It’s been a bad week for music.
I guess he just wasn’t made for these times.
A bona fide musical genius. RIP, Brian.
RIP.
Another of the old gods gone. 
Pet Sounds is still my favorite album, after first really listening to it in the early 2000s. (I’m a late-ish Gen Xer). Today, though, I will give The Beach Boys Love You a spin in his memory. What a quirky album emblematic of the mad genius (I probably could use a better phrase) of Brian Wilson. RIP to one of the greats: you heard the world differently, and thank God for that.
I mostly know him from the Barenaked Ladies song.
God only knows what we’ll be without him.
He appeared as a surprise during the Holland tour. He told the story of and then sang “Caroline, No,” a forgotten masterpiece of a song. Strongest band they ever had and sounded great.
The Beach Boys were the first concert I ever went to. Was it good? I don’t know. Couldn’t hear anything over the screaming girls. I was also there when Brian toured with the revived Smile album 50 years later and that also sounded great with a stageful of musicians, especially the 25 other songs they ripped through.
Paul and John thought Brian and Bob were their only competitors. Only Brian had to be his own producer, though. Nobody else could hear what was in his head. How many times did that almost kill him? It might have gone differently. Wouldn’t it be nice?
Oh, this one hits hard. One of the few real musical geniuses of the 20th century.
Writer, arranger, producer and engineer all in one. RIP, most respectfully.
Gotta’ be on anybody’s short list of the pantheon of Rock (, et al) legends.
Damn.
He was at top of rock-era.creators of under three minute pop singles. So many of them were inescapable radio smashes, but even those that weren’t were distinctively Brian Wilson.
Who else could have come up with as odd yet immaculate song as this? Psychedelic does not do it justice.
Wouldn’t it be nice…
A quick recommendation for Love & Mercy (film) - Wikipedia
Wilson was absolutely a musical genius, whose work – and life – were tremendously disrupted by substance abuse issues, psychological issues, and (very likely) being abused and taken advantage of for years by Eugene Landy. One can only speculate how much more amazing music Wilson could have created without some of those burdens.
In the 1990s, Wilson was living in suburban Chicago, and regularly appeared on the radio talk shows hosted by Steve Dahl, with whom he had become friends. Those were fascinating conversations, but also a little sad – even then, it was clear from listening to Wilson talk just how much of a struggle he had, and just how affected he was by the physical and emotional struggles he had endured.
I acknowledge his influence on others but I gotta say I just never got it. God Only Knows is a good song though.
For me, the greatest love song ever written, at least in the pop genre. Second would be “Something” written by George Harrison, performed by the Beatles.
I can not think of two musicians more different than Brian Wilson and Sly Stone, but both were a big part of the soundtrack of our youth. Godspeed to you both.
In 2014, the BBC launched BBC Music; for the launch, they commissioned a new recording of “God Only Knows,” which featured Wilson, and a ton of other music stars. It’s a fun video, though I now wonder if it was 2014 Brian singing, or if they were using a sample from the original for his voice.
They had some things in common. They were both masters in writing, playing, singing and producing pop, both had massive drug problems that affected their productivity, and both were rare, real geniuses. You can’t overestimate their influence on the music world.
Like many folks my age, the Beach Boys were a big part of my youth so I have tremendous nostalgia for their music. Many of the things their songs were about weren’t part of my life – I was never a California beach bum, nor ever drove a T-Bird – but many other things were.
I don’t see why not—at the time he was still performing and making new music. (And the lead vocal on the original track was Carl, not Brian.)