{"id":25784,"date":"2022-06-20T20:18:02","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T18:18:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nmz.de\/badblog\/?p=25784"},"modified":"2022-06-20T20:24:59","modified_gmt":"2022-06-20T18:24:59","slug":"55-years-of-good-vibrations-and-now-smile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nmz.de\/badblog\/2022\/06\/20\/55-years-of-good-vibrations-and-now-smile\/","title":{"rendered":"55 Years of Good Vibrations \u2013 and now SMiLE!"},"content":{"rendered":"

55 Years of Good Vibrations \u2013 and now SMiLE<\/em>!<\/strong><\/p>\n

BY JOBST LIEBRECHT \u00b7 June 20, 2022 (Brian Wilson’s Birthday)<\/p>\n

A calendar entry<\/p>\n

(Part One)<\/p>\n

It was in February 1966 in California that Brian Wilson, band member and composer for the Beach Boys, opened the door wide for the future of pop music. In four studios he was cutting and layering together the material for his pocket symphony \u201cGood Vibrations<\/strong>.\u201d<\/strong> It was what some of his bandmates more or less shrugged off as \u201cBrian\u2019s ego music,\u201d before it went on to break the three-minute barrier for a pop song and nevertheless become the million-selling hit single that just about everyone has heard and knows.<\/p>\n

As a teenager, I was no exception; I loved the delightfully charming and lighthearted songs of the Beach Boys with their glorious, ringing harmonies, but I also had an ear and sense for the profound musical vision that pieces such as \u201cGood Vibrations\u201d or \u201cHeroes and Villains\u201d represented. Together with the Beatles\u2019 albums, and far more than Mozart and Beethoven could, such works gave me an early sense of the possibilities of composition and music:<\/p>\n

It could be both comprehensible and at the same time incommensurable.<\/p>\n

It could be simple and straightforward, but yet intricate.<\/p>\n

It could grab us by the hand with an intriguing motif or melody, for example, and then lead us out into wide open spaces and even desolation.<\/p>\n

It cherished beauty, always and forever more, even in the depths of darkness and suffering.<\/p>\n

And it never lost its sense of humor.<\/p>\n

So, now it\u2019s your turn! \u2014 as they say in Hamburg.<\/p>\n

Just now, in the middle of the Corona, I\u2019ve turned back to Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys,<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I had to select one single living genius in pop music I would choose Brian Wilson.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

(George Martin, producer of the Beatles)<\/em><\/p>\n

because I had time to make what was for me a breathtaking discovery:<\/p>\n

The pop song milestones \u201cGood Vibrations\u201d and \u201cHeroes and Villains\u201d were not only self-contained miniature symphonies in and of themselves\u2014they had been planned as a part of something much larger, namely Brian Wilson\u2019s legendary SMiLE<\/em><\/strong> project.<\/p>\n

But, just a minute, you say\u2014that\u2019s nothing new. Yes and no. It has always been known that in 1966, at the age of 24, Brian Wilson, overwhelmed by the new possibilities of studio technology, spurred on by the availability of the best studio musicians in Los Angeles and by the competition with the Beatles, set out to achieve the ultimate culmination of his \u201cBeach Boys pop song explosion.\u201d And it has always been known that this major project, undertaken together with the lyricist Van Dyke Parks and already titled SMiLE, <\/em>had failed miserably. Because in 1967, as we also know, before he could complete it, Brian Wilson suffered a nervous breakdown due to or made worse by depression, drugs and pills that led to a decades-long withdrawal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all were waiting for SMiLE, but it didn\u00b4t come. We were waiting in vain.\u201d (George Martin)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe world wasn’t ready for it,\u201d Brian Wilson would stammer helplessly into the microphones when asked.<\/p>\n

But perhaps now?<\/p>\n

In the early 1990s, some 30 years after his collapse and subsequent struggles, Brian Wilson was finally able to get back on his feet (the story of which can be relived in the touching and authentic 2005 Hollywood film Love and Mercy<\/em><\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Trailer:<\/p>\n