This album comes at the nicest time within Laura Nyro's career, for like most of the other performers that have cut a swath through pop music over the past couple of years, she's lately had to deal with those problems which naturally come with artistic growing up. Her last record showed very direct leanings toward a tired reliance on old faithfuls, and it must have ultimately motivated her to try...

The winter of '69 must have been a heady time for Laura Nyro and Jimmy Webb. Nyro had just turned 22, Webb, 23, and the two songwriters had placed eight songs in the Top 10 in the preceding year and a half. From the West Coast, Webb, the chief architect of the stentorian pop ballad, was spinning gold for Richard Harris ("MacArthur Park"), Glen Campbell ("Wichita Lineman") and the Brooklyn Bridge...

Laura Nyro's first album in four years fails to live up to the promise of her lovely early records. While Smile has a certain charm to it, which grows with repeated listenings, there is a striking absence of the classic pop melodies that characterize the songs on Eli & the Thirteenth Confession, The First Songs and New York Tendaberry, many of which (in versions by other artists) became big hits....