Saturday, January 24, 2004

ADD SOME MUSIC TO YOUR DAY. Via Alterman we learn that the Beach Boys' Smile is finally coming out:
The final straw was the sudden appearance at the top of the charts by another far-reaching concept album: Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, by arch-rivals the Beatles. [Brian] Wilson put the Smile tapes on the shelf, went home, got into bed and closed the door.

And for decades, while some of his Smile songs were rejigged for subsequent Beach Boys albums or slipped out on bootlegs or the internet, he refused even to mention the project. Until last October, when he went back to the album and finished it.
This is giddy news. Smiley Smile, a disjointed assemblage of Smile fragments, has been part of the soundtrack of my life for years now. I accepted the rumor that Wilson, fucked up on chemicals, burned the original tapes in a paranoid episode.

Now we get to hear the whole thing. The chances that it will totally suck are slim. And about how much can you say that anymore?

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