficult one for me to review, but you especially need time to relisten to and get a full perspective of it.  At first, it overwhelmed of disjointed fragments, which it could be considered somewhat.  The sounds for the most part are quite pleasant even with the weaker tracks though, and lose marks mainly for cohesiveness between the sections or just missing out on what makes some songs so good.  I don't like to compare it to SMiLE, partly because that would be unfair and also considering I like to hear the music in itself.

Heroes and Villains - 5/5
Vegetables - 4.5/5
Fall Breaks and Back To Winter (Woody Woodpecker Symphony) - 3.5/5
She's Goin' Bald - 4/5
Little Pad - 4.5/5
Good Vibrations - 5/5
With Me Tonight - 4.5/5
Wind Chimes - 4/5
Gettin' Hungry - 3/5
Wonderful - 4/5
Whistle In - 3.5/5

Which ends up to a 4 rating, which describes my thoughts fairly well I guess.

[shelter]

Until a few weeks ago, Smiley Smile and Wild Honey were two of my least favorite Beach Boys albums... I don't know what happened, but now I just can't get enough of these albums. I've been playing the 2fer-CD once or twice every day for the past two weeks...

[Alex]

Smiley Smile kicks ass for just one reason: LITTLE PAD!

[Ana-Lu]

The only for drawback about Smiley Smile (for me) is that "Good Vibrations" seems very out of place on it.  I know they had to include it.  In the days of cassettes, I threw in "You're Welcome" and "Mama Says" and pulled GV, and I liked it much more.

[Vega-Table Man]

Smiley Smile kicks ass for just one reason: LITTLE PAD!

Oh yes indeed ... That has become one of my favorite BB tracks ever. Those sections with the hummed melody are to die for.

[BiNNS]

this was the second BB album i ever bought. it was a confusing, bizarre listen...and i LOVED it. Up until that 1st listen, i had no idea that the beach boys were so "weird". 'getting hungry' is the only low point on the album for me. i don't know if i'm the only one, but i actually prefer the smiley version of vega-tables over the SMiLE version.

[lance]

Hmmm...Getting Hungry is one my favorite songs on the album. I love that organ.

Having just heard the CD for the first time, I think it might be my favorite BB's album, or in the top five anyway. She's Going Bald me is ridiculously dated, but hte rest of it literally sounds fresher and more modern than even the original Smile recordings(which are brilliant and timeless but have a sort of sixties thing going).

I love the minimalism of it.

[Poprocks]

Wow.... just... wow.  It's hard to compare this with Sounds since it's so different, but they're both absolutely terrific records.  From a technical standpoint, going song-by-song, I'd say this is more like a high 4.5 to me because of Gettin' Hungry.  But hell, I can fully tolerate that song.  And as a whole, I absolutely love this record.  It has influenced me so much as a musician.  Truly underrated and under-appreciated (not so much by you folks, but by the "general population" :-)

I've played She's Goin' Bald so many times that it has forever skewed my brother's last.fm statistics.

5 stars.

[carl r]

As I was familiar with the BWPS tracks before I heard this album I tend to discount them. Certainly I think the live DVD version of Smile contains some of the definitive versions of these - perhaps with the exception of windchimes, which is a  brooding presence here on smiley smile, rather than being digitalised and perhaps a bit too clean.

Overall, the album lacks a bit of swagger and groove. Wild Honey sort of compensated afterwards. The vibe is a wrecked-out kind of calm. Half the songs are like incantations. The fundamentalist Christians who see the Beach Boys as a Satanic influence would be able to make this their first article of evidence. Especially if you spiked them first. Not sure if anyone knows of a Daevid Allen album, "The Death of Rock"... with the same sparse organ accompaniment.

What is inimitable though, are the tunes, which at their best (Little Pad, Whistle In, With Me Tonight) sound like works of effortless brilliance. That's what genius is, I guess. The lack of overall momentum can make the album seem a bit ponderous. But I'd give it a 5, as it's drenched in something very special.  classic, understated psychedelia

[Aegir]

The only for drawback about Smiley Smile (for me) is that "Good Vibrations" seems very out of place on it.  I know they had to include it.  In the days of cassettes, I threw in "You're Welcome" and "Mama Says" and pulled GV, and I liked it much more.

You know how when you listen to an album so much you know the sequence of all the songs and when a song from an album ends you hear the next one in your head, even if it doesn't play?

I never really listened to Good Vibrations until I got Smiley Smile (my third Beach Boys album, after Pet Sounds and Little Deuce Coupe, and the first one that made me a fan). So now, whenever I'm listening to radio or a compilation or something, and I'm listening to the studio version of Good Vibrations, and it ends, the first thing I hear in my head is "On and on she go, dumby doo da, on and on she go dumby doo". Whenever I think of Good Vibrations, it's in the context of it being a Smiley Smile album track.

[Aegir]

By the way, I wish I could change my vote. I gave this a 3, it's definitely at least a 4.

[The Heartical Don]

5. No other rating is possible. It's weird, one of a kind, totally sui generis, as my postman said. I recall spinning a cassette of it on a hot summer day in the garden of my parents' house. My brother and I were sharing a beer. I never used marijuana, but this album made any psychoactive substance of that kind redundant anyway.
It is often wrongly described as a lesser, inferior sibling of the real deal. Which is nonsense. It exists in another universe. Songs like 'Wind Chimes' give you an eerie sense of hotness, laziness, claustrophobia, being somehow oppressed. And in this sense it's the dark side of 'In My Room' - two snapshots from the same life, expressing similar feelings. No so nice feelings.
Some tracks are minor ones. 'Getting Hungry' does not impress me that much. Same for 'Whistle In'.
But that does not subtract from its merits on the whole.

[Poprocks]

The other day, I was in the car with my dad (he hates BB/BW) and I decided to pop this CD in... he was truly weirded out by it.  At the end I said "Yeah... only the fans like this record," to which he responded, "True."

Ha ha ha..... oh well, I'm glad a lot of "normal" people don't like it - it makes the record more special to us weirdos.... right?

[The Heartical Don]

The other day, I was in the car with my dad (he hates BB/BW) and I decided to pop this CD in... he was truly weirded out by it.  At the end I said "Yeah... only the fans like this record," to which he responded, "True."

Ha ha ha..... oh well, I'm glad a lot of "normal" people don't like it - it makes the record more special to us weirdos.... right?

...is a good point. Like lots of 'normal' people don't like Van Gogh paintings ('a child could do that too'). IMHO Smiley Smiley is a piece of art. Not easy art; not always fitting the situation. A bit like Charles Ives, in fact.

[hypehat]

This record is completely, totally, 101%, positively, incredibly, terrifically, utterly, honestly, physically, morally, psychologically, economically, technically, theologically, anatomically, automatically, and brilliantly insane. 5.

[sofonanm]

The only for drawback about Smiley Smile (for me) is that "Good Vibrations" seems very out of place on it.  I know they had to include it.  In the days of cassettes, I threw in "You're Welcome" and "Mama Says" and pulled GV, and I liked it much more.

You know how when you listen to an album so much you know the sequence of all the songs and when a song from an album ends you hear the next one in your head, even if it doesn't play?

I never really listened to Good Vibrations until I got Smiley Smile (my third Beach Boys album, after Pet Sounds and Little Deuce Coupe, and the first one that made me a fan). So now, whenever I'm listening to radio or a compilation or something, and I'm listening to the studio version of Good Vibrations, and it ends, the first thing I hear in my head is "On and on she go, dumby doo da, on and on she go dumby doo". Whenever I think of Good Vibrations, it's in the context of it being a Smiley Smile album track.

Totally agree.