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Infectious and hummable, to be sure, and a remarkably unified, irresistible piece of pop music, but no musical watershed on par with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or Wilson's masterpiece, Pet Sounds.
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The end result is a great album, albeit one more lighthearted than its myth would suggest.
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UncutA unique and unlikely moment of retrieval, restoration and renaissance. [Nov 2004, p.98]
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The most obvious aspect that takes away from Smile's luster however, is an uncomfortable sense that the album has morphed into a quaint piece of nostalgia rather than the masterwork it was expected to be.
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MojoThere is a remarkable consistency about Smile's complex tapestry of delights. [Oct 2004, p.98]
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Q MagazineThe real revelation of this new Smile is its melodic depth, even if lyricist Van Dyke Parks's oblique ruminations seem unnecessarily flowery. [Nov 2004, p.114]
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New Musical Express (NME)'Smile' stands up with any of the great music of the 20th century. [25 Sep 2004, p.63]
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It's looser and messier than Sgt. Pepper and, one suspects, always would have been. But its sui generis Americanism counterbalances its paucity of classic pop songs.
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Under The RadarOther than the fact that it came out a little late, there isn't a single thing wrong with it. [#8, p.113]
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Despite the hype, it is hard not to be impressed with the new Smile.... The music flows beautifully - no mean feat when it encompasses barbershop singing, acid rock, early pop, Hawaiian chanting and mock-religious plainsong.
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It’s spellbinding.
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The new Smile not only justifies its bearing, but also serves as a major triumph.
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Entertainment WeeklyIt's a gorgeous trip back to a time when anything seemed possible. [1 Oct 2004, p.73]
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Against all expectations, Brian Wilson has achieved what should have been impossible, and has produced what may be the year's most thrilling album.
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Smile is quite simply the greatest triumph in the history of pop music.
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The WireThe music has an originality that sounds remarkable even now. [#248, p.52]
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Hearing the newly recorded album as a completed work instead of dismembered modules is a rollicking reassertion of Wilson's compositional genius.
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BlenderDespite Wilson's wrecked voice, it's surprisingly grand and moving. [Nov 2004, p.146]
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FilterOne of the most inspiring and triumphant projects of the year, and perhaps the last 30 years. [#13, p.89]
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SMiLE has arrived as incredible and ground-breaking a record as any of us could have hoped.
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This is pop music like nothing before it, or since.
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Los Angeles Times"Smile" emerges as a beautiful and cohesive work, at times deeply moving, at others oddly whimsical, at still others eerily disturbing but celebratory. [27 Sep 2004]
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This is a brilliant record, just as it's always been.
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While undeniably ambitious and moving in parts--with sunny harmonies and layered production--it also happens to be a little kitschy.
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Whatever it was supposed to achieve originally, right now SMiLE sounds like a beautifully modulated, funny, sometimes unintentional meditation on a failed United States and counterculture, and the lost paradise, real or imagined, of Southern California, and the collapse and reinvention of the male ego.
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While it may not be the ultimate symphonic confection nearly four decades of hyperbole have all but guaranteed, Smile is nonetheless an arresting, audacious, unabashedly whimsical slice of junk-drawer Americana and can-do pop craftsmanship.
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The magic of the album lies in the way Wilson's complex, challenging sonic vision can evoke the optimism, hope, and wonder that gave birth to this album decades ago.
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Turns out those hypothetical comparisons to Sgt. Pepper's weren't so far off the mark.
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Smile's post-adolescent utopia isn't disfigured by Brian's thickened, soured 62-year-old voice. It's ennobled--the material limitations of its sunny artifice and pretentious tomfoolery acknowledged and joyfully engaged.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 398 out of 522
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Mixed: 39 out of 522
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Negative: 85 out of 522
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FeidoVApr 12, 2010A great album.
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BrianEMar 26, 2010Perfection in Sound
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AnthonyLMar 26, 2010Best album ever.