Michael Todd Michael Anderle Popular Books

Michael Todd Michael Anderle Biography & Facts

Smile (sometimes stylized as SMiLE) is an unfinished album by the American rock band the Beach Boys that was intended to follow their 1966 album Pet Sounds. It was to be an LP of twelve tracks assembled from modular fragments, the same editing process used for their "Good Vibrations" single. Instead, after a year of recording, the album was shelved and the group released a downscaled version, Smiley Smile, in September 1967. Over the next four decades, few of the original Smile tracks were officially released, and the project came to be regarded as the most legendary unreleased album in popular music history. The album was produced and almost entirely composed by Brian Wilson with guest lyricist and assistant arranger Van Dyke Parks, both of whom conceived the project as a riposte to the British sensibilities that had dominated popular music of the era. Wilson touted Smile as a "teenage symphony to God" to surpass Pet Sounds. It was a concept album that was planned to feature word paintings, tape manipulation, more elaborate vocal arrangements, experiments with musical acoustics, themes of youth and innocence, and comedic interludes, with influences drawn from mysticism, pre-rock and roll pop, doo-wop, jazz, ragtime, musique concrète, classical, American history, poetry, spirituality, and cartoons. Over 50 hours of tape was recorded, ranging from musical and spoken word to sound effects and role-playing. The lead single would have been "Heroes and Villains", about the early history of California, or "Vega-Tables", a tongue-in-cheek promotion of organic food. Numerous issues, including legal entanglements with Capitol Records, Wilson's uncompromising perfectionism and mental instabilities, as well as Parks' withdrawal from the project in early 1967, prevented the album's completion. Most of the tracks were produced between August and December 1966, but few were ever finished, and the album's structure was never finalized. Afraid of the public's reaction to his work, Wilson blocked attempts to release Smile in the subsequent years. After the group issued a truncated version of "Heroes and Villains", they reworked some of the material into new songs, such as "Cool, Cool Water", and completed only three more tracks, "Our Prayer", "Cabinessence" and "Surf's Up". A mythology grew around the project, and its unfulfilled potential inspired many artists, especially those in indie rock, post-punk, electronic, and chamber pop genres. Smile had been estimated to be "50% done" by mid-1967. Since the 1980s, extensive session recordings have circulated widely on bootlegs, allowing fans to assemble hypothetical versions of a finished album, adding to its legacy as an interactive project. Responding to this, Capitol included a loose reconstruction of the album on the 1993 box set Good Vibrations. In 2004, Wilson, Parks, and Darian Sahanaja arranged a version of Smile for concert performances, billed as Brian Wilson Presents Smile, which Wilson then adapted into a solo album. He stated that this version differed substantially from his original vision. The 2011 compilation The Smile Sessions was the first official package devoted to the original Beach Boys' recordings and included an approximation of the completed album. It received universal acclaim and won Best Historical Album at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards in 2013. Background In late 1964, as Brian Wilson's industry profile grew, he became acquainted with various individuals from around the Los Angeles music scene. He also took an increasing interest in recreational drugs (particularly marijuana, LSD, and Desbutal). According to his then-wife Marilyn, Wilson's new friends "had the gift of gab [...] All of a sudden [Brian] was in Hollywood—these people talk a language that was fascinating to him. Anybody that was different and talked cosmic or whatever [...] he liked it." Wilson's closest friend in this period was Loren Schwartz, an aspiring talent agent that he met at a recording studio. Schwartz introduced Wilson to marijuana and LSD, as well as a wealth of literature commonly read by college students. During his first LSD trip, Wilson had what he considered to be "a very religious experience" and claimed to have seen God. In November 1965, early in the sessions for the Beach Boys' 11th studio LP Pet Sounds, Wilson began experimenting with the idea of recording an album focused on humor and laughter. He was intent on making Pet Sounds a complete departure from previous Beach Boys releases and did not wish to work with his usual lyricist, Mike Love. Instead, he worked with jingle writer Tony Asher on most of the album's songs. On February 17, 1966, Wilson began tracking their song "Good Vibrations", which was intended for Pet Sounds but omitted due to Wilson's dissatisfaction with the recording. He attempted a couple of different arrangements of the track from then until April. Wilson stated at the time that he "wanted to write [songs] with more than one level. Eventually, I would like to see longer singles—so that the song can be more meaningful. A song can, for instance, have movements—in the same way as a classical concerto—only capsulized." Starting with the fourth session held for "Good Vibrations", on May 4, he began recording the song in sections, rather than tracking the full piece all the way through, with the intention of later splicing the fragments into a composite track. Released on May 16, Pet Sounds was massively influential, containing sophisticated orchestral arrangements that raised the band's prestige to the top level of rock innovators. In the US, the album confused their fans and sold worse than previous Beach Boys releases, but in the UK, the reception was highly favorable. The UK success emboldened Wilson to take greater creative risks and helped convince the band's label, Capitol Records, to fund and promote his next project, however ambitious it may be. Creative circle Collaboration with Parks In 1966, Wilson attended a party held at the home of the Byrds' record producer Terry Melcher. There, he was introduced to Van Dyke Parks, a 23-year-old professional songwriter, arranger, session musician, and former child actor. Parks had moved to Los Angeles a few years earlier, hoping to compose the scores to Disney films, but instead lent his services to the Byrds and MGM pop groups the Mojo Men and Harper's Bizarre. During this meeting, Wilson noticed that Parks had an unusually articulate manner of speaking. Wilson had been searching for a new lyricist, and soon after, approached Parks with the offer to write lyrics for the Beach Boys' next album. Parks had worries, having heard that Asher had dissociated himself from Wilson and the Beach Boys, but nonetheless agreed to collaborate. Between July and September, Wilson and Parks wrote many songs together at Wilson's Beverly Hills home for the upcoming project, tentatively called Dumb Angel. Writing sessions may have also extended to October or November.... Discover the Michael Todd Michael Anderle popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Michael Todd Michael Anderle books.