Wilson initially agreed to revisit Smile in the form of a live concert performance as a follow-up to his 2000–2002 tour for the Beach Boys' album Pet Sounds.

From October to November 2003, he worked with keyboardist Darian Sahanaja and original lyricist Van Dyke Parks in assembling a three-movement structure for BWPS while embellishing the material with newly written lyrics and melodies.

In the 1980s, unreleased material from its recording sessions began circulating widely on bootlegs,[9] which inspired many fans to compile a hypothetical version of the completed album.

[11][nb 1] In 1995, Wilson reteamed with Parks for the collaborative album Orange Crate Art, which provoked speculation regarding a future release of Smile.

[13][nb 2] That year, Paley invited Wilson to a concert at the Morgan-Wixon Theater in Los Angeles, a show which featured the Wondermints performing a rendition of "Surf's Up".

'"[18] In December 2000, while at a Christmas party at Bennett's house, Wilson was playing songs on piano when the wife of biographer David Leaf called out a request for "Heroes and Villains".

[19][nb 4] He then agreed to perform the song with his band at a forthcoming tribute show held in his honor at the Radio City Music Hall in New York.

[17] In 2003, during the recording of his forthcoming album Gettin' in over My Head,[22] Wilson permitted his managers to schedule shows that would include the live debut of Smile.

[27][nb 6] The news elicited some mixed reactions from fans of Wilson who felt that his attempt to complete Smile would destroy the legendary quality associated with the project.

[23] To assist with the assembly, Sahanaja was assigned the role of "musical secretary" for Wilson and in early autumn 2003, was sent to the Beach Boys' tape vaults to download select recordings to his laptop.

[30][nb 7] Sahanaja consulted bootlegs that he had amassed since the early 1980s, as well as an archive of literature belonging to David Leaf, which included photocopies of handwritten lyric sheets that were originally given to illustrator Frank Holmes in 1966.

[32] With Pro Tools session files loaded onto his Apple G3 iBook,[33] Sahanaja joined Wilson at his home on numerous occasions to listen to the recordings and determine how they were originally supposed to function together.

[30] To relieve Wilson from the burden of deconstructing and reconstructing his own music, Sahanaja handled the task for him by transcribing the recordings as much as he possibly could, then presenting the resultant work back to him for necessary adjustments.

[44] Among the rejected ideas that Sahanaja played for Wilson was "He Gives Speeches", "With Me Tonight",[33] "She's Goin' Bald", and the alternate "rock with me, Henry" version of "Wonderful".

[52] Sahanaja recalled that, after the holiday break, when he returned to Wilson's house to prepare for the forthcoming vocal rehearsals, "I remember him shaking and he sat down and he started crying and yelling 'I'm fucked!

But in the end, do you want a Brian Wilson who just sits at home, watching TV, or should you try to put a spark under him and get him going to the point where it is a productive, positive thing for him?

;[26] Wilson sat on a stool surrounded by his supporting band, who provided additional vocals, two guitars, bongos, and an occasional flute or harmonica part.

"[60] Mojo's Jim Irvin was similarly underwhelmed; although he enjoyed the songs, he wrote, "To claim that this show was transcendent is to disregard the figure at its heart, a bewildered-looking man of 61 who barely plays the piano he's perched behind.

[33] Linett explained: "For the studio version of Smile, Brian and the band eliminated some of the flourishes that were designed just for live performance and substantially reworked the instrumental arrangements.

[69] Rolling Stone's Robert Christgau, who was skeptical of Smile back in the 1960s,[78][62] praised Parks' lyrics and wrote, "what elevates them into something approaching a utopian vision is Wilson's orchestrations: brief bridge melodies, youthful harmonies [...] and an enthralling profusion of instrumental colors.

"[5] The Village Voice's Tom Smucker felt that it might go on to be considered "album of the year" and described it as "the first successfully conceptualized Beach Boys release since Kokomo, the most moving since Pet Sounds, and the funniest since Smiley Smile".

[83] In Britain, The Guardian's Alexis Petridis wrote that news of the album's release caused "an outbreak of mild hysteria" and provoked a journalist from the newspaper to solicit an opinion from the British government, who then supplied a comment from defense secretary Geoff Hoon.

"[72] NME's reviewer compared BWPS favorably to Sergei Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kijé ("its interweaved and repeated melodic strands"), Miles Davis' Kind of Blue ("its sheer contemplative beauty"), and the work of George Gershwin and Aaron Copland ("its appropriation of American folk").

[70] Writing in his 2005 book about Smile, Domenic Priore opined, "The recording sessions for the album at Sunset Sound came and went very quickly, and the mix suffers because of this; the emphasis on bass is not what it should be, and the tracks should breathe more.

"[93] In an earlier interview, he had said he would have no interest in listening to the album and citing the legal concept of "corporate opportunity", mentioned that it had possibly infringed on the Beach Boys' intellectual property rights.

Love argued that, because the group had collectively paid for the 1960s recording sessions and all contributed work on the original tracks, "I would have thought it would have been more honorable to put it together as the Beach Boys.

"[95] Bruce Johnston took offense as well, writing in an email to biographer Peter Ames Carlin: "I spent years showing full support for Brian, but now that's all changed because of his current point of view.

Cloud Times wrote that "the sequencing raised a question mark or two, and there were mixing quibbles (I would have loved to hear more bass), but [...] [t]he lyrical beauty, the majesty of the music, the shifting (yet somehow fixed) meanings that intertwine throughout it all, still elate me, still fill me with hope and joy.

The editors wrote, "Close your eyes and you can imagine how it might've changed the world in 1968 [sic], but with Wilson's influence still all over scads of indie bands in 2004, it sounds and feels majestically modern.

[112] All tracks are written by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, except where notedThe songs performed at the Royal Festival Hall shows in February 2004.