This type of mythology is also what makes Wilson, paradoxically, one of the most popular cult artists of all time. I would pinpoint this transition to sometime in the ’90s, when he became situated within a canon of artists driven to the brink by their own creative spirit—he is name-dropped alongside figures like Syd Barrett, Scott Walker, and Nick Drake in the Chills’ “Song for Randy Newman Etc.” This was a world where Kurt Cobain was becoming a pop star, when the idea of “authenticity” became a rallying cry for art. Of course, Wilson’s authenticity was different from the rest of these figures. (After all, among his brothers, Brian wasn’t even the surfer!) But does anyone listen to the Beach Boys and wonder if he really feels what he’s singing? Even when he’s listing the planets in “Solar System,” you imagine a part of him that thinks he’ll start orbiting among them if he sings it well enough.
Within this subject matter—innocent wonder at the forces beyond us, heartfelt odes to simpler times, burnt-out submission to our loneliest depths—Wilson sought the connective tissue between all of us. It’s what kept him going. When asked in 2004 how he manages to stay active as an artist, he simply responded, “By force of will.” A decade later, he expressed pride that he had “proven stronger than many imagined me to be.” It’s a vulnerable statement from an artist who had spent his life struggling with mental illness, who lived under conservatorships, fought through multiple bitter legal battles, and operated at the forefront of a family band managed by an abusive father. There were times, I’m sure, when Wilson wouldn’t blame someone for betting against him.
Against these odds, he triumphed. Like few public figures, Brian Wilson is loved by all: From Paul McCartney (“No one is educated musically until they’ve heard Pet Sounds”), to Bob Dylan (“Jesus, that ear. He should donate it to the Smithsonian.”), to Bruce Springsteen (“The level of musicianship—I don’t think anybody’s touched it yet”). You would be hard-pressed to find a songwriter who hasn’t expressed his influence. Like the public domain songs he loved—“Shortenin’ Bread,” for example—his music belongs to everyone. It’s equally fitting for a young family on a road trip or a college freshman’s first experience with psychedelics; at weddings or funerals; in the collection of any self-respecting vinyl aficionado or the window of a Goodwill. There’s a reason why nearly every Beach Boys greatest hit set comes adorned with a sepia-toned image of the ocean on its cover, at some indistinguishable point between sunrise and sunset. It is priceless and free, at any time, forever.
This is why, when Wilson finally released a newly recorded studio version of Smile in September 2004, it still managed to feel new. Not just new, but exciting. At the time, I was just finding my footing with music discovery as a teen. I remember reading the five-star review in Rolling Stone and a glowing write-up on this website. Like the author of that review mentions in the opening paragraph, I was also a child whose father owned a copy of Endless Summer, and my understanding of the Beach Boys had been limited to those otherworldly pop gems about kids on the West Coast and the grinning, bearded faces on the cover. But when I listened to Smile, I heard another dimension to the same music that my dad loved—a lengthening shadow beneath the same sun. I found myself obsessing over its strange, sprawling arc, full of hymns and nursery rhymes, melody and mythos. It felt the way you hope your life will feel when you look back—all your joy alongside your dreams and fears and ambitions, all coated with a heavenly glow of getting to feel it all.
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