Brian Wilson Presents Smile<!--- This is the album's title per Carlin, Priore, Lambert, and Wilson's official website.---> (also referred to as Smile or the abbreviation BWPS) is the fifth studio album by American musician Brian Wilson, released on September 28, 2004 by Nonesuch. It features all-new recordings of music that he had originally created for Smile, an unfinished concept album he produced for the Beach Boys and abandoned in 1967. Revisiting the project was an intense emotional undertaking for Wilson, who had long associated it with trauma and personal failure.
Wilson initially agreed to revisit Smile in the form of a live concert performance, commissioned by the Royal Festival Hall in London, as a follow-up to his 2000–2002 tour for the Beach Boys' album Pet Sounds. From October to November 2003, he worked with keyboardist Darian Sahanaja and original lyricist Van Dyke Parks in assembling a three-movement structure embellished with newly written lyrics, melodies, and orchestrations. The concert premiered on February 20, 2004 with five repeated sold-out showings. Encouraged by the positive reception, Wilson produced its studio-recorded adaptation and embarked on a world tour lasting from late 2004 to mid-2005. His former Beach Boys bandmates were not involved with BWPS, nor with the Showtime documentary that accompanied its release, Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson and the Story of Smile, directed by biographer David Leaf.
BWPS was universally acclaimed by critics and peaked at number 13 in the U.S. and number 7 in the UK. It earned Wilson his first Grammy Award, winning in the category of Best Rock Instrumental Performance for "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow". The album also garnered a nomination for best engineering for Mark Linett who recorded and mixed the project. In 2011, the album's sequencing served as a blueprint for The Smile Sessions, a compilation dedicated to the original Beach Boys recordings, with Wilson and Linett among the co-producers. In 2020, BWPS was ranked number 399 on Rolling Stones list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". , it is the third-highest rated album in the history of Metacritic.
Background
Brian Wilson abandoned Smile in mid-1967 amid difficulties during its production with the Beach Boys and lyricist Van Dyke Parks. The band substituted its release with Smiley Smile, a downscaled version, and a legend subsequently grew around the original project. During the 1980s, unreleased material from its recording sessions circulated on bootlegs, leading many fans to compile a hypothetical version of the completed album. Among these fans were Los Angeles musicians Darian Sahanaja, Probyn Gregory, and Nick Walusko, later members of the band Wondermints and contributors to journalist Domenic Priore's Smile-focused fanzine, The Dumb Angel Gazette.
In 1995, Wilson reteamed with Parks for the collaborative album Orange Crate Art, provoking speculation of an imminent Smile release, however, Wilson indicated a greater interest in completing a then-forthcoming collaboration with musician Andy Paley. That year, Paley invited Wilson to a concert at the Morgan-Wixon Theater in Los Angeles, a show which featured the Wondermints performing "Surf's Up". After the concert, Wilson remarked to Paley, "If I'd had these guys back in '67, I could've taken Smile on the road." In late 1998, the Wondermints, at the invitation of Wilson's wife and then-manager Melinda Ledbetter, joined his newly formed touring band, a group that included guitarist Jeffrey Foskett, multi-instrumentalist Scott Bennett, reed player Paul Mertens, bassist Bob Lizik, and backing vocalist Taylor Mills. A successful initial tour was followed with concert performances of the full Pet Sounds album from 2000 to 2002; for shows with a symphonic orchestra, Parks was commissioned to write an orchestral arrangement of Wilson's songs as an opener.
Wilson had long been psychologically scarred by the Smile sessions and associated the album with personal failure. In 2000, while at a private Christmas gathering at Bennett's house, a request from the wife of biographer and filmmaker David Leaf prompted Wilson to play the song on piano, to the astonishment of everybody present. Sahanaja later said, "If you had even mentioned it to him a month earlier, he would have freaked." Wilson subsequently agreed to perform the song at a forthcoming tribute show held in his honor at the Radio City Music Hall in New York. At that event, various artists performed his songs, including "Our Prayer" and "Surf's Up", with his band providing accompaniment. A performance of "Cabinessence" was considered but abandoned due to its complexity. Following the concert, Ledbetter and Sahanaja successfully petitioned Wilson to add "Our Prayer" and "Surf's Up" into his regular setlists. "Heroes and Villains" and a medley of "Wonderful" and "Cabinessence" were also added. Parks, who had attended the Radio City Music Hall concert, was not originally contacted about the planned concerts and learned of them through the press.
The announcement generated mixed reactions from some fans concerned that Wilson's attempt to complete Smile would diminish its legacy, a sentiment Sahanaja initially shared. He remembered that during their meetings over the summer, Wilson did not appear interested in the project, although he gradually became more engaged. That same period, Wilson told Leaf that he could not proceed with the Smile concerts without Leaf's continuous presence. Leaf, who had recently completed a film about the Bee Gees, proposed that his daily involvement would only be possible if they were making a documentary film, a condition Wilson accepted.
Collaboration and assembly
thumb|left|Keyboardist [[Darian Sahanaja was integral to the project's realization |upright]]
The project was not initially approached as a completion of the original Smile album,
Early in these sessions, the pair were working on "Do You Like Worms?" when they ran into issues reading the handwriting of its lyric sheet. Wilson swiftly phoned Parks, who he had not spoken to in years, and immediately asked what word came after "cheering". Parks requested a lyric sheet to be faxed, and within minutes, called back and clarified that the word was "Indians". After Wilson and Sahanaja finished their work for that day, Wilson called Parks again and had a lengthier conversation, during which Parks accepted the invitation to join the project.
Parks assumed his original role, providing lyrics that had been written in the 1960s but not previously documented, and some that were newly written for the project, however, he was not involved with track sequencing, preferring to leave those decisions to Wilson. In the interest of preserving the "integrity" of their work, Sahanaja took on a less active role, contributing to the discussions only when the songwriters were struggling with "how to pull something off live".
Rehearsals began in January 2004, at which point Leaf had arrived with a film crew set on documenting the project. Wilson was still intensely troubled by his memories of Smile and the prospects of performing it live. He began struggling with a resurgence of auditory hallucinations. Sahanaja recalled that, after the holiday break, when he returned to Wilson's house to prepare for the forthcoming vocal rehearsals, "I remember him shaking and he sat down and he started crying and yelling 'I'm fucked! I'm fucked!'" Smile followed the intermission.
When Smile completed its debut, Wilson received a ten-minute standing ovation before he was able to invite Parks, who was in tears, onstage.
The concerts were repeated at the same venue for six shows until February 27, with each playing recorded by engineer Mark Linett for posterity on film and a 48-track Genex hard disk recorder. All dates were sold-out. Attendees included Paul McCartney, George Martin, Richard Wright, Jeff Beck, Elvis Costello, Jason Pierce of Spiritualized, Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals, Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine, and Aphex Twin. A brief tour followed in England and Europe.
thumb|left|upright|Parks signing Smile memorabilia after the next day's concert
Critical reaction was highly favorable. The Guardian declared that it was "one of the greatest of American symphonies." John Mulvey wrote in NME; "It's rare that you can honestly say you were present at a moment of genuine historic significance. And it's rarer still that the reality of these occasions measures up to the hype." In March, GQ ranked BWPS among the "Top Five Gigs of All Time". Mojos Jim Irvin was similarly underwhelmed; although he enjoyed the songs, he wrote, "To claim that this show was transcendent is to disregard the figure at its heart, a bewildered-looking man of 61 who barely plays the piano he's perched behind. [...] its hard to feel uplifted, as such." Critic Barney Hoskyns wrote that it was "a pretty magnificent evening", although Wilson's apathetic demeanor resembled that of an autistic person's. Hoskyns mused, "As bizarrely not-there as Brian seemed through all of this, he seemed to be enjoying himself as much as he is able to. Occasionally he flapped his arms about, and he made a big point of introducing 'Marcella' as a real 'rock'n'roll' song – as though that were what we secretly craved." Recording began on April 13, 2004 with his ten-piece touring band, augmented by a ten-piece string section and an acoustic bassist. The basic tracks were recorded at Sunset Sound Recorders in four days, with overdubbing and mixing continuing until July with some stops at engineer Mark Linett's Your Place or Mine studio. On October 5, Leaf's documentary Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson and the Story of Smile premiered on the Showtime network. The film included interviews with Wilson and dozens of his associates, albeit none of his surviving bandmates from the Beach Boys, who declined to appear in the film. It was certified platinum in combination with its international sales.
thumb|Wilson touring Smile in Denmark, July 2005
From autumn 2004 to summer 2005, Wilson supported the album with a world tour that included stops in the US, Europe, and Japan. In March 2005, Wilson, Parks, and Leaf held a panel at the annual South by Southwest convention in Austin, Texas to discuss Smile. Asked if he would permit the release of the original Beach Boys recordings, Wilson responded, "Never. Those are gone forever. I don't want those made public because they bring up bad memories. I don't think about the old days anymore. I never do." Sahanaja told Australian Musician, "In six years of touring this is the happiest we've ever seen Brian, I mean consistently happy and it's got to be because of the music. [...] Who would have thought … of all things…Smile."
Contemporary critical reception
BWPS received widespread acclaim from music critics. A+ grade. It also topped his annual list of the year's best album. Dominique Leone of Pitchfork declared, "As the mythical follow-up to Pet Sounds, it delivers, and despite his age, Wilson's voice even sounds fantastic, still carrying the weight of these angelic melodies."
John Bush of AllMusic believed BWPS was "a remarkably unified, irresistible piece of pop music", yet decreed that it was "no musical watershed on par with Sgt. Pepper's [...] or Wilson's masterpiece, Pet Sounds". It won one Grammy, in the category of Best Rock Instrumental Performance for "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow". Smile also finished in second place in the Pazz & Jop, an annual critics poll run by The Village Voice. Pitchfork named it fifth best album of 2004 and the 25th best album released between 2000 and 2004.
British reception
According to Guardian contributor Alexis Petridis, news of the album's release caused "an outbreak of mild hysteria" and provoked a journalist from the newspaper to solicit an opinion from the British government, who then supplied a comment from defense secretary Geoff Hoon.
In the same Guardian feature, tentative or negative remarks were given by music critic Paul Morley, novelist Ian Rankin, and Rough Trade Records founder Geoff Travis."
Beach Boys' response and lawsuit
thumb|left|upright|[[Mike Love felt that the Beach Boys did not receive due credit for the work that led to Wilson's 2004 Smile. ]]
Mike Love gave his thoughts on the album in a November 2004 interview: "I guess it's a good thing for Brian to do. A friend sent me a copy, but I haven't had time to hear it yet because we've been on tour." In an earlier interview, he had said he would have no interest in listening to the album and citing the legal concept of "corporate opportunity", mentioned that it had possibly infringed on the Beach Boys' intellectual property rights. Love argued that, because the group had collectively paid for the 1960s recording sessions and all contributed work on the original tracks, "I would have thought it would have been more honorable to put it together as the Beach Boys."
In many interviews he gave around the album's release, Wilson disparaged the Beach Boys, calling them inferior to his current band. In a 2007 interview, Love expressed that he was disappointed to hear about Wilson's remarks. "I'm glad that he's happy with the people he's performing with, but, you know, I think it's sad that he thinks that. My personal feeling is that the original group recordings on Smile have got to be better." Bruce Johnston took offense as well, writing in an email to biographer Peter Ames Carlin: "I spent years showing full support for Brian, but now that's all changed because of his current point of view." Johnston said of the album in a 2008 interview, "I think as an exercise in keeping [Wilson] occupied, it's interesting. [...] I talk to him every once in a while. But I'm never going to tell him that I'll take Pet Sounds over what he's doing now."
One of the promotions for the album was a free CD issued through the Mail on Sunday in September 2004. The 10-track compilation included Beach Boys songs Wilson had recently rerecorded, five of which he coauthored with Love. The Mail on Sunday distributed 2.6 million copies of the compilation. In November 2005, Love filed a lawsuit in which he claimed the promotion hurt the sales of the original recordings. Love's suit was dismissed in 2007 when a judge determined that there were "no triable issues of material fact".
Al Jardine said in 2013 that he "didn't give it a whole lot of thought; I didn't want to go there at that time. They were good enough to send me a copy. So I dropped the needle, as they used to say, and listened to a few cuts, and it was very nice. But there's nothin' like the [vintage recordings]."
Retrospective assessments and legacy
thumb|right|upright=1.2|Wilson and members of his band performing "Heroes and Villains" with the Beach Boys in 2012, during their [[The 50th Reunion Tour|reunion tour]]
Although critics widely referred to Wilson's 2004 version as the Smile album completed, many fans disputed the notion. Bootleggers continued to compile their own versions of the Beach Boys' album. In 2011, The Smile Sessions was released, containing an approximation of what the band's finished album might have sounded like, using BWPS as a blueprint. Linett co-produced the compilation with Wilson. According to Sahanaja, Wilson "lobbied hard" for the album's sequence to be based on BWPS. In a 2015 interview, Wilson stated that he ultimately preferred his solo version.
Reviewing BWPS on the tenth anniversary of its release, Chris Shields of the St. Cloud Times wrote that "the sequencing raised a question mark or two, and there were mixing quibbles (I would have loved to hear more bass), but [...] [t]he lyrical beauty, the majesty of the music, the shifting (yet somehow fixed) meanings that intertwine throughout it all, still elate me, still fill me with hope and joy." PopMatters contributor Sean Murphy opined that the album was "crucial", but rendered "less significant" with the availability of The Smile Sessions. Writing for NewMusicBox, Frank Oteri called BWPS "a wonderful album, but it is also not quite right. It is not and can never be a substitute for SMiLE". In 2010, it was included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In 2020, it was ranked number 399 on Rolling Stones list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". The editors wrote, "Close your eyes and you can imagine how it might've changed the world in 1968 , but with Wilson's influence still all over scads of indie bands in 2004, it sounds and feels majestically modern." In 2022, it was ranked number 102 on Uncuts list of the greatest albums released since 1997, as well as number 21 on Rolling Stones list of the greatest concept albums in history.
Track listing
Set list
thumb|upright=1.5|Wilson and his band playing the pre-Smile acoustic set at the Royal Festival Hall, February 21, 2004. From left: Jim Hines, Darian Sahanaja, Paul Mertens, Scott Bennett, Probyn Gregory, Bob Lizik (obscured), Wilson, [[Nelson Bragg, Taylor Mills, Nick Walusko (obscured), and Jeffrey Foskett.]]
The songs performed at the Royal Festival Hall shows in February 2004.
The Brian Wilson Band
- Brian Wilson – vocals, keyboards
- Jeffrey Foskett – vocals, guitar, hammer
- Probyn Gregory – vocals, guitar, brass, Tannerin, whistles
- Nelson Bragg – vocals, percussion, whistles, celery
- Bob Lizik – bass guitar, beret
- Scott Bennett – vocals, keyboards, mallets, guitar
- Darian Sahanaja – vocals, keyboards, mallets, drill
- Nick Walusko – vocals, guitar
- Jim Hines – drums, mallets, saw, sound effects
- Paul Mertens – woodwinds, saxophone, harmonica, semi-conductor
- Taylor Mills – vocals, power drill, leg-slap
Stockholm Strings 'n' Horns
- Björn Samuelsson – trombone
- Victor Sand – saxophone, flute, clarinet
- Malin-My Nilsson – violin
- Anna Landberg – cello
- Staffan Findin – bass trombone
- Erik Holm – viola
- Andreas Forsman – violin
- Markus Sandlund – cello
Production and technical staff
- Recorded and mixed by Mark Linett
- Assistant engineer- Kevin Deane
- Mark London – package design and art
- Dennis Loren – graphic layouts
- Bob Ludwig – mastering
- Pete Magdaleno – assistant engineer
- Daniel S. McCoy – assistant engineer
- Brian Wilson – arranger, producer
Charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
|+Weekly album charts
|-
!Chart (2004)
!Peak<br />position
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| UK Albums (OCC)
| 7
|-
! scope="row"| US Billboard 200
| 13
|}
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
|+Year-end charts
|-
!Chart (2004)
!Position
|-
! scope="row"| UK Albums (OCC)
| 171
|}
Notes
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Contemporary articles