The Beach Boys Album: “Smiley Smile”

Released in the fall of 1967, SMILEY SMILE was the first and only Beach Boys album issued on the original Capitol-distributed Brother Records label ((S)T-9001). The Beach Boys returned to the regular Capitol label for their next LP, WILD HONEY; the Brother label was not revived until they recorded their first album for the Warner Brothers/Reprise imprint, SUNFLOWER, in 1970. The album was a cobbled-together, last-minute replacement for the scrapped SM!LE album. Originally issued on CD as a "two-fer" (

) in 1990, 1997 (as a Canadian import) and again in 2001 (a single CD replaced the "two-fer" for a brief time in the mid-'90s), the album is not as bad as some critics have said; it contains such Beach Boys classics as "Good Vibrations," "Heroes And Villains," and "Vege-Tables," but pales in comparison to

, which were finally released in 2011. This new version of the album contains both the original mono and a brand-new stereo mix, and the most compelling reason to purchase this new CD is the first-ever true stereo mix of "Good Vibrations." The stereo backing track has been issued before, as have various rehearsals and vocal and instrumental outtakes, but this is the first time that we get the complete version of "Vibrations" in full stereophonic glory.

Like all the 2012 Beach Boys reissues, the packaging is very basic, with the front cover art, the back cover on the left inside flap, photos of The Boys on the right inside flap, and another picture of the band on the back cover, with the mono and stereo track listings below. The booklet has only the front and back cover art, with the track listing inside.

While SMILEY SMILE is not The Beach Boys' best album by a long shot, this release is recommended because it's the only place to find the stereo "Good Vibrations." The new greatest-hits collections (

and

) have the original mono mix. I would also recommended the aforementioned "two-fer" for WILD HONEY and the bonus material.

This album has always been considered the Beach Boys' response to psychedelia-- a strange, choppy album with

"Good Vibrations" thrown in at Capitol's insistence. It was hard to fully love this album in previous years because there would always be stories from insiders on how this song or that song was soooo different and soooo better in its original SMILE version.It always made this album seem like an also-ran; the "bunt" instead of the "grand slam" as Carl Wilson described it at the time. But in recent years, all of the SMILE material has become available, first in various bootlegs, then Brian's own excellent version, and now the SMILE SESSIONS. And now with all that material properly appearing and being heard, the SMILEY SMILE album can now be appreciated in context for what it is. The overall mood is darker here, and the group completely implodes songs from their SMILE versions, i.e. WIND CHIMES and WONDERFUL...FALL BREAKS AND BACK TO WINTER (W. WOODPECKER SYMPHONY) features the melody line from SMILE's THE ELEMENTS: FIRE....

Overall this album has grown in stature, i think.

Although Smiley Smile is not one of my favorite Beach Boys albums (as you've probably already figured out if you've read my review for that LP release of the album), I must admit that I was curious to see how the album would sound in stereo (plus I was looking for a stereo version of "Good Vibrations"!), so I bought this CD. The first couple of times that I listened to the mono mixes here, I thought they sounded lousy, but then I listened to them again, and I thought they sounded fine! I did play the CD on different players, so that might have had something to do with it. However, I'm still more impressed by the stereo versions here, which sounded great each time I listened to them. I'm kind of surprised by how good they sound to me; I can even hear sounds that I didn't notice on the mono mixes I've heard! To be honest, I think the BEST stereo mix is the one of "Fall Breaks And Back To Winter." As for the stereo version of "Good Vibrations," I think it's sort of cool, though I'm not exactly sure what a "stereo extraction mix" is, unless it means that the parts of the song were pieced together from separate sources. I'm really not an audio technician, but that seems like the most likely explanation to me. I've decided that I like the mono mixes here more than I thought I did at first, but that's still not enough for me to give the CD another star. I still think the stereo mixes are much better! By the way, for those of you who like liner notes and/or bonus tracks (including me), this reissue --- and, I'm assuming, the rest of the ones in this "series" --- lack any of either one, so don't get rid of your copies of the previous reissues that DID have them! I'd think they could at the very least have included a definiton of "stereo extraction mix"!

For the casual Beach Boys listener, this album will largely sound incomplete and underproduced, with the obvious exception of the two radio songs, "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes & Villains." Most of the songs retain very simplistic music tracks (in contrast to the fine-polished production of their radio hits and previous albums). So, if you're looking for the Beach Boys' acclaimed surf-music sound, don't start here. But if you're wanting to take a trip into Brian's mind during the late '60s, here's a good introduction.

I've purchased Smiley Smile, Summer Days/Summer Nights and All Summer Long in this new reissue series, and across the board I can say the mono remastering is noticeably worse than on the 2001 versions of these discs. I believe the tapes have lost their integrity, as there's no punch or presence on them anymore. Same engineer remastered both versions, yet the newer one is poor.

That said, the new stereo versions of the songs on this album are really great. Most are truly mixed from scratch (not 'digitally extracted', like Good Vibrations is), and sound impressive, which is another reason why I think it's the mono masters that are to blame for the poor mono presentation here (even listening back with HDCD decoded). Nice Japanese-style mini-LP artwork, too. At this point I'd say go with the reissues of albums that were originally presented in mono and are in stereo for the first time, as only buying these for the remastered mono will be very disappointing. "All Summer Long" is a disappointing reissue, please feel free to read about this here if you're interested. Hope this helps!