Nearly Unanimous 5 Star Reviews For Brian Wilson's "SMiLE" - Out Today!

[Trauma-san]

All Music Guide Review - 4.5 out of 5 stars
Review by John Bush

The white whale of '60s record-making, the Beach Boys' aborted SMiLE album gradually gained a legend that not only inflated its importance and its complexity, but gave creedence to an odd notion — that completing it, then or ever, was impossible. In truth, SMiLE should have been released and forgotten, reissued and reappraised, and finally remastered for the digital era and ushered into the rock canon ever since Brian Wilson halted work on it in May 1967 (after an exhausting 85 recording sessions). Instead, it languished in the vaults and remained the perfect record — perfect, of course, because it had never been finished. Reports that the recording of "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" had caused a nearby building to burn down and whispers of "inappropriate music" gave it the character of a monster, one that cursed all those who approached it and claimed the heart and mind of its closest participant. Wilson's love of "feels" — short passages of cyclical music that could be overdubbed and rearranged countless times — had made 1966's "Good Vibrations" the ultimate pocket symphony, but had also quickly spiralled into the instability that consumed him during its follow-up, "Heroes and Villains," projected to be the centerpiece of SMiLE.Happily, a new recording of SMiLE by Brian Wilson reveals the record as nothing more or less than a jaunty epic of psychedelic Americana, a rambling and discursive, playful and affectionate series of song cycles. Infectious and hummable, to be sure, and a remarkably unified, irresistible piece of pop music, but no musical watershed on par with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or Wilson's masterpiece, Pet Sounds. For the first time ever, the program for SMiLE was compiled, after Brian Wilson listened to the original recordings with his musical midwife, Darian Sahanaja of the Wondermints (which has long functioned as Wilson's live backing band), and worked them into a live show, then an album recording. The work that evolved divides into three sections: SMiLE begins with Americana, which takes the dream of continental expansion from the old Spanish town saga of "Heroes and Villains" to the landing at Plymouth Rock and the end of the frontier at Hawaii; it continues with a Cycle of Life that progresses from the virginal grace of "Wonderful" to the simultaneous peak and decline of the creative life on "Surf's Up"; and ends with an environmental cycle called The Elements, which includes "Vega-Tables," (Earth), "Wind Chimes" (Air), "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" (Fire), and "In Blue Hawaii" (Water).Since Wilson himself was previously the most opposed to SMiLE appearing in any form, it's a considerable shock that this new recording justifies even half of the promise that fans had attached to it. Everything that Wilson and his band could control sounds nearly perfect. Every instrument, every note, and every intonation is nearly identical to the late-'60s tapes; one has to wonder whether vintage hand tools weren't acquired for "Workshop" and Paul McCartney wasn't flown in to add chewing noises to "Vega-Tables." (The players did, however, book time at one of Brian's old haunts, Sunset Sound, and utilized a '60s tube console to record their vocals.) No, the harmonies here aren't the Beach Boys' harmonies, and Brian's vocals aren't the vocals he was capable of 37 years ago, but they're excellent and (best of all) never distracting. Aside from the technical acumen on display, Wilson has also, amazingly, found a home — the proper home — for all of the brilliant instrumental snippets that lent the greatest part of the mystery to the unreleased SMiLE. Van Dyke Parks' new (or newly heard) lyrics fit into these compositions, and the work as a whole, like hand in glove. (The former instrumentals include "Barnyard"; "Holiday," which is here called "On a Holiday"; "Look," which is now "Song for Children"; and "I Love to Say Da-Da," which is now part of "In Blue Hawaii.") Most surprisingly, nearly all of this thematic unity was accomplished by merely reworking the original material already on tape, which proves that Wilson was never very far from finishing SMiLE in 1967. (It's very likely that the gulf was psychological; SMiLE had few supporters among Brian's closest friends and family.) Hopefully, Capitol is readying a Smile Sessions box set to release all of the vintage material, but it's clear that nothing they dig up from the vaults will be able to match the unity displayed by this attractive new recording of SMiLE. It's up to the standards of anyone who's ever scoured the bootlegs to create a SMiLE tape, and it beats them all, which is the highest compliment. So, if you've never been burdened with a friend's SMiLE tape before, count yourself lucky that Brian Wilson's is the first you'll hear. And if you have heard a few, prepare to listen to them much less religiously.

[Trauma-san]

Rave review from MSNBC

By Gary Krakow
Columnist
MSNBC
Updated: 3:13 p.m. ET Sept. 27, 2004It’s taken nearly forty years to get to this point. Back in 1966, one of rock ‘n’ roll’s young stars wanted to make an album that would knock everyone’s socks off. A rock opera named ‘Smile’.  Something to compete with the British invaders — specifically the Beatles. Remember, we’re talking 1966: a time when LBJ was president, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were still here and TV shows like ‘Bonanza’, ‘Red Skelton’, ‘Batman’ and ‘Family Affair’ were all the rage.

 
The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson wanted to use the same recording techniques he pioneered on his album ‘Pet Sounds’ — recording intricate parts of songs then editing them together into one coherent masterpiece. 

Armed with the music he wrote, and lyrics by Van Dyke Parks, Wilson began recording what was to be known as Smile 38 years ago. The publicity about the recording project was amazing. All the rock magazines of the times were competing for the latest details. The buzz was overwhelming. It was impossible to avoid at the time.

But there were other forces at work. Wilson’s nervous breakdown and the subsequent decades of regeneration have been well documented. ‘Smile’, and the recording sessions became legend — the most famous album never to be released.

And after the ‘Smile’ session tapes were shelved some of the songs did manage to escape — including mega hits ‘Good Vibrations’, ‘Surf’s up’ plus ‘Heroes and Villains’. Others graced the next few Beach Boys albums in the late ’60s such as the fragmented ‘Smiley Smile’ and ‘20/20’.  But the public was never able to hear the entire album that Wilson had in mind.

Until now. About a year ago, Brian Wilson started to pick up the pieces. He and Van Dyke Parks got back together and finished ‘Smile’. Wilson, who’s been recording/performing his material again decided to try to produce a live version of 'Smile' with his current band. 

So, on February 20 of this year, he performed Smile live in London at Royal Festival Hall. The standing ovations seemed to last forever. British newspapers hailed it as pure genius. It was now time to record it for posterity.

The music
That’s the history behind Tuesday’s release, but no one can prepare you for what this album sounds like. Don’t forget, this is basically what was going through Wilson’s mind nearly 40 years ago — as filtered through his mind today. There’s lots of revisionist stuff inside — but somehow it all works beautifully.

The rock opera has 17 songs divided into three parts — each anchored by an original 'Smile' session hit from the 60s: ‘Heroes and Villains’, ‘Surf’s up’ and ‘Good Vibrations’. There are other favorites included like ‘Vege-tables’ (originally recorded without the dash in the title), ‘Our Prayer’ and ‘Wind Chimes’.

Some of the songs’ most famous lyrics have been revised. There’s a new verse in the middle of ‘Heroes and Villains’. And, when you hear the fist verse of ‘Good Vibrations’ (I-I love the colorful clothes she wears. And she’s already workin’ on my brain. I-I only looked in her eyes, but I picked up something I just can’t explain”) you know you’re listening to the 2004 version.

‘Smile’ recounts little slices of life in American history. There’s probably lots of hidden meaning in the lyrics. I’ll leave that to the historians. On the other hand, there are some lyrics that are easy to figure out. Let’s take the background vocals on the song ‘Cabin Essence’ — where the singers sing what is basically a sound effect: “Do-ingg, do-ingg, do-ingg, do-ingg.” Not high art — but they serve the purpose.

What I can tell you is that the album is beautifully recorded. Wilson’s love of Phil Specter’s Wall of Sound recording technique is perfectly realized in this disk. There are layers upon layer of sound — and all of them easily discernable. Strings, horns, voices, sound effects all come together in a magnificent work.

Wilson recorded this new version of 'Smile' in the same studio used for the original ‘Good Vibrations’ and ‘Heroes and Villains’ sessions Studio one at Sunset Sound in Hollywood. The originally sound console, wired with tubes instead of transistors, was used to record the vocals. Sound quality here is pretty amazing.

So is Brian Wilson’s singing voice. This guy can really belt out the tunes when he has to — and the falsetto is still there. Pretty good for a guy in his early 60s. He’s a role model for all baby boomers. Even though Brian didn’t sing lead on all the ‘Smile’ originals he’s made each and every song his own.

Overall, ‘Smile’ is well worth hearing — and owning. I know there’s a revisionist trend that's popular now that deconstructs many songs/rock groups from the past. In many cases what they have to say is valid. Some of the hit music from the past really stinks. But, not this album.

Thirty-seven years after its anticipated release, ‘Smile’ is nothing more or less than advertised: at times it’s beautiful, thoughtful, rocking and even silly at points. As a whole it really is an American masterpiece. Wilson and Parks have done a wonderful thing, bringing this music to the public. I’m grateful that they never gave up hope.

Wilson and his band are going to be performing 'Smile' live in a limited number of venues in the next few weeks. I hope to be among those lucky few who will get to hear it. I hope you are too.

[white Boy]

wait.. so he just remade good vibrations??? wich 1 is better

[Trauma-san]

As a single, the original is better.  This one isn't meant as a single, it's meant as a bookend to end the album, and tie the third movement together.  It has an extra melodic line added towards the end, as well, to cast a mellow, sentimental vibe over the song and the album. 

[Shallow]

Vocally I think the original Good Vibrations is better, but musically I gotta go with the new one.

As for the Timberlake remark, I meant from a business stand point. I feel if a hot new artist was connected to this album it could take off. Timberlake could never do falsettos like that. Brian could still do the background voices though, and the notes that Justin can't reach properly. You can tell in Brian's voice that he sounds a lot older. Then again maybe it's the drugs. I remember hearing Sinatra in his later days and he still had it. So who knows what makes the voice different.


Thanks for the title references!

[Westcoastin']

do you expect anyone to read all of those damn reviews you jus put up ? We got it man, you like the guy.

[Shallow]

do you expect anyone to read all of those damn reviews you jus put up ? We got it man, you like the guy.

Well you aren't forced to read them. However some people might want to read them, and Trauma made them available.

[NobodyButMe]

do you expect anyone to read all of those damn reviews you jus put up ? We got it man, you like the guy.

lolllll

[Trauma-san]

No, I'm just posting them as they come in, it's really pretty incredible, don't you think? Isn't it refreshing to you, even as cynically cool as you are, that something that's been hyped for 40 years has lived up to that hype? Isn't it refreshing, to all of us, that a man who's seen more demons than most of us ever will has overcome all of them and returned to his most shining moment?


* gets ready to post more great reviews

[Trauma-san]

FHM Us review - Calls it one of the 'best albums ever recorded'

Brian Wilson
SMiLE
SMiLE is certainly the most long-awaited album in pop-music history. More than 37 years in the making, it’s Brian Wilson’s 2004 version of the unreleased Beach Boys 1967 follow-up to their critically acclaimed Pet Sounds. And, even aged all of its 37 years, SMiLE is one of the best albums of all time. Wilson once described it as his “teenaged symphony to God.” and it’s hard to find a better description: SMiLE is the pinnacle of the psychedelic, avant garde concept that pop music could be so much more than just music. SMiLE is a tribute to growing up in America, to experiencing the earth’s elements and to love. Its melodies weave in and out in a dreamlike wave that Abbey Road would be jealous of. Even after all this time, and even though Wilson’s voice sounds as though it has finally aged after 62 years, the brilliance and scope of SMiLE—now finally realized—stacks up with the best albums ever recorded. It’s that good.

(Keith Whamond)

[Trauma-san]

USA Today - 3.5 stars out of 4



Wilson's 'Smile' shines after 37 years
By Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY
Smile, the most celebrated pop album you've never heard, finally reaches stores today, more than 37 years after its intended release date. While no piece of music could live up to nearly four decades of hype and speculation, Brian Wilson's fabled opus (* * * ½ out of four) delivers on its original promise of beauty, sophistication and audacity. (Related story: Read up on the week's other new albums)
 
The material has a muddled provenance. Wilson, the Beach Boys' creative strength and personnel minefield, completed two-thirds of Smile in 1967 with his collaborator, lyricist/arranger Van Dyke Parks. The undertaking, envisioned as an expansion on the studio leaps in 1966's Pet Sounds, was abandoned after Wilson suffered a breakdown and his bandmates dismissed the unfinished work as lunacy. With the exception of euphoric single Good Vibrations, the recordings were shelved be- fore The Beatles released their ambitious Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (inspired by Pet Sounds), leaving many to wonder whether Smile might have rivaled what is widely regarded as rock's finest album.

With that sort of conjecture knocking at the vault door, Smile took on mythic proportions, even as some tunes leaked out legitimately (Surf's Up, Heroes and Villains) and in bootlegs.

Wilson, whose confidence and productivity have risen in recent years following long battles with mental illness, constructed Smile's final passages with Parks after they listened to the original tapes in 2003. He meticulously replicated the 1967 Smile with an eight-piece string and horn section and his 10-member touring band, including Darian Sahanaja, the vocalist/keyboardist who maneuvered Wilson toward resurrecting the project. Produced and arranged by Wilson, Smile is both old and new, fresh and retro, grand and naive, with sublime orchestrations and silly animal noises.

Wilson's imperfect musical triptych is at times messy, spasmodic and lyrically loopy. At 62, he sings in a voice that's poignant but coarse. And as concept albums go, the themes are fairly cloudy. The richly layered, symphonic textures that were a revelation at the dawn of multi-track technology are now so commonplace that the studio wizardry is no longer Smile's striking feature.

But the music is glorious and surprisingly coherent considering the lack of self-contained songs and the conjoined remnants of psychedelic rock, doo-wop, sunny pop and esoteric noodling. The beautiful melody in Wonderful and the spine-tingling harmonies in Wind Chimes help build Smile's delightful kaleidoscope of sound. Maybe not Pet Sounds and not quite the "teenage symphony to God" that Wilson foretold. But close enough. Wilson offers a lopsided Smile, handcrafted by a fragile mortal who summoned enough musical genius in his tortured psyche to outwit the demons that crushed him nearly 40 years ago.

[Westcoastin']

No, I'm just posting them as they come in, it's really pretty incredible, don't you think? Isn't it refreshing to you, even as cynically cool as you are, that something that's been hyped for 40 years has lived up to that hype? Isn't it refreshing, to all of us, that a man who's seen more demons than most of us ever will has overcome all of them and returned to his most shining moment?


* gets ready to post more great reviews

lol...cynically cool.

[jeromechickenbone]

trauma, i'm glad you're bringing some exposure to brian wilson.  A lot of people (mostly young) don't have a fraction of the appreciation for the beach boys as they should.  Having said that...


Shallow - Do you realize that if this album featured Justin Timberlake, it would be highly regarded as one of the biggest desicrations in the history of mankind? I mean, sure, you could add timberlake, and it may get more exposure (again, mostly to the young).  I have the sneaking suspicion that Brian isn't shooting for a hot album that TRL is going to eat up.  He's setting out to complete something he couldn't quite get his head around.  I mean shit, if your complaint is that this album should have featured SOMEONE ELSE TO PERFORM THE VOCALS, i'd have to say you're a RETARD. I try not to get personal with people, but damn that is easily one of the stupidest things i've ever read on this forum. and that says something.

[NobodyButMe]

^^ it's true. even though i can hardly stand trauma, i still picked up this album and honestly, i wouldn't know shit about this guy if it weren't for the 890+ threads that trauma has started on this board.

[eS El Duque]

dude, my dad has this..i was like "wtf" lol....so i might give it a listen sometime soon!