Well, baby-boomers and pop music fans, the long and agonizing wait is finally over. Yes, that’s right, this year you will finally be able to get your copy of the lost and never completed Beach Boys album SMiLE. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, SMiLE was supposed to be The Beach Boys’ stunning follow-up to Pet Sounds but — long story short — Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson did a lot of drugs, got waaay stressed out, and had a complete and total mental and physical breakdown, and the album was never completed.
As a side-note, you can already get a whole bunch of the material that was supposed to make up the SMiLE album on releases like Smiley Smile, Brian Wilson’s solo SMiLE, and plenty of bootlegs, so in my opinion, SMiLE is very much one of the “most-released unreleased albums” of all time.
In any case, this is going to be the “first official release of SMiLE that includes all necessary and important material and is supported by all members of the band,” so that’s important to note. Brian Wilson even said: “I’m thrilled that The Beach Boys’ original studio sessions for SMiLE will be released for the first time, after all these years. I’m looking forward to this collection of the original recordings and having fans hear the beautiful angelic voices of the boys in a proper studio release.”
SMiLE, which is being retitled as The Smile Sessions, will be available in three versions: a two-CD set, an iTunes digital LP, and a box set containing four CDs, two vinyl LPs, two vinyl singles, and a 60-page hardbound book written by Beach Boys historian Domenic Priore. A release date and tracklist have not been announced, and thus we all know what the real news is: it’s not actually coming out yet and you’ll have to wait three more decades. Sorry.
• The Beach Boys: http://www.thebeachboys.com
• Capitol: http://www.capitolrecords.com
