Brian Wilson - Smile

Between 1967 and 2004, the Smiles essions were pretty much the Dead Sea Scrolls of pop music. Well documented as head Beach Boy Brian Wilson's answer to the Beatles' masterpiece Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (which was itself largely an answer to the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds), the tracks laid down in '67 for the projected SMILE album were the furthest afield anyone nominally operating under the pop/rock umbrella had ever ventured. Notoriously, intraband conflict (Mike Love, in particular, found the Wilson/Van Dyke Parks-penned conceptual work too far out) kept the record from being released. With several oceans' worth of water under the bridge, Wilson finally decided to finish the aborted project three-and-a-half decades later, adhering closely to the original blueprints. The results are as timelessly breathtaking as the original version must have been to the lucky few who first heard the initial tapes.

With sterling support from his backing band the Wondermints, Wilson meticulously pieced together the conceptual, orchestral puzzle of Smile into a rewarding, cohesive whole. Even decades down the line, it still sounds miles away from anything else in the world of popular music. A series of extended vignettes tied together with seamlessly arranged melodic latticework, Smile is a masterpiece that incorporates the influences of gospel, ancient hymns, Charles Ives-style avant-garde experimentalism, barbershop-quartet harmony, Stephen Foster, and more, in a churning cauldron of lush Americana. Strings, harpsichord, and a wide palette of orchestral percussion are just as important as drums and guitars, though traces of the PET SOUNDS sonic stew can be heard here as well. A triumph of the will for Wilson and a victory for art and humanity, Smile bears--among many other things--an extremely appropriate title.