Smiley Smile / Wild Honey

Here are two classic Beach Boys albums from 1967 that were critically dismissed in their day but are now rightly considered to be among their best, nicely remastered and fleshed out with bonus tracks. SMILEY SMILE was originally thrown together as a quick replacement for the doomed, unreleased SMILE album, a would-be masterpiece that had been scrapped at the last minute and has since achieved legendary status, the rock equivalent of the missing footage of Von Stroheim's GREED. WILD HONEY, which is in many ways the Beach Boys' soul album, was a deliberate retrenchment, and its stripped-down production anticipated both Dylan's JOHN WESLEY HARDING and the Beatles' WHITE ALBUM. Along with the R&B-influenced title track and "Darlin'" (not to mention a great Carl Wilson-sung cover of Stevie Wonder's "I Was Made To Love Her"), highlights include the great garage rocker "How She Boogalooed It" and the wonderfully breezy and mostly acoustic "I'd Love Just Once To See You" (as in "in the nude"). Pure joy from start to finish.|