SMiLE was to be the follow-up to Pet Sounds , but its recording was apparently so arduous for The Beach Boys, the session musicians, and the increasingly unstable Brian Wilson, that he called it off in the Spring of ‘67. Driblets of the studio material were released over the years, Wilson . . . . Continue Reading »
Do you like “Do You Like Worms?” ? Let’s try an experiment: I’d like readers who have not really heard the Beach Boys’ SMiLE , their ambitious 60s album only recently “released” in a Brian Wilson-approved form, to listen to two of the most popular songs from it, . . . . Continue Reading »
When I hear the harpsichord in Vivaldi or Bach, if I picture anything, it would be rococo drawing rooms—George Washington asking Jane Austen for the pleasure of a dance. When I hear it in pop, perhaps thanks to Peanuts and the great Vince Guaraldi , I picture green lawns and white . . . . Continue Reading »
Its lyrics are fairly interesting (in a nutshell, relativistic autonomy gets declared in a “manly” mod key) and music-wise it features the ground-breaking and still tasty-sounding feedback break. But my discussion will focus on the relation between The Who’s trademark . . . . Continue Reading »
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