SMiLE
Brian Wilson · 2004
SMiLE is not an album you listen to—it’s a forensic archive of ambition collapsing under its own weight.
On music.briefs
Pet Sounds
The Beach Boys · 1966
Written mostly with advertising lyricist Tony Asher after Brian Wilson stepped back from touring, this eleventh Beach Boys album replaced the group's own playing with hired Los Angeles session musicians and spent an unprecedented budget chasing a more introspective, orchestrally arranged kind of pop than the band had attempted before.