The question is: critics seem to suggest that, if Brian Wilson could have finished Smile, The Beach Boys would have been able to keep up with The Beatles “Sgt. Pepper’s” album. What do you think? I’ve been watching this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UbNwhm2EX8 and, while it is interesting and all, isn’t exactly something I can sing along with.
Hard to say. There’s the Brian Wilson version and the Beach Boys version and about 100 fanboy versions. It’s difficult to say what the album would actually have sounded like. None have impressed me but it’s nigh impossible to live up to the hype that was generated during the 25 or so years before anything was released. My impression is that Smile would not have been as great as Sgt Pepper but may have led to a really mind-blowing followup.
Good Vibrations is an excellent song but I thing the Beach Boys peaked around 1965. For the record, I don’t think the vaunted Pet Sounds album is as great as its reputation either. Four and a half stars, but not among the top twenty albums of the late Sixties. And I think that Abbey Road is better than Sgt. Pepper. For that matter, some days I think that Rubber Soul is better than Pepper. And yes, I heard them when they were new.
My guess is that it would have ended up an enduring classic along the lines of Forever Changes, Astral Weeks, and Odessey and Oracle: a critics’ favorite, reasonably popular but not HUGE with the public. Certainly not something that would eclipse Sgt Pepper.
The “success” of the Beach Boys relative to the Beatles was not about how good their albums were, it was about how coherent the band members were. Even if Wilson was able to get everything and everybody together for a monumental 1967 Smile, I doubt the enduring legacy would have been much different. Everybody knew Brian was a genius, but like so many geniuses, his was wrought with pain. The potential is better than any actual product.
Its a tough sell. Both albums are full of old timey music and neither really rock. All the doo wop, a cupella and vocal theatrics were way out of style by the late 60s… but who knows , maybe that could of made it popular. The Beach boys went from the most clean cut pop to arty and oblique. Whether Smile was released or not, the BBs had the same issue… they weren’t dark enough. The bands that got big at the time were dark Stones, Doors, etc. Sure the radio was still playing innocent pop, but let’s face it, Smile isn’t a radio album. Only a couple of pop songs really.
Having said that, Smile is an amazing album and really should have came out. Surf’s Up(which was later released) is one of the best songs of the era.
Keep in mind that Brian’s previous “masterpiece” Pet Sounds barely broke the top 10 album charts at the time, and failed (initially) to achieve Gold status. Smile might have been the same.
It had three masterful cornerstones: “Good Vibrations”, “Surf’s Up” and “Heroes and Villians” and the rest, to me, was mediocre and somewhat indulgent.