#399 Brian Wilson, 'Smile' (2004)
New Entry
This may sound surprising but this was the record that got me into The Beach Boys. This record had a major impact on my life. I clearly remember the day I discovered this album. I was working nightshift in a CD store. That night, I was packing away the CDs, as I did every night, and this one piqued my interest. I knew who Brian Wilson was. I had seen him performing at the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebration just two years prior. I knew he was from the Beach Boys. I’d heard the legendary stories about the piano in the sandbox and all the rest. I obviously knew the hits. But I didn’t know this album, and I was intrigued that he had included ‘Good Vibrations’ on this album. I took the album home that night, put it on in the car on the way and had my little mind blown. I listened to it over and over and over. As this was the only copy in the store, I hid it until I could afford to buy it at the end of the month. After this album came ‘Pet Sounds’ (yes, I heard this before ‘Pet Sounds’!) and then the rest. This record is as near to perfect that an album can be.
This album was meant to be the follow up to the groundbreaking, earth-shattering record, ‘Pet Sounds.’ It started with ‘Good Vibrations,’ a song that was recorded in 4 different studios, consumed over 90 hours of tape and included multiple keys, textures, moods and instrumentations. The song brought Wilson, an already fragile man, to the brink. As he progressed with the album, the grand scale of the recordings and production broke him down even further until he was eventually insisting everyone wear fire helmets in the studio as a bucket of burning wood burnt as they recorded ‘Mrs O’Leary’s Cow,’ a song referencing the incident that started the Great Chicago Fire. There was the previously mentioned sandbox; he had placed his piano in the sandbox to ensure it had a “beachy” type sound. Brian Wilson eventually broke down mentally and this album was shelved. 38 years later he re-recorded it as a solo album giving us as close as we’d ever come to hearing the sounds in his head, his intention for this album. The sketches of this album did actually show up in the last countdown, but I prefer this version and I’m so glad it was included. And honestly, try and not get goosebumps when after the rollercoaster of emotions that this album invoked it segues from ‘In Blue Hawaii’ to ‘Good Vibrations.’
#rs500albums