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It Came From the Cracks |
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Brian Wilson |
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FEATURESIt Came from the Cracks: Forgotten Albums and Fringe Classics |
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by Andrew Helminger In the mid-1980s, I wandered into a music store in Greenville, South Carolina. As I thumbed through the records (yeah, vinyl was still giving CDs some competition back then), the guy behind the counter played an album that was pure ear candy. The music was like none I'd heard before--it was rock with unusual rhythms, odd melodies, and bizarre instrumentation. At the time, REM and U2 were generally considered rock's cutting edge, with other bands like the Replacements, Sonic Youth, and Husker Du making novel noises in the indie shadows. Based on what I'd heard in the music store, this mystery band knocked all competitors completely off the blade. Their music had to be the future of rock and roll, or so I thought. I bolted up to the counter and asked for the name of the mystery band. "The Beach Boys," the guy behind the counter replied. "It's their Smile album." My jaw dropped to the floor. The Beach Boys?!? I had always thought of the Beach Boys as prime producers of soft rock schmaltz--not makers of innovative music. As it turns out, Brian Wilson, the creative genius behind the Beach Boys, really did alter the course of rock and roll. During the mid-1960s, the music world revolved around the 7" single. Long play albums at that time contained a few hit singles, but were mostly padded with throwaway material. Wilson challenged this formula by creating an entire album full of great music. The result was The Beach Boy's 1966 release, Pet Sounds.
Wilson's innovations didn't end with Pet Sounds. His next project would be bigger and more pioneering than the last. Wilson set out to create the first true concept album--an album full of interconnected songs, meant to be listened to as a whole. It was to be an album that would change the way people listened to rock music. Wilson and the Beach Boys started work on Smile in early 1967; however, several factors delayed the project, including Wilson's reported drug use and the other Beach Boys' objections to the obscure lyrics written for many of the songs. Before Smile could be completed, the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper's in late 1967. Wilson had been beaten to the punch--Sgt. Pepper's stands as the first true concept album. It was the album that elevated rock music to an art form. Wilson was devastated, and the Smile project was scrapped. The album was neither completed nor officially released. Some of the Smile material was re-recorded and released on later Beach Boys albums, such as Smiley Smile and Surf's Up; however, these recordings failed to live up to Wilson's initial creative vision.
The Smile bootleg material has received some criticism because many of the songs are only abbreviated statements of what Wilson had envisioned. And it's true that many of these songs are very short and some have incomplete lyrics. If a song's value depends on those factors, I guess I'll have to throw away my Guided By Voices collection! The fact that these unfinished recordings sound so great makes what Wilson left on the studio drawing board even more amazing. With his pioneering work in the mid-1960s, Wilson changed the way we listen to music--he gave us our first alternative to the pop rock single through Pet Sounds, he influenced McCartney's musical direction, and he almost pulled off the album that redefined rock music. The Beatles arguably stand as the grandfathers of alternative rock with their ground-breaking work in the late 1960s. Who knows, if history had played out differently, that title may have gone to Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. As it stands, Brian Wilson deserves the title "great-uncle" of the alt rock genre. listen to samples from Pet Sounds listen to samples from Smile (re-recorded by Wilson in 2004--not the original '60s tapes!) |
SMILE
ALT-ROCK--
Although
Pet Sounds was a commercial bomb in the United States, the album
had a profound impact on the rock community. The lyrics on Pet
Sounds covered some rather personal territory for the time, and the
advanced studio production of the album set a new high watermark for the
recording industry. Paul McCartney was so impressed by the album
that he used it as a springboard for the Beatles' later work. Even
today, Pet Sounds is considered by many to be one of the greatest
rock albums ever made.
The
original Smile recordings do live on in the form of bootleg CDs
and records, like the one I stumbled across in the Greenville music store.
Although the Smile bootleg has been difficult to find, it became
available several years ago on CD through the Vigotone label and is well
worth a listen. The Vigotone release consists of two discs worth
of songs and studio chatter. It contains two early versions of "Good
Vibrations," which are significantly different than the one that was eventually
released--one of these versions clocks in at over seven and a half minutes.
Other highlights include "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow," "Do You Like Worms?," and
"George Fell Into His French Horn"--all bizarre, yet masterfully crafted,
gems.
