Smile: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of Brian Wilson

Leaf (God Only Knows) follows up his 2004 documentary, Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson and the Story of Smile, with an equally adulatory oral history of how the rocker shepherded “the most famous unreleased album in rock history” from its 1967 inception to its release 37 years later. Wilson and the other Beach Boys began work on Smile on the heels of their critically lauded 1966 album Pet Sounds. The new album was envisioned as a musical exploration of the “American story,” but not everyone was on board. Band member Mike Love thought the music too experimental, leading the group to abandon the project. Yet it remained something of an obsession for Beach Boys fans, as fragments of Smile tracks sneaked onto other Beach Boys albums and the session tapes leaked out. Leaf traces how songs were gradually rewritten, reperformed, and incorporated into concert set lists in the 2000s, before Wilson’s 2004 live album recording in London. Unfortunately, the granular account will exhaust all but the most devoted fans with its meticulous recounting of recording sessions, speculations about the Beach Boys’ power dynamics, and overblown praise (“If, over four hundred years ago, you had walked into church and somebody was playing ‘Surf’s Up’ or ‘Wonderful’ at the organ, you might think, ‘Wow. That must be Bach’s latest piece’ ”). This falls short of the mark. (Apr.)