SMiLE

It's no overstatement to say that this is the most anticipated release in the history of pop music.

Almost forty years ago, Brian Wilson began work on the follow up to the Beach Boys extraordinary Pet Sounds, to be entitled SMiLE, but events conspired to prevent it's completion, such as the interfering muckery-hackery of Beach Boy Mike Love (who personally prevented Brian from using any of the original SMiLE session source tapes for this album, and who now satisfies his artistic ambitions singing "Kokomo" at Six Flags amusement parks two hundred times a year), and Brian's massive drug use leading him slowly but determinedly into a twilight realm of his own secret thoughts.

The odds and ends which had been completed were compiled into an album called Smiley Smile, which certainly has its moments but is by no means the sprawling, ambitious, conceptually integrated masterwork which Brian had intended.

Working from the original master tapes as a guide, Brian has recreated the music in the studio with a backing band, and SMiLE is out today. I'll try and get back with a review soon.

Now, if only Kevin Shields could finish that follow-up to Loveless...