Jerk Music Critic: The Beach Boys, Smiley Smile

The chief sin of this album is being the castoffs of Smile instead of actually being Smile, but Smile has solely achieved its legend by not existing such that it becomes the tabula rasa justification for every pre-meme meme about Brian Wilson's genius. (In these later, more enlightened times, we have Wilson's own 2004 attempt, as well as the actual early recordings as The Smile Sessions. By also not being Smile, they enable Smile to continue being better than any album that ever existed.) This is not to say, however, that Smiley Smile is an unappreciated jewel cursed by cultural circumstance. The production is largely lo-fi home studio quality, and not in a good way, and the intentionally simplified nature of the recordings comes off more as lazy than inspired. Yet the damnedest thing about this profoundly unprofessional work is how earwormy some of it is: tracks like "Heroes and Villains" and "Vegetables" (crunch crunch) — and of course "Good Vibrations" — are so inventive and audacious they'll sit in your auditory tract for days, and you'll like it, as they're so appealingly original that the unapologetic technical faults (like, notoriously, the control booth's "good" in "With Me Tonight") end up just being part of the magic. That said, an album this haphazard is bound to throw more than a few duds, and it does; the "W. Woodpecker Symphony" probably sounded better as an idea than the actual track, "Wind Chimes" is unpleasant and particularly unfocused, and worse still for the baffling "She's Goin' Bald" and vaguely creepy "Gettin' Hungry." But it ends well on an atmospheric note, most strongly the gauzy, trembling first love story of "Wonderful" but also the amiable "Whistle In." The verdict still stands: not Smile, and the myth remains undefeated, but enough rough elements of it exist that the fans can still what-if with conviction. Capitol paired this album in CD reissues with the less adventurous but also less gonzo Wild Honey, also not Smile, and not nearly noteworthy enough to stand even with its unrefined predecessor. To fix this, they threw in a radically different "Heroes and Villains" with a differing bridge and ending, along with a couple good quality B-sides (especially their acapella version of "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring") and one of the longest versions of "Can't Wait Too Long" from the Wild Honey sessions. Unfortunately, the "various sessions" and early take of "Good Vibrations" are at best intermittently interesting, but I do like this two-for-one idea. (Content: mild adult themes on "Gettin' Hungry.")

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Express Yourself

The Jerk Music Critic is a collection of amateur music reviews I wrote largely non-professionally between the 1990s and today. Some of these reviews are contemporary and some are retrospective, and a few are rather dated, but all are intended to be free-standing and permanent records of my completely worthless musical opinion. They are presented in no particular order and "new" reviews that occur may actually be simply prior ones I've only now transcribed. Older reviews have been edited to hopefully remove inaccuracies later revealed, as well as add brief content advisories (see "Smash the PMRC") and, where reissues exist with different tracks, brief commentaries on these later additions (the actual star review was not altered).

If you're looking for a specific artist, or just interested to see what I really liked (or really didn't), "When I Break Down" indexes reviews by artist and by number of stars awarded (see "Star Chart" for an explanation).

As we move deeper into the Internet music age where the album format might seem hopelessly antiquated, there is still some artistic value in the LP to those artists who still take advantage of it, and some of these recordings can only be properly appreciated in that context. I hope you enjoy these reviews and recommendations, and don't take them too seriously. — Cameron Kaiser

Star Chart

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An instant classic. Substantially advances/d the state of the art, either technologically, stylistically, or (preferentially) both, and is outstanding music besides. Buy it.

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A excellent album. Nearly every song is a gem; nearly every piece is a winner. Falls short of 5 stars for want of that certain special something, but the difference is in impact, not in musical quality. Buy it.

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Solid. Mostly good songs with a few clinkers. Salvageable with a good playlist. Buy it cheap.

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Mixed. Some good songs stand out, but not enough to make it listenable as a whole. Buy the good songs on iTunes.

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Bad. One or two tracks of even decent quality. Buy the good songs cheap on iTunes.

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How did this get released?

Smash the PMRC

I don't advocate for censorship or unnuanced black and white stickers, but I do advocate for parents being able to raise kids in the way they see fit, which might include introducing albums of controversial yet artistic merit at a point in their child's life when they can better appreciate it. The content summaries are intended to be a very general guide, reflective of only my own personal sensibilities and mine alone, and do not substitute in any way for a parent actually sitting down and listening to the album themselves. If you excessively rely on my content advisories, then I'm the one raising your kid, and you really don't want that.