Beach Boys to Release Legendary ‘Smile’ Album, Ending 44 Year Wait

The Beach Boys have announced complete track listings and are now taking pre-orders for ‘The Smile Sessions,’ a version of the band’s long lost follow-up to their 1966 masterpiece, ‘Pet Sounds.’ ‘The Smile Sessions’ are due Nov. 1 and will be released in several editions, including a two-CD set, an iTunes digital album and a limited-edition boxed set.

When Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson issued ‘Brian Wilson Presents Smile’ in 2004, he was releasing an updated and newly recorded version of the mythic Beach Boys album ‘Smile,’ which was initially expected in 1967 but shelved due to personal and creative problems within the band. Bits and pieces of the disc have surfaced through unauthorized leaks over the years, and some Beach Boys fans have compiled their own approximation of the album. But an official version has never seen the light of day.

That is, until now. Although ‘Smile’ never was actually completed, enough material was recorded that an approximation of the band’s intent could be pieced together. For ‘The Smile Sessions,’ two longtime Beach Boys associates -- engineer Mark Linett and archivist Alan Boyd -- combed through tape from more than 85 recording sessions, using the ‘Brian Wilson Presents Smile’ track listing as a template for sequencing. The goal was to offer "the whole piece as close to as it was envisioned, or as is envisioned, as possible . . . and obviously with input from Brian and from everybody else," Linett told Billboard.

The result is the “official” ‘Smile,’ which is fully supported by Wilson and other surviving members of the band. Click here to check out the complete track listing for the two-CD version, the two-LP version, and the massive deluxe box set, which includes early demos, alternate takes, instrumental versions and vocal-only mixes captured across four CDs, two vinyl LPs and two vinyl singles. Artist Frank Holmes’ original album cover graces all versions of the release.

Watch The Beach Boys' 'Smile Sessions' Box Set Being Unboxed