Album of the Week #47: Smiley Smile | Thebeachboystoday (2024)

On September 18, 1967, the Beach Boys released their 12th studio album; however, instead of the once-promised Smile, that album was Smiley Smile. It contains reworked versions of several of the same songs and some different ones. With 11 songs spanning just over 27 minutes, it was the first Beach Boys album in which the full band were credited as producers.

The album peaked at #41 in the U.S., but reached #9 in the UK.

Please discuss and rate the Beach Boys' Smiley Smile.

It's only 27 minutes long? Gosh, it feels longer. If not for the inclusion of the single versions of Heroes and Villains and Good Vibrations, it would be a total sh*t show. Those two tracks are the only reasons I don't cite SS as the worst Beach Boys album. But, since those two songs can be found on various comps, that means Smiley Smile is the BB album I've listened to the least - less than KTSA, Love You, and even SIP.

Smiley might also hold the title to all time worst follow up to a great album.

I know it's gained some status as a bit of a cult favorite for it's experimental nature, or the fact that it's so unique. But, I personally have no interest in that.

Smiley Smile was one of my first Beach Boys albums, and its strangeness was exciting and interesting to me at the time: after all, I wasn't a Beach Boys fan specifically because of the early-mid 60s hits. So then Pet Sounds, then I hear about Smile, and start buying based on that idea. So goofy, creepy, psychedelic ... it was helping me break my idea of what the Beach Boys were.

Over the years my feelings about the album have changed for the worse. Part of that is hearing the Smile versions of the songs in common. Part is just becoming more of a songs guy and less a weirdness guy. But I do want to be fair and give it a fresh listen before I rate it.

I'm actually wondering if my four is too high. That's the rating I've consistently given it, and it's the lowest rating I've assigned to BB albums.

The only experimental part that kind of lands IMO is Fall Breaks and Back to Winter, but even that loses me about halfway through (and the piece is only just over two minutes).

I'm assuming you didn't buy it at the time of its release. I did. Back in '67 all the information on pop music you got in the UK was in four music papers: New Musical Express, Melody Maker, Disc & Music Echo and Record Mirror. I bought them all at that time and must have read Derek Taylor's "SCRAPPED" announcement. Otherwise there was no way at all of finding out what the **** this strange album was all about -- beginning with the name.

I bought all my LPs in pairs in those years. The pairing with Smiley Smile was the MOI album Absolutely Free. I thought SS was a damn sight weirder! You had two opulently orchestrated songs and the rest (with the possible exception of "Falls Breaks...") was bare-bones stuff...

It was while walking to work in the snow that winter that I came to appreciate SS. Don't ask me how these things work. It then became its own entity instead of a tossed-off version of the much vaunted Smile.

I then fell in love with it, a condition that has persisted to this day.

I had only recently made tentative steps toward not reflexively hating everything Beach Boys-related, having one or two years earlier just heard the "Brian Wilson is/was a genius" thing and gotten--and appreciated--Pet Sounds. It was baby steps for a few years, mostly Smile-focused.

I almost never listen to Smiley Smile, and I’ve got a grudge against it for what it did to “Heroes and Villains,” “Wind Chimes,” and “Wonderful,” the latter two of which I think it absolutely ruined.

But as I do listen to it, I actually do enjoy it. Not those two songs, really. I still think they turned them both from minor masterpieces into fourth-rate “experiments.” (I have to admit the end of “Wind Chimes” is great, first with the piano and vocal then the “whispering winds” part.) But while I don’t prefer them, I can enjoy the renditions of “Heroes and Villains” and “Vegetables.” And “Good Vibrations” is great, obviously.

“With Me Tonight” is beautiful. “Little Pad” is nice enough. “She’s Goin Bald” is goofy for sure, but I don’t hate it. “Woody Woodpecker” is actually quite good, though as KDS said, it goes on too long: I’d have cut it at the halfway mark. We don’t need to hear the same figure repeated four times (I think it ends up happening).

And that—repetition—is definitely a flaw here. “Little Pad” is repetitive. “With Me Tonight” is repetitive. There isn’t enough content here to repeat what we do have, especially to that degree. There are 27 minutes of music, but it feels like both less (because it’s repeated so much) and more (because the repetition becomes tedious).

In the end, I go with a 6.

Ah. Now that's something I didn't know back in '67! Upon its release (and despite Derek Taylor's stark announcement, which I can't recall reading anyway) Iwas still expecting aSmile, the culmination of a rising line in opulence with Pet Sounds and "Good Vibrations" as twin provisional peaks.

I'd say With Me Tonight is somewhat redeemable. I think the SS versions of Wonderful and Wind Chimes are absolutely dreadful, as are She's Goin Bald and Vegetables.

Carl Wilson called Smiley Smile a bunt. As a baseball fan, I don't really agree, as a well placed bunt can be a thing of beauty. I'd say a better baseball analogy might be hitting into a triple play with the bases loaded and no outs.

Other than the album cover (and the back cover is questionable ), there is very little I like about Smiley Smile. Even the album title was a poor decision. I always thought that Smiley Smile was one of the four or five poorest "career moves" in the group's history. It cost the band severely, and I don't think they ever recovered from it. Brian went with his muse and everybody went along with him, except a lot of his fan base.

"Good Vibrations" doesn't fit and shouldn't have been included. I don't even think "Heroes And Villains" fits, but I guess it had to be included. There was no rock and roll music. There was no pop music. How do you describe it? Chorale singing. Modular recording. Tape splicing. Stark piano and organ playing. Sound effects. Chants. Strange lyrics. Non-commercial. A psychedelic feel. Gee, this album sounds like something special. I should like something like that!

Except I don't. Never did. I first heard it circa 1976 with that cream-colored double album where it was paired with Friends. Talk about a snooze-fest...OK, most of the singing is great. They were peaking as vocalists (except for Carl who peaked much later). Dennis Wilson was continuing his streak of albums having no lead vocals (it would continue with Wild Honey). Some of the songs and arrangements are beautiful, but those are only short segments. The album is mastered terribly.

As a huge fan of SMiLE, maybe I'm just pissed off at what Brian did - or didn't do - with the material. I know that this album has its fans. Some even named a message board after it. I'll go with a 5 based on the strength of "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes And Villains", but like I said, I'm not even sure they belonged on the album. Maybe if Brian did a full-fledged 40-minute psychedelic album combining The Beach Boys' voices with some cool instrumentation. Oh, that's right, he did...

Back in '67 you had this French station that had an hour of psychedelic/progressive stuff in the mid evening followed by an hour of jazz.

On one occasion during the first hour they played "Wind Chimes". It dawned on my bro and me that it was The Beach Boys and it sounded phenomenal!You have to imagine hearing it during the heyday of psychedelia to understand how well it fitted in.

Two thoughts:

1) A cliche I heard at some point that just jumped into my head: Do you want to fit in, or to stand out?

2) I can accept fully that this fit in and succeeded in that vein. I just don't care much for that vein, myself.

And a third, unrelated to the above, it would be remiss to fail to mention Smiling Pets, the indie-artist oriented covers album from '98 that focuses on Pet Sounds, Smiley Smile, and Smile material, much of it in a style that more closely resembles Smiley Smile than the other two albums. (I can't say I'm a fan of this, though it's in the collection somewhere taking up space.)

Ooohh! I do like Melt-Banana's take on "You're Welcome".

I wasn't around during the psychedelic era (well, I was was, but was very young), but I have a hard time imagining Smiley Smile fitting in, even in the summer of 1967 (the album was released on 9/18/67, a little late...). Take a look at the the most popular albums of that year:

- The Doors

- Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

- Are You Experienced

- Velvet Underground & Nico (not exactly popular)

- Surrealistic Pillow

- Days Of Future Passed

- The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn

- Forever Changes

- Younger Than Yesterday

Smiley Smile had almost nothing in common with these albums, or other ones, for that matter. Songs were taking on longer forms. The electric guitar was still a prominent instrument. So was rock (and roll) music. The albums themselves were longer. The songs were dynamic, almost intentionally so to get a reaction. Smiley Smile was the antithesis of this period. It was the odd man out. Psychedelic? Yeah, I guess, in it's own unique way. But those other albums literally blew it away. Now they were psychedelic.

I don't think the listening public, whether it be Beach Boys' fans or the general listening public really cared for what Brian was doing with Smiley Smile. Some parts are cute, some are beautiful, and there's the occasional "genius" touch, but Smiley Smile isn't the kind of album that just...impresses you. I don't think so anyway.

Some reviewers and music critics through the years have intimated that Brian Wilson was actually ahead of the pack, that he was already past that trip. I don't know about that. I don't even know how much of what Brian was doing with Smiley Smile was planned out. We know the timeline. Brian shifted gears from Smile, and in a matter of days started to "Smiley Smile" the SMiLE songs. I sometimes think Brian did Smiley Smile on a whim, in a drug-induced, mentally ill, gambling-like, "hey let's just try this approach" way. I don't think he was intentionally trying to pass anybody, be a trailblazer (he would've finished SMiLE if he wanted that), or came up with "the new sound". He was just doing whatever the hell he wanted to in early/mid 1967, and he paid the price...well, the group did anyway. Simple as that (well, not really simple ).