The End of SMiLE
I think this will be my final daily installment of info about the unfinished SMiLE album. Cheers from the crowd. Here are the last bits, mostly gleaned from Wikipedia...
A December 6, 1966 session for "Cabin Essence" was the scene of an argument between Van Dyke Parks and Mike Love after the latter requested that Parks explain the meaning of the lyrics he was to sing. Love was skeptical of Parks' lyrics, and worried that they would not be appreciated and understood by the group's fans. The obtuseness of the lyrics led him to adopt the term "acid alliteration" when describing them.
Parks later said the event marked the point in which he started distancing himself from the project. He would leave the project in April 1967, and afterwards Smile was reported to be cancelled.
The Beach Boys' failure to complete Smile is often reported as a pivotal episode marking the professional decline of the band and its leader Brian Wilson.
Brian was left psychologically scarred by the making of Smile and requested Capitol to keep the album unreleased. Derek Taylor terminated his employment with the group to focus his attention on organizing the Monterey Pop Festival, an event the Beach Boys declined to headline at the last minute. They received significant criticism for their withdrawal... the decision "had a snowballing effect" that came to represent "a damning admission that [the Beach Boys] were washed up".
Work was focused on the singles from the album... In July 1967, "Heroes and Villains" was released after months of delays. Al Jardine called the final mix a "pale facsimile" of Brian's original vision: "He purposefully under-produced the song ... It was lost because Brian wanted it to be lost. He was no longer interested in pursuing number one."
Terry Melcher recalled that, before the single was released, Wilson personally delivered an exclusive acetate of the record to radio station KHJ by limousine. As he excitedly offered the vinyl record for radio play, the DJ refused, citing program directing protocols, which Melcher said "just about killed [Brian]".
"Heroes and Villains" ultimately peaked at only number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100, and was met with confusion by the general public. Anderle said that whatever new fans the group had brought with Pet Sounds were "immediately lost with the [single]." This included Jimi Hendrix, who negatively described the song as a "psychedelic barbershop quartet" to the NME.
The Beach Boys were still under pressure and a contractual obligation to record and present an album to Capitol. Carl remembered: "Brian just said, 'I can't do this. We're going to make a homespun version of [the album] instead. We're just going to take it easy. I'll get in the pool and sing. Or let's go in the gym and do our parts.' That was Smiley Smile."
Released in September, Smiley Smile was met with mixed reviews and the group's worst sales yet, becoming the first in a seven-year string of under-performing Beach Boys albums.
Writing in The Rolling Stone Record Guide, Dave Marsh bemoaned the hype that continued to surround Wilson and the Smile project throughout the 1970s, saying: "Smile would have been a great album, we were assured each time the Beach Boys released a mediocre one. This myth remains forceful even though the title track of Surf's Up … was far less forceful and arguably less innovative than Wilson's surf-era hits." Marsh concluded: "The Smile legend is an exercise in myth-mongering almost unparalleled in show business: Brian Wilson became a Major Artist by making music that no one outside of his own coterie ever heard."
In 2004, Brian finished a version of Smile as a solo artist, Brian Wilson Presents Smile. A compilation and box set dedicated to the Beach Boys' original recordings, The Smile Sessions, ultimately followed in 2011.
A December 6, 1966 session for "Cabin Essence" was the scene of an argument between Van Dyke Parks and Mike Love after the latter requested that Parks explain the meaning of the lyrics he was to sing. Love was skeptical of Parks' lyrics, and worried that they would not be appreciated and understood by the group's fans. The obtuseness of the lyrics led him to adopt the term "acid alliteration" when describing them.
Parks later said the event marked the point in which he started distancing himself from the project. He would leave the project in April 1967, and afterwards Smile was reported to be cancelled.
The Beach Boys' failure to complete Smile is often reported as a pivotal episode marking the professional decline of the band and its leader Brian Wilson.
Brian was left psychologically scarred by the making of Smile and requested Capitol to keep the album unreleased. Derek Taylor terminated his employment with the group to focus his attention on organizing the Monterey Pop Festival, an event the Beach Boys declined to headline at the last minute. They received significant criticism for their withdrawal... the decision "had a snowballing effect" that came to represent "a damning admission that [the Beach Boys] were washed up".
Work was focused on the singles from the album... In July 1967, "Heroes and Villains" was released after months of delays. Al Jardine called the final mix a "pale facsimile" of Brian's original vision: "He purposefully under-produced the song ... It was lost because Brian wanted it to be lost. He was no longer interested in pursuing number one."
Terry Melcher recalled that, before the single was released, Wilson personally delivered an exclusive acetate of the record to radio station KHJ by limousine. As he excitedly offered the vinyl record for radio play, the DJ refused, citing program directing protocols, which Melcher said "just about killed [Brian]".
"Heroes and Villains" ultimately peaked at only number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100, and was met with confusion by the general public. Anderle said that whatever new fans the group had brought with Pet Sounds were "immediately lost with the [single]." This included Jimi Hendrix, who negatively described the song as a "psychedelic barbershop quartet" to the NME.
The Beach Boys were still under pressure and a contractual obligation to record and present an album to Capitol. Carl remembered: "Brian just said, 'I can't do this. We're going to make a homespun version of [the album] instead. We're just going to take it easy. I'll get in the pool and sing. Or let's go in the gym and do our parts.' That was Smiley Smile."
Released in September, Smiley Smile was met with mixed reviews and the group's worst sales yet, becoming the first in a seven-year string of under-performing Beach Boys albums.
Writing in The Rolling Stone Record Guide, Dave Marsh bemoaned the hype that continued to surround Wilson and the Smile project throughout the 1970s, saying: "Smile would have been a great album, we were assured each time the Beach Boys released a mediocre one. This myth remains forceful even though the title track of Surf's Up … was far less forceful and arguably less innovative than Wilson's surf-era hits." Marsh concluded: "The Smile legend is an exercise in myth-mongering almost unparalleled in show business: Brian Wilson became a Major Artist by making music that no one outside of his own coterie ever heard."
In 2004, Brian finished a version of Smile as a solo artist, Brian Wilson Presents Smile. A compilation and box set dedicated to the Beach Boys' original recordings, The Smile Sessions, ultimately followed in 2011.