Smiley Smile is the 12th studio album by American rock band the Beach Boys, released on September 18, 1967. It reached number 9 on UK record charts, but sold poorly in the US, peaking at number 41. In 1974, it was voted the 64th greatest album of all time by NME writers. The music is often cited for having positive effects during an LSD comedown.
About Smiley Smile in brief
Smiley Smile is the 12th studio album by American rock band the Beach Boys, released on September 18, 1967. It reached number 9 on UK record charts, but sold poorly in the US, peaking at number 41. The music from the album is often cited for having positive effects during an LSD comedown, and was used by at least one drug clinic to help relieve users from bad trips. In 1974, it was voted the 64th greatest album of all time by NME writers, and in 2000, one of 100 albums featured in the book The Ambient Century as a chapter in the development of ambient music. The Beach Boys’ album Pet Sounds, issued on May 16, 1966, was massively influential upon its release, containing lush and sophisticated orchestral arrangements that raised the band’s prestige to the top level of rock innovators. By then, an album titled Smile had been conceived as an extension of that song’s recording approach, with Wilson composing music in collaboration with lyricist Van Dyke Parks. Smile was left unfinished as the band embarked on a brief tour of Hawaii, and then, the recording of their next album, Wild Honey, released in December. The group had recently employed the Beatles’ former press officer Derek Taylor as their publicist. In April 1969, Wilson and his wife put their Beverly Hills home up for sale and took up residence at a newly-purchased mansion in Bel Air, Bel Air. The album’s production was unusually credited to \”the Beach Boys\”, marking the point where Wilson began ceding his leadership of the group.
A lawsuit seeking USD 255,000 in royalties was launched against Capitol Records in February 1967. Within weeks, there was also an attempt to terminate the band’s contract with Capitol before its November 1969 expiration. Between mid-April and early-April 1967, Wilson took a four-week break to work on a personal home studio in Bel-Air, and took a break from the band in early May. The band also set up Brother Records, a new record label and holding company founded by the band. The record is also recognized for anticipating later bedroom pop acts, and is one of the first Beach Boys albums to be released on an independent record label, with the intention of giving the band total control over their product. The lead single, “Heroes and Villains,” was also released as singles, but the former was issued a year earlier, while the latter was not credited to the band, and it was not released as a single until the next year. The majority of recording sessions lasted for only six weeks at his makeshift home studio using what was predominantly radio broadcasting equipment, a detuned piano, electronic bass, melodica, found objects for percussion, and a Baldwin theater organ. The unconventional recording process juxtaposed an experimental party-like atmosphere with short pieces of music edited together in a disjointed manner, combining the engineering methods of \”Good Vibrations\” with the loose feeling of Beach Boys’ Party!.
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This page is based on the article Smiley Smile published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
