The Beach Boys
The Smile Sessions

THE REVIEW

The 1960s were underway, and the great book of rock was just on its first pages; probably no one could have foreseen the incredible amount of genres and experimentation that would follow in the coming years, but despite this, the first experimenters didn’t delay, and groups like the Mothers of Invention or the Velvet Underground (just to name a couple) would brand history and music as a whole. But among the bands destined to make their mark and contribute to the evolution of the sector, there were also two seemingly unsuspected groups, the Beatles in the old continent and their “cousins” across the ocean, the Beach Boys.

Starting as pop bands devoted to catchy tunes and cheeky melodies, these two groups decided, more or less simultaneously, to evolve and take their sound further, with the goal of finally giving artistic dignity to the so-called pop music. This led to a relationship of competition-admiration where the two bands responded to each other album by album in an attempt to outdo their competitors; but as we all know (and after reading this review even those few who previously ignored it can finally assert: "I know!"), after producing what is considered the group's peak (Pet Sounds), to which the Fab4 responded with the well-known Sgt. Pepper, in an attempt to go even further, the leader of the B.B. had a nervous breakdown that led to the halt of what was supposed to be the group's most ambitious work: "Smile".

For years, indeed decades, it seemed to be over, except for two attempts to resurrect the project first with the group in 2004 with Smiley Smile and then as a solo artist (Smile), works that however did not fully convince many listeners and seemed to most like a sort of reheated soup, as well as long overdue. In 2011, 44 years from the originally scheduled release date, Capitol decided to release the original sessions of the work, presenting what should be the least edited version and therefore the most faithful to the original project. Obviously, such a juicy opportunity to cash in among the fans couldn't be missed, hence for these sessions, you can choose from a wide range of alternatives, up to, if you're really hardcore, the super mega ultra limited deluxe edition consisting of no less than 4 vinyls and 5 CDs (in which, I imagine, you'll be able to listen to essential things like a thousand alternative takes or remixes per track and burps and farts made in the studio; oh well as it will have been understood, I have never understood the utility of these things...).

I, on the other hand, being a poor broke student with no means, settled for the simple version which limits itself to the bare essentials and provides 19 pieces of excellent psychedelic pop at my disposal. Clearly, nowadays nothing you hear will even remotely shock you (as we are used to blasting our ears with kraut, noise, industrial, black metal, etc.), but this release represents an excellent opportunity to take home what, for better or worse, represents a piece of the history of popular music; without having to resort to some lousy bootleg version and with all the trappings of officialdom.

Of course (and impossible) to give it a rating, but as lovers of the genre, you will find music to your ears.