Glorious Imperfections
Just been listening to the wonderful 'Smile' album by The Beach Boys. The version I have is a bootleg of rough mixes, allegedly hastily run off by guerilla engineers who raided the vaults at Capitol in the 70's.
It's a hugely ramshackle affair with many songs only half completed and bits of vocals half sung or (in the case of 'Cabinessence') simply not there at all. But it's just such an incredibly weird and lovely record despite (or maybe because of) that.
When I heard the new recording of 'Brian Wilson's Smile' released a few years ago with all the tunes and arrangements faithfully reproduced by the Wondermints, along with Brian himself, it left me a bit cold, still great songs but all a little too tidy and missing something in translation.
It set me wondering whether rough or demo versions always contain the essence of the songs in their purest forms -some special quality that's impossible to recapture. In the case of 'Smile' all the parts apart from Brian's piano. were played by session musos of the time anyway - as was the case with pet sounds - so it can't really be argued that the band had anything to do with it, either way.
There must be other examples of this?
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Charlie Rich
Whilst I disgaree with you about Smile - I think Brian Wilson's 2004 album is the greatest album The Beach Boys never made - this, to my mind, is the greatest example of demo overshadowing, in this case, two other recordings.
Let's hear it for the great, great Charlie Rich.
And I guess...
...that this thread is the place to bring this one up:
Jeff Buckley
I listen to Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk far more than I listen to Grace. His four-track version of the Genesis track Back In NYC is one of the most impressive lo-fi recordings I've ever heard.
There is something very endearing about a demo
Especially when you can hear the tic tock of the time keeper thingy. Favourites are Sandy Denny's Rising for the Moon and One More Chance, pre the finished off Fairport Version. And Clive Gregsons pre any Trouble version of Girls are always right.
Brian Wilson's 'Smile'...
...I played that more than any other Beach Boys album save 'Pet Sounds'. I feel most of their albums don't quite cohere but the Wilson version of 'Smile' stood up well from beginning to end.
One of the most haunting demos I heard was Peter Green's acoustic/vocal take on a track called 'Do You Really Give A Damn For Me?' which later turned up on Fleetwood Mac's 'Then Play On' as 'Showbiz Blues'. Like 'Man Of The World', it's obvious the man is really singing from the soul.
Arctic Monkeys debut
I've not heard their music but I heard that the demos sound more lively, more thrilling than the studio version.
Smile-sceptic Beach Boys fan
I love The Beach Boys and I love Smile (even though it's a bit silly and pretentious), both the bootlegs and the Brian/Wondermints version of it. But I can't help feeling a bit peeved by how it (and the same goes for Pet Sounds) has this "legendary" status; this idea that it's the pinnacle of Brian Wilson's work. It isn't. It's no better than various other Beach Boys albums that came before and after it: All Summer Long, Today, Friends, Sunflower etc.
Here's my favourite Brian Wilson demo. An attempt to write a song for Frank Sinatra during one of Brian's barmy periods in the '70s. He never recorded it but Ed Harcourt does a lovely version of it:
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