45 Years for the Beach Boys follow-up to Pet Sounds
Exceedingly few albums possess the cultural seismic impact of Pet Sounds, the 1966 masterpiece that didn’t just change pop music—it fundamentally reshaped Brian Wilson from a pop-surf sensation into one of the most vital songwriters of all time.
It was an album of such staggering creative ambition that it set a new benchmark for studio artistry. Yet, despite its revolutionary success, the dream that followed remained tragically unrealized.
In the immediate wake of Pet Sounds, the band released defining tracks like God Only Knows, establishing a sound that defined the 1960s. All the while, Brian Wilson was quietly working on a proposed follow-up, a concept album that many believed would eclipse the original: Smile.
However, the road to completing Smile> was fraught with disaster. The creation of the intended concept album was plagued by internal turmoil—the intense friction between Wilson and Mike Love—mounting mental health struggles, and the corrosive influence of drug addiction. Compounding these personal struggles was a deep lack of trust from the record label, ensuring that the project never materialized as planned.
Ultimately, Smile> was never finished. Instead, its fragmented remnants were repackaged and released as the more commercially palatable Smiley Smile> in 1967. For many years, the unfinished work remained a poignant symbol of artistic regret for Wilson.
Decades later, Wilson sought to reclaim that lost vision. In 2004, he re-recorded and reworked the material in Brian Wilson Presents Smile>, offering a new perspective on the songs. While fans waited patiently for the original recordings, the anticipation for the authentic sound remained.
The journey to that authenticity arrived with the Smile Sessions> in 2011. Overseen and supervised by Brian Wilson himself, this project utilized the original masters, offering the closest audience has ever come to hearing what the original concept album might have sounded like.
The release of Smile Sessions> delivered an answer to a question that had persisted for nearly five decades: What if Smile> had been the immediate, revelatory follow-up to Pet Sounds>? It continued the otherworldly experimentation that defined The Beach Boys.
Today, we can revisit the brilliance of Wilson’s work during that intensely creative period. More importantly, the existence of the Smile Sessions> proves that even the greatest missed opportunities can be rectified, allowing us to bask in the enduring legacy of a truly monumental artistic vision.
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