The Beatles, in addition to being the most enduring and beloved popular music group in history, made Brian Wilson crazy. Not like "Beatlemania" crazy. More like "shave-your-head-put-the-hair-in-a-bag-and-staple-it-to-your-dog" crazy. You know. The good stuff.
Not that he didn't have good reason. Wilson put more pressure on himself musically than can possibly be healthy. In a conscious effort, he set out to to top "Revolver" and the Beatles in general, and succeeded for a short time. With the Beach Boys 1966 release "Pet Sounds" he eclipsed the fab-four in both popularity and critical acclaim in England (though the record found a more limited market in the U.S.). He had taken the campy surf-rock novelty of the Beach Boys and turned it into pristine, super-produced, meticulously crafted pop that at the same time was undeniably American.
Riding high on this success (amongst other...things), Wilson was neck-deep in "Smile" when "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band" was released. This caused a Magnum Opus-envy in Wilson that no amount of hallucinogenics could alleviate. Smile was aborted in 1967, and Wilson more or less dropped out. He appeared only sporadically on Beach Boys' material and released solo work irregularly.
As the years went by, "Smile" garnered a mystique and legend of epic proportions due in large part to circulated material from the unfinished record and the release of "Smiley Smile" which contained some brilliant and promising songs from "Smile" (most notably "Good Vibrations"). There was little hope that "Smile" would ever be released, and that if it were, that it would be any good.
Wilson has waylaid these long-held fears with the definitive release of "Smile". It becomes evident quite quickly that there is little new musical material on the re-recorded album as compared to its precursors, but the key element is Wilson's layout of this material. He has arranged the tightly composed songs in such a way that he has created an extremely cohesive, immaculately recorded album with a dedication to thematic content. Wilson shows his mastery of the pop song cycle and his ability to rework a limited amount of lushly textured music in unlimited ways. Most importantly, he has managed to hold on to his dream of distinctively American pastoral psychedelica.
Because everything about the record is so intertwined, it is difficult to pick standout tracks.
This is the type of record that must be appreciated as a whole. However, in the back to back tracks "Child is Father of the Man" and "Surf's Up", Wilson's compositional genius coupled with the cryptic, melancholy lyrics of Van Dyke Parks serve to highlight the bittersweet layers that define the album.
A record with such high expectations attached to it almost never meets these expectations. Smile comes breathtakingly close. Undoubtedly, had it been released at the time intended, it would have had a far greater impact. As it stands, however, it is at the very worst a quaint, beautiful time capsule and at best the dated triumph of a haggard genius. |