Waves of Nostalgia

BRIAN WILSON FINALLY CRACKS SMILE

Pondering what might have been had Brian Wilson': 1967 experimental psychedelic album, Smile, been released head-to-head with the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper': Lonely Hearfs Club Band rather than wiping out on a tidal wave of creative differences and druaav paranoia is a beloved rock-nerd parlor game.

Wilson-who, at the time, was riding the crest of Beach Boys FcIme—and lyricist Van Dyke Parks had conceived the album, which Wilson has described as his 'Teenage symphony to God," in a fever of inspiration while the rest ofthe bond was on tour in Europe. (This was Wilson': mad-qenius period. when he installed a sandbox in his Beverly Hills living room.) Smile was a visionary leap beyond the elaborate compositions and heartbreaking introspection of Pet Sounds, which, though now widely hailed as a masterpiece, was greeted by the Beach Boys' Gidget-y fan base with a collective scrunched-up nose. When Wilson's bandmatos failed to embrace Smile, "I just about fell to pieces," he has said.

Over the years, the uncompleted album became pop music': Ark ofthe Covenant; Bootleg scraps wefe revered like holy relics by Beach Boys cultists, a Few of whom tried to persuade Wilson to revisit the record. "He was apprehensive at first," recalls Dorian Sahanoio, Front man ofihe L.A. band the Wondermints, who have backed up Wilson on the road For several years. "BuI than he started remembering harmonies, and Van Dyke showed up and they iust picked up where they left off."

The finished o|bum—due out this fall—is a gorgeous elegy to lost innocence (both the adolescent sort and America': as a whole). It's a surprisingly cohesive web of lush arrangements, mixing everything from old-time movie music and childlike calliope to hymns and doo-wop harmonies.

By necessity, aélually releosiflg the Greaiest Album That Never Was means destroying a cherished myth, but for Wilson, if': a great relief. "I prefer the real thing to the fantasy."

AARON GELL