Brian Wilson presents SMILE

[trashy]

While i'm really happy that Brian was able to finally get this thing out, the magic is not there on the new recordings as much as it is on the originals.

I half agree.

First, I love this album. I haven't listen to anything since I bought it. It's brilliant and beautiful, and (like others here) I've been moved to tears by it. It is, by far, the best thing released this year.

But there is that certain spark that is gone from these recordings as a whole. Even though the other SMiLE was never finished, you could feel it work in its completeness. This SMiLE feels more like a collection of songs. The best songs ever written, maybe, but still.

Does that make sense? I want to keep my post short, since last time I reviewed an album here inverse yelled at me. He's a writer, you know. He would know. So pm me if you have any questions.

[timbertrout]

I love the New Smile...A very gutsy undertaking that could have failed so terribly but succeeds almost to fault. Nice for BW to have such dedicated apostles to work with.

Though I've followed the Smile/Brian Wilson "Myth and Historiography" very closely, I'm not very familiar with the original Smile recordings, except Good Vibrations. So can't really chime in on old vs. new...

I get the sense that life-long Smile afficionados could make this (slightly cynical?) analogy:

IF: Old Smile = 1969's "Tommy" by the Who

THEN: New Smile = Original Broadway Cast Recording of "Tommy" ca. 1993

i.e. in each case: The old one has charm and inspiration though perhaps a bit ragged and unrealized...While The new one is cleaned up, souped up, packaged up nicely with a bow -- geared to "knock you out" -- but perhaps a bit over-done and clinical?

Whaddya think?

[loosegravel]

Sound on Sound said the only fake sound was the harpsicord, played by a kurzwiel K2600. I never would have noticed. What an amazing record.

[mattallen]

IF: Old Smile = 1969's "Tommy" by the Who

THEN: New Smile = Original Broadway Cast Recording of "Tommy" ca. 1993

i.e. in each case: The old one has charm and inspiration though perhaps a bit ragged and unrealized...While The new one is cleaned up, souped up, packaged up nicely with a bow -- geared to "knock you out" -- but perhaps a bit over-done and clinical?

Whaddya think?

I just can't agree with that. Granted I see different people/musicians playing the parts, I mean the cast recording doesn't even do Tommy justice. I have the new "Rocky Horror" cast cd and I can't even listen to it. I've listened to a lot of smile and I own SMiLE now and saw it in Chicago this past weekend. I agree maybe that today's SMiLE has a sound that today is unavoidable but it is like no other record made this year without a doubt. His band is great and they can sing and play like no other and they wanted SMiLE to be just as Brian had envisioned. SMiLE lets Brian's project live like it was meant to be, a "teenage symphony to God" and I couldn't agree more. It's outstanding and sounds incredible. Thanks Brian Wilson to all you've taught me and the great music you've blessed this world with.

[McPhaul]

I caught this post at work today and had not heard of SMILE before. I have the movie going on Showtime. Thanks for the post. Great music.

...as for the girl singing background - hey she's hot

[inverseroom]

Does that make sense? I want to keep my post short, since last time I reviewed an album here inverse yelled at me. He's a writer, you know. He would know. So pm me if you have any questions.

That's right--I'm keepin' you philistines in line.

What album was that? Hell, I don't even remember. Cheney's expert slitherings have erased my memory...

Almost a week later, I love this album just as much. Hard to tell what the spark would have been particularly if the old version had been completed... but I really do feel there is something special about this one. A different something, though. It's not what it would have been, of course; it's another thing, maybe a little more grown up. There is something a bit disappointing about this, of course--a man in his sixties, doing songs he wrote when he was in his twenties--but at the same time there's something unbelievable about it, something inspiring, that this guy would still care so deeply about these early ideas, and do them some justice. I'm afraid I'm at a point in my life when I relate more to the 60-year-old Brian than I do the 20-year-old Brian--and if, when I'm that age, I can do something this good (especially if I end up wading through the muck that he has), with so much passion, I'll die happy. In fact, I'll die happy if I die while listening to it.

[junkstar]

FYI -- I rewrote the Bagge essay URL after some complaints by people who couldn't connect:

http://www.boltrecords.com/baggeessays.html

[joeysimms]

FYI -- I rewrote the Bagge essay URL after some complaints by people who couldn't connect:

http://www.boltrecords.com/baggeessays.html

I read this the first time you posted it, but couldn't log on to tell you thanks for posting it! Hate is probabl;y the only comic I've read as an adult, unless you count creot+c..

[greenmeansjoe]

Sound on Sound said the only fake sound was the harpsicord, played by a kurzwiel K2600. I never would have noticed. What an amazing record.

I have a hard time believing that the horn -- a trombone, I think -- at the beginning of "Heroes & Villains" is real. It sounds good. It sounds cool. But there's definitely something synthesizer-y about it.

Joe

[bobbydj]

FYI -- I rewrote the Bagge essay URL after some complaints by people who couldn't connect:

http://www.boltrecords.com/baggeessays.html

What an acce piece of writing. Brilliant.