Brian Wilson - Smile (all the way to the bank)

[BarryL]

I've been through my fourth listen of Smile in about the same number of days. Good for Brian Wilson for finally finishing his 30 year-old obsession with creating the great american album.

Here's what it's supposed to be, from the liner notes:

"The Smile dream Brian was referring to was born in the summer of 1966, when Brian and his visionary partner, Smile lyricist Van Dyke Parks, first began working together. In response to the musical British Invasion, their desire was to bring forth something very American and, in its humor and wide ranging subject matter, to create something radically different from the music being made by their contemporaries. In addition to presenting a new way popular music might be written and recorded, they wanted to prove that rock music could be art."

With that as the standard, I can only say that they failed miserably.

First, there is no standard by which any of this can be classified as rock music. I'm not sure that it would have been that even in 1966. As for something radically different, it fails there too. It sounds like the Beach Boys meets Broadway circa 1920. Yes, that may be different, but it's not radically different as much as it is reactionarily derivative!

As for the album in general, it is perhaps the most annoying thing I've ever played, unless you like to hear the penny flute about every four minutes on average. Perhaps you have to be an ardent Beach Boys fan to like this, but it is a never-ending pulsating melange of piano, vocal harmonies and weepy strings that is high on four-part harmony and low on melody, and that is so derivative by today's standards that it is a weak characature of what it would likely have been back when it was a burning vision in Brian Wilson's head. It isn't until Good Vibrations hits your ears after about 40 minutes that there is any reprieve from the noise and an excuse to tap your foot and whistle along.

Stay clear of this unless you are interested for purely historical reasons or want to torture your older bothers.

[MindGoneHaywire]

Hey, Barry, it's too bad you didn't like the rec, but that's life. Not sure where you get the idea of Broadway circa 1920...what productions were you referring to exactly? And if this isn't 'rock,' is 'Pet Sounds?' Good Vibrations, by the way, wasn't written for this album, it was an R&B song, which I don't think was intended to be a BBs song, that took a very long time to become what it was eventually released as.

>is so derivative by today's standards that it is a weak characature of what it would likely have been back when it was a burning vision in Brian Wilson's head.

Anyone who's heard the boots can tell you how close it actually is. It's not identical, but it's a lot closer than I think anyone ever expected. The idea that it's a caricature tells me you haven't heard them.

This stuff isn't going to be liked by everyone. But this is probably the most negative review I've seen from someone who is a fan of & listens to a lot of prog-rock. The compositional structure predates concept albums, suites, multitheme passages, and abstract lyricism by anywhere from a few months to a few years. I will ask that you provide an example to yr claim that this is reactionarily derivative. I mean, it's not a big deal if you don't like the rec, of course. But there's a reason why an awful lot of people consider this to be one of the most important projects ever conceived in the realm of rock & pop music. Outside of Ken Nordine I don't know of anyone who was making music using lyrics anywhere near what Van Dyke Parks came up with here, and as for the musical side, well, Jimi Hendrix sure agreed with you on this. He dismissed the 'Heroes And Villains' single as 'psychedelic barbershop.' Well...very good, because that's pretty much what it is. Who was doing anything like this prior that you'd consider it derivative?

[BarryL]

I was expecting something great, and I found it extremely annoying.

This may have been musically important in 1966, but it's almost 40 years later, and today the only thing significant about it is that it took 40 years to complete.

So perhaps it is significant in terms of the history of modern pop music, but it isn't an enjoyable listening experience.

Hey, I've got tons of music I listen to which everyone else hates. But sometimes you can appreciate the music sucks but want to hear it anyway for other reasons, such as understanding the influence of the band. I was just listening to a band called Catapilla which AMG raves on about. The music sucks. AMG places them with King Crimson and Van Der Graaf Generator. Yeah, I can see that, and I can appreciate what they were trying to achieve and place them in a musical context of time and space that I'm interested in.

If you're into the Beach Boys and understand the Beach Boy/Beatles/America/British contest of the mid 60's, which I don't, then Smile may be of historical interest. But on its own terms, in 2004, without knowing the 40 year story and the biography of Brian Wilson and his ability/inability to cope with life, it doesn't mean much.

As for the broadway reference, I could see this being performed as a vaudville skit with bad scenery circa 1920 and people dancing about the stage. But hey, maybe that's what he had in mind when he was thinking Americana.

I remember when I was a teenager and discovered Joni Mitchell, every time I would put on one of her albums, my mother asked me to put on something else. There was just something about her voice that she couldn't tolerate. To this day I can't listen to Earth Wind & Fire. The songs are great, but there's something about the vocals that irritate me to no end. Maybe I have the same problem with Smile.

I do think Pet Sounds is outstanding, though, if that's any consolation.

[ForeverAutumn]

Stay clear of this unless you are interested for purely historical reasons or want to torture your older bothers.

Two things...

First...If I had written this, I would call it a Freudian slip. I assume that you meant "older brothers ". Although "older bothers" certainly fits the bill.

Two...thanks for the torture tip!

Brian Wilson is playing Massey Hall tonight. I guess you won't be hitting the scalpers for tickets.

[BarryL]

Two things...

First...If I had written this, I would call it a Freudian slip. I assume that you meant "older brothers ". Although "older bothers" certainly fits the bill.

Two...thanks for the torture tip!

Brian Wilson is playing Massey Hall tonight. I guess you won't be hitting the scalpers for tickets.

I'll lend you my copy and you can make your own judgment. It's not like it's a piece of crap or anything, I just find it annoying to listen to and I don't think it's the cultural event of the 21st Century, as the PR hype machine is trying to make it out to be. I hope it works for Wilson and his fans, and he can pack away a few million from it. I love the free market. I'm just sending an early warning signal that others may want to assume a posture of caution.

And now it turns out that the one toe-tapping tune on the album wasn't even part of the original sessions, or something like that. The whole thing is even less redeeming now than it was yesterday.

I think that there ought to be a vote in the U.N. security council on the merits of this CD, at this time, in the 21st Century. I'm sure the French would veto it.

[Dusty Chalk]

It's not like it's a piece of crap or anything, I just find it annoying to listen to...

What's the difference?

[BarryL]

What's the difference?

Why do I not think it's a piece of crap? Because it's clear that considerable creative effort was expended to create the music and lyrics, and to record it. I don't think that everything I don't like is crap. Somethings I can still appreciate, even if I don't personally like it.


Other things are crap, with nothing about them at all that has any appeal for human beings, with the emphasis here on human. I can appreciate things if I can identify a volitional effort to create something of meaning or appeal to man. Randomness, or lack of purpose, or an underlying anti-life ethic or philosophy that demeans the spirit of man I have no time for. I also have no time for "art" where the effort put into the theory or rationalization far exceeds the effort put into the creation of the work itself. See Tom Wolfe's The Painted Word for an expose on the fraud that is modern art. So, if intellectual dishonesty is part of the equation, I classify it as crap.

I don't like opera, but I can appreciate the quality of some opera. Other stuff that is random, like Waiting for Godot or Phillip Glass's Einstein on the Beach are Crap. Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music is crap. Most rap is crap - that's how it got its name. Michael Moore is crap. So are both Bush and Kerry and almost every politician. Modern Art is crap. Much of today's popular music is crap.

To quote a man who is an outstanding artist with a mind that is going to crap as he attempts to abandon reality and attempt to integrate mysticism as the essence of his very being - I'm referring to musician Neal Morse, who's willing leap into childhood fantasy is sickeningly on display in the documentary portion of his Testament DVD - "We made a land where crap is king, and the good don't last too long."

Within the context of my comments, I don't think something has to be high art for it to be excluded from the category of crap. So, Smile isn't crap, but the hyperbole surrounding it and the pretentions that the completion of this piece of work after 40 years is some kind of monumental achievement is crap of the highest order.

Now stop **** disturbing and encouraging me to write this crap!

[Dusty Chalk]

Now wait a minute. All music that was created was heard -- by a human, no less -- at least once. So by your own definition -- neither Einstein on the Beach nor Metal Machine Music are crap. The former is enjoyed repeatedly by yours truly, and the latter by none other than Lou Reed himself (he debunked the popular myth that no-one has been able to listen to it in its entirety in a recent interview, saying something to the effect that he's very proud of that work, and listens to it all the time).

So, to synopsize: you're full of crap. There is no "absolute scale" by which we can measure music, it's all subjective. So for you to state that something is crap is stating that that is your opinion, and that it is annoying to listen to for you.

MHO.

[MindGoneHaywire]

Dusty's correct here...I didn't have a chance to reply earlier, and I didn't want to be confrontational. My initial objections in this thread had to do with terms like 'reactionarily derivative' and 'melody,' which you described this rec as being short on. Are you sure you weren't listening to 'Smiley Smile?' The melody lines in the more 'song-like' songs on SMiLE are either quite original (Wonderful, Surf's Up), or certainly in a league with something like Good Vibrations (Wind Chimes, Heroes And Villains). At least, that's what I say; obviously you disagree, which is fine (though I challenge the 'derivative' claim--if SMiLE is short on melody, what of Wondeful, after all? Find me a melody written earlier that justifies the 'derivative' tag on that tune; find me a song with a more fully developed melody line). If someone doesn't like a rec I like, I'm not going to lose sleep over it. You say a rec like SMiLE is derivative, I scratch my head. Derivative of 1920s Broadway? What you're saying is that it reminds you of something...that never actually existed. Now...I have no interest in trying to demean yr opinion, or anything, and that's a descriptive way of putting it. The only problem is, it's based on...nothing that ever existed until you were looking for a descriptive way of putting it, which turned out to be at odds with the implication that it did exist.

As for the 'crap' thing here--I will guarantee you that any record in yr collection, as with any record in mine, there will ALWAYS be someone who, no matter how worthy you or I think a piece of work it is, there will always be someone who knows more about music than both of us put together who will dismiss any record we like as...crap. Not to mention those who don't know as much as they think they know.

You didn't miss the posts by Skeptic on this board, did you? Remember what he had to say about jazz? (In case you missed it, he said 'it's just a historical fact that the best musical minds never wasted their thoughts on jazz.') Now, I won't presume to speak for him, but I would presume that a guy like that--who had equally uncomplimentary things to say about pop music on the rare occasions I saw him even mention it (he was a classical-phobe who even went on about the superiority of the violin as compared to pedestrian instruments like flutes, trumpets & saxophones)--would savage both my musical choices as well as yrs. As, presumably, would another pop-hater, who dismissed the work of every pop and rock performer ever who had the audacity to perform their own work, which of course rendered them useless to him--after all, Cole Porter & Rodgers & Hart did not do this. Umm, that's great, but try extolling their virtues to guys who believe that every single form of music outside of classical music is tangibly inferior on every level. What do you suppose they'd have to say about Yes & Genesis, or any of yr other sacred cows? I have a pretty good idea, as I've heard several different variations--and I accept what they'd have to say about mine, because their minds are made up that they know what constitutes 'crap.' Mitch Miller, Frank Sinatra, Steve Allen. The 'standards' snob mocking Bob Dylan, the jazz snob mocking Elvis, the classical snob mocking prog- and symphonic rock, the rock snob mocking disco and, later, rap. It's all the same. As it is when done in reverse. Skeptic's line dismissing jazz in its entirety was, I must admit, among the more extreme statements I've ever seen in this realm of dismissal of forms the subjective listener simply does not like...

Do I care what he thinks? No, not really. But I find his attitude instructive when it comes to a discussion where someone says the things you've said in this thread. Good Vibrations may well be the only toe-tapper on the rec for some people, but you know what? Back in the day when record labels are generally considered to have known something about music as well as business, as opposed to today when, it is said, business is all they know, not one but two labels signed the Beach Boys. Who were, arguably, musically dried up, especially with BW crawling around a playpen & drooling on himself (an exaggeration, but only a mild one). And why? That's how badly they wanted SMiLE, it is said, that's how highly it was thought of--that's beyond dispute--that multi-album deals were given to a bunch of has-beens nobody wanted to deal with (not even their resident genius-turned-mental-patient/drug abuser) who returned the favor by refusing to finish or issue SMiLE & gave the labels such gems as Holland and Light Album to peddle. As the head of CBS said eventually in a meeting he called the band into, 'Gentlemen, I think I've been f*cked!'

Getting back to the musical snobbery that comes out when you start talking about 'crap'...what you've done here, and what I'd like to think a music fan should not do, is to place yrself on the side of the fence that people who make this mistake inhabit by imposing yr standards on others. We all have our opinions, but when you start tossing around terms like 'derivative' and 'melody' when neither bolsters yr argument (that you didn't like the rec & found it annoying)...that's one thing. When you start to get into 'crap'--it's never going to be long before you're placing that label on a form that someone else is going to like, perhaps someone else who just might know just a bit more about music than you do. So think about someone looking at yr collection & imposing the same attitude on it as you're imposing on rap & Metal Machine Music before you do so. Just a friendly suggestion.

[Mr Peabody]

Isn't Brian Wilson dead? I thought he died a year or 2 ago.

[Jim Clark]

There is a site where you can register for free and hear the Smile album. There's a bit more to it than that, but the registration is simple and free. You can just go to www.smiletheablum.com and check it out if you want. I'm glad I've had the chance to listen to some of it as my opinion has changed a bit. Right now I'm listening to Cabin Essence and it's not that bad. Most of the rest I've heard hasn't appealed to me so I doubt I'll buy it though.

jc

[N. Abstentia]

Isn't Brian Wilson dead? I thought he died a year or 2 ago.

Yes, he's been dead for quite a while now. He's still on tour though.

See him in concert and you'll see what I mean. Usually he's performing a different song from the rest of the band.