The Beach Boys – Smile AKA The Smile Sessions

Back after he’d practically created, all by himself, the flawless sounds on Pet Sounds, Brian Wilson was definitely reaching for the stars even further with the ideas for Smile. Continually fueled by whatever it was The Beatles were doing at the time (it was Rubber Soul that had inspired Pet Sounds, it was followed by Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles in the same year! And Brian was feeling very very unsure about his skill), while still trying to create his own wall of sound, he was a fully realized artist, simply trying to find his way. After he had perfected his own style of production and vocalizing, the heavy realization that the follow up to Pet Sounds had to be utterly amazing set deeply in. Fortunately for all us, it ended up being just that, it just never received the proper release and fanfare it deserved.

Part of the dissolution fueled from the fact that Brian wanted to work with the famed Van Dyke Parks. Yes, the same one I mentioned from the Ys post, here Brian wanted to work with Parks so he could be his ultimate lyricist. Van Dyke Parks can deliver flourishing arrangements and music like he provided for Joanna Newsom in 2006 and also the trippy, inspiring lyrics to match Brian’s music in the late 60s. The Beach Boys were still a band though and if you ask me, they probably weren’t too fond of Brian working exclusively with this Parks’ character. They probably pressured the situation, they probably vented frustration, they probably made it very hard for Smile to have a fluid release. And eventually, instead of truly breaking up the band by taking Brian with him and running off in the sunset to make beautiful music together, Parks left the project and Brian eventually shelved Smile.

In the 2000s the pressure to release the album mounted, and rather than re-opening that vault, Brian recorded SMiLE with Parks for a 2004 release that was easily one of the best of that year. Finally, in 2011, Smile saw its release as The Beach Boys collected all the music together and released it. I just very recently got this vinyl version as an xmas present and wow, vinyl is the way to go! And while there are so many other details to cover about its story(ies), it’s best to let the music do its talking. Beginning with “Our Prayer,” here was a pure choral arrangement, a beautiful chorus of angels that are simply singing directly from heaven if there is one. All of the Beach Boys’ voices are present and the melody and harmonies are downright impeccable: a solemn, minute of bliss, perfection to start. Then it’s a minute of the chugging “Gee,” it sounds like the car getting ready to take off, before they finally sing, “how I love my girl” and the small introduction to “Heroes and Villains.” Here their voices sound unified and full of life, if only they saw it all the way through. And the actual “Heroes and Villains” song is a ravishing tale of love lost, drunken nights and the same old ‘bad guys/good guys’ story. Supposedly this song was written very quickly as Brian and Parks capitalized on their chemistry: legend says that Parks came up with the words after hearing Brian’s melody the very first time. It changes styles to accompany the vocals and the directly fast-paced style introduced a terrifically towering new style to The Beach Boys, not likely heard on Pet Sounds.

One of the other songs they created in timely fashion was “Surf’s Up,” and honestly, that has to be one of the finest songs on Smile. There’s this fanfare from the trumpet at the beginning, as Brian sings words about feeling lost and definitely like everything is moving away. The other voices are playing a feature in the background and the pensive feel of the song allows for the emotion to really come through. The first part is much more atmospheric, the second part showcases the piano and the voices even more. The tiny adjustments in dynamics and how it just speeds up and slows down, all controlled by the piano, is masterful: and singing about a “broken man, too tough to cry.” It changes into perhaps a last section, where the “surf’s up” is finally sung and while it’s now very clear that the star of the show on this song is Brian’s voice as it supports the piano line, the culmination at the end is justified. These are just a couple of the songs off this amazing album that at least finally did get released. – Bryan

Joanna Newsom - Ys

So I decided to post that classical bit, for the first time in a long time, and I only briefly researched what the Debussy piece, The Sunken Cathedral, meant. That’s where I found the picture I used, which is the Wikipedia image for Ys. Basically, it’s a myth where a cathedral is sunk underwater, near the island of Ys (a mythicaly city that was swallowed by the ocean) and it just so happens that Joanna Newsom (who I’ve written about three times already but never about this album) made an album in 2006 titled, Ys. In turn, this is an equally, amazingly classical slice of life, in it of itself.

 

I knew nothing of this woman until the winter of 2006 when this remarkable album came out.* Some kind of fusion of classical music, by way of Newsom’s tremendous harp skill and the way she blends it with the orchestrations Van Dyke Parks (the guy who helped Brian Wilson write the lyrics to the majority of Smile [i.e. The Smile Sessions/SMiLE]) has crafted, it’s one magical dream of truly classical music. There are clarinets, flutes, plenty of strings; they all flourish together and her harp acts as the meter to it all, while her voice? Her voice is a mixture of far too many to even do it justice. Needless to say, it’s certainly an instrument all its own: it bounces from measure to measure, she reaches through octaves rather easily and wondering “how it could possibly go with anything else but the beautiful compositions that are happening around her?” it makes Ys something truly exceptional. All of this happens on “Monkey & Bear” and "Cosmia," 40% of the entire music here:  the way the dynamics really measure up to each other – the dipping fortes, the delicate pianos, the way her voice is always the star of the show – and on top of this, still to behold, are these richly decorated stories that she’s telling. 

As insincere as it seems, there are still moments of clarity on Ys, where everything is so crystal clear the mind is left to just get lost – in utter awe of what a creative mind is capable of: multifaceted stories, moving and gripping music, encompassing themes of life and adventure, the uniquely stellar quality of a blisteringly gorgeous voice – and knowing how to present it. It was the true depiction of what a bold artist is supposed to create in music: BOOM, here’s my album, in full-glory and it’s perfect, all myriad of sounds inside. It’s five songs long, but a hearty fifty-five minutes of substantially expansive music. Yeah fifty five minutes of bliss – it sounds so nice on headphones, with the vinyl, as loud as possible: you can hear her voice quiver as she breathes, the voice is simply amplified and it shrieks so sweetly – if that makes sense.There’s times where the harp is just chugging along, while the wind instruments bellow behind her, as a drum pounds away, and her voice is recounting this story of the old times – that there’s justice in taking it all in with a book of the lyrics.

*I just remember in early December looking for the newest music and I was reading comments about how the newfound critics were gushing about this new album by Newsom. The cover was shocking sure, it’s easily one of the best in retrospect. And for some reason, people seemed conflicted as to whether they purely loved it or confusingly despised it. That was enough for me to check it out, in entirety, and mind blown is lame for sure but it still sounds fitting when it comes to this album. (I think back in 2006 I was so head over heels for BH&R that this one still maybe wasn’t the top choice (pretty sure it was 2 w/ a bullet) it might still be there now in retrospect, maybe tied for the top. Who knows, for now just classical bliss in the new  age (i.e. six/seven years old).) – Bryan