Attn: baby boomers

If music was a significant part of your life in the 1960s, if you had a record collection and the words 33 and a third RPM are significant to you, a significant part of your cultural understanding has been missing until now.

I just finished watching "Smile" on DVD. This was a conceptual album/rock opera that was never completed by Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys until recently.

I rented the DVD from Blockbuster.com. They sent me disc 1 of a two disc set which was a set of documentary and rehearsal segments explaining why the work was unfinished for 30 years and how it came to be completed and performed.

This set the context and the back story of the work and its creator's struggles.

I returned disc 1 and added disc 2 to the top of my queue and just finished watching it.

There is a gap in your picture of the exuberant music period that began with the Beatles and ended after Woodstock. Smile is an enjoyable, catchy, lively, musically original, cleverly performed work that is unified by a vision of flying over the United States from Plymouth Rock to Hawaii.  ¶ 1:30 PM