Smiling (styled as SMiLE ) is an album projected by American rock band Beach Boys intended to follow onto -11 their studio album, Pet Sounds (1966). After bandleader Brian Wilson left most of the recorded music over a ten-month period, the band replaced its release with Smiley Smile (1967), an album containing remake stripped of several Smileys material. Some original songs Smile finally found their way to the next Beach Boys album and album compilation album. As more and more fans know the origin of the project, the details of the recording gained considerable mystique, and were later recognized as a previously unreleased legendary album in the history of popular music.
Working with lyricist Van Dyke Parks, Smile is composed as a multi-theme concept album, which is currently in an unfinished and fragmented state as a series of irregular abstract musical sketches. His origins came during the recording of Sound Voice when Wilson began recording a new single, "Good Vibration". This song was made with an unprecedented recording technique: more than 90 hours of recorded, spliced, and scaled back record into a three-minute pop song. It quickly became the band's biggest international hit; smile will be produced in the same way. Wilson is mentioned as a "teen symphony for God" album, combining various musical styles including psychedelic, doo-wop, singing barbershop, ragtime, yodeling, early American folk, classical music, and avant-garde exploration into musical noise and acoustics. The projected single is "Hero and Crimin", Western musical comedy, and "Vega-Tables", a physical fitness satire.
The collapse of an album has been attributed to some personal, technical, and legal issues surrounding its creation. The majority of his supporters' tracks were completed between August and December 1966. The deadline set for January 1967 was passed, and Parks soon abstained from the project. In June, Beach Boys gathered at Brian's home studio to record Smiley Smile . Much effort was then made to complete the original Smile , largely thwarted by Wilson, who became psychologically traumatized by the album's difficult sessions. In the 1980s, bootlegged footprints began to circulate widely amongst recording collectors and among other musicians. The potential of what Smile can inspire many musicians, especially those who play in indie rock, post-punk, and pop room, and without an official album, fans are moved to assemble their own interpretations of Smile using pirated and tracks that have been released.
As a solo artist, Wilson redefined the project for a concert performance in 2004, and then followed up with the studio album Brian Wilson Presents Smile . Although he has completed his work, Wilson states that his arrangement in 2004 differed substantially from how he first drafted the album during the 1960s. On October 31, 2011, The Smile Sessions was released which contains an estimate of what the Beach Boys Smile resolved might sound like based on Brian Wilson's structure. Presents Smile . It received universal recognition. In 2012, the compilation was ranked 381 on Rolling Stone's list of 500 Greatest of All Time albums. In 2013, he won the Best Historical Album award at the 55th Grammy Awards.
Video Smile (The Beach Boys album)
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Pet Sound and "Good Vibrations"
On May 16, 1966, Beach Boys released their 11th studio album, Pet Sounds, a project largely composed and directed by bandleader and lead songwriter Brian Wilson. He wants this album as a collection of integrated artwork that is shared but can stand on its own. While the album met with enthusiastic acceptance in the UK, its commercial performance in the United States was lower than expected, selling several hundred thousand units less than the group's previous releases, which made Wilson, who regarded the album as a very personal piece. The style shift who has alienated some fans, which contains an expanded palette of orchestral tone colors and dismal lyrics that Capitol record labels find difficulty in marketing. Wilson then began to be questioned by the group for their new direction and creative aspirations. Meanwhile, without group approval, Capitol issued a greatest greatest hits compilation to follow Pet Sounds , Best of The Beach Boys . Gold is quickly certified by the RIAA, reinforcing the demand for materials in the early styles of the Beach Boys.
Wilson simultaneously planned a single follow-up, "Good Vibration". During the recording session for Pet Voice , he began to change his writing process. Instead of going to the studio with a finished song, he will record a song that contains a series of chore changes he likes, take home acetate disks, and then write melodic songs and write his lyrics. He explained, "I have a lot of unfinished ideas, the music fragment I call 'feels.' Every feeling represents the mood or emotion I feel, and I plan to fit it together like a mosaic. "Released on October 10, 1966," Good Vibrations "was the third US peak after" I Get Around "(1964) and" Help Me, Rhonda "(1965), reached the summit of Hot 100 in December 1966, and became their first number one in the UK. In the last quarter of 1966, Beach Boys became the strongest selling action album in the UK, ending the original three-year reign of the band like The Beatles. The Beach Boys was soon voted the number one band in the world in the annual readers' poll conducted by NME , ahead of The Beatles, Walker Brothers, Rolling Stones and Four Tops. Billboard speculates that this is influenced by the success of "Good Vibration", and that "The sensational success of the Beach Boys... is being taken as a sign that the popularity of top British groups from the past three years has passed its peak."
Collaboration and inspiration
In early 1966, Wilson was fixated on removing the Beach Boys beyond their signature surfing and hot rod aesthetics, which he believed was stale, and in the process of expanding his social circle to include a mixture of worldly friends, musicians, mystics and business advisors. The goal for Beach Boys is to win "hip intelligentsia", in other words, counter-cultural decision makers. Multi-instrumentalist Van Dyke Parks recalled: "Brian was looking for me... At that time, people who experimented with psychedelics - no matter who they were - were seen as 'enlightened people,' and Brian was looking for enlightened people. Other people who are part of Wilson Smile coterie include the public relations band Derek Taylor, Crawdaddy! Founder Paul Williams, friend Wilson Loren Schwartz (later Lorren Daro), singer Danny Hutton (later Three Dog Night), Jules Siegel from The Saturday Evening Post, author Michael Vosse, and photographer Paul Jay Robbins. The most prominent is the manager of Hutton and Parks, David Anderle, who was dubbed the "hip mayor". Anderle became a business partner for Beach Boys, persuaded the band to set independent Bruder Records labels and filed lawsuits against the Capitol for ignored royalties.
Parks and Wilson were introduced to each other by the same friends, David Crosby and Terry Melcher, and Parks often visited Wilson's house while he was working on Pet Sounds. When Wilson noticed the unique way Taman spoke, he asked if he could write the lyrics for "Good Vibrations". Park declined for the reason he thought there was nothing he could add to the track. Wilson then invited Parks to write the lyrics for a new album in the second quarter of 1966 when the project was temporarily called Fool Angels . This time, Park agrees and both form a close and fruitful working relationship.
In preparation for writing and recording an album, Wilson bought marijuana and hashish for two thousand dollars. In addition, he famously set up a hotboxing tent at his home and moved the grand piano to the sandbox in his living room. Between April and September 1966, Wilson and Garden spent many "all night sessions" writing alongside a number of songs in the sandbox. According to an unnamed participant, "If you come home and introduce something new to Brian's thinking - astrology, different ways to think of Russian relations to China, anything - if he's suddenly into it, it will find the way into the music.You can hear a little and say, 'I know where that feeling came from.' "Wilson, already a literary reader, continues to indulge himself in works ranging from i Ching and Subud philosophy, astrological treatises, detailed charts of stars and planets, various topics of mysticism, The Little Prince , Hermann Hesse's novel, by Kahlil Gibran, Rod McKuen, and Walter Benton This is My Beloved . Various authors and journalists were taken as witnesses for recording sessions and accompanying Wilson outside the studio.
In October 1966 the interview, Wilson stated that the next project of Beach Boys was to be a "teenage symphony to God", and that "It will be more improvement than [Pet Voice] because it is during Summer Days. "In 1967, Carl Wilson told the Rave magazine that the group focused on spirituality, and that" the concept of spreading good faith, good thought and happiness "informed the album title, Smile . Brian writes that the version of the title, SMiLE , "is partly about forgetting the ego". The project is a series of album thematic and musical themed songs, recorded using unusual sounds and innovative production techniques that have contributed to the success of "Good Vibration", and written out as an outlet for all of Brian's intellectual jobs at the time. This work is very important among the participants, as David Anderle remembers, " smile will be a monument.That's how we talk about it, as a monument." A few months after the project collapse, a memoir written by Jules Siegel was published in an article for Cheetah magazine titled "Goodbye, Hello God!" Many of the myths and subsequent legends of this project will come from this one article. Maps Smile (The Beach Boys album)
Production
Modular Approach
The Smile session is deliberately limited to recording short replaced fragments also called "modules". With "Good Vibration", Wilson extends yet another modular approach to recording, experimenting with composing completed tracks by editing alongside multiple sections of multiple versions recorded on long tracking sessions. Instead of recording each backing track as a more or less complete performance - such as models for previous Beach Boys recordings - it divides the arrangement into sections, recording multiple sections of each section and developing and changing settings and production as the session continues. He sometimes recorded the same piece in several different studios, to exploit the unique sonic characteristics or special effects available in each. Then, he chooses the best performances of each section and edits them together to create a composite that combines the best features of production and performance. This means that each part of the song is presented in a different sonic envelope, rather than a homogenous production sound from a conventional "one capture" studio recording. The edited cuts and edited production style Smile is unique for the time in mainstream mainstream music, and to collect entire albums from short music fragments is a relatively bold job.
Carl Wilson likened the assembly process to editing the movie, a view shared by Smile the archivist Alan Boyd stating: "I think he's right about that.The type of editing the project needs seems more like the process of putting a movie together than a pop recording. "This fragmentary approach can be attributed to the" hanging clause ", a concept defined by David Bordwell as follows:" An unresolved action is presented near the end of a section that is taken and pushed further in the next section.Each scene will tend to contain unresolved issues demanding further resolution. "This results in ambiguity as to when and where most of the Smile songs start and end, as many of them do not have a clear song structure.
Marshall Heiser interprets the album style of the jumps as "striking characteristics", and that they "must be recognized as a statement of composition in themselves, giving the sonic signature music every bit that looks like the show itself. 'real.' Therefore Wilson echoed the technique of musique concrÃÆ'¨te and seems to infringe the 'fourth wall' audio - if anything could be said of such a thing. "Parks says that this duo is aware of the concrete musique , and that they "try to make something out of it", calling Brian a pioneer for his application in pop music. Music journalist, Paul Williams, argues that Brian Wilson is probably one of the earliest pioneers of sampling. Writer Domenic Priore argues that Brian "manipulates sound effects in a way that would be very successful when Pink Floyd released the Dark Side of the Month in 1973, the best-selling album of all progressive rock periods". Other methods of tape manipulation used in Smile include varispeed.
Record history
Fifty hours of recording were collected from the album recording sessions for ten months. Music sessions took place mainly in the recording studio of Hollywood United Western Recorders, Gold Star Studios, Sunset Sound Recorders, and CBS Columbia Square. Often, Chuck Britz and Larry Levine assist Brian with the technique, which produces each session, while most of the instrumentation is played by Crew Wrecking. The vocal sessions for Smile are usually performed on CBS Columbia, which has only 8-track audio recorders available among the major recording studios at the time.
Work on what will be the core album track "Good Vibrations" started in February 1966 during the Pet Sounds era. Three months later in May, the initial tracking of "Heroes and Criminals" was attempted. The Smile Session officially began on 3 August 1966 with "Wind Chimes", and since then, Wilson has led a long and complex series of sessions - about 50 overall, ignoring the 17 sessions needed for "Vibration Good "- which continued earnestly until April 14, 1967. After the last support track session aimed at" Love to Say Dada "on May 18, 1967, Smile was abandoned.
The Smiley Smile session was soon followed in Brian Wilson's home studio on June 3rd. In November 1968 and June-July 1971, the songs "Cabinessence", "Our Prayer", and "Surf's Up" will be treated with overdubs and solved by Carl and Dennis Wilson for other Beach Boys albums.
Style and content
Genre
The contents of this album range from music, spoken words, sound effects, to role playing, combining cowboy songs, country, comic songs, doo-wop, barbershop, singing, sound, cartoon, and field recordings with a united tribute to Americana. According to British musician and ethnomusicologist David Toop, Smile contains Sacred Harp, Shaker hymns, Mele, and Native American songs. He also quotes Frank Sinatra, Lettermen, Four New Students, Martin Denny, Patti Page, Chuck Berry, Spike Jones, Nelson Riddle, Jackie Gleason, Phil Spector, Bob Dylan, Penguin, and Mills Brothers as some of the many contradictory templates he hears "buried within the" musical heritage ", is characterized by Wilson's consistent pattern of" cartoon music and Disney's influence mutating into avant-garde pop. " Professor Kelly Fisher Lowe calls Smile a "experimental rock record." The New York Observer writes that this album carves "progressive American folk rock". March Richardson believes this album is Wilson's attempt at "the great art pop album of the era". Wilson felt that Smile was too advanced for him to think of him as pop music, explaining that he admires and is influenced by Johannes Sebastian Bach for his ability to build complex musical sequences using simple shapes and simple chords.
In 1966 after being asked by reporters how he would label his new music, Wilson replied, "I would call it contemporary American music, not rock 'n' roll." Rock 'n' roll is an outdated phrase, it's just contemporary Americans. " In 2011, Brian questioned a journalist how they would categorize Smile, with their response being "rocked psychedelic impressionistic", and that while most of the rock seems to be about maturity, Smile Expressing how it feels to be a child in an impressionistic way "and" describing a childhood psychedelic miracle ", to which Wilson replied:" I like that, you are their exact coin. " That same year, when she was asked what words came to mind when listening to Smile: "Childhood, Freedom, Rejection of Adult Rules and Adult Suitability Our message is, 'The adults keep coming out This is about teenage spirit. "" Participant sessions Michael Vosse believes that Smile , when completed, will be "essentially a Southern California, non-state oriented, Gospel album - on a very sophisticated level - because that's what he does, his own form of the resurrection of music ".
Various surreal comedy plays were recorded during the session as part of the "Psycodelic [ sic ] Sounds" series. An unused drama comedy was also recorded by Brian with drummer Hal Blaine's session to promote the release of the single "Vega-Tables". Similar experimental recording sessions are devoted to the adventurous collage portion of the album. For "The Elements", Brian instructed others to go around with Nagra's tape recorder and record various variations of the sounds of water they could find, as Vosse explained, "I'll come to see him every day, and he'll listen to my tapes and talk about them I'm just fascinated that he'll hear a lot of things once in a while and his ears will pierce and he'll come back and listen again and I do not know what he's listening to! "
Songs and tracks
There was no official song sequence decided in 1967, and although many playlists and running commands were eventually established several decades later, Brian had stated that the original Smile would be "less encouraging" than the finished 2004 version. He also claimed that he and Van Dyke Parks initially regarded the album as a two-movement or cantata rock opera. Given the technical limitations of record production in 1967 and most of the material being recorded, Wilson recorded more music than could possibly fit on one LP, but the album was only ever imagined as a single disk. A few weeks before Christmas 1966, handwritten notes containing unlisted song lists were sent to Capitol Records by Brian. This list has long been considered an important proof of Wilson's intentions for the song, but in 2006 it was discovered that Brian had never seen it before. Handwriting comparison shows that the writing was written by Carl Wilson, or perhaps Brian's brother-in-law, Diane Rovell:
"Heroes and Criminals" is the main keystone for the musical structure of this album, and the considerable time and effort Wilson devotes to it is an indication of importance, both as singles and as part of the narrative Smile. Like "Good Vibrations", it's edited together from many separate parts. In addition, most individual songs in Smile are organized as a potential part of "Heroes and Criminals". Nearly thirty sessions for various versions of "Hero and Criminals" took place from May 1966 to July 1967. There were dozens of shots covering every part of the song, several versions of both parts of the variation, and many attempts to unite the final mix. One of the other centerspieces of Smile is to be "Surf's Up", which has for many years been considered the ultimate climax of Smile , preceding the portion described as "such a blend of amines. " "Good Vibration" was completed by Wilson and released in October 1966 when the Smile session was underway.
All other tracks are not recorded or only exist in partially completed form, and many of the Smile records do not have full vocal settings, lyrics and melodies. Many shorter tracks, along with many instrumental tracks and other short vocals, are clearly meant to serve as part of a link that will be edited to provide a link between the main songs. Almost all the songs were in flux under the circumstances between August 1966 and May 1967, with the only exception being "Our Prayer": a short hymn intended by Wilson to be the opening of a "spiritual prayer" of < i> Smile album. A song entitled "Holidays" was recorded as an instrumental oblique in September 1966, and was one of the few parts of Smile where each part was performed as part of one overall retrieval. "You're Welcome" is a short song sung by the Beach Boys on a pulsating background track featuring glockenspiel and timpani. Other Wilson brothers also experimented with their own compositions between sessions for the Smile album, but it is doubtful if they were included in the album. A short medley of the traditional "Old Lady Painters" and "You Are My Sunshine" standard was also recorded, along with a short instrumental cover version of "I Wanna Be Around".
Music settings
Wilson wrote mixed arrangements for exotic percussion, keyboard, woodwind, string, and brass parts, usually applying an expanded technique. Examples such as playing bass upright with a plectrum in addition to bass tic-tac, or turn off the piano by recording the strings. In another example, Wilson experimented with using brass instruments that were played like Tibetan horns or elephant trumpets. What could be observed was an exercise that featured the whims of the toy train, the tuba, the duck bait, and the pitcher was hit by a hammer by a participant, which caused Wilson to pause and remind them: "Remember one thing: There is no rule for this." The selection of instruments in the range of Smile ranges from classical instrumentation such as harpsichords and clarinets, to percussion in Africa such as drums conga and woodblock, and sometimes electronic instruments such as Rhodes piano and Electro-Theremin. The song "Cabinessence" for example features using fuzz bass, cello, dobro, bouzouki, banjo, upright piano, harmonica, and accordion.
Desiring a smooth approach to sound, Wilson avoided the tradition of using standard rock percussion. In some cases, he chooses key chains to generate rhythmic and rattling jewelry ("Surf's Up"), sliding whistles as fire sirens ("Fire"), and crunching celery ("Vega-Tables"). Wilson further explored the impressionist set up with sounds and other instruments, from using muffled horns as infant cries ("See"), to a roaring group of livestock voices ("Granary"). Toop likens the Smile to the Third Stream tone poem "best described in Charles Mingus 'jazzical'". Thus, there is a similar exploration in the acoustics seen in the work of composers Charles Ives, Les Baxter, and Richard Maxfield; with Toop consider Smile to be the "offspring" of Arnold Schoenberg, Sun Ra, The Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, Moondog, and Mingus. Parks notes: "The first thing I can remember in the studio is how Brian uses such melodious percussions, like a Chinese piano or gong, even triangles have pitches, and Brian loves a pitched instrument that reminds me of an early 20th century orchestration by people- the likes of Percy Grainger, the man who wrote 'Country Gardens', [sic] who is crazy about the melodious percussion.He stood in my youth as a great composer because of what he did with a voice, and Brian did that. "
Writer Erik Davis writes about the termination of an album to contemporary rock music relating to the hippie subculture, noting that "Smile has a banjar, not a sitar" and that the "purity" of the tone and genetic proximity that smooths their sound is almost horrific, pseudo-castrato, a 'barbershop' sounds that Hendrix, in 'Third Stone From the Sun,' thrusts his thumbs down. "Jazz musicians and professors Brian Torff recorded Smile to contain" choral arranging "and" rhapsodic Broadway elements. "Paul Williams agrees that human voices are palpable on Smile , and suggests that" Brian's appeal to the relationship between music and sound, and the correct eruption of musical and sonic insights, new languages, [and] the new combination "shows what he believes to be" the love of human voice in all its many manifestations " a circus of three rings of flashy musical ideas and avant-garde entertainment. "Contrary to Pet Sound, Wilson emphasized the vocals in the lyrics with the encoded narrative, and in a style no different from the chats babies or Glossolalia. "Williams concludes that Smile is" probably an unnatural love affair between a single voice and a harpsichord. "Al Jardine describes that there is a difference between the vowel arrangement at > Smile compared to what has been achieved by the previous group.
It's just more texture, more complex and has more vocal movement. "Good Vibration" is a great example of that. With that song and other songs in Smile, we started going into more esoteric type chord changes, and mood swings and movements. You will find Smile full of different moves and sketches. Each movement has its own texture and requires its own session.... "Cabin Essence" is a difficult one. Only sincerity of part and movement. There is a wind-driven part in the parts around " that run iron horses " - many challenging vocal exercises and moves in that one. But we enjoyed the challenge. There is almost like a competition between us between who can do their part better than anyone else - but a healthy one... There is one part I forget about where we sing this unconformed chord - this weird chord, which sounded like a train whistle. It was very clear and it really sounded like a real train.
The online journal Freaky Trigger states: "Although the lyrics are usually very cursed literature, at the most extreme, they are divorced from any kind of meaning in the immediate sense." While suggesting that "the line between the word is sung and the sound only becomes intermittent and blurred again and again and again... where the word becomes subject to sound, which is only six or more steps on the road to voice-for- by-sound ", and reflects on the image of" Brian jammin "with Sun Ra and John Cage," the journal concludes that it is a music style that can be classified as a doo-wop, a genre that the group has been accustomed to for years.
Concepts and themes
American experience and heritage
The concept of Smile is not suitable for formal narrative development, only for themes and experiences; though the smile references some specifically, it's just a cursory one. Most of the thematic directions of the album were given to Parks with virtually no instructions from Wilson. Together, the two wanted a back-to-basics approach to songwriting, as Wilson summed up, "We want to capture something as basic as water and fire."
It is generally acknowledged that Wilson and the Garden are meant to be smarter for explicitly American-style and subject, a conscious reaction to the dominance of British popular music at the time. It was conceived as a musical journey in America from east to west, beginning at Plymouth Rock and ending in Hawaii, crossing several major themes of modern American history and culture including the impact of white settlement on Native Americans, Spanish influence, the Wild West and the opening of the country by road trains and highways. Some historic events touch the range of Manifestic destiny, American imperialism, westward expansion, Chicago's Great Fire, and Industrial Revolution.
In reference to how George Gershwin "Americanized" jazz and classical music, Wilson in his own words intends to "Americanize" America's early and mid-America ". Parks said that the duo "the kind who wanted to investigate... the American image.... Everyone was hanged and obsessed with all that really English, so we decided to take the rough route we took, which to explore the American slang, and that's what we get. "He clarified the idea further by saying," So these are things like this: American music.We'll use thematic America.We'll be Americans.Why do that? Everyone's got their muzzle in the trough of England Everyone wants to sing 'bettah' ', affects this transatlantic accent and tries to sound like the Beatles.I'm with a man who can not do that.He just does not have that choice.He is the last person standing. the only way we will get through that crisis is by embracing what they call 'growing where you are planted.' "Historian Darren Reid interprets that the focus on older American themes is self-awareness, a deeper reflection on the hingonistic, modern Americana of early Boys Beach songs.
In addition to focusing on American cultural heritage, Smile Themes' includes scattered references to childhood, physical fitness, poetry, and God. Many of the features in the Smile lyrics are reminiscent of the image of the noble period and the Romantic poetry movement that began in the mid-18th century, with the greatest focus being on Songs of Innocence and from > Experience collection of poems written by the English poet William Blake. Thematic links to Songs of Innocence and Experience by the concept of childhood and spirituality carry all other songs and songs. However, the "My Heart Leaps Up" piece by William Wordsworth comes from the "Child Is Father of the Man" idiom which was later recycled by Wilson and Parks. Another common theme of Smile has been read by Frank Holmes's smile of visual artists to include "travel, nature, history, communication, love, benevolence, betrayal, bucolic sultanate, astrology, and] mystery ".
Smile is very interested in American popular music in the past; Genuine compositions of Wilson that are intertwined with important pieces of the songs from the past include "The Old Master Painter", the immortal "You Are My Sunshine" (Louisiana State Song), Johnny Mercer's "I Want To Be Around" jazz standard (recorded by Tony Bennett), "Gee" by the Crows' 1950s doo-wop group and excerpts from other 20th century pop culture reference points such as Woody Woodpecker and "Twelfth Street Rag" themes. This reference tends to be blur thematic with other smile elements, and no exact line is drawn between the Americana theme and the established spirituality. Perhaps the most obscure example of this blur is "Old Artist" - "the main painter" depicted in the lyrics of the song refers to God. This is followed by the original lyrics of Wilson/Park "Surf's Up", which imagines religious experience, "combing the city", and "brushing the background". The works of the 18th and 20th centuries such as "The Pit and the Pendulum", "This Land Is Your Land", "See See Rider", "FrÃÆ'¨re Jacques", "Auld Lang Syne", "My Prayer" , "The Charge of the Light Brigade", and Poor Richard's Almanack are also mentioned in song or title lyrics.
Psychedelia, spirituality, and humor
Brian Wilson's experiments with psychotropic substances such as marijuana, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and combinations of amphetamines/barbiturates have an effect on texture and work structure, some participants claimed lyrical elements derived from their use. Author Bill Tobelman speculates that the Smile is filled with a coded reference to Brian's life and LSD experience (estimated Lake Arrowhead, California "journey" to be the most important). This is supported by the song "Love to Say Dada", which can be abbreviated as "LSD". He also argues that it is influenced by Wilson's interest in Zen - especially in the use of absurd humor and paradoxical puzzles (koans) to free the consciousness of the mind - and that Smile as a whole can be interpreted as an extended Zen koan . Contemporary interviews feature Wilson as a vigorous follower of a psychedelic scene approaching West Coast pop music, and he anticipates that Smile will become the leading psychedelic pop art declaration. He also believes that psychotropic is closely related to spirituality, citing his own psychedelic experience which he deems "highly religious". In 1966, Wilson predicted that "psychedelic music will cover the face of the world and color the entire world of popular music, anyone who is experiencing psychedelics." The Guardian argues that until the negative effects of LSD appear in rock music through Skip Spence's Oar (1969) and Syd Barrett The Madcap Laughs (1970)) , "artists wisely ignore the dark side of the psychedelic experience", which can be suggested by Smile in the form of "chaotic mess and alternating milling" ("Fire"), "isolated, small-hour creepiness" (" Wind Chimes "), and" strange, dislocated "(" Love to Say Chest ") sound.
Arthur Koestler's The Act of Creation , has a profound effect on Wilson that brings deeply into the project's Smile, especially the human logistics of laughter. Wilson refers to the division of three categories of books on the human mind: Humor, Discovery, and Art; he has admitted that he is strongly influenced by Koestler's first ego rule, Humor, as he described in 2005: "The Act of Creation by Arthur Koestler turned me into some very special things... explaining that people attach their ego to their sense of humor before anything else.After I read it, I see that trait in many people... a sense of humor is important to understand what kind of person that is.Knowing metaphysics is also important, but Koestler's book really great for me. "As a result, the Smile songs are full of word games, word games, colloquialism, regional languages, double meanings, slang, and other dialects. At one stage, Wilson apparently played with the idea of ​​devoting Smile as a comedy album and a number of discarded records were made in this tone. David Anderle remembers: "Brian was filled with humor at the time and the importance of humor, and he was fascinated by the idea of ​​putting humor into the disc and how to get the disc out to people."
"The Elements"
"The Elements" is a famous four-part movement that includes four classic elements: Air, Fire, Earth, and Water. According to Domenic Priore, a conversation between him and Van Dyke Parks has said that "The Elements" is meant to arouse increasing attention to health, fitness and environmentalism by the anti-war peace movement. Alternatively, Darian Sahanaja - a close associate of Wilson and Parks - said: "Brian never mentioned any part as part of the Elemental concept, and whenever I come up with a concept that does not seem to react with any enthusiasm, I bring it back while Van Dyke is there around and did not get a clear reaction from him.My feeling is that it is one of the many subplots and themes that were thrown back on that day. However it fits with the concept of Western expansion, real destiny, birth and rebirth, and so I am sure they will respect the interpretation of the listener. "The contemporary statements made by those involved with the original album sessions offer deeper insights into the Smile ' s elemental suite. As David Anderle explains in Crawdaddy's problem! :
[H] e is really an element. He ran into Big Sur for a week, just because he wanted to get into it, into the mountains, into the snow, down to the beach, to the pool, out at night, running to the fountain, to the water, the sky, is the incredible awareness of its environment. So the obvious thing is to do something that will cover the physical environment.... We realize, he makes us aware, what fire is, and what water will be; we have an idea about air. That's where it stops. Neither of us had any idea of ​​how it would bind together, except that it looked to us to be opera. And the story about the fire part that I think is familiar enough now.
During the second half of the 1960s, Wilson began an obsession with fitness that prompted him to move furniture out of his living room to make room for slippers and exercise bars; then briefly served as one of the owners of his own health food store. Wilson reported in 1967, "I want to turn people into vegetables, good natural foods, organic food, and health is an important element in spiritual enlightenment, but I do not want to be arrogant about it, so we will be involved in a satirical approach. Derek Taylor remembers: "He will sit with me at this restaurant and continue to talk about this strict vegetarian diet, preach vegetarianism to me while at the same time he will destroy some big hamburgers."
Artwork and packaging
Capitol began production on the luxurious gate cover with a twelve-page booklet in December 1966. Considered by some to be one of the most legendary album covers in rock, his artwork was commissioned from Frank Holmes, a friend of Van Dyke Parks. Holmes based his cover art on a jewelry store he left near his home in Pasadena, added to several visual interpretations of the lyrics of the album illustrated by Holmes for the bonus Smile booklet scheduled for the packaging. According to Michael Vosse, "Stores The smile "featured on the cover stems from Brian's desire for a humor album," and everyone who knows about graphics, and about art, thinks that the cover is not very good... but Brian knows better, he's right. he wants, exactly what he wants. "The cover image will be one of the earliest examples of popular music groups featuring original works of art assigned.
Holmes met with Wilson and Parks in June 1966, and suggested to the Capitol Records executive that the album was packed with an illustrated booklet. Holmes explains his role in the project: "So I came up with the idea of ​​a store front... I thought it was a good picture because of the way, anytime you went to the store, you stuffed something, and the door opened and you went in, but designed, so I thought, 'Well, this is going to be a great graphic image on the front cover' - something that will pull you in. I know that sales are important in selling music.This is something that will draw you into the world of Smile - Smile Shoppe - and it has a little smile around.There are two people there, too, a husband and wife - a kind of early-Americana, old-age, 19th century type. "In October, Holmes has completed his contribution.
The park is considered to be working by Holmes to be the "third equation" of Smile , and that they will not continue the project as they did without thinking about it in cartoon terms: "For me, it is a musical cartoon, and Frank showed that, without being told anything.some references some : Frank was supposed to do something 'light', but there was no special instruction and he came up with the perfect video boat to make what we did, something I think it's an integral part of the situation.I think it's still standing, I think of Smile in visual terms. "The Capitol then added a written example of" Good Vibrations "on the album cover, which was not shown on the original design by Holmes. The color photos of the group were also taken by Guy Webster. 466,000 covers and 419,000 booklets printed in early January 1967; with a list of the above mentioned songs featured on the back cover, along with the photographed images of Brian's minus group surrounded by astrological symbols.
Promotions
Some time after Pet Sounds was released, former Beatles' press agent Derek Taylor started working as a group publicist, gradually becoming aware of Brian's reputation as a "genius" among his fellow musicians. Taylor is confused, wondering to himself: "'Then why does no one outside think so?'" In response, Taylor devised a campaign that would rebuild the band's outdated surfing image, thereby promoting Brian as an "extraordinary genius". "amongst pop artists, something that Taylor personally believes in. As a result, Beach Boys was extensively profiled during the Smile era." Al Jardine, Mike Love and Bruce Johnston all spoke positively about the album recording sessions in a contemporary music publication, with the famous Dennis Wilson confessing to a reporter: "I think it makes Pet Sounds stink-that's how good it is! "After attending several sessions of his own, Tracy Thomas wrote in NME about Brian's commitment to achieve his artistic vision and described it as" second only to Smokey Robinson "in terms of" complete musician. "Thomas concludes:" This dedication to perfection do not always cause feelings of love for her to fellow Beach Boys, or their wives, or their neighbors, with whom they dine... But when the finished product is 'Good Vibration' or Pet Sounds or Smile they are holding their complaints. "Taylor also writes articles in the music press, anonymously, in an attempt to speculate more about the upcoming album.
In November 1966, Brian Wilson filmed a solo version of "Surf's Up" on a grand piano for CBS News special in popular music: Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution. Although it was filmed in late 1966, it was not broadcast until several months later. A month after filming for CBS, KRLA Beat magazine published a psychedelic piece of vegetable-style surreal written by Wilson. The story depicts the experience of "Brian Gemini" when he discovers various characters hiding inside "Vegetable Forest", some of which are based on real-life acquaintances of Anderle, Vosse, and Hal Blaine.
In December 1966, Hit Parader wrote: "The Beach Boys Smile album and the single" Heroes And Villains "will make them the greatest group in the world We predict they'll take instead of where the Beatles were leaving. "A few months later, Brian informed the Capitol that Smile would not be ready on January 1, 1967, but he suggested that he be delivering it before January 15th. Capitol continues to send promotional materials to record distributors and dealers, and ads are placed on Billboard and teen magazines including Teen Set . In this ad, the album has been compared as an artistic achievement for the movies Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons , both directed by auteur film Orson Welles. Capitol also distributes promotional advertisements for employees on its label, using "Good Vibrations" as background against a vote that reads an album's promotional tagline:
With a happy album cover, really happy sounds inside, and a happy display in a store, you can not miss it! We are sure to sell one million units... in January!
Project collapse
In December 1966, Wilson completed many songs supporting the album. When the Beach Boys returned from a month-long tour of Europe, they were bewildered by the new crowd of waders that surrounded him. According to Gaines, Anderle now appears as the leader of "a group of foreigners who have infiltrated and taken over the Beach Boys". Anderle had encouraged Wilson to leave the group, and he "sure they saw me as someone... that sparked Brian's weirdness, and I feel guilty about those things." After Brian missed the January 1967 deadline, he continued to continue his work mainly on "Heroes and Villages" and "Vega-Tables" as the sole candidate. Throughout the first half of 1967, the album release date was repeatedly postponed because Brian played with the recording, experimenting with different shots and mixes, unable or unwilling to give a full version of the album. Desperate for new products from the group, EMI released "Then I Kissed Her" as a single without band approval.
On April 14, 1967, after gradually distancing himself from Wilson and the group, Parks left the project after signing a record deal with Warner Bros.. Records so he can work on his debut album Song Cycle . As a result of the Park after quitting, Brian lost direction from the album. He back and forth considers various ways to execute Smile, fluctuating between ideas like collage of sound effects, comedy albums, and "health food" albums. Finally, the number of possible variations for editing the song becomes too big for him. After several months of internal conflict, Taylor announced to the British press on May 6, 1967 that the Smile cassette had been destroyed and would not be seen releasing. Later that month, Taylor ended his work with the group to focus on organizing the Monterey Pop Festival, an event that Beach Boys rejected to make headlines at the last minute. This cancellation was later seen as a recognition of the band's failure to integrate with the counterfeit that developed in the 1960s, which resulted in a major blow to their reputation. As a further blow to Wilson's ambitions, his rival The Beatles released their new album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band , got a remarkable reception on 1 June and went on to give the soundtrack in the summer of the Counter Exchange. According to author David Howard, "Rock has opened the door to a colorful new world, but slammed it before the Beach Boys squeezed it."
In the American Band documentary, Wilson states: "Time can be spent in the studio to the point where you get so beside it, you do not know where you are with it, you decide to just throw it away for a while." Brian gradually retreat from the public eye and during the following years become deformed by mental health problems to fluctuating degrees. The Smile period is often reported as an important episode in its decline, causing him to tag as one of the most famous celebrity drug victims of the rock era.
History of availability
Smiley Smiley Smile
The Beach Boys still had to complete LP records to fulfill their obligations to Capitol Records, resulting in the replacement of the album recorded throughout June and July 1967. When Wilson retreated to Bel Air's newly acquired home, it became the venue for numerous recordings from his next album Beach Boys , Smiley Smile . Released in September, the album included a newly stripped recording of some of the songs Smile . It was received with confusion by critics and is the best-selling album in the US to date, ranking only 41 on Billboard 200, though it fared much better in England, where it reached number nine. in the album chart. The album was later described by Carl Wilson as "bunt instead of grand slam".
Reconstruction
In mid-June 1967, prior to the release of Smiley Smile , the director of Capitol A & amp; R Karl Engemann began circulating memos discussing conversations between him and Wilson from the album's 10-track Smile album. It will follow up on the release of Smiley Smile , and will not include the "Heroes and Villains" option. During the promotion for the June 24 release of the single "Heroes and Villains", Bruce Johnston told NME that the Smile album is expected to be released within two months. In July, the group dispute with the Capitol was resolved; it was agreed that Smile would not be the next band album. Carl will soon revisit the recording sessions, taking into account the possibility of saving them for future releases. This is part of the "Workshop" recycled for the 1969 single cover "Do It Again", in addition to him and Dennis completing the song "Our Prayer" and "Cabin Essence" for Beach Boys' album <20/20 .
A contract signed with Warner Bros. Records in 1970 after the group's departure from Capitol included a clause stipulating the completed Smile for May 1, 1973. Then in 1970, Brian spoke in a radio interview with Jack Rieley - who was then a DJ that Brian recently encountered at his health food store called The Radiant Radish - about the song "Surf's Up", saying "It's just too long. Instead of putting it on my notes more likes to let it as a song.This is too long to make it as a record, unless it is a cut album, which I think it should be fixed.It is so far from the singles that it can never be a single. "Rieley then becomes group manager and advisor. With the permission of Brian, between mid-June and early July 1971, Rieley and Carl took most of the original multi-track Smile for a thorough examination. The main reason for this trawling is to find a master for "Surf's Up", which was decided to be included on the upcoming Beach Boys album with the same name. As the development progresses, Brian gradually withdraws from the song assembly, probably because of the negative memories associated with the Smile session. However, the album Surf's Up was completed and released in August 1971 with the title track serving as the album closer. In addition to the title track, Surf's Up does not have a connection to Smile either thematically or musically, and no other tapes from the last session are used. Some time later, Brian and American Spring provided guest vocals for the "Vegetable" cover by Jan and Dean.
In early 1972, Beach Boys announced that it would complete Smile to follow up on Surf's Up's critical and commercial success. At the end of the year, the idea was abandoned or forgotten, with Brian refusing to participate in the corresponding Smile rework, leading the group to pay a $ 50,000 fine. Then in 1970, Bruce Johnston said that the assembled Smile release would be a "bad idea" commercially. He explains that his release can only satisfy a very niche audience, assuming the material is too difficult to access by mainstream record buyers, and explains, "Sometimes, you're a bit disappointed. Let's say you found the recording and you said, 'Oh yes?' It's been talked about so much... It will fit your expectations [only] if you Zubin Mehta analyze the work of a young composer. "In 1981, Johnston announced that there were plans to publish a short six-minute compilation of the album recording session without Brian's knowledge. He reasoned, "It's better to do it that way, because musically now, compared to '66 or '78, it would be more interesting to just give you a peek than do it all.There's too much press On it, it's like talking about removing '67 Rolls Royce and they finally show it on '81.You go, 'Oh, no.' "
Sometimes in 1988, Wilson asserted that Smile is being compiled and mixed for immediate release, but it's "sidetracked with business" and worried about whether the album will be sold because most of the background tracks; he also considered asking Beach Boys to overdub the remaining vocal tracks.
Bootleg and official release
In the early 1990s, Smile has earned its place as the most famous pop album ever to be released, and is a focal point for recording and recording collectors. Throughout the 1980s, pirated tapes from album sessions were being circulated to various musicians. This recording makes it clear that Smile is much closer to a solution than previously thought, and this prompts a lot of excitement by fans about what additional songs might be there, and argues about how those songs fit into < i> Smile run the order.
Unofficial album reconstruction is often done by fans to provide a cohesive recording of the hearing structure, thus "completing" the album. For decades, fan-made playlists are the only way for the public to listen to the Smile approach because it will be heard done by Beach Boys. The idea of ​​a smile recording mix can be credited to Domenic Priore, which in his 1988 Look! Listen! Vibrate! Smile! pushing readers with an empty cassette tape to compile their own Smile album. Parks herself has since linked Smile as a "pioneer event" for interactive recording design.
With the growing popularity of the Internet in the mid-1990s, Smile recording became more widely available through a series of websites and "tree tapes". Some websites offer full downloads of songs, and fan edits and settings start to appear. Beginning in 1997, the pirated Sea Tunes label (named after the original Beach Boys' publishing company) began releasing a series of CDs featuring high quality outtakes, track sessions and alternative recordings that revolved throughout the entire group career. Among these are a set of three CDs featuring more than three session hours for "Good Vibrations", and some multi-CD devices that contain a large number of tracking, overdubbing and mixing sessions for Smile . Those involved with the release of pirated copies were later arrested by the authorities, and it was reported that nearly 10,000 pieces were captured.
In 1993, a five-CD box set up Good Vibration: Thirty Years The Beach Boys was released which contained almost 30 minutes of archive smile material. It also contains the first official release of the reconstructed smile Smile album, in order ordered by David Leaf, Andy Paley, and Mark Linett. It is hoped that the 1997 set of The Pet Sounds Sessions will be followed up with a dedicated Smile release, but it fails to materialize, with one reason being difficult compilation and sorting. In 1995, a set of three CD boxes titled Smile Era was reported for release in the fall that never happened. Don Reported: "We showed Brian the interactive CD-ROM Todd Rundgren and told him that this is how he should release Smile. He can load an interactive CD with seven hours of stuff from those sessions. people who buy it, 'You finish it.' Brian is in it, now it's up to the record company. "
Brian Wilson Brings Smiles
Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks revisited Smile with Brian's tour musician in 2004, 37 years after the conception. First, in a series of concerts (debuting at Royal Festival Hall London on February 20, 2004), then as Brian Wilson Presents Smile's solo album, released in September 2004. The album debuted at number 13 on Billboard 200 charts, and then received three Grammy nominations, winning the first Grammy award with Brian Wilson for Best Rock Instrumental Performance ("Mrs O'Leary's Cow").
Smile Sessions
On October 31, 2011, the compilation of the recording of Smile was released under the title The Smile Sessions . This recording has a disc that provides a listening experience to mimic the Brian Wilson Presents Smile template. The compilation was released for mass recognition and won the Best Historical Album award at the 55th Grammy Awards.
Retrospective assessment and inheritance
Critical reception
Nolan writes that Smile is "step , not" better than Sgt. Pepper ' ", and it" is very new. Even in raw form. Do not even need the lyrics. "Williams comments:" You should not feel foolish if you do not enjoy it. This is not a job of genius. This is a passionate experiment that succeeds and fails. As a failure, it's famous. The success, now we can all hear it, will likely be much simpler. "In 2011, Uncut voted the number one" greatest piracy record of all time ".This album is compared to other artists' works that are still unreleased or unfinished due to various The albums are doomed similarly including Charles Mingus' Epitaph , Brian Eno My Squelchy Life , Mark Wirtz A Teenage Opera , and The Who's Lifehouse project.
Although the focus he selected was "new American music outside the commercial mainstream", an online publication NewMusicBox made an exception with Smile , citing its position as "an album recorded over 45 years ago by one of the greatest (and financially most profitable) musical acts of all time ". The site reviewer, Frank Oteri, wrote: "The Wilson experiment in 1966 and 1967 seems normative from the things that most musicians attract in any genre up to that point and even more docile than some of them.The blurring of the boundary between musical genres is fairly common at that time, as well as the attitude, however real or imaginary, that almost all musical affairs are somehow expanding beyond anything that has happened before. "According to Oteri," the pride of the same place in the history of American music held by other great innovators " such as Charles Ives, George Gershwin, John Cage, John Coltrane and James Brown will "probably" never include Smile >, because, "For many people, Beach Boys will always be regarded as a cheerful party band who drooled 'California Girls' while on the 'Surfing Safari'. "
Reviewing available bootlegs and officially released songs for AllMusic, Richie Unterberger acknowledges that "a lot of very beautiful pieces, great ensemble chants, and brilliant orchestral instrumentation" are in circulation, but "the fact is that Wilson lacks the discipline needed to incorporate them became a brilliant and commercial pop masterpiece. "Writing at The Rolling Stone Record Guide, Dave Marsh lamented the hype that continued to surround Wilson and the Smile project throughout the 1970s, saying : " Smile > will be a great album, we believe every time Beach Boys releases a mediocre one This myth remains strong despite the title song Surf's Up ... far less robust and arguably less innovative than the hit of the Wilson surfing era. "Marsh concludes:" The Smile legend is an exercise in myth-mongering that is almost unmatched in the show business: Brian Wilson became the Main Artist make music that no one outside the coterie ever heard of. "
Toop argues that the attempt to resolve Smile is misdirected, naming the existing "maze"/smile a "maze" in a memory house where Wilson invites everyone who can externalize elements -element. "Apart from the user's familiarity with the album fragment. He then posed the question: "Can a song say everything, its breadth
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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