I doubt it. If you don't like celestial vocal harmonies filled with all the aching beauty and pain of life, SMiLe can't help you.

The Elephant 6 bands would not sound as they do, were it not for the Beach Boys. Especially, say, Olivia Tremor Control. There's a lot of weirdness on Smile that would surprise folks who only know them from the surfing songs.

Yeah, I just got the album. It's astounding. I'm coming from a different place, I suspect, than Hay'n'Hec; I'm not a Beach Boys fanboy, and I've never heard the boots, so this is a completely new listen as far as I'm concerned. And it's just exquisite.

I doubt it. If you don't like celestial vocal harmonies filled with all the aching beauty and pain of life, SMiLe can't help you.

We are pleased to offer you, for a limited time only, Brian Wilson's SMiLe for a special discounted price! Please check one of the following options:

YES! I like celestial vocal harmonies filled with all the aching beauty and pain of life. Please send me SMiLe, and while you're at it another hit of ecstasy would really help.

NO! I am a soulless abomination and an affront to both God and man, who will surely end their days being chased over a cliff by angry pitchfork-wielding villagers. Please do not send me SMiLe, and if you could kick a sad-eyed puppy in the street for me I would be much obliged.

Limit of one per customer. Offer not valid in states beginning with a vowel. Martha Stewart was not harmed in the making of this album, but we hope to do better next time.

If you don't like celestial vocal harmonies filled with all the aching beauty and pain of life, SMiLe can't help you.

Hey now. It was a real question.

There's a lot of weirdness on Smile that would surprise folks who only know them from the surfing songs.

Okay, *that* almost interests me, though I admit I don't know much about Elephant 6.

NO! I am a soulless abomination and an affront to both God and man, who will surely end their days being chased over a cliff by angry pitchfork-wielding villagers. Please do not send me SMiLe, and if you could kick a sad-eyed puppy in the street for me I would be much obliged

Puppy-kickers of the world, unite and take over.

Puppy-kickers of the world, unite and take over.

I'm with Lyra on this one...

I can appreciate the influence of the Beach Boys. I like of what could be considered Pure pop stuff. It still doesn't make the urge to kill whenever I hear "Sloop Jon B" subside. At all.

Joe, you ignorant slut! I'm going to have to respectfully disagree here.

As a patriot and lover of freedom I salute my distinguished colleague from Massachusetts for his willingness to make use of his hard won freedom of speech. Moreover, I salute his courage in taking advantage of another great freedom: the freedom to be wrong. Really wrong. And to exercise that freedom loudly and publicly. Well done, sir! :-)

Seriously, though, I don't get the charge of pretentiousness. Because he has good diction? Because his tone is pure? Because he hits notes directly and eschews melisma? I'm somewhat of a cultural primitive and generally dislike highly trained voices. I don't know enough about music to appreciate the technique; I'm unfamiliar with the opera and art song traditions and find it hard to distinguish between "good" and "bad" singers in those types of music; and I usually find the use of those techniques in popular or folk music (each term broadly taken) makes for a really stiff performance. But I don't hear that with Bleckmann. To my ears he isn't stiff, he doesn't show off (on the CD, can't speak for the live show), and he's very expressive.

Technique per se is neither good nor bad, just a set of tools. The problem with the Berklee guys isn't that they're chops monsters, it's that the vast majority of them have nothing to say, and they try to hide that by blowing chops (or in the worst cases think that blowing chops IS something to say.) On the other hand, lack of chops isn't a sign of authenticity or some such rot. There are plenty of greats who have an extremely limited set of vocal or instrumental chops, but it's their other strengths that make them great, not because they know two chords, can't keep time, and have a half octave range, only half of which they can hit with any consistency. None of that is a badge of honor -- although none of it is something to be ashamed of. What does matter is figuring out what you want to do and developing the skills to reach that goal. For many years Thelonious Monk was criticized for his herky jerky style and lack of fluidity, often being dismissed with a snide, "He can't play." But as one of his early, perceptive critics remarked on the subject, (I paraphrase) Monk doesn't have the technique of a Horowitz, but I'm not certain that Horowitz's technique is up to the music of Thelonious Monk.

Sorry you didn't like it, Jon. But we both liked Blueberry Boat, right?

I've got a sweet tooth for pop music already, so I love the Beach Boys early boppy hits too. In the book we give the BBs a strong focus because they are one of the three groups (Kim and I felt) that became the locus of early rock fandom critical writing (as opposed to professional rock crit writing of that time). As Kim described it, there is the popular Beach Boys of Endless Summer and golden California pop songs, and then there's the cult Beach Boys of Manson association, Brian's meltdown, Smile bootlegs, Eugene Landy cult weirdness, Murray Wilson tapes and the sublime beauty/utter weirdness of their early 70s works.

The other two groups (we thought) that had strong rock fandom cults in the beginning were the Kinks and the Raspberries.

But if you can't get over the prettiness of the Beach Boys - if that seems trite or foofy to you - then Smile surely won't be convert you either.

But if you can't get over the prettiness of the Beach Boys - if that seems trite or foofy to you - then Smile surely won't be convert you either.

Well, it's no "Surfin' Safari," though. SMiLE is 100% cornfed American psychedelic weirdo shit. If it were a TV show, it would be on cable access. If it were a movie, it would be John Ford directing Un Chien Andalou. If it were a book, it would be Louis L'Amour meets Donald Barthelme. If it were a painting, it would be Duchamp's take on Norman Rockwell. It's the Republican-looking late-50s white guy down the street who secretly drops a lot of acid and fills his basement with his own wacked outsider-art sculptures.

I don't know if it'll change anyone's mind about the Beach Boys, but it is easily the most likely item of Brian Wilsonalia that could change the indie rock kids' minds.

I'm looking forward to picking up Mr. Wilson's opus.

I did, however, already pick up the new REM. I had low expectations, having read several rather bad reviews. It's better than I was expecting based on that and it's already growing on me, but ... I don't know. I guess I'm still having a problem wrapping my mind around the fact that REM are a different band now.

That said, there's only one song that I really loathe on the album. "Wanderlust," I think it's called. A tune that aims for bouncy lightheartedness and comes across as forced is really an awful thing. Yuck.

Michael Stipe's voice keeps getting better with age, but his yelps of "Me! Me! Me! Me!" or "Yeaaaah yeaaaaah" in another song are incredibly grating.