Which Beach Boys archival box set won the 2013 Grammy Award for Best Historical Album?

The Smile Sessions won the 2013 Grammy Award for Best Historical Album.

Released in 2011, The Smile Sessions assembled recording material from The Beach Boys’ unfinished 1966–67 album project Smile. The box set included session highlights, alternate takes, vocal and instrumental fragments, and a reconstructed version of the album that Brian Wilson and the band had begun but never completed during the original sessions.

Smile had become one of popular music’s most famous unfinished projects. Brian Wilson’s modular approach to recording produced pieces such as “Heroes and Villains,” “Cabin Essence,” and “Good Vibrations,” but creative pressure, perfectionism, and Wilson’s deteriorating mental health contributed to the project’s abandonment. The archival release finally presented the recordings in a coherent historical and musical context.

At the 2013 Grammy Awards, The Smile Sessions received the Best Historical Album honor. It is easy to confuse this with The Pet Sounds Sessions, another major Beach Boys archival release, or Made in California, a later career-spanning box set. The award specifically recognized the Smile archival project.