Brian Wilson, who co-founded the iconic California band The Beach Boys and turned teen pop into a poetic, modernist musical form, has died at age 82.
“We realize that we are sharing our grief with the world,” Wilson’s family wrote in a statement on his website Wednesday.
The most frequently invoked description of Wilson’s music came from the artist himself when, playing on a phrase coined by Phil Spector, he declared that his goal was to write a “teenage symphony to God.” Grounded in dreams of an idealized youth, his songs reflected vast ambition enmeshed in the belief that pop could be a conduit to the sublime.
Beyond the recording studio where his mastery shone, Wilson struggled: he was abused by his father as a child, and mental health struggles including audio hallucinations (later diagnosed as schizoaffective disorder) led him into isolation at the height of The Beach Boys’ success. His greatest musical works made room for the deep melancholy he experienced while evoking an almost otherworldly beauty, the sunset smear of a soul longing for peace.
This elevated quality infuses even the playfully slight songs of the early Beach Boys. As one of the first major rock bands of the 1960s, The Beach Boys made hit fodder of subjects like drag racing, high school rivalries and, of course, surfing to express the empowerment, freedom and fun many white middle-class kids felt as the post-war boom empowered their generation. Southern California became the mythologized center of the new American dream, and Brian Wilson‘s music was its soundtrack.
A pop mind like no other
That playfully adventurous sound reflected Wilson’s childhood obsessions – jazz and doo wop harmonies and the work of American composers like George Gershwin. Raised in the working-class Los Angeles suburb of Hawthorne, an aerospace industry hub, Wilson became a student of music as a teenager, spending hours with his record player, memorizing the harmonies of his favorite group, the Four Freshman.
Like many teenagers, he and his brothers Carl and Dennis Wilson saw rock and roll as a means to social success. His father Murry, a would-be songwriter with a propensity for abuse, saw his sons’ talents as a ticket to greater financial success. He managed the homegrown group, christened The Beach Boys in 1961, until Brian broke away from him in 1964, after going through his first nervous breakdown.
Even as he battled internal unrest, Wilson immediately set a new musical bar for teen-oriented pop music, as The Beach Boys found national success on Capitol Records. The seeming simplicity of early-1960s Beach Boys hits like “California Girls” and “I Get Around” was exponentially enriched within the sonic frameworks Wilson created, inspired by jazz harmonies, American composers, and the then-nascent Black pop sounds of Chuck Berry and the girl groups.
As the 1960s unfolded, Wilson pushed the boundaries of the three-minute pop song in ways few could replicate. The Beatles’ American arrival in 1964 set the stage for what some fans have deemed the greatest friendly rivalry in popular music. Wilson and the songwriting team of John Lennon and Paul McCartney continually checked and wrecked each other, pushing themselves toward greater achievements with each competitive release.
Read the rest of Wilson’s obituary on NPR.
