RENT FREE: The Greatest Album That Never Was
Remembering a man who changed music as we know it.
You know those things that just stick in your head whether you want them to or not? I’ve got a million of them when it comes to the music world from my time observing it. This column is dedicated to those moments that live on in my head, long after their time in the sun has passed. Welcome to Rent Free.
Brian Wilson, founder of The Beach Boys and pioneer of modern music, passed away yesterday at age 82. His long, storied career is impossible to sum up in one article. I could go on and on about my favorite Beach Boys songs, from their early period full of fun in the sun to turning the studio into an instrument to work from their later period following Wilson’s mental health issues. “God Only Knows” is in serious contention for the greatest song ever produced. The project I think sums up Wilson’s genius the most, though, is one that never officially saw the light of day when it should have.
Smile was supposed to be the Beach Boys’ follow up to Pet Sounds, and work was around 50% done when the project was shelved. Multiple reasons as to why it never released in 1967 as intended exist, from label issues to Brian Wilson’s increasing paranoia, and the project became the most legendary unreleased album of all time. Pieces from the Smile sessions were re-worked for the low maintenance Smiley Smile, as well as Wilson’s 2004 solo record Brian Wilson Presents Smile, a project full of reworkings of tracks from those legendary 60’s sessions. What I want to focus on here, though, is the 2011 reissue of The Smile Sessions, where Wilson’s genius confronts the listener in so many ways, it’s impossible to ignore what could have been.
I bought The Smile Sessions box set my sophomore year of college at a local shop (RIP Hastings), and I’ve been obsessed with it ever since. It’s the closest we’ll ever get to what Wilson was aiming for in 1967. The 19 tracks, plus plenty of outtakes and demos, shows the natural evolution Wilson took from Pet Sounds: after building a series of intricate baroque pop songs, it was time to deconstruct them. The first two songs, “Our Prayer” and “Gee”, feature nothing but vocal harmonies, a staple of the band’s work but something generally backed by plucky surf rock guitars and drums. It’s a bit haunting hearing them all by themselves, and there are many other instrumental-only tracks that show just how different Smile would have been from what came before.
These sessions are full of songs that are so remarkably intricate and meticulously produced, it’s hard to believe they were created when they were. Smile is built around the bigger songs that appeared on later records. The multiple sections of “Heroes & Villains” re-appear across The Smile Sessions like on “Look (Song for Children)”; same goes for “Surf’s Up”, of which pieces show up on “Child Is The Father Of The Man”. They’re like pieces of a puzzle that is constantly putting itself together and taking itself apart, restless in its quest to create something special. It’s no wonder Wilson got burnt out during its creation; his perfectionist nature as a producer would wear out even the strongest soldiers. But hearing the original “Surf’s Up” in this form, with Wilson’s wistful outro serving as one of his finest performances ever, made the 40+ year wait to hear these finished products all that much more worth it.
Pop albums of the time weren’t much more than a collection of songs meant to be sold together; the fact that Smile would’ve weaved through so many sections and comes out a complete project is either a miracle or proof Brian Wilson really was a genius. I’d go with the latter personally. The Smile Sessions are thematic in a way Pet Sounds isn’t; themes of life and death, plus a tour of Californian and American history, are a far cry from the girls and waves the Beach Boys started out singing about. Beyond it’s deeper intentions, it’s full of damn good baroque pop songs. “Vega-Tables” is an anti-consumerist dream wrapped around kooky vocal contributions from the other Wilson brothers, Mike Love and Al Jardine. “Cabin Essence” roves like the railroads that inspired it with banjos, trumpets and more that give it an old Western feeling. And of course, the intended tracklist concludes with “Good Vibrations”, a song that transcended these sessions and became one of the band’s signature songs. It’s for good reason; those ringing strings at the end always make me think of the scene from Love and Mercy, the Brian Wilson biopic from 2015 I’d put up there with the best music biopics ever made. Watch that scene below.
With hindsight it’s easy to compare and contrast the different styles of Pet Sounds and Smile, but I for one still think the latter would be considered the best album of all time had it actually seen the light of day when it was supposed to. It was something that was never seen up to that point in music history, and hearing it today makes me think few albums since would’ve have matched it. Wilson’s insistence on perfection never would have paid off better, mental health problems be damned. Perhaps it’s a testament to just how talented Wilson was that his most intriguing, beguiling release was something that was never actually released. Rest in peace Mr. Wilson.
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