Album of the Year
Finally, this is it! I’m exhausted from this Top 25 business, and my list wasn’t nearly as extensive or thoroughly documented as the noiseboy’s! Perhaps that is why, though exhausted, I averted total burned-outedness. Thus, I will not be joining the noiseboy in his 2005 trip, Year Without Music, but I wish him much luck—he’s gonna need it. (A more detailed, pseudo-philosophical response to the Y.W.M. will likely be forthcoming.)
So anyway, to the list. Numero uno.
I gotta tell ya—this one wasn’t even close. Of all the many excellent records put out in this last year, one in particular stood head and shoulders above the rest.
(drumroll, please…..)
1. Brian Wilson – Smile
It could be no other. For so many reasons, it could be no other. My favorite album of the year. Best album of the year. In fact, I think it is quite possibly the best album of the last decade. (All things being relative, of course.)
Though released on CD in late September (thirty-seven years after its initial release date!), I held out for the vinyl pressing, an embossed gatefold double-platter thing of beauty, so I didn’t even begin thoroughly digesting Smile until the first week of December. With the very first spin, I knew it would be my #1, and I haven’t stopped listening since.
As Rock n’ Roll’s Holy Grail for more than thirty years, diehards were rightly skeptical of the latter-day Wilson’s ability to pull this off. The unreleased Smile’s reputation built to a point that its mystery, magic, and myth took on a life of its own. Bootlegs flowed freely, allowing aficionados to construct their own ideas of what Smile was. Many people invested themselves psychologically in its myth. No one ever expected an official release. And as with most everything else, surely its reality could never match the myth.
But it did.
Somehow, it did. Shockingly, the final product is more satisfying than the myth ever was. I mean, sure, one can quibble about the new lyrics in “Good Vibrations” or some other odd detail, but I really don’t think anyone can deny this record’s excellence.
There’s so many more things I could say about Smile—entire books have been written on just this one album—but I’ll let someone else do the heavy analysis, I’m resting my case here. Trust me, you need this. Have a happy new year, y’all.
N/P Schooner – You Forget About Your Heart
So anyway, to the list. Numero uno.
I gotta tell ya—this one wasn’t even close. Of all the many excellent records put out in this last year, one in particular stood head and shoulders above the rest.
(drumroll, please…..)
1. Brian Wilson – Smile
It could be no other. For so many reasons, it could be no other. My favorite album of the year. Best album of the year. In fact, I think it is quite possibly the best album of the last decade. (All things being relative, of course.)
Though released on CD in late September (thirty-seven years after its initial release date!), I held out for the vinyl pressing, an embossed gatefold double-platter thing of beauty, so I didn’t even begin thoroughly digesting Smile until the first week of December. With the very first spin, I knew it would be my #1, and I haven’t stopped listening since.
As Rock n’ Roll’s Holy Grail for more than thirty years, diehards were rightly skeptical of the latter-day Wilson’s ability to pull this off. The unreleased Smile’s reputation built to a point that its mystery, magic, and myth took on a life of its own. Bootlegs flowed freely, allowing aficionados to construct their own ideas of what Smile was. Many people invested themselves psychologically in its myth. No one ever expected an official release. And as with most everything else, surely its reality could never match the myth.
But it did.
Somehow, it did. Shockingly, the final product is more satisfying than the myth ever was. I mean, sure, one can quibble about the new lyrics in “Good Vibrations” or some other odd detail, but I really don’t think anyone can deny this record’s excellence.
There’s so many more things I could say about Smile—entire books have been written on just this one album—but I’ll let someone else do the heavy analysis, I’m resting my case here. Trust me, you need this. Have a happy new year, y’all.
N/P Schooner – You Forget About Your Heart
posted by Jonathan Wright at 9:45 AM EMAIL POST
