I Keep Coming Back To It
From The Smile Shop
I Keep Coming Back To It, by Reverend Rock
Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2005 10:35 pm
Well, I've managed to take a week or two away from SMiLE since its release...but I keep coming back to it. The DVD release didn't help my new addiction at all, I must say...especially since it has moments that I actually prefer to the CD version.
And then there's the sessions. Contrary to what happened to a lot of people once SMiLE was released, I found that my love for those old 60s recordings simply deepened now that I have the satisfaction of a finished and released SMiLE to use as a cross-reference. Being a minister, I can compare it to the delight of using different translations of the Bible, I guess (oh boy, I'm sure some eyes are gonna roll at that one)...
Two thirds of a year later, and what do I really think about SMiLE? I'm still trying to find words for it. I'll tell you this much...if my enjoyment of it over many, many repeat listenings is any indication, SMiLE is in very hot contention of becoming my favorite album of all time. Almost from day-of-release, I was convinced that it had to be in my all-time top three (the other two are the Beatles' "White Album" and Todd Rundgren's Something/Anything? if anyone cares to know).
Trying to be as objective as possible about this...I think SMiLE is a musical event that will be talked about 100 years from now the way we now talk about the premiere of Stravinski's Rite of Spring from 1911. Nobody will remember all these stupid sluts and punks vomiting obscenities while pretending to be singers and musicians these days. They'll remember Brian Wilson and SMiLE. You'll read about it in history books, books on the fine arts, that sort of thing. That's really what I believe the significance of this event is.
The lyrical and musical excellence of this work is pretty much without parallel in today's marketplace. There is nothing else remotely as ambitious, as daring, as demanding and rewarding of both musician and audience, as SMiLE. Go ahead...show me anything out there in contemporary music that demands so much of a group of gifted musicians...you can't. It's simply not there. SMiLE is the definitive musical statement of the last 25 years (at least).
The amazing thing is that in spite of the fact that the musical groundwork for this masterpiece was done four decades ago, the end result is amazingly contemporary. It feels like music for this moment in history...but of course, in another sense, I think SMiLE is timeless. It's like Bach, or Beethoven, or Mahler, or the best of Bernstein or Ellington or the Beatles. Trust me...SMiLE will be here when we and all our grandchildren are gone. It's that great. It's that important.
