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September 25, 2004
(Ive been in this town so long that back in the City/Im taken for lost and gone/And Ive known for a long, long time"...
Heroes and Villains Brian Wilson & Van Dyke Parks
Heroes and Villains is a song which, along with its companion Good Vibrations, has become a part of the musical universe we all inhabit. They are part of Smile, a postmodern album that plays around with the sounds and music of our pop culture that looks at American culture through Californian (LA) eyes.
 A studio version of Smile The recorded with Brian's current backing band The Wondermints will be released next week--on September 28th.
"The smile that you send out comes back to you."
The recording of the album follows a successful English tour. It was musical theatre.
Access to complete songs can be made here, though you do need to register. Have a listen. It is very interesting music; music that has the veneer of pop and rock but takes risks and critically explores America's mythic view of its own history.
Smile is the legendary unreleased album of Brian Wilson. Smile is less rocks great lost album and more its great unfinished one. Scrapped thirty-seven years ago after some brilliant work by Brian Wilson and lyricist Van Dyke Parks, the album never saw the light of day, except as a few reworked tracks tucked away on various Beach Boy albums. This is music that is layered with pop myths about popular music being transformed from formula and commerce to art.
An account of its re-making can be found in this interview with Darian Sahanaja, one of the key musicians in the Wondermints. review in the Guardian. More background to the 1967 album is explored by an American music critic here and here.
The album is a musical odyssey of three suites (Americana, Childhood and Elemental) that take in generous tracts of American history, nursery songs, animal noises, woodworking tools, a few good quirky jokes, harsh soundscapes and some lovely melodies. This is pictorial music.
An essay in the Village Broadsheet by Rob Rabiee Part two of the essay is here.
Me? Would I rather hear a release of the original recordings? That is to be caught up in nostalgia, as in this Australian review in today's The Age. Many of the responses. It is disconcerting hearing this music as the template is the 1966 classic Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys. We know some of this music as it is part of our musical culture. So we approach it differently because of the overlay of meaning.
Yet Smile is also disconcerting on first hearing is not what we expect. The music is not as richly layered (Phil Spector's wall of sound) as Pet Sounds, the harmony clusters of voicings are not those of the Beach Boys, whilst the chords are very minimal. We have inventive vocals counterposed to some very basic backing tracks.
But this is now not then. It is the song Surf's Up that takes us beyond the horizons of Pet Sounds:
'The diamond necklace played the pawn
Hand in hand some drummed along
To a handsone man in baton
A blind class aristocracy
Back through the opera-glass, you see
The pit and the pendulum drawn
Columnated ruins domino.
Lyrics: Van Dyke Parks
The more appropriate way of responding to the Smile album is in terms of ithe model provided by classical music: there is an unfinished musical score written in 1967 and this is one particular performance of that composition. It is more an interactive album than a simulation of the original; a soundscape full of interwoven musical collages.
Link:Van Dyke Parks Brian Wilson
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