Capitol-EMI

“I’m a perfectionist. Just like my dad was,” explains Brian Wilson in the liner notes to the long-awaited release of the most famous scrapped LP in rock history, The Beach Boys’ SMiLE. “When he used to bark at us to mow the lawn, he would yell, ‘Do it twice!’ As kids, we had to do everything twice to get it right. Which I guess is still relevant in 2011 as me and ‘the boys’ are finally getting around to putting out SMiLE …for a second time.”

It’s almost too hard to believe, however, that after all the mythmaking which has been built around the California family act’s would-be 1967 follow-up to their equally ambitious pop classic Pet Sounds —the fire hats, the piano in the sandbox, the iconic Frank Holmes storefront cover art, the in-studio psychiatrist, the celery-crunching Paul McCartney cameo on “Vege-Tables”, the liberal use of Theremins and kazoos, Mike Love’s beef with SMiLE co-conspirator Van Dyke Parks, Brian Wilson’s bathrobe, the unorthodox vocal tracking techniques using primal scream therapy and the bottom of an empty swimming pool and so on—that this album is finally available and is sitting right before me in all of its official, non-black market glory. And not only the original record in and of itself, on both CD and 180 gram double virgin vinyl no less and restored to its originally intended fidelity and track listing after spending four decades being jumbled and bumbled about in the bootleg format, but the entirety of the sessions from which the finalized LP emerged. Spread across four CDs is just about every note, jam and conversation caught on tape and presented in a 139-track cache of surrealistic pop madness that dives headfirst into the depths of Wilson and Parks’ existential teenage symphony to God and country, immortalized on such hypnotizing hymns as “Cabin Essence” and “Surf’s Up.”

Yes, it might seem a little overwhelming when you see 34 versions of “Heroes and Villains” and 24 takes on “Good Vibrations.” But when you listen to each outtake, it is as though you are hearing an entirely different tune each time, as the Boys experimented with a variety of tempos, tones, harmonies and instrumentations in Wilson’s perfectionist search for the quintessential track. Hearing it all in its totality, reflective upon Wilson’s revolutionary post-Pet production methods rooted in experimental piano “feels” and fragmented pods of compositional sketches he called “modules” spliced together to form a proper song, interpolated with Brian’s directorial prompts, is far more valuable an educational guide than any overpriced textbook on music production the university professors push on their student body. It’s a fascinating listen, just being this virtual fly on the wall attuning yourself to the madcap genius of Brian’s foothold on the sessions while in the throes of an LSD trip for the ages, moving brothers Dennis and Carl Wilson, cousin Mike Love and lifelong friends Al Jardine and Bruce Johnston further and further away from their roots on the West Coast surf and hot rod circuit into uncharted sonic territory. Further explorations into other key tracks such as “Wind Chimes”, “Do You Like Worms (Roll Plymouth Rock)”, “Wonderful” and “You Are My Sunshine” offer additional insight into the enigmatic direction the group was taking after exploring the realms of psychedelic mind alteration, clearly evidenced in the dialogue to one particular outtake of SMiLE’s opening track “Our Prayer”, where Brian asks his brother Dennis for “another one of those hash joints” before wondering aloud, “Are you guys feeling the acid yet?”

Also included in the deluxe box set are two vinyl 7-inch singles and a 60-page hardbound book with liner notes from not only Wilson, but fellow surviving Beach Boys Jardine, Love and Johnston as well as Beach Boys historian Domenic Priore along with testimonials from such famous friends as Mark Volman of the Turtles and fellow surf pop pioneer Dean Torrence of Jan and Dean, rare and previously unseen photos from the era and additional archival memorabilia. Let me tell you, opening this thing up is one of the most enjoyable times I have ever experienced during all my years of collecting records. Lifting up that three-dimensional box top and pulling out all the goodies within is just something that you could never ever recreate in the digital format no matter how hard the industry hucksters try to tell you otherwise.

In these times of grave economic uncertainty, it is definitely a bit of a stretch to rationalize the spending of $139.99 for the deluxe edition of this lost masterpiece of pop majesty. But if that kind of dough ever gets freed up from your hard-earned nest egg, the amount of smiles this spectacular SMiLE will bring you will be well worth the deficit.