Look, Listen, Vibrate, Smile

Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece Every art form has its holy grail — those elusive creations around which vast legends grow. The Beach Boys’ lost album Smile heads that list for rock and roll. Work on Smile began on the heels of the group’s seminal Pet Sounds. Brian Wilson teamed with Van Dyke Parks to make "...	Beach Boys - An American Band / Brian Wilson - I Just Wasn't Made for These Times A magnificent DVD pairing for Beach Boys fans, these two stylistically different films here pretty much represent the two sides of "America's Band." First up is The Beach Boys: An American Band, made at the height of their Reagan-era resurgence after then Interior Secretary James...	The Beach Boys: The Definitive Diary of America's Greatest Band on Stage and in the Studio With Brian Wilson touring Smile, a new recording of that most enticing of lost classics due, a new Wilson solo album out now, and the 40th anniversary of The Beach Boys’ first no. 1 in the US (‘I Get Around’), what better time to read about the best years of ...	Orange Crate Art Here is a view of the Golden State through rose-colored glasses that's as effervescent and intoxicating as pink champagne. Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks trade the roles they occupied nearly three decades ago when they collaborated on songs for the Beach Boys' great lost album, ...	The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds (33 1/3) Pet Sounds is, rightly, one of the most celebrated pop albums ever released. It has also been written about, pored over, and analyzed more than most other albums put together. In this disarming book, Jim Fusilli focuses primarily on the emotional core of the album, on Brian Wilso...
Wouldn't It Be Nice: Brian Wilson and the Making of the Beach Boys' <I>Pet Sounds</I> (Vinyl Frontier series, The) This illuminating book offers unique insight into the making of the seminal album Pet Sounds, revealing the intimate processes that went into its creation and featuring brand-new interviews with key players. From conception and composition to arrangement and production, the ways ...	Complete Guide to the Music of the Beach Boys (Complete Guide to their Music) Updated and redesigned editions of the classic guides to the music of the world s best known acts. Written by experts, each book examines every song in a given artist s recorded repertoire, making it an invaluable guide for collectors and fans alike.	Carl & The Passions - So Tough / Holland If the uneven Sunflower and Surf's Up albums demonstrated the Beach Boys resolve to soldier on despite the largely AWOL status of Brian Wilson, their founder and troubled creative mainstay, 1972's So Tough showed how quickly their own disparate instincts could lead to a creative ...	Brian Wilson presents SMiLE "My face isn't able to smile," Brian Wilson confides to collaborator Van Dyke Parks in one of this comprehensive double-DVD set's poignant bonus interviews, "but my heart does." Listen to our interview with Brian Wilson Using vintage cl...	The Pet Sounds Sessions Released in 1966 to tepid sales (and hence causing no small amount of grumbling among the notoriously fractious band members), Brian Wilson's Rubber Soul-inspired album of "spiritual love" eventually became one of pop music's most celebrated artistic accomplishments. Paul McCartn...

Still essential
I haven't read this book yet, but I'm wondering if this one is still essential now there is the same writer's new book "Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece". Smile and Pet Sounds still are among my top ten favorites of all time.

Smile was only two-thirds complete
I agree with Chris's review far below, which states that Priore was operating under a misconception. Brian Wilson has stated that the album was supposed to have three movements, and that only two movements (2/3 of the entire album!) had been completed at the time the album was scrapped. I think Priore was trying to convince himself that the Smile album wasn't actually "lost," and that whatever bootlegged versions he'd strung together at home were close to the real thing. Nice try. Other than that, though, the book contains the most thorough collection of Smile-related essays available, so it gets three stars from this old-school Wilson fan.

Smile was nearly complete
The review below is incorrect in stating that Smile was only about 75% finished. The Smile tapes are readily available as bootlegs, and they clearly show an album that was pretty much finished. The song bits had not yet been sequenced, and the Beach Boys' vocals were not completed on every song. However, the album was very near completion, and almost everything that's out in the current Smile was already in the original. In fact, it took Brian only 2 weeks to complete Smile for performance and release in 2004 -- that's how close to finished Smile was.

Waiting for the shoe to drop
Priore's book is a fantastic feat of journalism, or archival detective work, take your pick . . . Yes, it's sloppy looking and somewhat outdated, but it has the genuine thrill of the chase that you find in a book like Symons' QUEST FOR CORVO or in Richard Holmes' biographical investigations into the lives of the British Romantics. Soon, they say, Brian will have finished and released SMILE after all these years, and surely all of us wonder, can it possibly live up to the SMILE of our imaginations? We're waiting for the other shoe to drop, will it be a success? Or will I wind up a broken man too tough to cry?

A thrilling book for those who love rock history
Now SMiLE is finished, and it will be in stores this September. This makes Priore's scrapbook/history tome about the 1966-67 SMiLE era that much more interesting and valuable. I don't have much to add to previous reviewers (and my five-star rating should indicate how I feel about the book), but I'll just note this: Domenic Priore painstakingly assembled this book as a fan's labor of love, almost as an underground project--and years later, when Brian Wilson and his band premiered the completed SMiLE in London, Priore was selected to write articles for the tour program. So now he's an officially sanctioned historian of SMiLE, lending the book even more credence.