Word: smile
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...hard to understand why Wilson attracted a diverse crowd to the Orpheum. The concert did its best to bill itself as history in the making. Commemorative Smile programs were $20; circular Smile posters, at least $30; Smile shirts, hats, and sweaters as much as $70. The Smile logo was omnipresent, even appearing on a screen behind the band—as if the audience needed reminding of what was being played...
...performance of Smile itself (and other Beach Boys hits, including one from Pet Sounds) was more equivocal than the concert’s sloganeering: Brian Wilson is clearly a more constrained musician than he once was. Where the Smile album succeeded in cloaking Wilson’s vocal limitations behind other singers and an excellent production, the live show necessarily did not. He ran out of breath during “Surf’s Up.” He was flat during “Vegetables.” Often, he simply delegated lyrics...
...people who believe the Smile mythology, these technical points must matter little. If the story is about a man who was haunted for a long time by this music, then Wilson’s frailty is evidence of how hard he has struggled...
...dismiss the Smile live show on account of its broken protagonist is a simple reaction against the mythology. It is unlikely that any version of Wilson’s work—bootleg, official recording or live performance—will be evaluated separate from its surrounding narratives. Indeed, the Brian Wilson legend is at least as responsible as his music for maintaining his and the Beach Boys’ permanent respectability at the frontiers of pop music—frontiers of which Wilson himself has no knowledge...
...unclear how Smile will come to be regarded with respect to the Beach Boys’ Sgt. Pepper, Pet Sounds, or even with what it could have been had Wilson finished it in 1967. One potential conclusion is that no completed album could redeem the mystique of the Smile bootlegs...