[music] BRIAN WILSON - Smile

[dot_fennel]

Sometimes I have to hear something's antecedents to stop being annoyed by it. I like Tori Amos, but I don't like everything about her; some of her quirks, though, became more palatable to me once I heard Kate Bush. Her early records were SO obviously the context for some of Tori's idiosyncracies that my opinion of both shifted once I made the connection. Context almost always dissipates annoyance.

So, I've never heard a Beach Boys record; this is my first, if it counts. And it's wholly an exception to what I just wrote: its similarities to, say, the Elephant 6 style just bother me more. And that lolloping piano rhythm! It won't stop!

I gather this recording is, to some extent, of recent vintage, but honestly, the most irritating aspects are things that sound familiar from the Beach Boys singles I've heard over the years. I feel grumpy.

Comments

[dilletante.livejournal.com]

i was waiting for you to write about smile, since seeing a long article in reason magazine about it, and some other references in various papers.

the beach boys may be the earliest pop music i ever thought of as a guilty pleasure. :)

i haven't heard smile, though; and i do get the impression that it's the result of 20 years of brian wilson's artistic vision diving headlong into the ether. maybe it would help to listen to something earlier?

[dot_fennel]

The folks at Pfork and on my music mailing lists seem to agree that this release of Smile is authentically "how it was always intended to be" in some important sense (and they also seem to like it)-- not to say that I might not enjoy a real Beach Boys album, but as with some other bands, I have provisionally concluded that going and listening to their records isn't going to be what makes me like them.

[dilletante.livejournal.com]

i've been running in other contexts into this question of whether or not it's necessarily a good thing for an artist's vision to be fully and authentically realized. i'm undecided, and i suspect it depends wildly on the artist. but i would contend that whether or not smile is "how it was always intended to be" doesn't necessarily bear on whether or not it is the thing that people liked about the beach boys' music (unless, of course, that's the sense in which your peers meant it, and it's the same sense in which the beach boys-influenced bands you're thinking of would also mean it)...

of course, it could also be that you'll hate them. :)

[rieux.livejournal.com]

It seems that SMiLE is a note-for-note rerecording of unreleased material from 1967, which is a pretty weird idea. I have no idea if I'd like it or not, but I did listen to some of Brian Wilson's other 2004 release, Gettin' in Over My Head, and was rather annoyed. It seemed like he's trying to make the same music as 40 years ago, only not as well.

On the other hand, you really should listen to Pet Sounds. (Make sure you don't get some weird-ass stereo version.) I thought I didn't like the Beach Boys until I heard this, and maybe I still don't, but it's very good. Email me for a URL.

[gabrieceleste.livejournal.com]

I agree about Pet Sounds. Get it and enjoy it.

[piratedan.livejournal.com]

One word. Theramin.

That alone justifies the Beach Boy's existence. That, and the fact that, at the age of three, the song was "We'll have fun fun fun 'til the daddy takes the teapot awaaaayyy".

But that may be more of a personal reason.