Customer Reviews

Smile

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The wait has been worth it. Finally, Brian Wilson has completed the project with his new band and the wait was worth it. I hope this album will propel Brian back to the top of the charts.
The new band does a great job, much better than if Brian and the band were slowed down by the remaining Beach Boy (Mike Love), who would have wanted to change it. It was Love and the other Beachboys who ridiculed this project so much, that Brian turned away from it.
Good Vibrations, Heroes and Villans, Surf's Up, and Wind Chimes are my favourites. Brian's voice hasn't sounded this good in years and the band backing him up is beyond belief.
A worthwile album to own by one of the true genius of the music world.

You know when something is hyped and hyped and hyped and mysterious and then it suddenly happens, and it sucks? (ie The Phantom Menace - sorry, George). Well, Smile is the complete opposite of that. Smile makes Pet Sounds, supposedly one of the greatest albums of all time, look like a warm up.

The three main songs on it, people have known for decades - Heroes and Villains, Surf's Up, and of course, Good Vibrations. What's been created now are three fifteen minute "mini symphonies" built around each song - the album can be looked at as 17 songs, or 3 big songs. It's incredible. Sounds are flying in from everywhere, constantly, I can't imagine how long it took to mix this thing. And I was skeptical - they rerecorded everything, with Brian on main lead - and I've heard Brian lately, his voice is shot. But on this album, he makes it work - he sounds just like he did in the 60's. This was incredible. I want to tell the world everyone must own a copy, before you listen to anything. It sound be handed out in Grade 1.

Not just album of the year, but one of the 20 best of all time. It ranks up there with Pet Sounds. What an amazing and wonderous journey, absolutely outstanding. I am not going into Smile's long and convoluted history, but it would have been mindblowing in 1966/67 and still is today.I have been fortunate enough to have had most of the available Smile session outtakes for years and have always been totally enthralled and enchanted with this music. Brian has done his legacy justice and now the whole world knows what was missed in 1966/67. It is wonderfull to have the completed lyrics and for the most part, the conventially accepted sequencing of the songs. Brian has changed a couple of the song titles, but the music is all there. He has remained fairly faithful to the original musical arrangements. My only minor quibble is that he should have tagged on You're Welcome to the end of Good Vibrations.This CD is a must buy for anyone even slightly interested in classic 60's pop.

Ever since the SMiLE project was shelved in the first days of Brian's self-admitted "defeat" against the Beatles and their successful "Sgt. Pepper" experiment, people have spent hours trying to figure out the foreseen final product. And up until late 2003, most everyone was convinced the final product would never be heard. In an amazing coup de grace that can nearly be credited as one of the signs of the Apocalypse (as such is its improbability), bandleader Darius Sahajana ultimately convinced Brian to complete the SMiLE project... simply by asking him why it was never completed.

To have predicted the structure of the first official SMiLE release would have been to forget that it was ever intended for single-LP release. For starters, the album is divided into not two, but _three_ suites: the "Americana" and "Elements" sections have now been trimmed to bookend a third, 10-minute, "Cycle of Life" section incorporating Wonderful, Song for Children (aka "Look"), Child is Father of the Man, and Surf's Up. (All three sections sound complete, in case you're wondering.) Second, new lyrics (and, at times, new song titles) fit in perfectly with the ones we've been hearing (and reading, in the case of certain pieces whose vocal tracks were never recorded), which is no mean feat when you consider some of them were completed thirty years after the fact. And one cannot be sure which is more surprising: the inclusion of "Good Vibrations" (aka the million-selling hit that was not conceived for SMiLE), or its inclusion as the programme finale (with alternate lyrics, to boot).

Recording obligations and copyright issues (not to mention wide-eyed record-label executives with images of Christmas bonuses dancing through their heads) would never have permitted the current band (and artist) to intermingle with the original '60s session tapes, or vice versa. The ensemble has created the next best thing: recording full-band live takes of each modular section separately (although one wonders if Brian _could_ have permitted the use of Pro Tools to stitch sections together a bit more seamlessly), group vocals recorded together through a tube console, and even working at times within Sunset Sound, scene of many a Wilson session in the '60s. One could reasonably be concerned about the state of Brian's voice, compared to the angelic falsettos of days ago. Amazingly, Brian's present-day voice brings something _more_ to the recordings, giving a slightly gritty flavour at times that suits the music in a slightly humorous way.

It seems like the team behind SMiLE has attempted to match (or beat) every bootleg and mixtape that has ever been produced with reference to SMiLE: a white slipcover houses the CD and case-size, full-color, multi-page booklet, infamous Beach Boy chronicler David Leaf provides liner notes, and the sound is pristine while retaining a '60s mix/EQ flavour. The album actually sounds like some unnamed curator shepherded all the original musical instruments and equipment the day the original sessions were aborted, keeping them fully functional and bringing them to the studio for these sessions. Not one detail has been left aside.

And now that the album is out and the accolades are being written left, right and centre, the diehard SMiLE mix-tape aficionados can consult the official product to study how close their attempts were to the finished product. I'm half-proud, half-amazed to say that even my most far-out breaches of SMiLE "conventional knowledge" were a lot closer to the mark than the Priore followers. (Well, I did go a _little_ over the line with my interpretation of "Wonderful"... but listening to the official new versions of "Wind Chimes" and "Good Vibrations" brings a smile to my face every time.) The "SMiLE dream has now come true" indeed, no doubt about it.

I had to listen to SMiLE just twice to make sure that I had actually heard this exquisite, breathtaking work of art. I'm not too sure if words alone could describe the thrill of those first listens, or of the awe and deep, undescribable emotions that welled up. Perhaps some of obscure but oddly fitting lyrics of Van Dyke Parks might serve.

Brian Wilson's reputation has always been high, even with his well-known struggles and the habit of the Beach Boys to flesh out their increasingly irrelevant albums with bits and pieces of his grand but unfinished masterpiece. Surely this will cement his name as one of the great talents of Western music.

Brian's vocals are not the vocals of a young man in his mid-20s, but rather that of a man in his early 60s. And yet somehow that only increases the poignancy of SMiLE. It might seem at first ironic that the teenage symphony to God was completed by a man with grandchildren. It might seem that way until you listen to it for the first time, and know what it must have been like to be among the first to hear Beethoven's 9th symphony. Good Vibrations is an ode to joy indeed.

This album is truly a masterpiece. I had tears in my eyes while I listened to it the first time. I keep playing it over and over, and will be enjoying this one for years to come.

It is such a sweet turn of events in our musical history that SMiLE can no longer be referred to as the most famous album to never be released. It HAS been released and Brian Wilson has managed to get it just right. It meets all the hype and expectations head on and is true to the 60s studio sound which can be heard on your old Beach Boy records (apparently he even used the original 1960s mixing console for all the vocal tracks).

This album contains fabulous song arrangements all weaved together into an almost non-stop musical journey. You've never heard anything quite like this before. And the songs are timeless and so beautiful.

Everyone should have this CD. I'm buying copies for my relatives and friends this Christmas.

Brian Wilson is a genius. This is a beautifuly crafted piece of music. From the beginning to the end, it fills you with a sense of happiness and optimism. This is what music should do, thank you Brian wilson.

The album took 37 years to be released, so you know it is good. :)

As far as the guy from Calgary saying he'll never buy another album again .. this had better mean that you will only be listening to the radio, and not downloading pirated music. That's theft. I don't know why people don't understand that.

Finally: After 35 years, Brian Wilson solves the Smile puzzle, piecing together the fragments that fans have spent the last 3' decades meticulously researching, speculating over, and attempting to assemble themselves. As the mythical follow-up to Pet Sounds, it delivers: Smile is a great album, albeit one more lighthearted than its legend would suggest, with music as insular and manic-compassionate as "In My Room" or "God Only Knows", but filtered through an amiable resolve. It is pleasant and assured, displaying artistic and personal growth beyond the vulnerable, shy wave of hope that drenched former Beach Boys records. And despite his age, Wilson's voice even sounds fantastic, still carrying the weight of these angelic melodies.

In 1967 when Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys failed to release SMiLE ... the face of music was deprived of a REAL guiding light. Brian fell into a deep funk that slowly but surely engulfed him to the point where he became virtually invisible. Finally ... 37 years later he mustered up the courage and the conviction to finish composing the album...and with the help of some new 'Friends' re-recorded, organized and released the album that would have set the world on its collective ear...all those years ago.

SMiLE is a remarkable achievement. The live dvd performance is even better. Not unlike a fine wine...SMiLE improves still further with age. One of the finest albums ever recorded...THIS album/cd is a MUST own for any MUSIC lover. In a world of formula sounds and almost total ignorance of what can be done with the human voice...SMiLE is finally the guiding light it always should have been.

Thank you Brian Wilson [et al]. May you enjoy even more success with your next release...'That Lucky Old Sun'.