In 1965 Brian stayed home and started his recording career with being able
to concentrate on his music. Before this time he was on tour and recording about three to
four albums per year just for the Beach Boys plus any other projects which he had going at
the time. An example of Brian's non-Beach Boy activated was the hit Surfs City by
Jan and Dean and his work with the Honeys. At this time however he made the album
"The Beach Boys Today" with such hits as "Please Let Me Wonder",
"Dance, Dance, Dance", "Help Me Rhonda", and "Do you want to
Dance". I feel at this time Brian went up a notch as did his rivals the one and only
Beatles with their albums "Revolver" and then "Rubber Soul" . The
Beatles had the advantage due to their overwhelming popularlity and having John, Paul and
George Martin all working on the album, usually along with a song from George
Harrison. But as the Beatles went up a notch in the music world so did Brian . First
with the "Today" album and then with his masterpiece "Pet Sounds".
Pet Sounds has been called the greatest album in Rock History !!!!
Pet Sounds included such songs as "Sloop John B" , "Wouldn't it be Nice", "God Only Knows" and "Caroline No". "God Only Knows" was a larger hit overseas than in the United States but later came to get the fame which it deserves. The song was called the greatest single ever by Paul Mc Carthy . Caroline No was the first single ever by Brian Wilson as a solo artist. The Beatles have admitted that this album pushed them into creating the Sgt. Peppers album after seeing what Brian could produce. The Beach Boys then came out with their greatest single ever "Good Vibrations" which pushed the groups' popularity over the Beatles. This was the first single ever where the tempo changed in the middle of the song and introduced many new bass cords. The next question which was pushed at Brian was could he top it and continue on as Rock's music leader. He decided to make a "teen symphony to God" which he would call the Smile album.
This album would start with his masterpiece single "Good Vibrations" and
would have a flow from song to song on side one with the Good Vibrations music and the
second side would have the same effect with his hit song "Heroes and Villians"
. Other tracks which were listed on the cover were "Do You Like Worms",
"Wind Chimes," "Surfs Up", "Cabin Essence",
"Wonderful", "I'm In Great Shape", "Child Is Father Of The
Man", "The Elements", "Vega-Tables" and "The old Master
Painter". Another trivia of the album is that Paul McCarthy visted the group
during recording and was even on the song " Vega-Tables'" and after this session
he went back to Britain and that is when the Sgt . Pepers Album was started. 
I feel Rock History was changed when the album SMILE was cancelled.
The group had started their own label at this time which was called Brothers Records and
was the first label by a rock group. It was to be distributed by Capitol as was Apple
Records. The label put very strong pressure on the group to release the album by Jannuary
1967 . The label had even made 450,000 covers for the album and had started advertising
even though the album was not complete. The group was also the headline act of the
Monterey Pop Festival which they were forced to drop out of due to the pressure to release
the album. The festival wound up being a turning point in music and the group missed the
turn. Everyone was waiting to see where Brian was going next. First the Pop Festival
and then The Beatles release of the Sgt Peppers album both changed the course of music
which is basically where Brian was heading, but maybe a little further, if you know what I
mean. The group eventually released the album "Smiley Smile" which had songs
such as, "Heroes and Villians", "Vegetables", Fall Breaks and Back To
Winter".
"She's Goin Bald", "Little Pad", "Good
Vibrations", "With Me Tonight", "Wind Chimes", "Gettin
Hungry", "Wonderful", "Whistle In". This is a great album
but did not measure up to the one and only SMILE album. Some of the songs were the
same but they were different versions than the songs intended for the Smile album.
The Smile album was also intended to have a theme and the same connecting music throughout
the album. This album did not. Brian had decided to slow down in his producing
methods which were leading the industry. The Beatles did basically the same thing when
they retreated with their White Album. Brian felt like he lost the war with the two groups
but the odds were stacked against him . The Beatles had three major producers and the
popularity on their side and the Beach Boys were fighting their old surfin image. With
Brian being the only producer the rest of the group was very worried about leaving their
orginal style of music. No matter what your opinion of this era, the one thing which no
one can dispute is that Brian made large contributions to the music industry.
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