Smile for what might have been

By Vit Wagner

 If the "most famous unreleased album in history" is finally released, does it cease to be the most famous unreleased album in history?

In the case of Smile, a re-recorded facsimile of which arrives in stores Tuesday, the answer to that question is no. The original album, initially slated for release some 37 years ago, is destined to remain unknowable and, as such, will continue to serve as a fount of endless speculation.

What we have in its place is a copy of an original that, so far as we know, never entirely existed - a significant enough artefact, in its own right, to provoke an intriguing debate about the transience or permanence of popular music.

First, some background. Smile was conceived as an even more ambitious follow-up to Pet Sounds, the groundbreaking 1966 Beach Boys album now universally regarded to be one of the greatest pop albums of all time.

Not only was Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson, working with lyricist Van Dyke Parks, set on eclipsing the psychedelic experimentation of Pet Sounds, he had designs on one-upping the Beatles' Revolver.

Smile was due to be released in May of 1967. The cover jackets - some 400,000 of them - were waiting to be filled. But the LPs were never pressed. Wilson abandoned the project for reasons known only to him, although speculation has generally centred on stress, drugs or, most likely, a toxic, paranoia-inducing combination of the two.

In any event, it all became moot on June 1, 1967, when the Beatles dropped Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which instantly became a colossal cultural phenomenon - the first album, as legend would have it, that demanded to be played from beginning to end and then, when the end was reached, played all over again.

As Wilson began to recede from view, bits of Smile dribbled out. The most tantalizing of these was "Good Vibrations," which, by virtue of being one of the most intricate and deliriously infectious pop tunes ever recorded, supported the assumption that the rest of the album had to be brilliant too.

And maybe it was. But that was then. And this, as the expression goes, is now.

Smile's back-story, however fascinating, has nothing to do with what you hear when you pop it in the CD in 2004. Curiosity is one thing. Getting to the end of the album and wanting to hear it again - or not, as the case might be - is another.

The new Smile was finished by Wilson and Parks last year and subsequently recorded by Wilson and 10 band members, along with accompanists from a Swedish string and horn ensemble. The result is a fluid, if highly eccentric, piece of orchestral pop, divided into three movements and littered with allusions to U.S. history and musical Americana.

It is ambitious, to be sure. And innovative - in a 1967, Brian Wilson kind of way. But captivating and compelling? Not really. Certainly not like Pet Sounds.

The main difference between the two albums is that while Smile has its share of soaring vocal harmonies, it doesn't offer a single song to match "Wouldn't It Be Nice," "Sloop John B," "Caroline No" or several others from Pet Sounds. Even the retooled version of "Good Vibrations" that closes the album misses the blissful verve of the original.

Beyond that, comparisons are necessarily conditional. For one thing, Pet Sounds has withstood the test of time. We know it is great because nearly 40 years later it not only sounds vital but it has served as a continuing source of inspiration to subsequent generations of musicians, from R.E.M. to the Shins.

If Smile, which will be supported by a concert tour that stops at Massey Hall on Oct.5, had been released in 1967, its stature today would be easier to ascertain. We would know if people were still listening to it. We would know how it stacked up against Sgt. Pepper's. It might well be that Smile is fated to have forever missed its moment.

As it exists today, Smile sounds like a novelty. It is a noteworthy addendum to what already ranks as one of the longest footnotes in the history of popular music. It is not a signal expression of our culture today. Whether it might have been that in the spring of 1967, well - to quote Brian Wilson - God only knows.