Beach Boys - The Last Summer of Innocence

In the early Sixties, in America, the quintessential rock'n'roll spirit of the previous decade converges on California, a state about to be shaped by major social and cultural transformations. It's on California's sun-drenched beaches that a new lifestyle for young Americans takes shape, tied to the surfboard, and the ancient practice of wave-riding takes on a renewed form in these years, one that's particularly fierce and all-consuming. Before the movies, it's music that rides the surf wave, to the point that an entire youth music genre takes shape: surf music. After the pioneers of instrumental surf-rock (Link Wray, Dick Dale, The Ventures), the Beach Boys become the undisputed pioneers and heroes of surf pop. Theirs is a distinctly vocal style, marked by doo-wop-derived harmonies, deep rock'n'roll roots and an infectious vitality, which would soon translate into enormous success. But the secret of their glory also lies in that mix of disarming naivety and faint melancholy, in the constant oscillation between the longing of a dream and the disenchantment of reality, sooner or later unavoidable. As if the endless summer celebrated in their songs were the last season of American innocence.

Surfin' Usa: beach boys and the California dream

The historical origins of the Beach Boys date back to 1961 in Hawthorne, California, within the extended Wilson family: the group's members are the three brothers Brian, Carl and Dennis, their cousin Mike Love and their friend Al Jardine. It's a family-oriented band, which begins rehearsing under the name The Pendletones, in honor of the t-shirt brand most beloved by surfers. Paradoxically, though, none of them actually surfs — except Dennis, who takes on the role of drummer. It's Dennis himself who will suggest adopting this mythical sport, synonymous with challenge, freedom and carefree abandon, as the trademark of their songs.

The idea will prove to be a winning one: when, shortly afterward, they emerge on the music scene under the name Beach Boys, the five Californian boys will be hailed by the media as the leading exponents of surf music, to the point that, even today, the genre is largely associated with, if not entirely identified by, their name.

Among the five beach boys, all coming from the middle class, Brian Wilson's musical genius stands out above the rest. An innate talent for music, struck — according to legend — at just two years old by hearing George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue", and already at a very young age the author of various musical experiments at the piano, in which he amuses himself by deconstructing the harmonies of the Four Freshmen, overdubbing it all onto tape with his Wollensak recorder, received as a gift at sixteen. Throughout his adolescence Brian discovers and gradually hones his talent through his first experiences of musical collaboration with some schoolmates. Meanwhile, his younger brother Carl, fascinated by the technique of Chuck Berry, devotes himself to studying the electric guitar together with his friend David Marks, who is likewise destined to become part of Beach Boys history. Dennis, the youngest of the Wilson brothers, is the true despair of their gruff father Murry. Determined to avoid any school or family commitment, "Denny the Menace" is the notorious neighborhood kid who's the terror of the block, splitting his time between adolescent escapades and an early fascination with girls. His passion for the surfboard makes him, from the very start, the link between Brian's musical genius and the new lifestyle of California's youth, giving rise to the devastating formula behind the Beach Boys' first hits, starting with "Surfin'".

Cousin Mike Love, in 1959, is a young man desperate to escape a daily routine of factory work and nights spent pumping gas; raised in a music-loving family, he's a regular at the Wilson household, and already a harmony partner to Brian, Carl and aunt Audree. With his r'n'b influences, he represents from the very start one of the main spurs for Brian to channel his talent into a fully-formed musical project. Brian's meeting with Al Jardine, a schoolmate and football teammate, is likewise rooted in music. Al dabbles in The Islanders, a high-school folk group he doesn't hesitate to leave behind, won over by Brian's talent.

From the outset, Brian is the creative and compositional hub of the band. Deaf in his right ear, funny and playful yet at the same time fragile and restless, he never once set foot on a surfboard, yet through his music he would manage to capture forever the wave of that overwhelming, irresistible feeling. It's an achievement that in later years would put him in competition with his overseas counterpart Paul McCartney, in a relationship of admiration and rivalry that would spur both of them on to a wonderful creative duel. Wilson is a young man touched by grace and, at least in an early phase, soothed by the power he channels through his compositions. He is responsible both for the band's initial fame and for its gradual drift away from the stifling confines of teenage-pop, away from a winning formula that, for him, had become too predictable, in search of new, fascinating musical experiments. It's a path that would put him on a collision course with the band's label, Capitol Records, and with the company's more commercially minded soul, frontman Mike Love.

Initially, the Beach Boys' goal is to have fun, entertain, and make people dream: their music is a postcard from California, the surfers' earthly paradise, with its alluring girls in bikinis and its dream beaches; an El Dorado that, at least in their songs, seems truly within reach of any American stranded in the country's most remote corners.

Wilson and co.'s recipe combines the legacy of 1950s rock'n'roll from Chuck Berry with catchy pop choruses and a wall of sound and vocal harmonies drawing on the lesson of Phil Spector, the brilliant producer of "Be My Baby" and dozens of other hits, who had become an idol for Brian. From rock'n'roll come the song structures and a certain infectious energy, often expressed through an accentuated rhythm section and particularly sharp guitar riffs, blended in innovative fashion with vocal harmonies inspired by the Four Freshmen and made even brighter and more striking by Brian's touch.

Once again, as had often happened before, what matters isn't just the music in itself, but the energy radiating from those unpretentious singles, and the imaginative power of a new teenage dream, the myth of Surf City, where there are at least "two girls for every boy", as a hit by Jan & Dean puts it — a song, not coincidentally, co-written by Brian Wilson. The Beach Boys' surf music is a new wave of rock'n'roll, but one stripped of the social tensions and transgressive impulses that had defined the heroes of the Fifties. It's rock'n'roll as seen by white kids of the American middle class, perhaps the last legacy of that intoxicating season, before the end of innocence, the decline of youthful utopias and the fall into the darkness of Vietnam.

The musical arc of the Beach Boys can be divided into at least five periods: the first, from Surfin' through to Pet Sounds, runs from adolescence to Brian Wilson's artistic maturity; the second, from Smile to Surf's Up, finds Brian suspended between creative darkness and flashes of genius; the third, between Carl & The Passions and 15 Big Ones, ranges from Brian's near-total disappearance to his first return to the scene; the fourth spans the final albums, Dennis's death and the diaspora that followed Carl's death; the fifth, finally, is marked by Brian's gradual artistic rebirth, which ultimately leads to the band's present-day reunion.

Riding the wave: surf music from 1961 to 1965

October 3, 1961 is the historic date. Led by father Murry Wilson and producers Hite and Dorinda Morgan, the five California boys manage to get a limited-run single, "Surfin'", pressed by the small Candix Records label: at the time they're still called the Pendletones, but their name has already been changed by the record company to "Beach Boys", more evocative of the Californian beach lifestyle. "Surfin'" is an anthem to fun and the surfboard, and it takes off on the West Coast, even landing a spot (No. 75) on the national pop chart and No. 2 on the local chart.

Having grudgingly accepted the new name, after signing to Capitol Records, in the early months of the following year Brian Wilson and co. release a second single, "Surfin' Safari". But it's above all the single's b-side, "409", that proves decisive, becoming their first "Top 15" hit. Thanks to this success, the five boys start work on their first album.

Surfin' Safari (October 1962) — with David Marks having replaced Al Jardine — contains sun-drenched anthems to surfers (such as the title track and "Surfin'", both re-recorded), the first example of a car-song (the aforementioned "409", complete with roaring engine sounds recorded in the driveway in front of the Wilsons' house), early instrumental flourishes (the joyful Hammond organ solo on "Cuckoo Clock"), exuberant rock'n'roll (Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues"), performed with basic technique but sung with great harmonic cohesion, and gentler harmonies, as on "Little Girl (You're My Miss America)". The album reaches No. 32 on the chart, held back by a not-so-fortunate choice on Capitol's part, which put out the dated "Ten Little Indians" as the third single.

In March 1963 comes the second album, Surfin' USA, which contains the excellent single "Shut Down" (No. 23 on the chart) and the thrilling, hugely successful title track, openly inspired by Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen", which rockets to No. 3 on the hit parade. Like its predecessor, the album also includes a few instrumentals, among them covers of "Misirlou" (a Greek folk song that Dick Dale turned into an instrumental surf version in 1962) and "Let's Go Trippin'", again by Dale. But the album's hidden gem is the aching ballad "The Lonely Sea", one of the many successful collaborations between Brian and Gary Usher. This song is the first hint of an introverted, melancholy streak in Brian Wilson's songwriting, one that would surface more and more often in the years to come.

While working on Surfin' USA, Brian experiments for the first time with the double-tracking technique, which involves overdubbing the same vocal part twice to harmonically enrich the melodic line and make the vocal harmonies even more majestic and brilliant.

Within two years the Beach Boys become America's most important band and establish themselves as the era's new youth icons, sparking a wave of surf music. Even their look sets a trend, with the Pendleton shirts so beloved by surfers, khaki pants and bare feet in the sand. Through their music, any American could close their eyes and picture themselves alongside the band on the yellow pickup truck on the cover of Surfin' Safari, gazing out toward the ocean in pursuit of some mystical freedom.

A feverishly productive period begins for the band. The first in a run of well-selling records, the third album Surfer Girl (October 1963, No. 7 on the chart) marks an important step forward in Brian Wilson's refinement of studio technique, as for the first time he also acts as the album's producer. The two ballads "Surfer Girl" (the very first song Brian ever wrote, at nineteen, for his girlfriend at the time, Judy Bowles, inspired by the Disney classic "When You Wish Upon A Star") and "In My Room" (which celebrates not the external world of surfers but inner isolation within a world of dreams) offer a taste of Wilson's extraordinary artistry, as he also begins to move away from the party atmosphere and extroverted rhythms toward a more intimate arrangement, with delicate guitar accompaniment and velvety vocal harmonies. Alongside the inevitable surf songs, other tracks show greater intimacy, such as "The Surfer Moon", the band's first experiment with a string arrangement, and the dreamy "Your Summer Dream".

What really tops the charts, however, is above all the exuberance of "Little Deuce Coupe", the b-side of the "Surfer Girl" single (No. 7 on the pop chart), which together with "Our Car Club" continues the car-song vein: it would become the most successful b-side of any Beach Boys single, reaching No. 15 on the American charts.

The fourth album, the third of the same year, takes its title from that fortunate B-side: Little Deuce Coupe (October 1963), which saw the return of Al Jardine, who had already appeared on some tracks of the previous record. The album, strongly pushed by Capitol, is almost entirely devoted to car songs and spawns another hit single, "Be True To Your School" (no. 6 on the charts), the only new track not dedicated to cars but to the world of school competitions and cheerleaders. Four tracks on the album are recycled from previous records, confirming Capitol's rather voracious approach: riding the wave of early success, the label tries to milk the market for all it's worth, rushing albums into stores at a relentless pace, often thrown together in a hurry with tracks recorded on the fly. In these months, Brian Wilson and his Beach Boys are travelling at full speed.

In March 1964 came Shut Down Volume 2, the ideal second chapter of a cycle launched by the compilation "Shut Down", released by Capitol in 1963, which included, alongside tracks sung by Robert Mitchum, two songs by the band: "409" and "Shut Down". Sealed by the cover art, the band's passion for sports cars returns, and new hits arrive too, starting with "Fun, Fun, Fun" (no. 5 on the charts), with the usual interplay of voices and a Berry-style riff lifted from "Johnny B. Goode", topped off by Brian's shimmering falsetto.

Shut Down Volume 2 also marks Carl Wilson's debut as lead vocalist, on "Pom, Pom Play Girl", which, along with Dennis's drum solo and the playful vocal duel between Brian and Mike Love on "Cassius" Love vs. "Sonny" Wilson, serve as examples of album filler, tracks thrown in simply to complete records within tight deadlines.

Besides "Fun, Fun, Fun", the other two standout tracks on the record are the gorgeous "Don't Worry Baby", Wilson's ideal answer to Phil Spector's "Be My Baby", and the delicate ballad "The Warmth Of The Sun", written with Mike Love just hours after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Both songs, buoyed by celestial harmonies and echoes of sacred polyphony, once again foreshadow the more intimate impulses that, a couple of years later, would cast a shadow over the "sun and fun" imagery. But in 1964 it is still that very formula that guarantees the Beach Boys' fortune, and, pushed along by Capitol's pressure, they don't disappoint their fans.

In those same months of '64, however, Beatlemania explodes in America, and the sales of Shut Down Volume 2 pay the price, further hampered by Capitol's weak promotional push, as the label was busy focusing all its efforts on the Fab Four.

Shortly after, the sixth album All Summer Long was released (July 1964, no. 4 on the charts), the last record aimed squarely at the beach crowd, propelled to success by the supremely catchy pop anthem "I Get Around" (the band's first no. 1), another display of studio craft, with even more elaborate vocal harmonies, Mike Love's now well-honed vocal lead on the verses and Brian's dazzling, singular falsetto on the chorus, framed by the rest of the band's percussive vocal patterns.

But what also gives the record momentum, a sort of end-of-summer reminiscence, are the catchy "Little Honda", the nostalgic "Wendy" and above all "All Summer Long", a bittersweet song marked by outstanding harmonies, a lively piano rhythm and a xylophone perfectly woven into the arrangement. In 1973, George Lucas would choose it to accompany the closing credits of his "American Graffiti", a fairy-tale film about that unrepeatable season of dreams, now lost forever.

During the recording of All Summer Long, the dramatic rift with manager Murry Wilson, father of the three brothers, comes to a head, the result of an ongoing love/hate relationship captured on tape a few months later during the recording sessions for "Help Me Rhonda".

From 1962, the year of their chart debut, to 1964, the Beach Boys released no fewer than eight LPs, with more than eighty songs, showing steady growth in terms of composition and production. The live album The Beach Boys Concert (October 1964) reached no. 1 in the United States, a result owed to the freshness of the performance (although touched up in the studio, since the audience's screaming nearly drowned out the band's sound in many spots) and to a setlist made up of a few originals and some fun covers not included on other albums. The record is an extraordinary snapshot of a line-up at the peak of its powers, taken right at the moment when, before long, everything was about to change.

Inspired by Phil Spector's 1963 idea of creating an album devoted to Christmas standards, Brian wrote several themed songs which, combined with some traditional carols, make up the Christmas Album (November 1964, no. 6 on the charts). The record contains "Little Saint Nick", a track destined to become an eternal seasonal classic.

Brian Wilson, however, is beginning to show signs of excessive stress: the obsessive work of writing, producing and recording, combined with a packed touring schedule, brings on a severe nervous breakdown. During a flight to Houston on 23 December 1964, he suffers a sudden panic attack that leads him, a few days later, to announce to the rest of the band his retirement from live performing in order to devote himself exclusively to producing new music for the group. His place as bassist on stage, left vacant, is temporarily filled by Glen Campbell, replaced a few months later by Bruce Johnston, an emerging talent of the Californian surf-pop scene (The Rip Chords, Bruce & Terry), who would soon become the "sixth Beach Boy". Brian is left free to concentrate on songwriting and studio work, with results that would prove decisive for the group's sound. Starting in 1965, in fact, the Beach Boys' music moves away from the world of surf, relaunching (or in some cases anticipating) the ideas that the Beatles and other bands of the "British Invasion" were bringing to the way songs were conceived, composed and presented.

The first fruit of this shift, The Beach Boys Today! (March 1965), presents bolder vocal textures, as in "Don't Hurt My Little Sister" and the moving "When I Grow Up To Be A Man", in which the Beach Boys prove adept at marrying uptempo dynamics with melancholy moods. Except for a few last traces of lightheartedness, as in "Dance, Dance, Dance", what really stands out are the more intimate songs, marking a shift towards more meditative sounds: "Kiss Me Baby", "Please Let Me Wonder" and "In The Back Of My Mind" remain, even today, among the finest songs in the Beach Boys' entire catalogue.

The record also yields another track, "Help Me Rhonda", with Al Jardine on lead vocals; one of Brian's distinctive traits was his candour in quietly admitting to less-than-successful experiments, such as the odd ending of this version, with the volume fading in and out several times. Brian, sensing untapped potential, would later revisit the song, creating a second version with a more polished arrangement and production, which on the following album would become a huge no. 1 hit.

The startling naivety of the early days has gradually given way to a flair capable of "disturbing" the fairy-tale enchantment with all sorts of devices, from tipsy backing vocals to burlesque digressions, from exotic touches to lo-fi sounds. Even the very structure of the tracklist, with the sunnier tracks on side A ("Dance Dance Dance" is the one closest to the band's original sound) and the more introspective ballads on the second side, bears witness to a metamorphosis underway.

That same year, two more albums would leave a deep mark on the band's history. Summer Days (And Summer Nights!) (July 1965, no. 2 on the charts) features in particular the famous hit "California Girls" (no. 3), a joyous mid-tempo number with the classic "wall of sound", and an intriguing instrumental like "Summer Means New Love", symphonic in its construction, as well as yet another Spectorian tribute in "Then I Kissed Her", with Al taking the lead vocal role for the third time. "Girl Don't Tell Me", a track built along the lines of the Beatles' "Ticket To Ride", released that same year, is one of the last examples of Brian using the Beach Boys themselves as studio musicians. By this point, in fact, it had become his habit to rely on Los Angeles' finest session players, the very same crew used by Spector, the only ones capable of reproducing the complexity of Brian's arrangements, which by now included parts for a full-fledged orchestra.

Beach Boys’ Party, another 1965 album (No. 6 on the charts), is instead a fun romp through more or less recent covers (from the Everly Brothers' “Devoted To You” to Bob Dylan's “The Times They Are A-Changin'”) which, besides being their best-selling album in England, features their version of the Regents' “Barbara Ann,” destined to become one of the most famous pop songs of all time: the song is barely four years old when the Beach Boys pick it up, but it's they who will carry it into history, recording it as if it had been sung at a party, complete with background chatter and clinking glasses. The cover was suggested by Dean Torrence of the duo Jan & Dean, who happened to cross paths with them due to overlapping sessions in the same studio and was roped into the recording as a friend.

The whole “Party album” is a device Brian used to satisfy Capitol's demand for a new record before Christmas with minimal effort. Totally absorbed in the pre-production of Pet Sounds, Brian could only spare four sessions to complete the “Party album.” The unexpected success of “Barbara Ann” (No. 2) is anything but a point of pride for an author who is trying to forge a new musical path that would free the Beach Boys from their reputation as an easy-hit band with a fixed formula.

By the end of 1965, nothing in the Beach Boys' songs reflects what's happening in the restless America of the late Sixties. With their surf music scrubbed clean of any violence, Wilson and company counter the increasingly grim reality with the sunny utopia of an eternal Californian summer, where life unfolds like one endless beach party. Theirs is white music for white people, an embodiment of traditional values and the myth of family. But Brian Wilson's childhood wasn't all roses and Californian beaches: his violent father used to beat him, and according to some sources, it was one of his father's blows that caused him to lose hearing in his right ear.

The experimental turn and the masterpiece Pet Sounds (1966)

Brian, a psychologically fragile creative genius, goes through a period of deep crisis following the notorious nervous breakdown of late '64, during which he also becomes dependent on drugs. His talent, however, remains alive and undeniable, far more advanced than the group's more superficial image would suggest. His production work becomes increasingly meticulous and obsessive. Over the course of 1965, he begins work on the album that would leave a profound mark on the group's history, Pet Sounds, a highly ambitious concept album that would mark a revolution in the history of pop music.

It's 1965, and the Beatles have just released “Rubber Soul,” an album free of filler, conceived as something more than a mere collection of singles. The use of instruments unusual for pop-rock, such as the harpsichord, sitar and harmonium, greatly intrigues Brian Wilson, who resolves to rework his own original forms of pop song along similar lines. The peculiar long-distance relationship between Wilson and McCartney — both songwriters and bassists — would be sealed in later years by a number of mutual declarations of admiration. The former would call “Rubber Soul” a complete album, dense with good music; the latter would say of Pet Sounds that it was a landmark work whose orchestral arrangements simply couldn't be ignored (arrangements that, by McCartney's own admission, would go on to heavily influence “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,” released a year later). If the Beach Boys looked to the Beatles and the British Invasion when writing songs like “Girl Don't Tell Me,” the same could be said of the Fab Four, who with “Back In The USSR” paid tribute to Chuck Berry and the Beach Boys. In various interviews, Mike Love revealed that during the Beatles' stay in Rishikesh, India, it was he who suggested to Paul that he use the formula of “California Girls” for the song's bridge. One fundamental difference between the two bands remains, however: while the Beatles worked as a team and relied on George Martin's invaluable input, Brian Wilson did almost everything himself, with no real support within the group, combining the work of composition with the equally complex task of production.

Worn down by Capitol's constant pressure, Wilson, still only twenty-three, nurtures ever greater ambitions, gradually distancing himself from the group, which, proud of its “fun and sun” philosophy, doesn't yet feel the need to grow up. So, while the others go off on tour in Japan, Brian shuts himself away in the studio to conceive his masterpiece, Pet Sounds (May 1966), a gem of vocal blends, futuristic arrangements and creative solutions, all masterfully combined with a use of the recording studio that had never even been imagined before.

The album's release is preceded by the single “Sloop John B.,” a Wilson-esque arrangement of a folk song that foreshadows the shift in the group's sound. Wilson begins experimenting with compositions far more refined and unusual than the surf music of their early period, using all kinds of instruments to enrich the sonic palette at the service of his imagination. “It's our idea of a religious ceremony,” he would later say of the record. Among the album's distinctive features is the unprecedented use of bass, which doesn't just dutifully follow the melody but weaves genuine counterpoints (a technique that McCartney too would come to greatly admire), along with a wide range of percussion (vibraphone, triangle, marimba, tambourine, bells) that enrich the songs.

Pet Sounds is the Beach Boys' absolute masterpiece, an extraordinarily inspired record where Wilson's studio experimentation blends magically with the catchiness of the songs, where rock's traditional instruments find unexpected common ground with other styles and approaches. It is, in its own way, a concept album: even though the sequencing isn't entirely linear, there's a palpable search for unity tying the songs together. The record in fact contains a kind of narrative arc, namely a teenager's coming of age and his navigation of friendships, loves and spiritual searching. The track listing alone speaks volumes: “Wouldn't It Be Nice,” “Sloop John B.,” “Caroline No,” “Hang On To Your Ego” (reworked into “I Know There's An Answer” after pressure from Mike Love, who strongly objected to any themes or allusions regarding altering one's personality through substances), and above all “God Only Knows,” one of the most beautiful songs of all time.

The album opens with a song that still recalls the earlier “beach boys,” “Wouldn't It Be Nice,” introduced by a ringing guitar arpeggio, then backed by drums, with the harmonies gently floating above the broken rhythms, the slowdowns and Brian's sudden vocal flurries. Closing the record, on the other hand, is “Caroline, No,” which, in contrast to the adolescent restlessness of “Wouldn't It Be Nice,” embodies the disillusionment of adulthood and nostalgia for lost years. As with the rest of the album's material, Wilson also employed musicians from the “Wrecking Crew,” Phil Spector's go-to clan. Giving “Caroline, No” its jazzy aftertaste are instruments particularly unusual for pop at the time, such as harpsichord and flute. On the subject of the song, Brian stated: “'Caroline, No' was my favorite on the album, the best ballad I've ever sung. The melody and chords are very Glenn Miller-ish... The fade-out at the end is similar to a record from around 1944... Listen to the sound of the flutes in the fade.” The closing track is also notable for its final sound effects: a passing train and the barking of Brian's dogs, Banana and Louie. In the late Nineties, it would be discovered that Wilson had lifted the train sound from a sound-effects LP titled “Mister D's Machine,” recorded in 1963 by a certain Brad Miller.

But the record's true gem remains “God Only Knows.” “It's exactly what I mean by an intense song,” Paul McCartney would later praise it. “In fact, every time I hear it, it never fails to move me.” Legend has it that the night McCartney and Lennon first heard it at a party in London, they went back to their hotel and immediately wrote “Here, There And Everywhere,” the most recognizably Beach-Boys-like peak of their career. In the architecture of “God Only Knows,” everything has its reason for being: Carl Wilson's voice, the arrangement of trumpets, bells, string instruments and accordion. Equally remarkable is the fine-tuned craftsmanship in piecing together melodic parts and sounds, to the point that the song plays like a symphony, a progressive construction. Everything seems to converge to give the piece a heavenly touch. Ironically, though, it wouldn't get much radio attention, precisely because of the cumbersome presence of the word “God.”

Initially, Pet Sounds achieved respectable results, but fell short of expectations in terms of sales, partly due to poor promotion from Capitol, who preferred to invest in the Best Of The Beach Boys anthology, released shortly afterward. So it was critics, more than the audience of former “beach boys,” who championed the record, extolling the greatness of a dozen compositions that Wilson's genius, aided by lyricist Tony Asher, had turned into a masterpiece. Besides the lyrics, what's striking are the harmonic choices and the way the recording studio itself is used, transformed into a new instrument alongside violins, horns, saxophones, oboe (“I'm Waiting For The Day”) and angelic voices inextricably intertwined. An abyss of tenderness that culminates in “Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder),” a ballad of aching intensity, with its initial wordless choral melody, the intricate arrangement of the middle section driven by pulsing bass, and a classically tinged instrumental coda, complete with viola and cello, vibraphone, timpani and more. A track on which Brian reserves the lead vocal for himself, whispering lines of disarming delicacy and simplicity: “Being here with you feels so right/ we could live forever tonight/ let’s not think about tomorrow/ and don’t talk, put your head on my shoulder”.

Equally breathtaking is the constant attention to detail: a bicycle bell in the background on “You Still Believe In Me,” the cinematic unfolding of “Let's Go Away For A While” and of the title track, the deliberately retro sound of “I Know There's An Answer” and the shifting rhythms of “Here Today.”

Despite being a particularly odd record for its time, Pet Sounds would find a warm reception especially in England. And it would only take the addition of “Good Vibrations,” a track with pronounced experimental leanings, to secure the band a new worldwide hit. Recorded during the Pet Sounds sessions, it effectively became an extension of the album, somewhat like what happened with “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields Forever” in relation to “Sgt Pepper's.” “Good Vibrations” is a small symphony that expands the song form into a mini-suite packed into three and a half minutes. Its structure is particularly complex, divided into seven separate sections that tend to overlap. “Good Vibrations” is the distillation of a song across time, individual genius applied to popular music.

In short, more than a song, it's a list of brightly colored sounds glued together (as confirmed by Rick Henn of the Sunrays: “I was in the studio and saw the tape of the final version. I'd never seen anything like it! It was covered in cut-and-pasted pieces. There must have been 50 or 60 visible splices!”). As if that weren't enough, “Good Vibrations” went down in history for introducing electronics into pop, although the song's frequent association with the theremin is, at best, imprecise; Wilson, in fact, discovered and hired a musician, Paul Tanner, who, noticing the difficulty of getting precise notes out of a real theremin (an instrument played by manipulating the waves around it without ever touching it, making it hard to produce clean, stable notes), built something that produced a similar sound but in a more consistent and precise way: this is the instrument (played by Tanner himself) heard on “Good Vibrations.” Carl Wilson put it this way: “It was another place. It was another level we were reaching with popular music.” This completed the shift from music meant for youthful entertainment to music understood as an art form. With “Good Vibrations,” Wilson translated a complex, experimental approach into a simple, popular language. The song reached No. 1 on the charts, selling over sixteen million copies.

The season of Pet Sounds, besides ushering in the Beach Boys' experimental turn, marks the end of Brian Wilson's happy period. "I dreamed I had a halo around my head, but people couldn't see it. Now when I think back on it, it really was a halo I had around my head. God was with us the whole time we made that album. God was right there beside me, I could see him, I could feel this feeling in my head, in my brain," he would later recall. Hard drugs arrived, and with them the first mental imbalances, which manifested themselves in obsessive-compulsive ways.

The Mystery of Smile, Rock's Holy Grail

After Pet Sounds, Brian Wilson became obsessed with climbing even higher, creating a spiritual album, a "teenage symphony to God," as he liked to call his project. Starting in May '66, Brian revolutionized the way records were made in the studio, no longer aiming to capture a single take of an entire song, but instead building each song cinematically, recording small pieces, sometimes just a few seconds long, to be assembled later by splicing together the various tape fragments. This way, the various "feels" or fragments could be swapped within the same song or between different songs, allowing for an infinite number of possible arrangements.

To make the record, Brian brought in Van Dyke Parks, a young talent who at the time was also working with the Byrds. The partnership between the two proved fruitful right away, and in just a few months — between spring and summer of '66 — they wrote numerous pieces for the new work. The duo's idea was to create a strongly American album, in response to the "British Invasion" that was increasingly taking over. A journey through America not only geographically (starting at Plymouth Rock and ending in Hawaii), but also historically and culturally, conceived as a suite, with no interruptions.

This is the period when Brian installed the famous "sandbox" in his living room, a wooden containment structure filled with several tons of sand, with a grand piano placed right in the middle. The idea was to be able to compose with his feet in the sand, recreating the feeling of being at the beach without having to leave the house. Several masterpieces were born in the "sandbox", before it eventually became the favorite spot for his two dogs, Banana and Louie, to relieve themselves. Another example of the eccentricity of the Wilson household was a huge tent set up indoors, where he could smoke, reflect and search for inspiration. According to those who took part in the tent sessions, the heat was unbearable and the air was made unbreathable by the smoke. For these reasons the whim was short-lived, just like a thousand other flashes of brilliance from a Brian who was becoming ever more unconventional — ideas that could thrill him one moment and be forgotten the next day, or the next hour.

But Christmas was approaching, and the record he'd been chasing for months, the one his label had proudly announced would be out by year's end, was still nowhere near having even a vague structure. The search for comedic sketches, for sounds of nature, the bizarre sessions in which strange sounds and vocalizations were recorded while crawling around on all fours, in an atmosphere clearly dominated by altered senses, led to a pile-up of countless scattered ideas, a thousand pieces of a mind-bending puzzle. Not even the title was certain. Maybe "Dumb Angel", the first idea, but more likely Smile. Wilson was convinced that only the therapeutic power of humor could help him through those difficult, treacherous days. This was the period when he became fascinated with Zen, numerology and astrology, and when a large crowd of the wrong people started gravitating around him, distracting him even further from his work.

At the end of '66, the Beach Boys returned from a triumphant tour of England, eager to take part in the recordings. However, the scene that greeted them was about as far as possible from the impeccable organization they were used to. Brian presented them with tiny fragments, ideas, hints of melodies and visionary projects that left them deeply puzzled. For the first time, Brian had to face a total lack of support from both the band and the label. In particular, Mike Love couldn't stand the circle of friends surrounding Brian, many of them hangers-on and drug dealers, and he also objected to Van Dyke Parks's lyrics, which struck his ears as hallucinatory nonsense. During the recording session for "Cabinessence" in particular, the two clashed verbally over the meaning of the famously obscure line "Over and over the crow cries uncover the cornfield". Asked by Mike what that line meant, Van Dyke smiled and replied, "I haven't the slightest idea". A perfectly reasonable stance for a poet, perhaps, but unacceptable for a frontman who longed for the lost formula of "cars/girls/beaches". Frustrated and disillusioned, Parks abandoned the project in March '67. Starting in January, Capitol kept pushing back the release date, and it's fair to say that work on the album's core tracks had already ground to a halt by mid-December '66.

Another blow came from the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever". Brian Wilson happened to hear it on the radio while driving, and had to pull over to tell his friend Michael Vosse, sitting beside him, in despair: "They got there first".

The recording sessions continued, more or less sporadically, until April '67, when Brian came to realize that the path was now lost and he no longer had the will to organize the thousands of pieces of his psychedelic mosaic. Brian had no support from anyone, and in the end not even he believed in Smile anymore.

On May 6, 1968, Derek Taylor — the Beatles' press officer and one of the most respected journalists in the rock world — announced the sad news: "The Beach Boys' new, fabulous album is dead without ever having been born. Brian Wilson, its creator, wanted to destroy all the tapes recorded since the very beginning". The legend of the destroyed tapes was invented and kept alive over the years by Brian himself, so he wouldn't have to answer Capitol's or journalists' constant demands to finish the project.

In its place, a bizarre album of baroque pop songs was released in September, one that carried only an echo of the original project, starting with its title, Smiley Smile.

A few weeks earlier, a strange single had come out, featuring one of many versions of the song meant to be the cornerstone of the lost masterpiece: "Heroes And Villains". Beach Boys fans turned up their noses, thrown off by this follow-up to "Good Vibrations", while everyone else barely noticed. With almost nothing new to offer, Brian had already pulled out of the Monterey festival in mid-June. What should have been the perfect high-profile musical-cultural event to introduce Smile to the world would have instead been nothing but an occasion for embarrassment, presenting a stale set of surf songs sung by a band of "square" guys in striped shirts in front of a crowd of hippies hungry for the emerging counterculture.

"It wasn't an accident", Al Jardine has said. "Brian lost himself because he wanted to lose himself. He didn't care about being number 1 anymore, there was something sweeter about being the loser". As Riccardo Bertoncelli writes, "Wilson would never fully regain his clarity of mind. He would go on to perform with the Beach Boys, write and record again, but with serious psychological problems and an increasingly tired, dull hand, lacking the magic dust of those days. The fleeting moment had vanished, the chimera of 'Smile' had stolen his best dreams".

The fruits of those endless sessions, held between April 1966 and May 1967, have resurfaced over the years on singles ("Heroes And Villains"), albums (Smiley Smile, 20/20, Sunflower, Surf's Up), box sets (Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys, 1993) and countless bootlegs.

By piecing together fragments scattered across bootlegs and later releases, one can reconstruct a simulacrum of that magnificent puzzle. Collage, as in the contemporary work of Frank Zappa and the Mothers, takes center stage not only within individual tracks but across the album as a whole. The variety of the pieces is extraordinary: from the a cappella chorus of "Our Prayer" to the revelry of "Heroes And Villains", from the eccentrically arranged old-style melody of "Barnyard" to the goofy lunacy of "He Gives Speeches", from the infinite sweetness of "Wonderful" to "Bicycle Rider", a most worthy successor to "Let's Go Away For Awhile", from the vocal tour de force of "Cabin Essence" to "Good Vibrations", from the titanic suite "The Elements" all the way to the sublime "Surf's Up".

In 2004, Wilson himself, once again aided by Van Dyke Parks, would attempt to lift the veil of mystery, ideally recovering the work that time had erased. The absence of a definite original tracklist suggests that, at the moment the project was abandoned, no one had any idea how to finish it. Decades later, perhaps not even Brian could fully grasp the overall shape of the work. Nevertheless, the 2004 Smile is the first attempt at a posthumous reconstruction of the original work, made possible by the collaboration between its two authors. Brian Wilson Presents Smile was made with entirely new recordings, but produced using 1967-era equipment wherever possible. The result would be admirable, better than expected, but also inevitably artificial. It isn't the Smile of 1967, but the Smile of 2004.

To celebrate the Beach Boys' fiftieth anniversary, on October 31, 2011, The Smile Sessions was released, in which the work is philologically re-created using original material: the edition consists of two CDs (or LPs), which become five (plus a book and two 7-inch singles) in the deluxe edition, and reconstructs, fragment by fragment, everything that happened in the studio during the most dazzling, controversial, mad and creative moment in the career of the beach boys and their elusive leader. In truth, not even this is the real Smile, it isn't the Holy Grail of music, but it is a trace, a hypothesis of what might have been. Listening to it now is something incredible, hard to put into words. Had it come out at the time, Smile would have been the perfect answer to the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's".

The Smile Sessions is an incredibly forward-thinking record, moving between rock'n'roll, psychedelia and progressive rock in a completely natural way, like an album of our own time. It was only 1966, and Brian Wilson was light years ahead. The project's curators, Mark Linett, Dennis Wolfe, Alan Boyd and Wilson himself, sequenced nineteen tracks, devoting the rest of the first CD, the whole second disc and the box set's extra material to demos, alternative takes, song fragments, vocal and sound edits and stereo mixes. You can eavesdrop on the dialogue, the laughter, the talkback-mic chatter, the obsessive repetitions in the pursuit of perfection.

And so here is "Our Prayer": the invocation to the Muses, "Vuh" from age three to six. The rite of joy has begun, and here comes dancing in the shortest cover version in the world ("Gee", twelve seconds) to introduce what sets Smile apart from Pet Sounds: "Heroes And Villains" is the mouthpiece of the whole project, no longer songs carried by sublime orchestration, but Chinese boxes of sounds, little noises, choruses (sometimes downright goofy), overlapping rhythm sections (listen to "Do You Like Worms" to understand...), the use of unusual instruments (first and foremost the legendary theremin on "Good Vibrations", which wasn't actually a theremin at all), all of it stuck together with lysergic tape.

And the lyrics... No more "God only knows what I'd be without you", no... now it's "Dance, Margarita! Don't you know that I love you? Dance!" (mocking little chorus) "You're under arrest!" ("Heroes And Villains"), or "I want to see you, windswept, wavy, wheatfields for your embrace" ("Cabin Essence"). And these are only the (by far) simplest, most straightforward examples: Van Dyke Parks' pen is a constant weave - just like Wilson's music - of puns, cryptic meanings, watercolors made of words, a kind of writing that Jeff Mangum would go on to study by heart.

The Holy Grail has finally been found, it's tangible, real, concrete. The mystery has been solved, but not entirely: we will always wonder what Smile would have been like had Brian never scrapped it, and whether the version released forty years later is a faithful reconstruction or not. Questions that will never be answered, questions that belong to the stock of rock legends.

Signs of recovery

But let's go back to the Sixties and that inexhaustible song factory that was the Wilson family's Californian enterprise. Wild Honey (December 1967, No. 24) is an album that confirms Brian's great work of creative innovation. Comparable to the Beatles' "White Album", the record holds an unabashedly soul spirit with rhythm & blues echoes, layered harmonies and vocal polyphony enriched by falsettos. The standout tracks are "Darlin'", a song written by Brian and Mike to be entrusted to Carl's voice, the title track (a classic r'n'b with funky shades, in which the vocal harmonies build up across several layers), and "I Was Made To Love Her", a cover of Stevie Wonder that the Beach Boys chose not to overhaul but to enrich with their own distinctive vocal parts. "Country Air" is a showcase of Wilsonian "unfinishedness", yet defined enough to stand out among the album's musical peaks.

The album also includes "Let The Wind Blow", a psychedelic love song written by a still-lucid Brian, and "I'd Love Just Once To See You", a bittersweet melody that so enchanted Paul McCartney that he brought it back on his debut solo album.

Wild Honey is certainly not the Beach Boys' best album, but it is undoubtedly one of the most interesting from an experimental standpoint, sealing here the marriage between vocal harmonies and rhythm & blues. Unfortunately, Brian's interest in recording grew ever more lukewarm and sporadic, to the point that the Beach Boys, just to have him present at the sessions, decided to record their subsequent work in his home studio.

Having by now fallen out of fashion in the face of the new Californian music (Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane above all), the Beach Boys released, in the late Sixties, a few albums with a pop-lounge flavor. Friends (June 1968, No. 126) is the most successful of them. The very brief invocation of "Meant For You" opens the album and steers it into pop territory. Ray Davies of the Kinks would echo it in his "Sitting In My Hotel", from the 1972 album "Everybody's In Showbiz".

Listening to the album is light and slips by quickly, without leaving much of a mark.

In February 1969, 20/20 was released, the last album recorded for Capitol, with whom relations had by then worn thin (and the title indicates that it is indeed the band's twentieth album). It's a work that sees Bruce Johnston take more of a leading role (he's the one who penned the fine instrumental "The Nearest Faraway Place"), but overall it proves uneven, with tracks of varied origin: a hit ("Do It Again"), covers ("Cotton Fields", "Bluebirds Over The Mountain", and the Spectoresque "I Can Hear Music") and psychedelic-leaning pieces originally composed for Smile (the choral "Our Prayer" and "Cabinessence", retitled as a single word). The album fails to rise above No. 68.

Brian is increasingly withdrawn, and it's mainly Carl and Dennis who take the reins of the band. Without Brian's help, who is also absent vocally on the track, Carl produces the excellent version of Phil Spector's "I Can Hear Music", delivering one of his finest vocal performances and giving the band their last American Top 40 hit for the next seven years; while Dennis crafts the energetic "Be With Me", with his vocalizing counterpointing the harmonies, and the near-hard-rock of "All I Want To Do", with obscene sounds hidden in the final fade-out (recorded "live" in the studio with the help of a willing professional). Brian, however, leaves behind two first-rate waltzes, "I Went To Sleep" and the celestial "Time To Get Alone" (an outtake from the Wild Honey sessions, originally written for the Redwoods), as well as the single "Do It Again", co-written with Mike Love in 1968: a midtempo rocker with an emphasis on vocal harmonies, to which a fragment of "Workshop", stemming from the gestation of Smile, was added as a ghost track.

Also involved is Charles Manson, tragically notorious for events just a few months later, who penned the forgettable "Cease To Exist", transformed by Dennis, who at the time shared a dangerous friendship with him, into "Never Learn Not To Love", with some lyrics altered and a new bridge.

Johnston, finally, besides contributing "The Nearest Faraway Place", also offers a cover of an Ersel Hickey song, "Bluebirds Over The Mountain".

Capitol Records makes the most of the catalogue at its disposal, releasing in the UK in 1970 (and only in 1976 in the US) The Beach Boys Live In London, a live concert recorded in 1968, in which the band, backed also by a horn section, proves more than equal to complex Brian-penned songs such as "God Only Knows", "Wouldn't It Be Nice" and "Good Vibrations".

After "Breakaway", an excellent hit single released in 1969 and never included on any album, the new deal with Reprise Records yields Sunflower (1970). Although received tepidly by the public, especially in America (peaking at No. 151), the record bears witness to a miraculous rebirth of the band, one that will in later years be confirmed by critics, to the point that Pitchfork would call it "the best album the Beach Boys made after Pet Sounds" and Rolling Stone would place it at No. 380 on its all-time Top 500.

Even the cover art hints at how the times have changed: the Beach Boys are dressed differently and surrounded by their children. In short, the age of surfing and sports-car races had already faded a while back, making way for a serene maturity. And the result is convincing, starting with the opener "Slip On Through", with its Latin flavours and Dennis's voice rising above an intricate web of harmonies, underpinned by a solid rhythm section, proof of the drummer's growth as a songwriter and producer. Slower and more spacious, "Add Some Music To Your Day" has a mystical quality, while "Got To Know The Woman" marries Dennis Wilson's soul-inflected vocalizing with pop appeal, enriched by the chimes of a honky-tonk piano. Also fine are the vocal harmonies of Carl and Brian Wilson on the euphoric power-pop of "This Whole World", with its country aftertaste and an incredible chord progression inspired by Bach, while the "minimalist" psychedelic trip of "Cool Cool Water" revives the experimental approach of one of the lost tracks from Smile, "Love To Say Da Da", a subsection of the "The Elements" suite. Subtle lysergic shades also surface within the grooves of a love song like "All I Wanna Do", thick with reverb and spacey atmospheres: a kind of proto-shoegaze that would go on to influence swarms of bands.

Dennis Wilson writes and sings the sublime "Forever", regarded by Brian himself as one of the absolute high points of the Beach Boys' music ("It has to be the most harmonically beautiful thing I've ever heard [...] It's a rock and roll prayer"). Finally, the three tracks written by Johnston, "Deirdre" and "Tears In The Morning", are also convincing, even if tied to more conventional pop conventions.

Misunderstood at the time, Sunflower would for many become the true musical testament of the Beach Boys.

Towards the end of the Sixties, the life of the former beach boys was gradually turning into a hippie existence, awash with drugs and alcohol, orbited by all sorts of characters. Mike Love joins the Beatles' expedition to India, Brian Wilson grows ever more dependent on drugs, Dennis Wilson shares his home with Charles Manson's "family", and the Beach Boys embark on an extraordinary journey of death and rebirth.

In 1971 it's the turn of Surf's Up, another fine album that would outsell its predecessor, reaching No. 29 on the US charts and No. 15 in the UK. The new manager, DJ Jack Rieley, pushes the band to recapture the unity and vitality of the Sixties, trying to relaunch them on the back of the new psychedelic wave, even arranging for the Beach Boys to appear as guests at a Grateful Dead concert. The band also tries its hand at new social themes: the rhythm 'n' blues of "Student Demonstration Time" recounts the years of student protests, while the delicate "Don't Go Near The Water" and "A Day In The Life Of A Tree" draw on environmentalist themes.

Also worth noting are Bruce Johnston's nostalgic "Disney Girls", the choral "Long Promised Road" and Carl Wilson's mystical "Feel Flows".

But it's the album's closing stretch that delivers two unexpected masterpieces: "Till I Die", accompanied by organ and sung by Brian Wilson himself, is another song of mystical vein, celebrating intimate communion with a nature that takes on pantheistic overtones; the closing title track "Surf's Up", exhumed from the Smile sessions, is a kind of grandiose Beach Boys take on "A Day In The Life". It was Rieley who convinced a reluctant Wilson to finish the song he had left unfinished, and the result is excellent, thanks above all to Carl's extraordinary vocal parts, the harmonic modulation of the choruses and the studio cut-and-paste work, complete with Moog synthesizers and various instrumental overdubs. These are songs written by Brian Wilson at his best, the Wilson who wanted to escape the fixed codes of verse-chorus-hook, who wanted to experiment, fighting to achieve the impossible, right up to the brink of madness. A Wilson now touched by melancholy, the one who writes the pain-soaked lines of "A Day In The Life Of A Tree", an ode to a dying tree ("Feel the wind burn through my skin/ The pain, the air is killing me").

The world around the Beach Boys is changing, and mid-Seventies America has by now little in common with that of the decade's early years. So the Californian band sheds its skin in search of new vibrations, moving through masterpieces like Surf's Up and endless Sixties revivals, before, starting in the Nineties, endless legal wars break out among the group's members.

The Beach Boys thus proceed in fits and starts, alternating good records with resounding flops, such as Carl and the Passions – So Tough (May 1972, No. 50). The result of Ricky Fataar and Blondie Chaplin joining the group, as well as Brian's near-total absence, it's one of the weakest Beach Boys albums and would prove a complete flop, with decidedly forgettable tracks ("He Come Down", "Marcella", "All This Is That", "You Need A Mess of Help to Stand Alone").

With Holland (January 1973, No. 36), the fruit of a stint in the Netherlands, the band instead returns to the spotlight, but only thanks to the successful single "Sail On, Sailor", co-written, among others, by Brian Wilson: a solid blues number entrusted to Chaplin's soulful timbre, buoyed by the band's trademark harmonies.

The album, however, offers other notable moments, such as the three-part suite "California Saga" (the work of Mike Love and Al Jardine, which blends parts of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" with Cajun rhythms and environmentalist themes), Carl's refined vocal grace on "Steamboat" and "Trader" (both helmed by Carl), and the sentimental ballad "Only With You", penned with unusually romantic words by Mike Love and set to Dennis's anguished music.

During Brian's near-total absence, the Beach Boys threw themselves into nonstop live activity, regaining a fair measure of popularity thanks to collaborations with the Grateful Dead and Chicago. Brother/Reprise thus released the band's third live album, In Concert, in November 1973. The record, a double LP, features some live tracks of the highest quality and reaches a solid No. 29 on the charts. The album also brings back some classic songs from the group's age of innocence, such as "Don't Worry Baby" and "Fun, Fun, Fun", eloquent proof that in the early years of the new decade rock's progressive drive was by now running out of steam, while a renewed public interest in Fifties rock'n'roll and early-Sixties teen pop was taking shape (as testified, for instance, by John Lennon's cover album "Rock And Roll", released in 1975 and produced by Phil Spector).

Brian's return to the group, also as producer, was officially sealed with 15 Big Ones in 1976 (No. 8), which featured several covers from the "golden age" of rock and roll, such as Chuck Berry's "Rock And Roll Music", Vincent Rose's "Blueberry Hill", the Righteous Brothers' "Just Once In My Life" and the Five Satins' "In The Still Of The Night".

Among the new originals, standouts include "It's O.K.", with its contagious melody harking back to the band's classic anthems, the more reflective "TM Song" and the delicate "Everyone's In Love With You", penned by Mike Love.

But the impression is of a muted return for Brian, a clever publicity stunt under the slogan "Brian is Back" meant to revive the band's popularity. Dark clouds still loomed over his personal life: excess and drug use heightened his nervous fragility, to the point that his wife decided to place him under the care of the controversial psychiatrist Eugene Landy, known for his unorthodox therapies. While Landy initially helped improve Wilson's mental state and get him back to work with the band, he would later be heavily accused of manipulating his patient with brainwashing-style techniques and even profiting off him. Accusations that would eventually cost Landy his professional license.

Between 1976 and 1977, Brian wrote and produced The Beach Boys Love You, the new LP. A controversial work, seen by some as a comeback and by others as the band's definitive twilight. Among the album's fans was Rem guitarist Peter Buck, who in the liner notes of the CD reissue would call it his favorite Beach Boys album.

In truth, some of the tracks dated back to earlier recording sessions. Starting with the lovely psych-pop sketch "Good Time", written during the Sunflower sessions, which retains all the naive exuberance of the Sixties, while the charmingly simple mini-boogie "Ding Dang", co-written with former Byrds leader Roger McGuinn, had already been recorded back in late 1973. There are a few weak spots (the duet with his wife Marilyn on "Let's Put Our Hearts Together", the lackluster "Love Is A Woman"), but Brian proves his full versatility as a composer on tracks like "Johnny Carson" (a blues piano intro, a central section of organ and synth driven by Dennis's drumming, and a brief organ interlude to close), "Roller Skating Child", with its biting guitar underpinning the vocal lines, the new Spector-esque tribute "Mona", the ballad "The Night Was So Young", the intense "I'll Bet He's Nice", with Brian, Dennis and Carl's heartfelt performance over a bed of synths, and the equally successful "Honkin' Down The Highway", with Jardine's vocalizing front and center.

What had truly deteriorated was above all Brian's voice, roughened by illness and years of excessive smoking and drug use. And yet, a song like "Airplane", the album's closing track, entrusted to one of Mike Love's finest vocal performances, is enough to remind us of his talent.

In 1977 Brian also worked on the obscure solo album "Adult Child", which however would never be officially released, unlike Dennis Wilson's "Pacific Ocean Blue", which came out the same year and would go on to become a cult classic in the decades that followed.

Meanwhile, the Beach Boys indirectly returned to the spotlight thanks to the breakneck tunes of the Ramones, who revived adolescent carefree spirit and love of surf in the age of punk neurosis, repeatedly referencing them as well. But by now Brian and co. were outside the commercial circuits: The Beach Boys Love You barely scraped to No. 53 on the US charts and No. 28 in Britain, drawing little attention. It would take time to give the album its due credit, sealed by Buck's dedication.

The Beach Boys Love You is the Californian band's last gasp, although even their final albums always held a gem or two capable of bringing back the glory of the golden years: the melancholic "My Diane" (on M.I.U. Album, 1978), the ballad "Good Timin'", bolstered by striking new vocal interplay, and "Lady Lynda", inspired by a theme from Johann Sebastian Bach ("Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring") with a harpsichord intro courtesy of Sterling Smith (on Light Album, 1979).

By the end of the decade, the story of the "beach boys" seemed to have run its course regardless: Dennis drifted away from the group, falling out with everyone except Brian, to whom he remained deeply attached; Brian, gripped by a severe depressive crisis and heavy drug use, was unable to keep up with the band's fortunes. In 1980 Carl too temporarily left his bandmates, embarking on a solo career that would produce an imaginative but commercially unsuccessful album. Brian would be called back for a few live shows, with results that were mostly discouraging.

Bad Vibrations: The End of the Beach Boys

Throughout the Eighties and Nineties, the Beach Boys' story was a turbulent string of departures, feuds and commercial flops. Only a handful of fine songs remained to briefly rekindle the old bond with fans: the ballad "Goin' On" (on Keepin' The Summer Alive, 1980), the revivalist "California Calling" and the poignant "I'm So Lonely", graced by a fine sax solo (on The Beach Boys, 1985). The swan song — with Brian by now out of the picture and the band firmly in Mike Love's hands — was the single "Kokomo", which unexpectedly managed to send them back to No. 1 on the American charts. Written by John Phillips, Scott McKenzie, Mike Love and Terry Melcher, and recorded in spring 1988, the song was also used on the soundtrack of the film "Cocktail". The lyrics tell the story of two lovers staying on an imaginary Caribbean island called, appropriately, Kokomo. The relaxing melody works like a musical postcard depicting a small earthly paradise. Here too, the vocal parts dominate over the instrumental ones, but gently, almost as if they were a mere backdrop.

After Dennis's tragic death in 1983, by drowning following years of alcohol excess, Brian and Carl went back to working with their old bandmates. Together, in 1988, they celebrated their induction into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame. That same year saw the release of the former leader's first solo album, the self-titled "Brian Wilson" (1988), which was well received by critics but failed to sell.

Throughout the Nineties the Beach Boys gave countless concerts and public appearances for fans around the world. Tours sustained above all by Carl's sheer willpower, who, despite the bitter internal tensions within the group (in 1992 Mike Love sued Brian, claiming co-authorship of eighty songs, including "California Girls" and "I Get Around"), kept playing peacemaker, defusing disputes and settling controversies. Brian devoted himself mostly to his solo career and to Dr. Landy's therapies, remaining almost entirely absent from Still Cruisin' (1989), a slapdash, disjointed album released to ride the wave of "Kokomo"'s success.

Summer In Paradise, from 1992, the last Beach Boys album for the following twenty years, represents a desperate attempt by Mike Love and Terry Melcher to recapture the spirit of eternal Californian summer. The record, with no involvement from Brian whatsoever, is full of weak songs and plastic production, contains a couple of forgettable remakes and, unsurprisingly, failed even to chart.

When Carl Wilson died of cancer in 1998, summer was truly over for the "boys from the beach." In the imagination of the band's fans, the Beach Boys, as a creative and artistic unit, died with Carl.

Somehow, though, the band's name lived on. After Al's departure and the ensuing legal disputes, in the second half of the Nineties the "touring Beach Boys" were left as Mike Love and Bruce Johnston, backed by other musicians. In those same years, unexpectedly, Brian Wilson's gradual artistic rebirth began to take shape, a rebirth that would continue through a handful of solid solo albums in the 2000s and lead all the way to the final chapter of our story.

The 2012 reunion

On December 8, 2011, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the release of their first single "Surfin'", the Beach Boys unexpectedly announced a reunion, a new album and a fifty-date tour. Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston and David Marks came together again to record the band's twenty-ninth album.

That's Why God Made The Radio came out in 2012 on Capitol/EMI, while their tour kicked off in April with a headlining slot at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival ('Jazz Fest'). The album was the first in decades to feature all the surviving members of the original lineup, with Brian Wilson handling production and Mike Love serving as executive producer.

For the last time, the album brings back the band's recurring themes, the myth of summer and the California dream, constants running through their entire career, from their early youthful output all the way to Brian Wilson's acclaimed solo album, "That Lucky Old Sun".

As in the old days, Brian is the author of nearly all the new songs, working alongside Joe Thomas, with a few contributions from Love. The partnership between Wilson and Thomas has a historical precedent in "Imagination", Wilson's 1988 solo album, which the two co-produced. It's from that very "Imagination" era that the title track "That's Why God Made The Radio" dates, the album's first single (the second was set to be "Isn't It Time").

The album also includes at least two other pre-existing tracks, never before released: "Daybreak Over The Ocean" is a ballad written by Mike Love for his unreleased debut solo album from 1978, while the closing "Summer's Gone" was sketched out by Brian Wilson in the second half of the Nineties, and in its current version even carries the unusual credit of a "special guest", Jon Bon Jovi, who contributed to the song's arrangement, viewing it as Brian Wilson's own "My Way".

"Think About The Days", with the group's sublime harmonies carried by piano, is a thoroughly respectable opener, a kind of posthumous marriage between "Our Prayer" and "Meant For You". The following title track, by contrast, disappoints, lacking that extra spark needed to move listeners and make them dream. The record partly recovers with "Isn't It Time", which charms by evoking Eighties rhythms, and with the exuberant "Spring Vacations". The following "The Private Life Of Bill And Sue" is a forgettable episode, while "Shelter" is among the album's high points, with Brian Wilson at his very best, building vibrant vocal harmonies.

Moving through the delicate "Daybreak Over The Ocean", the overly lightweight "Beaches In Mind" and the final burst of energy in "Strange World", we arrive at the closing trilogy, the most precious part of the record, which reveals elements in common with Pet Sounds and "That Lucky Old Sun". Entrusted to Al Jardine's crystalline voice, "From There To Back Again" is a ballad that heralds the sunset. The album winds down with the brief strains of "Pacific Coast Highway", in which Brian pays one last moving tribute to the California dream — a tribute that doubles as a farewell. Finally, That's Why God Made The Radio closes on the touching notes of the song Brian wrote after their mother's death and during his brother Carl's final days. "Summer's Gone" was conceived by Brian Wilson to be the Beach Boys' last song, and it's the right song at the right moment. Brian bids farewell to the audience with his melancholy voice, dictating the epilogue to the musical adventure of the boys from Hawthorne:

Summer's gone

I’m gonna sit and watch the waves

We laugh, we cry

We live then die

And dream about our yesterday

The album received positive reviews and unexpectedly reached number 3 on the US charts, beating the Beatles' record for the longest gap between an album's first and last Top 10 entry on the Billboard 200: a full 49 years and one week.

According to Billboard, the Beach Boys are the best-selling American band of all time. Their records were the only ones able to hold their ground against the great wave of British music in early-Sixties America. Despite paying the price of swift commercial success, which often confined them to the realm of surf music and songs devoted to "fun in the sun", the Beach Boys profoundly reshaped the history of popular music. Their surf pop — initially conceived simply to entertain, without any great ambitions — found a way to become something far deeper and more ambitious, leaving an indelible mark on the decades that followed.

In a conflicted relationship with their own origins, the Beach Boys' story is that of an America which, having emerged from the happy age of the 1950s, would forever mourn the loss of innocence. The lost season is the one associated with "Happy Days", with juke-boxes and drive-ins, with surf and roaring engines. It's the age celebrated in the nostalgic teenage dream of "American Graffiti", a film that is seemingly cheerful but deeply tragic, and for which the Beach Boys could only have been the ideal soundtrack. After all, as Francesco Paolo Ferrotti writes, "from the very beginning, the summer immortalized by the Beach Boys was one whose illusion of eternity was generated by the very ghost of its ending: in its carefree spirit, it was the last summer of rock'n'roll, at least of the kind rooted in the Fifties". Just as in the music of another great figure of pop, Burt Bacharach, even in Brian Wilson's most radiant and infectious choruses there always lurks a vein of aching melancholy.

The Beach Boys' reunion tour is also making two stops in Italy at the end of July: the 26th in Rome and the 27th in Milan.

After the album That's Why God Made The Radio, Mike Love and Bruce Johnston continued touring under the original name "The Beach Boys" (a name they were allowed to use after getting permission from the rest of the group), while Brian Wilson played various shows up until 2023 and Al Jardine devoted himself to his own band, Al Jardine and his Endless Summer Band.

In his later years Wilson had also suffered from dementia, to the point that in 2012 his wife, Melinda Ledbetter Wilson, was granted legal conservatorship over him. After her death in January 2024, the conservatorship passed to his agents.

Besides his work with the group, Wilson also had a solo career, which produced songs like "Love And Mercy", from 1988, in which he reflected directly on the state of his mental health and on the search for relief, for redemption.

On June 11, 2025, the curtain finally fell on the legendary story of the Beach Boys, with the news of the death, at 82, of Brian Wilson, the restless genius who was the deep soul of the Californian band.

(Contributions by Riccardo Nuziale

General supervision by Francesco Paolo Ferrotti)

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