"We knew what we were getting into," admits Jayhawks' lead vocalist/guitarist Gary Louris when the inevitable Beach Boys question is asked. But of course they did. Make yourself a big, gloriously melodic pop album drenched in soaring three-part harmonies that burst out like rays of sunshine, and then brazenly name it Smile, and you'd be a fool not to expect the musicology police to slap you with a Brian Wilson citation.

"I'm prepared for that," Louris says matter-of-factly. Then he shrugs it off. "But for one thing, one of my favorite bands of all time made one of my favorite albums of all time -- Let It Be. And I'm not talking about the Beatles -- I'm talking about the Replacements. I think that's setting the standard saying there's nothing sacred."

"Nothing Sacred" . . . come to think of it, that would make a pretty swell Jayhawks album title, too. This is the band, after all, that alongside fellow mid-Westerners Uncle Tupelo laid the groundwork for alt-country as we know it today with its 1989 debut Blue Earth and 1992's landmark Hollywood Town Hall -- and then boldly retooled itself as a psychedelic pop rock outfit after original co-lead vocalist Mark Olsen left following 1994's Tomorrow the Green Grass to make folk albums in the desert with his wife Victoria Williams. Six years and two albums later, there remain a number of Jayhawks fans -- and critics -- who contend that the band lost the plot when it changed course.

"Sound of Lies was a really controversial record, because there were people who were really pissed off about it," bassist Marc Perlman says of the band's 1997 turning point album. "And something about that I liked, because we were pushing a few buttons on it."

"The analogy I draw is David Bowie," says Louris. "If he would have kept playing Ziggy Stardust, it would have watered down the effect of Ziggy Stardust. If he had kept doing that, he would have never have gotten to Low or Heroes, many great albums like that . . . When the Jayhawks first started, it was right about the time we discovered American music -- folk and soul and bluegrass and blues. It was kind of new to us, and nobody else was doing it at the time. That was great, but we've kind of done that already, and we find ourselves wanting to explore a little bit."

The result, he says, has been a natural return to the music they all grew up with. "I was always a big pop guy," Louris explains. "I listened to a lot of rock music, pop music, British music, punk rock, art rock. But I think it's too easy to say that Mark Olsen brought the country folk and I brought the pop, because he grew up listening to the kind of music we listened to, too, which probably wasn't folk music. But something about the way our two voices worked together kind of lent itself to that type of music. And now with him leaving, we've decided not to pretend that he didn't."

The Bob Ezrin-produced Smile, like Sound of Lies before it, does reveal a dramatically different side of the Jayhawks. Louris' Replacements defense aside, the leadoff title track echoes the Beach Boys in more than just its name. It's a three-and-a-half minute, Pet Sounds-worthy marvel of a pop symphony that builds to a majestic chorus fit to be shouted, arms outstretched, from a mountain top in The Sound of Music. The lead single, "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me," is as winningly giddy as a feisty puppy leaping to get your attention. Drum loops snake through the album at every other turn, while at any given moment a blazing guitar solo is likely to swoop in and out just long enough to brighten the room with a flash of Mick Ronson, Tom Verlaine or Brian May.

And yet for all that, moments like the sublime chorus to "A Break in the Clouds" ("Every time that I see your face/It's like cool, cool water running down my back") leave no room for doubt that Smile remains unmistakably a Jayhawks album. "Tim O'Reagan, our drummer, is also an amazing singer, so we didn't miss a beat as far as the harmonies are concerned," says Perlman. (Guitarist Kraig Johnson and keyboardist Jen Gunderman round out the band, though former keyboardist Karen Grotberg plays and sings on the album).

Inevitably though, there will remain fans who will still balk at the band's new explorations and cling steadfastly to Hollywood Town Hall as the Jayhawks' finest hour. But Smile is far and away the group's boldest -- and most fastidiously conceived and assembled -- album to date; Louris says he spent a year writing and rewriting the chorus to "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me." "It became an albatross, but now I'm very proud of it," he says. "We worked so hard on this record. I feel like there's nothing we didn't consider or mull over long enough."

"We realized this could be a huge record for us," says Perlman. "We've been together for fifteen years, and we're not shy about the fact that we think we deserve to be a big band, or a commercially successful band. Some people might say we sold out; we think we finally matured enough to finally be able to make the record we deserved to make."

That sense of determined, carpe diem optimism is reflected in the tone of the album itself. If Sound of Lies captured the Jayhawks in their hour of darkness, staring into an uncertain future, Smile finds them throwing open the windows to let the sun in. In the big picture, notes Louris, whether the album succeeds or fails is all relative.

"We have lots of friends who are very talented musicians who don't even get to this point, so I'm not going to whine about it," he says. "It's easy to be bitter about everything, and that's called being self-absorbed. I think this record is about looking around you and saying, 'I'm such a little thing, and I'm going to be gone, so why am I making such a huge deal about myself when everyone else is going through the same thing?' It's definitely an outwardly turning record, saying 'We're all in this together. Give me a big hug. Smile a little bit."

RICHARD SKANSE
(May 20, 2000)