NEW YORK (AP) — The musical world lost a giant with news Wednesday that Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys’ visionary and fragile leader, had died. He was 82.
Attempting to distill Wilson’s talent and influence in a few short songs is an impossibility; even just focusing on a few select cuts from The Beach Boys’ 1966 album “Pet Sounds,” routinely regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time, would feel shortsighted. (Lest we forget, there is no Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club” without it, and countless other classics past and present.) Instead, to celebrate Wilson’s life and legacy, we’ve decided to identify just a few songs that made the man, from the fiercely familiar to a few unexpected selections.
Read on and then listen to all of the tracks on our Spotify playlist.
The song of the summer in 1963 — heck, the song of any summer, ever — “Surfin’ USA” at least partially introduced the group that would forever become synonymous with an image of eternal California bliss, where the sun always shines, the waves are always pristine, and paradise is a place on Earth. It’s hard to imagine the beach existing before these wake-up riffs, the guitars that sparked a surf rock movement and then some. (Though it is important to mention that the song borrows heavily from Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen.”) It’s hard to think that surf music was once mostly just instrumental — even when Wilson and his cousin, fellow Beach Boy Mike Love, hastily wrote up their first single, “Surfin,’” a minor hit released in 1961.
Think of it as a response to The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby.” The hot-rod hit “Don’t Worry Baby” is the cheery B-side to “I Get Around,” and has one of the most transformative key shifts in pop music history, from the man’s perspective in the verse to the woman’s response in the chorus. Brilliant!
Headphones on, stereo up. The Beach Boys’ “California Girls” sounds massive. It is no doubt the result of Wilson’s love and admiration for Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound,” which lead to the song’s use of guitar, horns, percussion and organ as its overture. The song is a sunshine-y good time — and would later inspire Katy Perry’s “California Gurls,” among countless others. But most importantly, the song establishes the band — and Wilson’s own — larger-than-life aspirations, where pop music could be both avant-garde and built of earworms.
Wilson’s voice is the first one heard on the Beach Boys’ unimpeachable “Pet Sounds.” “Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older? / Then we wouldn’t have to wait so long,” he sweetly sings on the album’s opener. “And wouldn’t it be nice to live together / In the kind of world where we belong?” Optimism and innocence are the name of the game, and the listener is the winner.
If Wilson must be known for one thing, let it be his inimitable sense of harmony, perfected across his craft and completely unignorable on “God Only Knows,” a masterclass in vocals, love, emotional depth, harpsichord and the intersection of all such forces.
“God Only Knows” is also one of Paul McCartney’s favorite songs of all time, one known to bring him to tears.
What kind of vibrations? Good, good, GOOD vibrations. And at a cost. As the story goes, one of the Beach Boys’ best-known hits — and, arguably, one of the most immediately recognizable songs in rock ’n’ roll history — was recorded over seven months, in four different studios, reportedly costing up to $75,000. And it is an absolute masterpiece of theremin, cello, harmonica and so much more. Pop music has never been so ambitious — and successful.
“Heroes and Villains” might be one of the most complex songs in the Beach Boys’ discography, and with good reason. It is the opener of “Smile,” what Wilson called a “teenage symphony to God,” a whimsical cycle of songs on nature and American folklore written with lyricist Van Dyke Parks. It was delayed, then canceled, then rerecorded and issued in September 1967 on “Smiley Smile,” dismissed by Carl Wilson as a “bunt instead of a grand slam.” In moments, “Heroes and Villains” is psychedelic, in others, it embodies an otherworldly barbershop quartet. It is off-kilter and clever, as Wilson’s band so often proved to be.
The late ‘60s are an undercelebrated time in Wilson’s creative oeuvre — no doubt an effect of his declining mental health — but there are many rich songs to dig into. Particularly, the soulful, R&B, Motown-esque harmonies of “Darlin’.”
2004: “Don’t Let Her Know She’s an Angel,” Brian Wilson
As the story goes, “Don’t Let Her Know She’s an Angel” was originally record for his 1991 unreleased album “Sweet Insanity,” but did not officially appear until it was rerecorded for his 2004 album “Gettin’ in Over My Head.” The song features a bunch of programming, synths and percussion, which might strike Beach Boys fans as odd. But trust us, it works here.
This pick might come as a surprise for many fans. “Isn’t It Time” is a cut from “That’s Why God Made the Radio,” the album the legendary group put out to celebrate their 50th anniversary and left a lot to be desired. But within its filler, this song is undoubtedly catchy, with its ukulele and handclap percussion.
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AP National Writer Hillel Italie contributed to this report.