The album that nearly killed Brian Wilson

i made a video saying this album pet sounds was the best album of the 60s but it wasn't meant to be there was meant to be a follow-up album that was even better better than revolver better than sergeant pepper's but it never happened it got abandoned until it was finally finished in 2004. nearly 40 years later the album is called smile and it was meant to be the follow-up album to pet sounds from the beach boys so pet sounds was released in 1966 by the beach boys and this was a reaction to roberson which was released a year earlier by the beatles the story goes that the beach boys heard rubber soul and they were so amazed by how great it was that they wanted to make something even better the result was pet sounds which came out a year later and then there was a bit of rivalry a bit of friendly competition between the beatles and the beach boys the beatles came out with revolver and sgt peppers and the beach boys were meant to release smile but it never happens and it really was meant to be something great it's been called a teenage symphony to god now i don't know if that sounds like your cup of tea or not but the ambition is clearly there they did really smiley smile which was this kind of piece together thing that was intended to replace what was happening with smile but what went wrong for this so-called greatest album of all time [Music] musically it was meant to be something really quite groundbreaking and forward thinking if you're not familiar with the album the best way to describe it would probably be similar to good vibrations good vibrations has these different themes different sections which are then pieced together [Music] this is what smile was meant to be but just on a much larger scale and of course it's very challenging to make an album like this because you're not just recording one song and then another and then another instead you're creating this huge collage of sound that is really difficult to do especially considering the technology they had back in the 60s this immense challenge wasn't helped at all by any of the problems that brian wilson was having difficulty with in 1965 brian wilson who was the main songwriter and kind of the leader of the beach boys decided not to go on tour with the rest of the band brian would stay at home and work on the new album whilst the rest of the guys will go out on tour at first this worked pretty well and of course the result of this new arrangement was pet sounds pet sounds was already very new very exciting and a challenge to make in the studio and then a year later we arrive at the beginning of smile [Music] by this time brian had declined even further many of you will know that he suffered from quite a few problems including schizophrenia and despite all of this musically he was pushing things even further now up until now the beach boys had a pretty consistent formula they were writing songs about surfing and about cars and they were really popular and they were doing really well but brian was the one who really wanted to take the band in a new direction and create something more exciting and get away from this old formula this did cause a bit of tension in the band the other guys weren't entirely sure how this was going to work out so already we have a bit of a recipe for disaster brian is struggling more and more the music is getting more complicated and the pressure from other people is building all the time what could possibly go wrong well work on the album got off to a slow start there were bound to be difficulties one of the first major incidents involved a song called fire whilst they were working on this song a few days later a building down the road actually caught fire and burnt down brian being brian thought there was some kind of connection between the incident and the song we were recording smile and we came across a tape a song called fire which i was getting pretty far out by that time well it so happens that a building burned down the same day we were doing that down the street of the studio that we were doing the fire tapes i had the musicians wearing fire helmets i had a guy bring in a bucket with burning wood he decided to abandon the song the rest of the guys get back from being on tour and they find out things aren't going exactly as planned as we go into 1967 problems keep happening deadlines are approaching and things start getting missed there was a fallout between brian and his songwriting partner van dyke parks there was a lawsuit between the beach boys and their record label very slowly things started to collapse all around him eventually this songwriting partnership between brian wilson and van dyke parks did break apart and this is seen by many people as the kind of final nail in the coffin for smile in the spring of 1967 the beach boys get together and they have a go at a less ambitious attempt at the album recorded quite quickly almost like a live album like they did for beach boys party and the result was smiley smile [Music] after that things went back pretty much to normal the beach boys continued to release more music which was a bit more conventional a bit more like their older style and as time went by smile began to take on a bit of a legendary status and i think for brian it was a bit of a weight on his shoulders it was something he really wanted to do that didn't get done of course as the years go by this weight only gets heavier brian had been quite damaged by what happened with smile and considered it to be his biggest failure but things started to pick back up again when in 1995 he got back together with van dyke parks to work on a new project orange crate art as a relationship matured beyond smile years later we've 1995 we did another record called um orange crate art i wanted brian to be the singer on that album i had an album obligation of warner brothers and i just it just occurred to me if there was ever anybody who could should sing the word orange it would be brian wilson and in the following years when brian was still touring these songs from smile slowly began to appear in his live shows there was a time when you couldn't even mention smile to brian but over time he did begin to get a bit more understanding and a bit more accepting of what actually happened and so an idea developed that they could not start again with smile or pick up where they left off but maybe try and develop it into a live show the biggest question wasn't could this be done musically or could you get the right team of people together the biggest question was would brian actually fully commit to this and want to do it but as i say things were improving a few years ago he wouldn't even play any of the songs from smile and now he was starting to think of this idea of making it into a live show the new project would be called brian wilson presents smile it wouldn't be a beach boys album and it wouldn't be an attempt to continue what they did back in 1967 instead this was an attempt to capture that idea and the imagination behind smile and realize that dream and turn it into something that was suitable and possible for the time 2004. rehearsals began in january 2004 and it wasn't always easy brian often missed rehearsals there was one time he actually ended up in hospital after having a panic attack but in february smile was finally presented on stage in london [Music] the show began and ended with popular beach boys songs but in the middle was this full completed presentation of smile it was a huge success everybody loved it and it was actually turned into an album as well and one of my favorite things about this if we go back to the beginning this rivalry this friendly competition between the beatles and the beach boys in 2004 when brian finally completes smile paul mccartney and the beatles producer george martin they're at the show and it's really great that they get to see brian complete smile there was a rivalry but really i think it's a mutual respect between the two bands it's great that they got to see each other complete such amazing music and of course it's great for all of us that we get to enjoy it you

Channel: David Hartley

Views: 25,956

Keywords: smile, brian wilson, the beach boys, pet sounds, revolver, sgt pepper, 60s music, music, music documentary

Id: xLeeozt5x20

Length: 8min 29sec (509 seconds)

Published: Fri May 06 2022