the Beach Boys SMiLE

Smile is perhaps the most famous unreleased rock and roll album of all time. The title is sometimes spelled with the idiosyncratic partial capitalization SMiLE, derived from the lettering on the original cover. The project was intended by its creator Brian Wilson as the follow up to The Beach Boys' influential album Pet Sounds (1966), but was never completed in its original form. During the 37 years since its cancellation, Smile had acquired a considerable mystique, and bootlegged tracks from the never-completed album circulated widely among Beach Boys collectors. Many of the tracks that were originally recorded for Smile were eventually placed on subsequent albums... On February 20, 2004, 37 years after it was conceived, a complete version of Smile was performed by Wilson along with his backing band, which includes former Beach Boys guitarist Jeff Foskett, members of The Wondermints and percussionist Nelson Bragg, in a live performance at the Royal Festival Hall in London. This performance was made whole by the addition of either lost or newly-composed lyrics that filled the gaps left open by the original 1966-67 Beach Boys sessions. This show was followed by subsequent performances elsewhere in Britain... On September 28, 2004, Brian Wilson released his newly recorded studio version of Smile, to critical praise. Brian Wilson Presents Smile is the greatest scoring album of at least the last 7 years based on Metacritic's estimations of various critics reviews. For the new version, Wilson, Wondermints leader Darian Sahanaja, woodwind player/string arranger Paul Mertens, and lyricist Van Dyke Parks based their arrangements on the original, unreleased Beach Boys tapes to give Brian Wilson Presents Smile a coherent and fresh, updated sound...Interestingly, although Brian was reported to have only included "Good Vibrations" in the original Smile track listing at Capitol's insistence, a new version of the song—featuring Wilson's Pet Sounds collaborator Tony Asher's original lyrics, rather than the later Mike Love lyrics—was included as the closing track of the album. Careful listening, though, shows that a reprisal of the 'Our Prayer' harmonies and the line 'Aloha nui means goodbye' effectively puts a full stop, or at least a semi-colon, on Smile after 'In Blue Hawaii' with Good Vibrations seeming more an encapsulation of the rest of the album's spririt or, indeed, a stand alone statement, just as the The Beatles 'Paperback Writer' or 'We Can Work It Out' were...Brian Wilson Presents Smile received multiple 2004 Grammy award nominations, including Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical (For Mark Linett). The album won one Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance (for "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow"). In 2005, Brian Wilson Presents Smile won graphic artist Mark London and Rhino Records the 2005 ALEX award for Best Vinyl Package.