Brian Wilson- An Appreciation

I probably should say something about the passing of Brian Wilson. It’s been a few years since I last wrote about him. When I was a teenager, the conventional wisdom was that Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band was the greatest album ever. It’s understandable that it earned that honor -it was a defining album in music. Over time, opinions change. For one, the Beatles had a lot of great music- and you could make arguments that Revolver or Abbey Road were better albums than Pepper. But more than anything, public opinion went to the album that inspired it and an album that aspired to it (Pet Sounds and Exile on Main Street) Starting with a love of Baroque pop taking over 90s indie rock, Pet Sounds has had a steady ascent and has found new fans via the online crowd. 

Now The Beach Boys were always in the discussion of greatest American bands, but it’s only recently that albums like 20/20, Surf’s Up and Holland get discussed in “Greatest albums ever” now discussion too. Wilson (as famous as he was) kind of feels like a cult figure like Alex Chilton or Syd Barrett. The fact he was suffering mentally and physically plays into certain “suffering for art” cliches, and his solo career is quite patchy. His 1988 debut solo album was critically loved but didn’t get the kind of mainstream inroads that similar records of the day by, fo example Roger McGuinn or Robbie Robertson did. Largely, his solo career didn’t get the attention you might expect from someone with his profile. 

 Personally, I love the early Beach Boy singles. Like the Beatles, there is a reason that critics focus on the albums that came later. I get it, but there is definitely a link from those early songs to the punk sound of the Ramones. Lest us not forget the other branches of psychedelia to bands like XTC and the power pop of the Raspberries and Cheap Trick. But the story of The Beach Boys is overshadowed by the myth which is the SMiLE album. I am not sure there’s a more famous “withdrawn” album (with Prince’s Black Album and Neil Young’s “Homegrown” and a few others in that conversation) SMiLE would not be released as planned in the Sixties. Instead we got a scaled down version in 1967s Smiley Smile. SMiLE was probably not going to bring the world jetpacks and flying cars. We know that with ambitious albums like Chinese Democracy and Their Satanic Majesty’s Request- the expectations usually overweigh anything the artist could possibly produce. But in 2004, Wilson was able to present (indeed it’s called Brian Wilson Presents) SMiLE. By that time the myth was strong and the story had established real Heroes (Brian) and Villains (Mike Love). You can’t probably have gotten a better reception for an album that people had already mostly heard the material. For me personally, it was my soundtrack for 2004. 

It’s not an album that I revisit often but I can’t separate the music from the timeframe and so it will always be meaningful to me.