What is it that makes Smiley Smile such an enduring cult classic of an album?
Enough has been said about its recording style, being a product of the fallout of SMiLE, how the band went further inward and sidestepped expectations, but I believe the secret sauce is something a little more subtle.
Sure it’s weird. Sure, it’s considered the first of their trilogy of “low-fi” albums. Sure, it was a symbolic defeat since SMiLE couldn’t be completed. But while all other 60’s pop artists were chasing that perfect psychedelic rock or pop album, The Beach Boys pulled back and did something truly extraordinary with Smiley Smile, an album that has endured as their best-kept secret among fans and artists.
Smiley Smile, for all of its reverence as a cult status album among diehard fans and music lovers, hasn’t had enough discussion about its audio effects used heavily throughout. What I am referring to is the colloquially termed ASMR, which has risen in prominence over the past decade or so.
ASMR is Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response
I’m sure you’ve seen the reports of its rise in YouTube videos or other social media clips. The sounds that trigger the ASMR response tend to be sounds that sound up close and personal, and it can be anything from paper crumpling to whispering or fingernail scratching. Other examples include crunching (on vegetables, maybe?), humming (in a little pad?), soft speaking (probably about something wonderful), brushing or plucking sounds, but these aren’t the only auditory examples, which are called triggers, which can affect people differently based on the specific sounds that are used.
There’s a physiological response to ASMR that is unique and different than simply listening to a groundbreaking melody or harmony in a popular hit song, and Smiley Smile is just stuffed full of these little moments of aural bliss.
Their opening song, what was to be the lead single of SMiLE, only has a little bit of ASMR to start. Notable instances include their “be dooby do wahhh” and other doo wop elements when they are separated from the music, the background vocals during “my children were raised” and their background humming during “I’ve been in this town so long, so long to the city”. While this song isn’t the prime example, it sure is an energetic, albeit red herring for what the album has in store.
2. Vegetables
This song is heavy with ASMR. Sound effects include water that fills a container, Al (Jardine not AI) blows into bottles filled with various levels of water to create different music notes, the group crunches on celery (a big well-known element of the song), the harmonies and humming style again is intimate, and the electric bass has a nice sound as well. Overall, it’s a very satisfying track that simmers down from the more bombastic version that was planned for SMiLE.
3. Fall Breaks and Back to Winter (Woody Woodpecker Symphony)
This one is also heavy ASMR. It has “woodpecking” sounds on the percussion, an unsettling, distorted, dissonant laughter, wordless foreboding harmonies, and several instruments that are purposefully made to stand out in the mix. This one is by far the weirdest and creepiest song The Beach Boys ever did, and it will forever be a prime example of their notorious experimental era.
4. She’s Goin’ Bald
She’s Goin’ Bald is not as ASMR as the two preceding songs, but the droning organ with the warm percussion and tape effect of their rising harmony, culminating in the final release when the drum they use is louder and fuller-sounding in the mix, all suggest another sonic experimentation. Their vocals have an eerie rising-pitch quality to it, much like how someone sounds when they inhale from a helium balloon. It’s no doubt designed to unsettle as it leads into the nerve-racking but oddly humorous climax of a woman losing her hair.
This song has heavy ASMR and is notable for opening with a type of laughing gas from the boys as they laugh their opening lyric, which is off-putting and upfront in the mix, catching fans off guard. There is a follow-up of the boys humming one of their most beautiful harmonies that separates the sections of the song. Putting the two directly one right after the other was… a choice. Following this are finger snaps that sound very satisfying, the Hawaiian guitar strumming used deliberately for this song, and the sound effect of “cutting down a tree” to build a little pad, with the culmination of it all feeling very up close and personal to the listener.
While Good Vibrations is actually not a good example of ASMR, it is by far one of their happiest songs, with a shockingly lush and warm mix that jumps out of the speakers, and is in every way ahead of the curve when compared to all other ’60s rock and music in general. Good Vibrations still is essentially unmatched, with its blend of stacked instruments, melodies, vocal harmonies, and song structure, giving a run for its money against any song composed after or even this century.
7. With Me
A lesser ASMR-driven song than some of the previous numbers, its opening vocal melody is mixed very intimately, alongside a beautiful droning organ. There’s not much else that can be said for With Me, but it’s a beautiful little love song.
8. Wind Chimes
Wind Chimes is very heavy on the ASMR. There is heavy plucking of various instruments, whispering vocals, and vocal experimentation in the main section, with a final repeated line, “tingling”. It can make your hairs stand up with its otherworldly sensation and moody atmosphere of dusk at their little pad.
9. Gettin’ Hungry
This song is a bit of lesser ASMR. Its electric bass stands out in the mix, guitars are being plucked like they are in Wind Chimes, and its sparse but distinctive percussion instruments are played in unexpected rhythms that feels unique to a song with such a loud delivery in its chorus. It is bombastic like Heroes and Villains, but it goes back and forth between these two energies of quietude and maximalist.
10. Wonderful
Wonderful is its title. It is a heavy ASMR-laden track, complete with whispered vocals, an unexpected party section, the doo wop “hey ba ba ree ba”, and its final line, “wonderful”.
11. Whistle In
Their closing number, Whistle In, is a lesser but still noticeable ASMR. It has, as one might expect, whistling in the beginning, and overall, another warm and intimate-sounding mix.
Final Reflections
Brian’s choice of instruments is also notable in the same way his synthesizer of choice is a standout element in Love You. Was making an ASMR album intentional? Who knows. Maybe not. But Brian was already experimenting with sounds well before this album. One example is the boys’ frequent studio banter that is spread across their early albums. In Our Favorite Recording Sessions off of All Summer Long, for example, they can be heard goofing off between takes with one of them making cheek-popping sounds, jokingly suggesting that they should include it in the song. All of these songwriting quirks and studio experimentation culminated and peaked on Smiley Smile. Brian probably knew instinctively that some of these aural sounds created this effect and, as a result,, exploited and integrated it to maximum effect. His subconscious and his ear knew what he was doing.
Whereas Smile was Brian’s attempt to have the music burst at the seams and explode out of the speaker for listeners, Smiley Smile was a beckoning to “come closer” and hear the intimate sounds from the boys in their smoke-hazed living room, feel the warm embrace of their songs, and feel the good vibrations, with its hit single, unexpected low-key party vibes, and candid moments in Wonderful, Little Pad, and more, that counter-balance the overall softness of the album.
Even though Wild Honey and Friends were both released in such a short time after Smiley Smile, when it comes to ASMR, there are next to no examples to be heard or examples that are at least front and center like in the case of this album, except for maybe Meant for You and Be Still. Besides Mama Says, there are no Smile leftovers in these 2 follow-up albums, which might be partly the reason that this album has such a unique flavor since it came directly after Smile’s “failure” and forced The Beach Boys to do something quiet, maybe otherworldly or creepy, but nevertheless subtly brilliant.
While almost all of their albums have a distinct sound or signature to them, Smiley Smile is their ASMR album
~ Dang Harmony
P.S. if you want to read other Redditors' thoughts on my theory, you can navigate to the original post I made 6 months ago.