Sunday, September 22, 2013

The Beach Boys - SMiLE (1967)


The Beach Boys – SMiLE
(soniclovenoize 1967 mix)
Sept 2013 UPGRADE

Side A:
1.  Our Prayer
2.  Heroes and Villains
3.  Vege-Tables
4.  Do You Like Worms?
5.  Child Is Father Of The Man
6.  The Old Master Painter
7.  Cabin Essence

Side B:
8.  Good Vibrations
9.  Wonderful
10.  I’m In Great Shape
11.  Wind Chimes
12. The Elements
13.  Surf’s Up


This is an UPGRADE to my reconstruction of The Beach Boys SMiLE album.  The goal of this reconstruction is to recreate what the SMiLE album would have sounded like in 1967 if it had actually been finished.  To do this we must discard any notion of the “correct” tracks sequence from the 2004 album Brian Wilson present SMiLE, as well the first disc of the 2011 SMiLE Sessions box set.  All original Beach Boys recording are used; no anachronistic “fly-ins” from Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE were used.  Also no digital pitch-shifting or digital extraction was used.  This is an attempt to be as authentic to the material as possible and offer a strictly 1967 version of SMiLE.  My mix is all mono (as it would have been released in 1967) but an alternate custom-made stereo mix is also included for those curious audiophiles.  The best possible source-tapes were used, almost exclusively material found on the 2011 The SMiLE Sessions box set. 

The upgrades in this Sept 2013 edition are:
- The true stereo 1967 “Our Prayer” from the Made in California boxset (as opposed to my synch of the mono 1967 version with the stereo 1969 version)
- My own upgraded stereo mix of “Child Is Father of The Man”, increasing the volume of the vocal track. 
- A completely new stereo remix of “Cabin Essence” sources from recreated mutlitracks.
-  My own upgraded stereo mix of “Old Master Painter” with a more accurate synch of the backing and vocal tracks
 - The mono mix of “Good Vibrations” from the 2012 Smiley Smile remaster replaces the previous version, the mono master from the 40th Anniversary EP, because of better dynamic range/less brickwalled compression.
-  My own upgraded stereo mix of “Good Vibrations”, increasing the volume of the vocal track. 
-  My own upgraded true stereo mix of “Wonderful” instead of my previous ‘duophonic’ mix.  Note that this even improves upon my new stereo mix from last week’s update of my 2004 SMiLE.  Here, I used the backing vocals from 2011’s The SMiLE Sessions, synched to the mono mix found on the 1993 Good Vibrations box set.  The slight variance of EQ and pitch between the 1993 and 2011 remasters are enough to make the synched backing vocals really stand out and give it a larger perceived stereophonic spread. 
- A completely new mono edit of “Wind Chimes” with a different recording as the tag, closer to Brian Wilson’s vintage acetates.  A new stereo mix was also made of my new “Wind Chimes” edit. 


Much has been written about the unreleased album SMiLE; even more so in recent history due to The SMiLE Sessions boxset.  The first disc of the set was purported to be an accurate reconstruction of what SMiLE would have been.  But is it so?  In fact it is not: the tracklist is based upon the sequence found on Brian Wilson’s 2004 solo album Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE, in which the great artist finally “finished SMiLE”.  Well surely, that was how SMiLE was supposed to sound?  It is not: that sequence was devised by The Brian Wilson Band musical director Darian Sahanaja for the purpose of the previous year’s SMiLE Tour, as an interesting live performance that showcased all of the known and popular SMiLE tracks.  Furthermore, his vision of SMiLE seemed to be greatly influenced by sequences found on known bootlegs in the 1990s as well as fan fiction on their own SMiLE mixes.  As a matter of fact, Brian Wilson himself has admitted that what we think of as the “finished SMiLE” is not what it would have sounded like in 1967; Wilson himself didn’t even know what it would have sounded like, even in 1967!  By spring 1967, the album itself was abandoned and he focused on two songs for a single release (“Heroes and Villains” and “Vege-Tables”) and the structure of those two songs changed from day to day!  By the time Wilson had finally resolved upon a final “Heroes and Villains”, the song was convoluted and lacking the magic of the original versions, as well as the magic the rest of the albums’ sessions implied. 

How could we possibly assemble something that Brian Wilson himself couldn’t?  Fans and SMiLE aficionados have been spending the last 40 years making their own SMiLE mixes, so it’s not an unreachable dream.  After a decade of research, I believe I have found a method to make an extremely educated guess to what the album contained and how it was structured.  First and foremost, I offer that SMiLE would have been a singular two-sided album of 12 pop-songs, just as Pet Sounds was; not three conceptual suites or movements.  Although, I do believe it was Wilson’s intention to make the 12 individual pop songs mostly connected or related—modulations of a theme over an album, just as each of the 12 songs were written in a modular fashion.  Evidence of this can be seen in how the discarded pieces of “Heroes and Villains” became their own songs as well as re-occurring musical motifs and arrangements.  So while each of the two sides of the album may be segued as a continuous piece, they are not necessarily organized by a “concept”. 

But of all the many pieces recorded for SMiLE what would be included?  Our first clue is found in a handwritten tracklist addressed to Capitol Records, which was used to manufacture LP mock-up artwork for the album.  The tracks included, in this order: “Do You Like Worms?”, “Wind Chimes”, “Heroes and Villains”, “Surf’s Up”, “Good Vibrations”, “Cabin Essence”, “Wonderful”, “I’m In Great Shape”, “Child Is Father Of The Man”, “The Elements”, “Vege-Tables” and “The Old Master Painter”.  Any astute listener who can make a playlist will know this is a terrible track sequence for an album; there is no flow or cohesion and the two sides do not time-out correctly.  A listen to this sequence is honestly rather jarring and confusing.  My theory is that this was not the specific track order but instead this is a shortlist of the songs that would make the final album.  For a more authentic 1967 SMiLE, we must base our tracklist on these 12 songs.  Thus certain SMiLE staples not included on the list such as “Look”, “He Gives Speeches” or “Holidays” would be excluded from the final running order.  The one exception is “Our Prayer” used as an (uncredited) opening track outside of the twelve, which was Brian Wilson’s intention at the time.

Our next step is to take these twelve (thirteen counting “Our Prayer”) and organize them into two sides of an LP.  My theory to create an authentic 1967 reconstruction is to make what I call a ‘SMiLE Sandwich’.  First we must get two slices of bread for our sandwich: the opening and closing tracks of each side of the LP.  If SMiLE was simply going to be a modest follow-up to the previous album Pet Sounds, then we can postulate that it could have followed industry standards in the 1960s with each side of the album beginning with one of the songs promoted as a single.  While this rule of thumb is of course not universal, it at least is the case with both Pet Sounds and Smiley Smile and I believe would have a high probability of being true.  For my reconstruction, I chose “Heroes and Villains” to open side A (directly after “Our Prayer” of course) and “Good Vibrations” to open side B.  I do not feel “Good Vibrations” would have closed the album, as that was a specific choice by Darian Sahanaja as a casual-fan-favorite set-closer, based on 30 years of hindsight that “Good Vibrations” has become the quintessential song of the 1960s, let alone of The Beach Boys’ career.  It seems more likely in 1967 it would have been simply tagged on to the beginning of side B as Capitol Record’s cash-cow.  More-than-coincidentally, that is exactly how the song appeared on the final Smiley Smile album anyways. 

To close each side of the LP, I took the ethos of George Martin, the producer of Brian’s chief competition and self-proclaimed ‘brother across the ocean’: close each side with the song that simply can’t be followed.  Out of the ten remaining songs left on our shortlist, “Surf’s Up” and “Cabin Essence” are the two most epic songs, and both actually closed the Surf’s Up and 20/20 albums years later.  Since “Surf’s Up” is probably the greatest achievement of this album and praised as one of Brian Wilson’s greatest songs, I chose to conclude side B of the album with it, relegating “Cabin Essence” to close side A.  Now we have the ‘bread’ of our ‘SMiLE Sandwich’: “Heroes and Villains” and “Cabin Essence”; “”Good Vibrations” and “Surf’s Up”. 

Next we arrange the ‘meat’ of our ‘SMiLE Sandwich’…  We have ten remaining songs, many of them linked musically and conceptually.  I offer that we abandon the notion that the songs are linked thematically and conceptually.  I believe the belief that the songs fit into two conceptual movements (‘Americana’, ‘Elemental’) is a modern invention, first an observation by SMiLE researcher Domenic Priore and perpetuated out of convenience, never truly confirmed by Brian Wilson in a primary source.  Instead we must focus solely on the musical connections.  We can match up a number of the songs that correlate musically: the ending of “Child Is Father of The Man” is literally the beginning of “The Old Master Painter” thus the two should be paired; the arpeggio piano ending of “Do You like Worms?” fits into the similar arrangements in “Wonderful” and even closer to “Child is Father of The Man”, thus making two different possible song-sequences; the end of “Wind Chimes” segues easily into many of “The Elements” pieces (notably both “I Love To Say Dada” and “Fire (intro)”), which opens some possibilities.  Knowing how these aforementioned songs should be grouped together we can easily fit eight of these ten remaining songs into the LP sides: “Do You like Worms?” into “Wonderful” into “Child Is Father of The Man” into “Old Master Painter” completing side A; the remaining “Wind Chimes” into “The Elements” on side B.  This leaves just the stand-alone tracks “Vege-Tables” and “I’m In Great Shape” to fill in the gap on side B.  While this was my original intention for an “authentic” 1967 tracklist, I found the album sides a bit lopsided with a 20-minuite side A and a 17 minute side B.  A solution can be found in the final tracklist of Smiley Smile: if you swap “Wonderful” to side B and “Vege-Tables” to side A, the result is two 18-minte sides.  Perfection! 

A thorough track-by-track examination of my 1967 SMiLE reconstruction opens with “Our Prayer” which is followed closely by what is known as the ‘Cantina’ version of “Heroes and Villains”, what I believe would have been the version of the song released on the SMiLE album in 1967.  It is most certainly not what I call 'The Kitchen Sink' version that appeared on BWPS and TSS and we need to accept that many, many song fragments will be left on the cutting room floor.  It is of relevance however that many extra sections—including “Gee” and it’s variations, the experimental ‘Swedish Frog’ segment’ and the ‘Prelude to Fade’ segment—constitute what I believe is the theoretical “Heroes and Villains part 2” track, what many believe would have been the b-side to the single.  These specific segments were all recorded after the ‘Cantina’ version was prepared, yet before the album was abandoned and “Heroes and Villains” got a complete facelift.  They theory is that Brian Wilson recorded these parts specifically for the b-side rather than for “Heroes and Villains” proper.  Regardless, “Heroes and Villains part 2” is not included in this album reconstruction, as it would not have been on the album in 1967.  My stereo mix of “Heroes and Villains” is 75% in stereo, as the verse sections in this ‘Cantina version’—which contained the superior vocal performances—are not available in stereo, existing only in a mono master. 

In a move similar to what was officially released on Smiley Smile, “Heroes and Villains” is followed by “Vege-Tables”.  Its construction follows the blueprint found on TSS, as the song never really had a finalized structure in the first place.  One alteration I made was the removal of the third verse as I thought it was lyrically redundant and it disrupted the gradual ‘winding-down’ flow of the song. 

My own unique construction of “Do You Like Worms?” follows.  Although based on Mark Linett’s construction from 1993, it presumably follows how Brian intended the structure to be.  Note that in my stereo mix—created from synching the isolated vocals to the assembled backing tracks—the tack piano of the ‘Bicycle Rider’ theme pre-chorus travels from right to left stereophonically, reminiscent of the Pilgrims and Pioneers during the Western Expansion of the US—who The Bicycle Rider presents!  

A slight fade and hard edit into the similar arpeggio of “Child Is Father of The Man”, Mark Linett’s mix is used since he emulated vintage Brian Wilson edits found on 1967 acetates.  My stereo mix here is created by synching the mono mix with vocals to the assembled stereo backing tracks to create a convincing stereophonic spectrum. 

The ending is crossfaded into “The Old Master Painter” (is it a coincidence that one song ends with the cello playing the exact same phrase?  I think not!).  My stereo mix uses the mono mix with vocals to literally replace the isolated right channel, which would ordinarily include the cellos anyways.  Also the track concludes with the alternate, re-recorded “Heroes and Villains Fade”.   We know that at one time the original “Heroes and Villains Fade” that was used in the ‘Cantina’ mix featured here was also at one time used to end “You Are My Sunshine” but with an alternate vocal.  Since the fragment is already in use on my mix concluding “Heroes and Villains”, it cannot be used to conclude “The Old Master Painter”.  The solution is to use this alternate re-recording, which features a more appropriate bird whistle anyways. 

The side concludes with “Cabin Essence” of course.  My stereo mix was created by remixing from a facsimile mastertape: a synch of the stereo backing tracks found on TSS, the backing vocals found on TSS and the isolated lead vocals extracted from a Center Channel Elimination technique (out-of-phase) applied to the Good Vibrations box set master of the track.  The result is a fuller stereophonic mix with the instruments panned left and right and the lead vocals center, rather than vice versa as per the common 20/20 version. 

Side B opens with the label’s aforementioned ‘cash cow’ “Good Vibrations” which some believe was never meant to be on SMiLE in the first place, but was forced on by the label.  Regardless of the truth to that rumor, it fits sonically and compositionally and its placement here is much like that on the final Smiley Smile album.  My stereo mix synchs the mono mix with the stereo backing tracks, effectively removing the ‘tape wow’ in the first verse as well as prolonging the fade-out that ends, in my opinion, much too quickly. 

“Wonderful” follows, one of the few songs actually finished in 1966 by Brian.  The single version is used here, as that is the version that would have been on SMiLE.  My stereo mix is a synch of the mono mix found on the Good Vibrations box set panned at one o’clock, to the isolated backing vocals found on TSS panned at seven o’clock.  This creates the illusion of a wider stereophonic spectrum, something that was never previously possible without messy digital extraction or ridiculous duophonic mixing. 

Next is “I’m In Great Shape”, one of the great mysteries for SMiLE historians.  What exactly was this track supposed to include?  Surely the minute-long fragment was meant for more, or at least intentionally contained more?  There are some who believe that Brian Wilson intended a four-part barnyard suite for SMiLE, stemming from a 1970s interview with Brian.  While this was never verified past that singular reference (and others assume Wilson was mistaken and in actuality confused it with his four-part Elements suite), my reconstruction makes the extrapolation that “I’m In Great Shape” was this four-part barnyard suite.  In order to complete it, we need to find its three brother pieces.  An easy task, as the fragment “Barnyard” is an obvious choice and fits as an introduction to the suite (it is in the same key as the “I’m in Great Shape” fragment and both originate as castoff fragments/ideas for “Heroes and Villains”).  We also know that the songs “I Wanna Be Around” and “Workshop Song” were labeled as “Great Shape” on the recording tape box.  Assuming they were labeled correctly we can tag these two fragments to the end of the “I’m In Great Shape” fragment—the same conclusion Sahanaja came to in 2003!—and conclude our four-part ‘barnyard suite’ as the longer piece “I’m in Great Shape”.   Contrary to Carol Kaye’s quip, I do not believe “Workshop” is “rebuilding after the fire”, but in fact building a barn. 

Following is “Wind Chimes”, the second song that was actually completed by Brian Wilson in 1966/1967.  Here we use a model of the Linnett mix on the Good Vibrations boxset--modeled after vintage Brian Wilson acetates--but utilizing the better sources found on TSS boxset.  The separate ‘triple piano’ tag replaces the tag from the full-band recording on TSS, giving the track an even more extreme dynamic range. 

The final great SMiLE mystery is the track “The Elements”.  What exactly constituted each of the four-part suite?  We know that “Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow” was the ‘Fire’ sections, but that’s about it.  My reconstruction postulates, as many others have before me, that the separate song “Wind Chimes” represented the ‘Wind’ section and “I Love To Say Dada”—the song that eventually evolved into “Cool Cool Water” represented the ‘Water’ section.  Many postulate “Vege-Tables” as the ‘Earth’ section, but I propose that “I’m In Great Shape” is a more appropriate contender for the ‘Earth’ section; surely barnyards and the ‘the great agriculture’ is more earthy than sleeping a lot and brushing your teeth?  Thus the actual track “The Elements” are the combinations of ‘Fire’ and ‘Water’, the two elements that did not receive their own separate track proper.  Here I used the “Heroes and Villains Intro” as many others have as an introduction to ‘Fire’ (the sound of firetrucks!); while this was not a vintage Brian Wilson decision, the piece is fair game since it was not used in the actual “Heroes and Villains” track.  Following my own edit of “Mrs O’Leary’s Cow” with three repeats of the main musical passage before the breakdown and ending, we then have the assembled two sections of “I Love To Say Dada.”  Instead of using the common mix with Mike Love’s (quite literally) infantile lyrics, I have chosen to create an entirely new ‘Water’ section by synching up the “Underwater Chant” from TSS, as well as inserting the flute and percussion flourishes from a completely different recording of the song.  The result is a more conceptual elemental track that fits much better with its sister “Mrs O’Leary’s Cow”.  Also note that the droning “Water Chant” piece found preceding “I Love To Say Dada” on BWPS and TSS was excluded as it was recorded a year after SMiLE was abandoned, and was thus not part of the intended album. 

My SMiLE reconstruction concludes with the only song that could possibly conclude it, “Surf’s Up”, SMiLE’s “A Day In The Life”.  Here I simply used Mark Linnett’s mix from TSS that reinstates Brian’s vocal to the instrumental and the album concludes with the reprised musical themes from side A, specifically “Child Is Father of The Man”.  The stereo mix is sourced from the double vinyl TSS.      

This resulting SMiLE is concise, yet articulate in direction.  Sure, it lacks many of the sections and secondary songs we’ve grown to love over the years, but really, would there have been a place for EVERYTHiNG on SMiLE?  Probably not.  My conclusion is that many modern SMiLE reconstructions—notably BWPS and TSS—suffer from the aforementioned 'Kitchen Sink' phenomenon; we forget that just because it could fit, doesn’t mean it should.  SMiLE would have been as modest as Pet Sounds, albeit her more eccentric sister.  Everything is a progression and evolution is a slow, gradual process.  SMiLE in 1967 may not have been the epic symphony for God as it was in 2004 or 2011, but had it been released in 1967 as it is reconstructed here, who knows what could have followed in 1968 or 1969? 


Sources used:
Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of The Beach Boys (1993 CD box set)
Good Vibrations (2006 40th Anniversary CD EP)
Made in California (2013 CD box set)
Smiley Smile (2012 CD remaster)
The SMiLE Sessions (2011 CD box set)
The SMiLE Sessions (2011 LP, son-of-albion vinyl rip)


flac --> wav --> editing in SONAR, Audacity & Goldwave --> flac encoding via TLH lv8
*md5, artwork and tracknotes included


42 comments:

  1. I've been enjoying immensely your 2004 reconstruction upgrade this past week, and have been anticipating this 1967 upgrade as well. Thank you very much. This is truly appreciated for sure. I love the material from this era of the band, and am glad that so much of it has become available in recent years to play with. Now to find a good mono reconstruction of the 2004 version using all 1967 material..

    ReplyDelete
  2. These are so special (and ear-opening)--I really appreciate your hard work and dedication! Thanks so much!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Good Vibrations really stands out. I'm also hearing a lot of vocal parts I never heard before, especially on CIFOTM.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great job as always. However, if instead of swapping "Vege-Tables" and "Wonderful," and ended side B with "You're Welcome" you'd manage to balance the times for the two sides as well. I've always thought that "You're Welcome" is a great bookend to "Our Prayer"

    ReplyDelete
  5. It's a shame that "Prelude to Fade" could not make it into the mix, as I feel this is perhpas the best 10 seconds or so of music that BW ever produced (California Girls intro aside). That said, this has to be by far the best SMiLE mix I have ever heard.
    I thought the Purple Chick interpretation was good, bu this beats it. You have really managed to capture the essence of the album, and keeping to mostly pre-spring 67 material is to your credit. Love the way the 'countryside' arrives just before Cabinessence.

    After 20 years or so of hearing fragments I feel now I have finally heard SMiLE! There was something about the BWPS version I could never get into.

    Outstanding.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hey sonic, why not using the stereo version that now appears on the re-issue of Smiley Smile with the extracted vocals? It sounds great, the mastering is spot on too!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Great work Sonic, sorry to put a damper on your sterling efforts but I’m getting md5 checksum fails on all the FLAC tracks for this release. How do they look for you if you download from Zippy? (Just so you know “Hendrix - First Rays of the New Rising Sun”, “Frank Zappa - WOIIFTM Uncensored UPGRADE”, “The Doors - Celebration of The Lizard”, “Velvet Underground - IV” all verified fine. “Beach Boys - Landlocked” had an error on Susie Cincinnati and Mars Volta had an error on Track 1 Frances the Mute. All FLAC versions). PS I’ve downloaded these multiple times to minimise the chance of a download glitch.

    ReplyDelete
  8. just passed by to say this post made a huge impression in my life, thanks so much. I fear I'd never listen to Smile if it wasn't by you! keep the magic flowing! cheers

    ReplyDelete
  9. Great job on this Sonic. I think this is probably as close as possible to getting a 1967 version of SMILE as we can get. People tend to forget in their reconstructions the time limits imposed by the lps of that time, and while there is so much SMILE material, it does have to be edited to fit the LP restriction. You have done an amazing job here. Not only did George Martin use the method you employed, but I've also read noted producer Gary Usher did the same, in regards to programming sides of lps, and your historical knowledge of this and placement of "hits " has added to the legitimacy of making this as close to what SMILE, had it been finished at the time, may have sounded like. Again, many thanks for this and all your other fine efforts.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Wow. Really amazing to hear this. Great job. Thanks :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. This is what I've been waiting to hear since the "Brian Wilson Presents Smile" release, which I find sonically boring. I wanted to hear this amazing music played by The Wrecking Crew in amazing studios. Et voila. Many thanks for a huge job well done.

    ReplyDelete
  12. This is amazing!I grew up listening to the Beach Boys as a little kid, my older sister had all their albums & singles before the Beatles came to the U.S.
    My Mom bought me Surf's Up when it was first released and I really loved it! Even though I grew up listening to my sisters albums of the early Beach Boys and I love them I would have to say my top 3 favorite albums are Pet Sounds, Surf's Up and The Holland album.
    Thanks for writing this.
    Is the mp3 link above your version of Smile?
    Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  13. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Man, you did an amazing job with the stereo version! The mono is superb but really nice job on the separating of instruments on these mixes. Nicely done.

      Delete
  14. This is really amazing! I am a very recent fan of The Beach Boys, and after starting with Pet Sounds I went on and got the Smile Sessions CD. I liked it a lot, but felt it was just so random and chaotic. You'd have these extremely complicated songs with layers upon layers that sounded like Pet Sounds taken to the next level, and then several tracks of just meandering noise. Having done a lot of research since then, I don't think the Smile we finally got is the Smile we would have got in 1967 or whatever if Brian Wilson hadn't given up on it.

    Your reconstruction is simply a joy to listen to. It cuts out the stuff that I am nearly certain Brian Wilson would have either thrown away or incorporated as a layer or section in another completed song, and makes the album sound killer from start to end.

    ReplyDelete
  15. This here is for you Beach Boys fans, but mostly to you SLN: http://www.demonoid.pw/files/details/3403776/28713084/

    ReplyDelete
  16. This is excellent! Been looking for a mix as good as this since I first discovered Smile. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  17. I think if smile went out in 1967 it Would be true épic and avant garde That could really change the all time perception of how to make pop músic.it s so far superior of sargent pepper

    ReplyDelete
  18. Amazing work here. Through googling your name way too much I saw that you did some slight variations to this version of Smile. Would you ever consider uploading the new version? pretty please? haha

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yep. Since posting this four years ago, I have made a few alterations: the full 3-minute "Child is Father of the Man" as per Brian's rough mix, a completely different stand-alone "The Elements" (which doesn't require "Wind Chimes" etc) and a remix of the stereo "Cabin Essence". I never thought the changes were big enough to warrant a full upgrade, so I never posted it. But a handful of people have requested it, so yes I will upload it. You can expect it sometime soon, although there are other things I want to upload first, before it. Expect upgrades every-over-month.

      Delete
  19. I'm trying to Contact SonicLoveNoize but they would not let me post on lastfm even after I joined. I wanted to suggest you do a remix of Friends, what it should have been. There were two tracks recorded at the time Friends (Time to Get Alone and I Went to Sleep) but appeared on 20/20 that should be used to replace a few of the weaker tracks of Friends of which there are arguably two or three. Let me know if you want to discuss my idea. Really anyone can put the album together. Brian Wilson has said this is his favorite albums, and if you add those two tracks and subtract a few others, it really is a perfect mature Beach Boys album in B. Wilson's real voice. It should be the version of Friends that everyone knows. Aperer@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gimme the master tapes, and I'd love to remix it!

      Delete
  20. Hey is there any way for you to do a stereo mix of the version of good vibrations on the vinyl? with the more widely known lyrics instead of the one on the 2004 rerecording? I would very much like to have that if that's okay.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I believe that an official stereo "extraction" mix is on the newest remaster of Smiley Smile.

      Delete
  21. Cara, sou do Brasil! Vai no google para traduzir rsrsrs !! parabéns pelo trabalho! Estou ouvindo sua versão Smile na selva Amazônia! Creio que a falta da tecnologia e boa vontade, fez Smile ficar anonimo por tantos anos! Mas hoje percebo que a obra pop ainda está a frente de 2018 !! Obrigado!

    ReplyDelete
  22. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  23. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Thanks for the amazing work and for giving so much detail about the playing order. It all really got me thinking so I have a lot to say. I couldn't agree more with the "12 pop songs" approach instead of forcing a concept. But what amazed me is that although you focused on musical connections as opposed to any concepts, your original playing order before swapping "Wonderful" and "Vega-Tables" strongly resembles what someone following the proposed "Americana/Elemental" sides might come up with, particularly this one from the Domenic Priore's book:

    Side A (described as American Gothic side):
    1. Heroes and Villains
    2. Do You Like Worms
    3. The Old Master Painter
    4. Wonderful
    5. Child Is Father of the Man
    6. Our Prayer
    7. Cabin Essence

    Side B:
    8. Good Vibrations
    9. Vega-Tables
    10. Wind Chimes
    11. Mrs O'Leary's Cow
    12. Cool Cool Water
    13. Surf's Up

    The order is different, but the way the songs are grouped into sides is nearly identical. The only real difference in that regard is that "Im In Great Shape" is unlisted and included with "H&V" on Side A. I'm sure this isn't news to you, and of course I know some of these similarities are just because of logical album construction, but the fact that your great ear for the musical connections ended up falling into place in a way that also seems to make sense thematically is kind of a revelation to me. Two different approaches ended up with a pretty similar result. It is as modest as Pet Sounds, but it's also open to the more conceptual interpretations without making them the main goal of the sequence. In that way, that original playing order you came up with feels definitive to me. Whether I want to listen to 12 pop songs or a conceptual album, that order could fit the bill. It seems to solve both puzzles at once, and that's hard to ignore, even as someone who didn't really buy in to the two movements theory.

    All that said I understand the desire to make the sides more even, and putting Vega-Tables second like on Smiley Smile is a sound fix. I have a playlist with the "lopsided" version too though. I wonder how your new updates would impact the length of the sides? Regardless, I'm really excited for the update. Thanks again.

    ReplyDelete
  25. just found your site and have downloaded many of your efforts. As an owner of perhaps 15 versions of Smile most notably PurpleChicks various revisits I look forward to this one. Ive always found Brians 2004 a bit bland- and discordant. youve done Amazing work- cant wait to get into it!

    ReplyDelete
  26. Brilliant. I love this version. It feels much closer to a 'real' Smile sequence than we got on the official Smile CD, and recaptures my thrill an wonderment of hearing the early Vigatone and Sea of Tunes CDs. And as usual I enjoyed your well-reasoned account of the construction process :)

    Thank-you!

    ReplyDelete
  27. Hello,

    Thank you for your meticulous dedication to this unfinished album. Your thoughtful explanations of your process creating this track list ring true to me. I am convinced this is the closest thing we have to the original 1967 version of the album.

    We will never know, in this lifetime, what would have been, but I am thrilled to have this masterful approximation. Thank you for your time!

    ReplyDelete
  28. can someone send me this? download link is down

    ReplyDelete
  29. This sounds so interesting. Is there a download link. I can't see one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. https://albumsthatneverwere.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-beach-boys-smile-upgrade.html

      Delete
  30. Thank you for the link. Listening to it now.

    ReplyDelete
  31. This is great. Thank you so much. I've listened to many mixes and they're all very clever. But this is the one that most closely captures what Capitol might have accepted and released in '67. As a 17 year old in '67, it seems about right. For my personal preference I've substituted You're With Me Tonight (because I like it) for The Elements (because it's too far out for me). But well done - you're very skilled.

    ReplyDelete
  32. I just left such a lengthy comment about my love for your SMiLE reconstruction on a more recent post of yours that I will refrain from repeating myself again here, just one more BIG THANK YOU for your hard work and the '1967 soniclovenoize' 'SMiLE is now my go-to recommendation for anyone that asks 'How can I get into that record? I don't know even know where to START, man!'. The answer is easy now thanks to your work --- I just wanted to copy/paste one sentence from your terrific essay on this earlier post, as it seems to sum up what makes this SMiLE such a good SMiLE: 'SMiLE would have been as modest as Pet Sounds, albeit her more eccentric sister.' Perfectly formulated, many thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  33. Updated link please. I have been a fan of your work since discovering Lifehouse. Would really love to hear your mix of this album. Love and Mercy. Thxs.

    ReplyDelete