The biggest, the most tragic and the most inspiring story of pop music without comparison is "SMiLE" by the Beach Boys.
What makes the album exceptionally relevant right now, is how these days you can hear the influence of the album and the group in general in most of the fresh stuff around in a big way.
PET SOUNDS
In 1966, Brian Wilson, his brothers Dennis and Carl and the mischievous cousin Mike Love and a childhood friend Al Jardine had gone through a lot as something called the Beach Boys. The group had released ten albums in just three years and been on the road touring basically all the time.
Eventually, Brian Wilson left touring completely and stayed on the studio to write and record "Pet Sounds" which basically became the most appreciated album of all time, along with the Beatles "Sgt. Pepper" a year later. The funny thing is that "Sgt. Pepper" was strongly influenced by "Pet Sounds" and then again, "Pet Sounds" was strongly influenced by "Rubber Soul" by the Beatles.
A STEP FURTHER
"Pet Sounds" never was a hit in sales, as the Capitol, the record label, never believed in the album and hardly marketed it.
The next step from "Pet Sounds" would have to be huge. The arrangements in that record are still something stellar and completely unique and the songs are classic as it gets.
The first step from there was the single we all know: "Good Vibrations". It was a starting point to the album and was to be a part of it too.
The next step was to make the album more of an experience, not just a collection of songs. The idea was to make almost a soundtrack around three themes, and the themes were big: the complete history of the United States along with pop cultural history, the four elements and also the relation between the father and the child.
THE FATHER
The father, Murry Wilson, had indeed a high influence on SMiLE's visions.
Murry "was a tyrant", quick to offer discouraging criticism and who "abused his sons psychologically and physically, creating wounds that never healed. Carl found comfort in food and Dennis rebelled against the world to express his anger. Brian would immerse himself in music to cope, but though he longed to learn piano as a child, he was too frightened to ask and even too scared to press the keys when his father was at work."
THE CHILD
Eventually Brian surprised his parents by showing he had learned how to play the piano by watching his father. Thereafter, "playing the piano... literally saved my ass. I recall playing one time while my dad flung Dennis against the wall... That was just one of many incidents when I didn't miss a note, supplying background music to the hell that often substituted for a family life..."
At first, Murry steered the Beach Boys' career, engineering their signing with Capitol Records in 1962. In 1964, Brian ousted his father after a violent confrontation in the studio. Over the next few years, they became increasingly estranged; when Murry died of a heart attack in June 1973, Brian and Dennis did not attend the funeral.
HARD TYMES
The recording process of "SMiLE" was hard and diverse. Only 24 old Brian Wilson began exhibit signs of depression and paranoia along with opposition from the band itself, mostly Mike Love rigidly resisting especially the lyrics of collaborator Van Dyke Parks. During the recording session for the "Fire" section of the "Elements Suite", Brian became irrationally concerned that the music had been responsible for starting several fires in the neighborhood of the studio.
THE DECLINE
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles was released June 1st 1967 and just a few weeks before that the release of "SMiLE" was delayed. It soon became clear that Capitol would never release "SMiLE" in it's original form nor Brian Wilson in his state could finish the recording process with the group resisting it as a whole. Instead the group would release "Smiley Smile" instead which was based on the songs on "SMiLE" but done in three weeks and in a very different manner in it's intimateness at Brian's home studio.
GIVE A BIGGIE SMILEY SMILE
Soon after the decline of "SMiLE" and the poor reception of "Smiley Smile" Brian Wilson would pivot into major depression and cocane addiction and also lose his previously angelic, recognisable falsetto. He did make some new songs on the albums released later on, but it was clear that the golden days of the genius were over and that the group was to take a lead on it's own.
For decades would Brian Wilson battle his own demons by loathing on food and cocaine mostly by himself to the point of turning almost autistic.
BRIAN WILSON PRESENTS - SMiLE
2004 was a turning point in Wilson's life, as he finally could battle that biggie of a demon called "SMiLE" and got to record all over again the work that he had started almost 40 years ago.
The outcome is an amazing piece of work still after all these decades and the funny thing is that during that time, no one has done anything like it since.
The newly recorded "SMiLE" is honoured as the most appreciated album of the 2000's with it's approximate rate of 97/100 counted by Metacritic and the maestro did continue his fresh uprising with a completely new goodie of an album, the lovely "That Lucky Old Sun".
THE ORIGINAL
There's a lot of great bootlegs of the original "SMiLE" and the one that definitely captures the spirit and vibe of the masterpiece in all of it's smooth quirkyness is called "Alternate Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE".
The piece is divided in three 20 minute sections called "Americana", "Cycle of Life" and "Elements" and also to outro "You're Welcome".
You can listen to it below and you can also listen to the 2004 SMiLE with Spotify.
The Beach Boys - Americana
The Beach Boys - Cycle of Life
The Beach Boys - The Elements
The Beach Boys - You're Welcome
There's also a version of the original that's more similar to the new one, which is called "SMiLE (A Reconstruction) by Purple Chick". You can listen to that below.
You can also hear and watch the masterpiece done in a glorious manner at the time of the new "SMiLE" release starting from below. It's something of a miracle that Brian Wilson is still sitting there and performing all the complex arrangements in full glory.
There's someone that has the perfect right to finally smile. You can be sure that it's genuine as it gets.
