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SMiLE
Brian Wilson
Retail Price (not our price): $19.98
Release Date: 2004-09-28
Manufacturer: Nonesuch
Format: Audio CD
Discs: 1

Track List
Now here, for your listening pleasure, the tracks...

Disc 1

Editorial Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):

1) Album Description
Smile is inarguably the most long-awaited album in modern pop history. It's been more than 37 years since the title first appeared on a label release schedule, intended as the January 1967 follow-up to the groundbreaking art-rock of the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds. But Smile never made its initial release date. Today, this album is not a mere reconstruction of past performances, but something entirely new, a serious summation of a project that has been gestating for nearly four decades.

Customer Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5

1) Fabulous!   [Rating: 5 out of 5]
David Crosby was right when he said that Brian Wilson's song writing was quite beyond what was in Vogue in the '60's among the Rock and Roll artists.....that he used chords no one dared to use... and i would simply agree...his harmonies and melodies are so unique and sublime!...and in this recording...one finds such a diverse set of songs that are just simply fabulous!...to me, Brian Wilson represents what a true musician should be...artistry, talent and daring individualism, always bringing something new to the fore...what a Troubadour indeed!

2) Brilliant. Timeless. Period.   [Rating: 5 out of 5]
SMiLE is hands-down a beautiful piece of work from beginning to end. I am 28 and an avid collector of all styles of music from old school hip-hop to rock in its various forms to jazz/r&b/blues/funk. etc. This album is an absolute delight to listen to.I wasn't around in 1967 to anticipate the original would-be release of this record. In fact I had never even heard of the project until its release in 2004. I had studied music enough to understand the importance of Pet Sounds and Good Vibrations, so I could appreciate the amibtion of Wilson's direction. But plain and simple, this record could be considered a masterpiece during any era of pop/rock history. It's just fun to listen to and manages to take you away from everything. It really is worlds away from anything I had heard before.Don't listen to the naysayers who feel this album doesn't live up to some expectation created by self-righteous music critics in the late sixties. This is just bizarre, atmospheric fun and has cemented Brian Wilson in my personal list of musical geniuses.

3) Complex pop masterpiece and instant classic   [Rating: 5 out of 5]
Beach Boys' mastermind Brian Wilson originally conceived and recorded an album to be known as "Smile" in 1966-67. "Smile" (1967) was the Beach Boys' follow up to the lushly-orchestrated melancholy "Pet Sounds." "Smile" (1967) was never finished or released. Wilson's 2004 solo album is a complete recreation. He and co-writer Van Dyke Parks collaborated on both words and arrangements.I've heard few albums this good.Americana, household ephemera, marching riffs, stabs at vaudeville humor, jazz, bluegrass, horns, slide whistles and other exotic and novelty instruments. Overpowering multi-part harmonies and lush musical arrangements. Variety in the song writing and arrangements, yet with a cohesiveness. Cross fades. "Fire": violins depict the siren swirl of a tortured soul like a Van Gogh sound painting.

4) Finally!   [Rating: 5 out of 5]
The story behind this album, as you probably know, is as long and convoluted as any self-respecting five-year-old's explanation of why the broken lamp in the hall by the kitchen door isn't his (or her) fault. Suffice to say, after the release of 1966's Pet Sounds, Brian Wilson wanted to make an album that'd leave even that masterpiece in the dust. He wrote (and co-wrote) bunch of songs, recorded a good deal of them, but was soon overcome by the massive burden of the project. The whole thing was scrapped, and the Beach Boys spent the rest of their career trying to outlive the project's failure. Of course, songs from the aborted album popped up on official releases (such as 1967's Smiley Smile) and bootlegs, making fans drool for the real thing. Finally, after the Beach Boys had passed into history, Wilson decided it was time to give it another go. He re-recorded all the songs, assembled them into three little mini-suites, and released it in 2004.So, it seems that Ahab finally caught his whale. Smile (or, rather, SMiLE) really is a brilliant album, a strange sort of American dream full of evocative melodies and strange, dreamy pop. It's an album full of warmth and humor and emotion, and dizzying instrumental constructions that bubble under cosmically sun-splashed vocals and lyrics that take a bent, funhouse mirror approach to this country's history (for our friends from overseas, "that country's"). It's like "Surfin' U.S.A." gone gorgeously postmodern, and works really well here. The first section of the album (it's arranged into three mini-suites) features some of the most beautiful art-pop ever set to tape: There's the classic "Heroes And Villains," (one of the first Smile recordings to see the light of day back in the 60s) with its gushing melodies and startlingly good dynamics, and "Roll Plymouth Rock," a surprisingly smart (and lazily catchy) denouncement of America's treatment of Native Americans. "Cabin Essence" is the suite's resident stunner, a gorgeous swirl of bewitching harmonies and heart stopping imagery, with a closing coda that builds an almost unbearable amount of tension. The album's second section (a somewhat abridged take on childhood and aging) features the labyrinthine harmonies and interlocking melodies of "Child Is Father To The Man" and the quiet, gorgeous introspection of "Surf's Up." The final section, a loose tribute to the elements, features that old chestnut, "Vega-Tables," the infernal instrumental "Mrs. O' Leary's Cow" (a more chaotic version of "Fall Breaks And Back To Winter (Woody Woodpecker Symphony)" from the Smiley Smile album) and the cheerful little throwaway that is "On A Holiday."The album's best moments are full of life and joy and bursting with ideas and poetry. It's smartly constructed goofball psychedelia, and the world's a better place for it. Still, it's hard to see this as being better than Pet Sounds, or more emotionally uplifting. Smile's playfulness often comes at the expense of depth- which is by no means a bad thing, but it does weaken its claim to "artistic triumph" status in the eyes of some. Plus, not all of the songs are good: The re-recording of "Good Vibrations" is absolutely nothing compared to the original, and a few of the between-song connecting snippets kind of ruin the flow of the album. But, aside from those little nitpicks, this is kind of a masterpiece, and we should all be incredibly glad that it exists.

5) I Hear A Symphony   [Rating: 5 out of 5]
Here's my advice: When you listen to SMILE for the first time, discard all your assumptions and expectations about pop music, and approach it as if you've never heard the Beach Boys or other pop music before. SMILE's closest approximate musical cousin is SGT. PEPPER, but in truth there is nothing like SMILE in the history of pop music. From the standpoint of orchestration, harmony and integration of musical styles, it is unique...its own genre. The only way to listen to SMILE is from start to finish with no interruptions. Think of it as one big song with lots of parts, or metaphorically as a train ride through a big country where the colorful landscape is constantly changing, and everything is new or unexpected or evokes a memory of something else. Every time I listen to SMILE, I feel sad when it ends, because I love the place it takes me to and I want to keep going! The bottom line is that it is a sonic feast of American musical styles and idioms. It is fascinating, diverse, surprising, beautiful and awe-inspiring.This is where Brian Wilson the composer was going 40 years ago, but his train got derailed by the other Beach Boys, particularly Mike Love, who liked being rock stars and didn't want to stray from the formula in order to be fellow-travelers on Brian's creative expedition. Who knows where Brian's music would have taken him next, had he been able to bring SMILE to fruition at the time and keep his creative momentum going? Instead, the project got shelved and with it, his enthusiasm for life for many years. However, he and we have much to be thankful for, as his family, friends and musical colleagues convinced him to resurrect the project and finish it. What's 40 years in the historical panorama of timeless, great music?