i also find Smile to be an interesting subject, but mostly due to the fact that it never came out and supposedly (folklore has it) drove brian nuts. what is simply not true, since he showed signs of psychic illness as soon as 1964 or so. it's interesting to check out the sessions, but, as i stated before, there is something missing: the songs. wilson's songwriting started to become sloppy after "Today". people always argue that "little girl i once knew" didn't make a smash hit due to it's strange breaks. that's crap. it did not become a hit because the songwriting is only average. then pet sounds: a cool, moody album, but wilson could only pull it together with tony asher. and again: some of the songs are very average. production on the other side is very good. smile: less time spent on actual songWRITING, all time spent on bringing half-assed songs to life in the studio with the help of studio musicians. what is "cabinessence"? a song? i doubt it. it's just a wall of sounds. it's irritating. the verse is pretty nice (file under: americana; frontier social romanticism et al) but the chorus is so annoying, it's just two blocks cobbled together. it's just fragments, no songs. this makes it very uninteresting to listen to it. and: all the songs sound so sterile. there is no life in them. on the contrary: smiley smile is so weird and this makes it so cool. gone is all this perfectionism. the songs can breathe and start to actually become songs.
on a side note: what freaks me out about this whole smile/ genius wilson thing is: the guy had unlimited access to top players, unlimited studio time, no touring responsibilities. if you consider that, the outcome IS pretty lame. had one given those circa 100 smile sessions (!) to bands like the Landlords or the Run-a-rounds or the Ju Ju's, you would have gotten some real "genius" music.
