Brian Wilson

Summing up the legacy of a musician or band has always been one of the record industry's most glaring failures. How do you compress an artist's greatness into a single release? "Best of" has often been confused with "greatest hits," but even when there's been a genuine intention to select the best material, the result has rarely been satisfying. There's also often been a struggle to strike the right quantitative balance, swinging from skimpy compilations guilty of glaring omissions to selections that are far too bloated and scattershot (and, in more recent times, to a total lack of curation altogether, with the so-called super deluxe reissues). The rise, in the digital age, of more or less official playlists hasn't helped matters – if anything, it's probably made things worse.

Certainly, with the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson, that balance still hasn't been found, to the point that their legacy remains a source of frustration among fans: despite recent attempts, there's no compilation, best of, or box set that manages to sum things up well, and certain labels attached to their music seem impossible to shake. In particular, Brian Wilson's music suffers from misunderstanding, especially in Italy, a country where he has historically struggled to receive the same recognition as other pop giants.

This playlist is an attempt to do justice to the complexity of Wilson's career: with the exception of the Nineties, a period in which he failed to release anything of note ("Orange Crate Art" is effectively a Parks record), every decade has been taken into account; there are the acclaimed masterpieces, but also some overlooked gems ("Winter Symphony" is perhaps the most striking example); the aim was to cover as wide a spectrum as possible of his musical personas, from the most "easy-listening" to the most "experimental" (speaking of labels). The tracklist itself has been structured not chronologically, but following a journey that arrives, in its final stretch, at the most melancholic and emotionally devastating moments of Brian Wilson the musician and the man.

Like all such attempts, this playlist is far from definitive. The absences, some obvious, others less so, are there: there aren't many early hits, "guilty" of feeding the aforementioned labels and in any case unable to hold up against the songs of his maturity; there are no rays of light that would have deserved inclusion just as much as the tracks featured here (one above all, "The Warmth Of The Sun"); there's no "Love & Mercy," the most famous song of his solo career; there's no "Darlin'," which I've always preferred in its original version, "Thinkin' 'Bout You Baby," sung by Sharon Marie (but not available on streaming), nor is there "Do It Again"; and from his two towering masterworks, "Pet Sounds" and "SMiLE", extraordinary tracks have been left out.

The flaws, in essence, are far from few, but they highlight an obvious truth: it's literally impossible to sum up Brian Wilson in 50 songs. All things considered, this playlist can be defined as a compromise, a possible starting point for those who want to begin exploring Wilson's music beyond the stereotypes and easy narratives that have been repeated for decades, including that of the doomed genius.

Before wrapping up, a few clarifications:

– some choices were dictated by the limits of streaming catalogues: one example above all, "Still I Dream Of It" is not currently available on streaming platforms, except in the demo version from the album "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times". The limits are even greater when you consider the sheer volume of recordings that have yet to receive an official release;

– all the tracks conceived for the "SMiLE" project were included in the "Sessions" version, with the partial exception of "Surf's Up", featured here in its sublime 1967 voice-and-piano version (unreleased, in any case, until 2011);

– tracks up to and including "Pet Sounds" were included in mono, as originally intended by Wilson. The exception is "In The Back Of My Mind", in stereo to better capture the complexity of the instrumental coda;

– only tracks for which Wilson was the principal author were considered. A partial exception is "Sail On, Sailor", whose authorship has never been fully settled.

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21/02/2026