Track Listing

1. Heroes And Villains
2. Vegetables
3. Fall Breaks And Back To Winter (W. Woodpecker Symphony)
4. She's Goin' Bald
5. Little Pad
6. Good Vibrations
7. With Me Tonight
8. Wind Chimes
9. Gettin' Hungry
10. Wonderful
11. Whistle In
12. Wild Honey
13. Aren't You Glad
14. I Was Made To Love Her
15. Country Air
16. Thing Or Two
17. Darlin'
18. I'd Love Just Once To See You
19. Here Comes The Night
20. Let The Wind Blow
21. How She Boogalooed It
22. Mama Says
23. Heroes And Villains (1)
24. Good Vibrations (2)
25. Good Vibrations (1)
26. You're Welcome
27. Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring
28. Can't Wait Too Long

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5771 in Music
• Released on: 2001-04-09
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Original recording remastered, Extra tracks
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

CD Description
Here are two classic Beach Boys albums from 1967 that were critically dismissed in their day but are now rightly considered to be among their best, nicely remastered and fleshed out with bonus tracks. SMILEY SMILE was originally thrown together as a quick replacement for the doomed, unreleased SMILE album, a would-be masterpiece that had been scrapped at the last minute and has since achieved legendary status, the rock equivalent of the missing footage of Von Stroheim's GREED. WILD HONEY, which is in many ways the Beach Boys' soul album, was a deliberate retrenchment, and its stripped-down production anticipated both Dylan's JOHN WESLEY HARDING and the Beatles' WHITE ALBUM. Along with the R&B-influenced title track and "Darlin'" (not to mention a great Carl Wilson-sungcover of Stevie Wonder's "I Was Made To Love Her"), highlights include the great garage rocker "How She Boogalooed It" and the wonderfully breezy and mostly acoustic "I'd Love Just Once To See You" (as in "in the nude"). Pure joy from start to finish.

Customer Reviews

SMiLING at the improvement
This album is a straight reissue of the original CD two-fer release, with one important difference: the tracks have been remastered and are presented here in HDCD format. Even on bog-standard CD players, the extra rhythm, depth and clarity over the original is stunning. I imagine the sound on an HDCD-equipped player is even more fantastic. The tracks have not been remixed from Brian Wilson's originals (as happened when Pet Sounds was released in stereo), so all the album tracks, including Good Vibrations, the most important track on the album, still exist only in mono. Nevertheless, the sound here is so clear that extra detail is revealed that you'd miss before. Especially improved is the Heroes and Villains SMiLE version. The stripped-down sound of the true Smiley Smile tracks, recorded in about 3 weeks from material left over after the SMiLE sessions collapsed in on themselves, is, taken on its own, quite stunning when it sounds like this. True, GV and H&V are out of place, but SS remains an inventive, interesting and enjoyable album. Wild Honey is an attempt at "white soul", and is great fun, containing no weak tracks and some real surprises that show the magic was still there. The bonus tracks comprise some of the GV sessions and a couple of unreleased songs. The last one, Can't Wait Too Long, is interesting for its sheer length (and is in stereo). A cut-down version of this track appeared in the 1993 Good Vibrations box set. So SS and WH are certainly no Pet Sounds, but both are interesting albums and are musically strong in their own ways. You'll keep going back to this CD, but I doubt you'll play SS right through. One star off because (i) it should have been SMiLE and (ii) EMI should have gone back to the session tapes of GV and done a stereo remix by now.

Brian Wilson's most obtuse work of genius...
Smiley Smile is fantastic from begining to end. Never mind all that rubbish about the lost Smile Sessions. This is Brian pioneering a new kind of music that rejects the pop lushness that had become overipe on Pet Sounds. Brian takes the Smile concept to it's logical conclusion. Such an organically created album, which jerks from clunkily, but tightly produced rehashes to the smooth but quirky brilliance of the original Smile sessions, often mid-song is as far as I know without comparision. It's no suprise this record was a commerical bomb. But it is an artistic work of genius. A must have.

Plus you get Wild Honey, which is another corker.

Amongst the weeds lies a little flower...
This is two albums and some extra bits worth of the most fragile and beautiful music there is. It's all in the details and the fun to be had finding them. The squeeze boxes, the hidden melodies at the end of tracks, the contrast of the two 'big' songs on 'Smiley Smile' with the rest of the album, 'Country Air' and its overwhelming melancholy, I could go on, but you should have got the idea by now. The bonus tracks are essentially 'Good Vibrations' in free jazz form, 'Well, You're Welcome,' a frail cut of pure harmony, a wobbly version of 'Heroes and Villains' and 'Can't wait too long,' more free jazz (or sessions stuck together, but the description sounds better...). Buy it, play it and treasure it. This is the lost masterpiece of the Beach Boys, pants to the 'Smile' fans. Although a box set of that would be nice. Eh, Capitol? Eh??