Actually, it will sound like neither...or anything else you've ever heard (unless you're real familiar with the Good Vibrations box set and other SMiLE bootleg tracks)...SMiLE was so revolutionary that none of the tracks can really be said to sound "like" anything else that had been done before--or has been done since. Really, Syd, the music is that unique.

One more thing..."Good Vibrations" (a new version, with a different lyric from the '66 hit) is actually the finale of "SMiLE 04". That may be the most controversial thing about this new release.

I posted this elsewhere, but for convenience I'm now posting it here. It's the track listing (from AMG) for the upcoming release Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE.

1 Our Prayer/Gee
2 Heroes and Villains
3 Roll Plymouth Rock
4 Barnyard
5 The Old Master Painter/You Are My Sunshine
6 Cabin Essence
7 Wonderful
8 A Song For Children
9 Child Is Father of the Man
10 Surf's Up
11 I'm in Great Shape/I Wanna Be Around/Workshop
12 Vega-Tables
13 On a Holiday
14 Wind Chimes
15 Mrs. O'Leary's Cow
16 In Blue Hawaii
17 Good Vibrations

I'm pretty sure Wilson & Co will be doing other songs after the presentation of "SMiLE"...songs from "Pet Sounds", etc. This is a great opportunity for anyone who never really dug Wison's music..but feel like they missed it...to give it one more chance. I myself had something of an epiphanous experience with the Beach Boys in the early nineties, having dismissed them in the sixties as passe'. These are a very dedicated,highly paid group of A-list multi-instrumentalists almost religiously committed to presenting the songs of this musical Icon and they sound better than the Beach Boys ever did. If you want to give yourself one more chance to "get" what you may have missed, this is definitely the time.

What I've found out (from Brian Wilson's official web page and a groovy little message board located at the "Smile Shop" web site) is that the concerts feature a "semi-unplugged" set of Beach Boys/Brian Wilson classics (definitely including Pet Sounds material) before the presentation of SMiLE, and then after SMiLE they rock out on established crowd-pleasing Beach Boys rockers to end the show. It is in fact a great opportunity to hear large slices of the Brian Wilson legacy. Rarer tracks such as "Marcella" and "Add Some Music To Your Day" have been featured in some shows during the opening set.

Yes folks, if you're going to one concert this year, I'd suggest it be the SMiLE tour...

too bad i dont like beach boys.. i dont see what all the fuss is about

I've heard a boot of one of the London concerts from earlier this year, so at this point I can say what I'm about to say with complete confidence:

If you don't see what the fuss is about, then you should definitely grab a copy of Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE as soon as it hits the stores on September 27. This is some of the most important music of the 20th century, and although a good deal of it is known to a small cult of devoted followers, this new release will be the masterpiece in all of its greatness being presented properly for the first time. You're lucky to be alive when it's happening.

One reason that SMiLE was shelved for almost 40 years is simply that it is NOT "Beach Boys music" by any stretch of the imagination. It is something much larger, much deeper, much wider, and much more artistically challenging than that. It's a celebration of what is best and noblest in the human spirit, a poetic reading of the American saga with lyrics that rival the poetry of Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg, and a musical feast beyond description.

If all you know of the Beach Boys is surf and sun and cars and "California girls", you're not prepared for SMiLE. SMiLE is more akin to the symphonies of Ives or the ballets of Copland, to West Side Story or Rhapsody in Blue, than it would be to songs like "Fun Fun Fun" and "I Get Around".

Just get the album...if you've never heard any of this stuff, you'll be in for a shocking revelation.

Because of the Revs conviction that this album is goin to be such a work of art, i am definitly going to go out and buy it when it comes out or soon after. Being that my taste in music not far from the good Rev's im almost positive i will enjoy it. Im only hoping that it lives up to all the hype the Rev is spreading aroung here.

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Me too... Although his and Algernon's enthusiasm is what is making me have interest in this at all... In my past experience when artists try to relive the past, it often is a disappointment...


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yea, i would have never even thought about buying this album if it wasnt for their enthusiasm over it.

If you'd like to "try before you buy", go to www.smilethealbum.com which is an official Nonesuch site. You can download low-fidelity files of the entire album there.

And as the old 60s Alka-Sultzer commercial once put it... "Try it--you'll like it!"