Review Summary: A once-in-a-lifetime classic.
The Beach Boys will always be regarded as the melodic, surf-loving dreamers whose collective voice still defines summer to this very day. While nothing screams fun-in-the-sun quite like ‘Surfin’ U.S.A.’ or spells summer romance like ‘Surfer Girl’, the band’s creative and emotional depth was left largely untapped until 1966’s
Pet Sounds – which befuddled normie beachgoing Americans with its lush atmosphere and dynamic arrangements. Enter
Smile, the band’s 1967 answer to
Sgt Peppers and their magnum opus/crowning achievement. It was never officially released due to a variety of reasons ranging from label-imposed constraints to Brian Wilson’s deteriorating mental health. As a result,
Smile was born into the same studio that it would proceed to die in, never escaping those walls for mass consumption.
Smile’s mystique made it the subject of widespread speculation and intense fan scrutiny, driving it to a legendary cult classic status. As such,
Smile is widely regarded as the greatest unreleased album in the history of American music.
The Smile Sessions is the closest approximation to what
Smile was always meant to be: a "teenage symphony to God" as coined by Wilson himself, designed to surpass Pet Sounds with its elaborate arrangements while drawing on influences ranging from psychedelia and early rock n’ roll to doo-wop and jazz. Perhaps the most surprising facet of
The Smile Sessions is how beautifully these nineteen tracks (forty if you count the bonus tracks and studio demos) meld. Like a mosaic,
Smile is comprised of utterly different ideas that come together to form an even more breathtaking whole. It’s evident from the start with the forlorn hymnal ‘Our Prayer’ leading right into the joyful acapella ‘Gee’, and subsequently into the multi-suite pop epic “Heroes and Villains”.
Smile sounds the part of a band with no inhibitions, captained by one of the most ambitious and creative musical minds of all-time.
In the beginning,
Smile merely takes the Beach Boys and amplifies them like we’ve rarely (if ever) heard. The longer the album runs on, however, the
weirder it gets – further dragging us down a proverbial rabbit hole. ‘Do You Like Worms (Roll Plymouth Rock)’ is spellbinding with its alternating harpsichord and tribalistic chants, while ‘My Only Sunshine/The Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine’ puts a melancholic twist on the classic nursery rhyme. ‘Cabin Essence’ is an absolute rush, blending lighter verses with a fervent psychedelic chorus which could have been a precursor to Animal Collective. As
Smile wanes, we’re treated to even more experimental bits such as the sample-heavy ‘I Wanna Be Around / Workshop’ and the alienating/unsettling ‘The Elements: Fire (Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow)’. While occasionally buffered by more down-to-Earth pop melodies like ‘Surf’s Up’ and the now-famous ‘Good Vibrations’,
Smile is able to maintain a focused/tight sound while simultaneously pushing pop music into unprecedented territory.
Generally speaking,
Smile was way ahead of its time. It’s incredible that these songs – the majority of them unfinished/incomplete/unpolished – would sound avant-garde if released today. The album is often cited as the band’s attempt to keep stride with The Beatles’
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, but I have no qualms asserting that
Smile is more impressive in both scope and production. Had it been released on-schedule, we would almost definitely be talking about
Smile as one of the greatest albums
ever made – which it still is, even if the honor feels slightly eroded by the record’s “unofficial” status. At the very least, it’s an improvement on
Pet Sounds – and that statement alone should be enough to convince any fan of pop music to add
Smile to her/his bucket list.
Smile is inadvertently symbolic of the greatness that lurks inside us all: untapped, maybe even unfinished – but nevertheless eagerly waiting to break free. It’s not only a reminder of pop music’s zest for exploration during the 1960s, but a cue to always push yourself towards new opportunities for growth. Had the Beach Boys never created
Pet Sounds or
Smile, we’d be losing such an enormous and valuable dimension of their identity. They could have gone on for decades writing songs about kissing girls and surfing in California – foregoing artistic expansion altogether – and none of us would have even known what we were missing. That’s what is so prudent to take away from
Smile: any passion you keep hidden is a side of you which the world will never know. Life is only a flash in the pan – so let every angle of your creative personality be known, sing as loudly as you possible can, and Smile.
