Until it was finally released in 2004, SMiLE was music's great lost album. Beach Boy Brian Wilson, the band's troubled genius, wrote and recorded tracks for the album in 1966 and 1967 but then abandoned it. David Leaf's SMiLE: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of Brian Wilson is a shambolic-symphonic oral history of the record.
The backstory: in 1966, the Beach Boys released Pet Sounds, which went beyond the sun-drenched, aurally untaxing pop songs the band was known for; critics loved the album. Wilson wanted its follow-up, SMiLE, to go even farther, but the band didn't embrace his new music, and Capitol Records hoped to avoid a repeat of Pet Sounds' disappointing sales. After Wilson shelved SMiLE, the band went on, but, according to Leaf, "the Beach Boys' career as relevant and important record makers was essentially done." Nearly four decades later, Wilson completed SMiLE, releasing it as Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE to critical and fan hosannas.
Leaf--a Beach Boys biographer (God Only Knows)--takes a kitchen-sink approach to telling the story of SMiLE; in his author's note, he calls himself "the curator of this collection of quotes, anecdotes, and essays." This shaggy offering could have used a trim, but it's nevertheless a soaring ode to artistic integrity. It's also a reminder that seemingly inconsequential decisions can shape history. As contributing essayist Harvey Kubernik puts it, "I wonder where pop music would have gone if SMiLE was issued a handful of months before the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer