It is like 1967 all over again. Beach Boy Mike Love has fallen out with fellow Beach Boy Brian Wilson over the band’s legendary 60s concept album Smile.
In court papers filed this week in Los Angeles, Love accused Wilson, his cousin, of promoting the 2004 release of Smile in a way that ”shamelessly misappropriated Mike Love’s songs, likeness and the Beach Boys trademark, as well as the Smile album itself”.
Love, the Beach Boys’ lead singer and the owner of the name of the band, is seeking millions of dollars in damages.
The lawsuit reignites one of pop music’s most notorious feuds. In 1967, with the Beach Boys at the height of their popularity, Wilson recorded much of Smile without the rest of the band. Love objected to the content, describing it as ”a whole album of Brian’s madness”.
Although nearly completed, the project was shelved. Shortly after, Wilson suffered a breakdown, withdrawing from public life. Love and the other members continued to perform and record without Wilson, the group’s main songwriter.
In the suit filed this week, Love, who co-wrote Good Vibrations, the best-known track on Smile, objects to a promotion in the Mail on Sunday in which 2,6-million copies of a Beach Boys compilation were given away.
He alleges that the free gift had an adverse impact on sales of Beach Boys recordings, resulting in a loss of earnings. The lawsuit seeks damages including ”millions of dollars in illicit profits”, according to the Associated Press.
”Mike has a lot of affection for Brian and they have a good relationship and cordial relations,” said Love’s lawyer, Phil Stillman. ”There’s obviously some problem with the way Brian’s [associates] have promoted the albums. They remain family and the co-founders of a very important band in rock’n’roll history.”
Despite the assurances, the dispute between the two Beach Boys has endured for almost 40 years. Wilson wrote most of Smile with lyricist Van Dyke Parks, rather than the other members of the Beach Boys. It was intended to be an experimental album, a kaleidoscopic survey of American popular music. Wilson referred to it as ”teenage symphonies to God”. His bandmates disagreed, calling it ”freaked out”.
As the album languished unreleased, so its reputation and the mystery surrounding it grew, and it was hailed as pop’s great lost masterpiece.
Three years ago Wilson returned with a completed version of Smile, which he performed live to great acclaim. Last year the album, titled Brian Wilson Presents Smile, was finally released. – Guardian Unlimited Â