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"Brian Wilson is a genius" was a journalistic tagline created by English publicist Derek Taylor in 1966, who was then employed by American rock band the Beach Boys. It was part of a larger campaign he developed to revamp the band's outdated surfer image and promote Brian Wilson's then-unheralded reputation as the "genius" behind the group. By the end of the year, NME conducted a reader's poll that placed Wilson as the fourth-ranked "World Music Personality"—about 1,000 votes ahead of Bob Dylan and 500 behind John Lennon. The campaign ultimately bore a number of unintended consequences for the band's reputation and internal dynamic, and the hype generated by the campaign has been credited as a contributing factor in Wilson's professional and psychological decline.
The promotion coincided with the releases of the Pet Sounds album (May 1966) and "Good Vibrations" single (October 1966), as well as the Smile recording sessions (a project that was abandoned in 1967). During this period, Wilson sought the approval of what was known as the "hip intelligentsia" of the 1960s counterculture. To this end, Taylor wrote columns for various American and British publications, where he compared Wilson to classical figures like Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. The campaign succeeded in spreading a wider recognition of Wilson's talents, but he felt more pressured to live up to the public's high expectations, while relationships with his band and family became strained. He turned to drugs to expand his creative conceptions, which bandmate Mike Love said became his undoing.
Taylor and the Beach Boys
[edit]Brian Wilson was responsible for writing or co-writing the Beach Boys' string of hits in the 1960s, which inspired a number of Los Angeles music industry figures to refer to him as a "genius".[1] Biographer Peter Ames Carlin writes that session musicians who participated on Wilson's productions were "awestruck" by his musical abilities. Drummer Hal Blaine stated: "We all studied in conservatories; we were trained musicians. We thought it was a fluke at first, but then we realized Brian was writing these incredible songs. This was not just a young kid writing about high school and surfing."[2] By early 1966, Wilson wanted to move the Beach Boys beyond their surf and hot rod aesthetic, an image that he believed was outdated.[3] Instead, in Mike Love's description, Wilson sought recognition from the countercultural tastemakers, or the "hip intelligentsia".[4] Collaborator Van Dyke Parks remembered: "Brian sought me out ... At that time, people who experimented with psychedelics—no matter who they were—were viewed as 'enlightened people,' and Brian sought out the enlightened people."[5]
Derek Taylor was at that time the single most prestigious figure with whom to have one's name linked in matters of promotion. ... he knew the Beatles and had actually worked with them and Brian Epstein. There could be no more spectacular recommendation.
In the meantime, the Beatles' former press agent Derek Taylor had left the UK and moved to California, where he started his own public relations company. From 1965 to 1968, he provided publicity for groups such as the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, the Beau Brummels, and Paul Revere and the Raiders.[7] According to music critic Richie Unterberger, through his time working in Hollywood, Taylor "became, probably, the most famous rock publicist of the mid-'60s".[8] Parks introduced Wilson to Taylor,[9] and he was quickly assimilated into what was then an expanding coterie of Wilson's worldly-minded friends, musicians, mystics, and business advisers.[10] Taylor later recall one conversation with Brian and his brother Dennis Wilson in which they denied ever writing "surf music or songs about cars [nor] that the Beach Boys had [ever] been involved in any way with the surf and drag fads ... they would not concede."[11]
Contemporary press
[edit]May 1966 – April 1967
[edit]Taylor started working as a publicist for the Beach Boys sometime before their album Pet Sounds was released in May 1966.[6] He recalled that the "genius" promotion originated "because Brian told me that he thought he was better than most other people believed him to be". After becoming aware of how highly regarded Wilson was to musician friends like Parks and singer Danny Hutton and, wondering why it was not the mainstream consensus, Taylor began "putting it around, making almost a campaign out of it".[6] To update the band's image with firsthand accounts of Wilson's latest activities, Taylor's prestige was crucial in offering a credible perspective to those outside Wilson's inner circle. His campaign promoted Wilson as an exceptional "genius" among pop artists, an idea that Taylor personally believed in, and thus swept away the band's outdated surfer image.[12] To this end, the Beach Boys paid him a salary of $750 a month (equivalent to $7,040 in 2023).[6][nb 1] He performed his services by promoting Wilson in numerous columns he wrote for various American and British publications. Wilson was presented as a pop luminary on the level of esteemed contemporaries like John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Bob Dylan, as well as classical figures like Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart.[15] An example of a typical profile by Taylor, which contains some exaggerated claims:
This is Brian Wilson. He is a Beach Boy. Some say he is more. Some say he is a Beach Boy and a genius. This twenty-three-year-old powerhouse not only sings with the famous group, he writes the words and music then arranges, engineers, and produces the disc... Even the packaging and design on the record jacket is controlled by the talented Mr. Wilson. He has often been called "genius," and it’s a burden.[16][nb 2]
Pet Sounds became widely influential upon its release and raised the band's prestige as one of the most innovative rock groups.[17] According to author Steven Gaines, Taylor is widely recognized as instrumental in the album's success due to his longstanding connections with the Beatles and other industry figures in the UK.[18][nb 3] Rolling Stone founding editor Jann Wenner later reported that fans in the UK identified the Beach Boys as "years ahead" of the Beatles and declared Wilson a "genius".[20][nb 4] Wilson answered his praises by saying: "I'm not a genius, I'm just a hard working guy."[23] Throughout the summer of 1966, he concentrated on finishing the group's next single, "Good Vibrations".[24] Additional writers were brought in as witnesses to his Columbia, Gold Star, and Western recording sessions, who also accompanied him outside the studio. Among the crowd: Richard Goldstein from the Village Voice, Jules Siegel from The Saturday Evening Post, and Paul Williams, the 18-year-old founder and editor of Crawdaddy![25] Released on October 10, 1966, "Good Vibrations" was the Beach Boys' third US number-one hit after "I Get Around" (1964) and "Help Me, Rhonda" (1965), reaching the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in December, and became their first number one in Britain.[26][nb 5]
As quoted in interviews, Wilson declared that the group's next album Smile (originally called Dumb Angel) was to be "a teenage symphony to God",[30] and that it "will be as much an improvement over [Pet] Sounds as that was over Summer Days."[31] A Los Angeles Times West Magazine piece by Tom Nolan focused on the contradictions between Wilson's unassuming "suburban" demeanor and the reputation that preceded him (noting "he doesn't look at all like the seeming leader of a potentially-revolutionary movement in pop music"). When asked where he believed music would go, Wilson responded: "White spirituals, I think that's what we're going to hear. Songs of faith."[32][nb 6] At the end of 1966, NME conducted a reader's poll that placed Wilson as the fourth-ranked "World Music Personality"—about 1,000 votes ahead of Bob Dylan and 500 behind John Lennon.[34] The teen magazine Hit Parader predicted that Smile and the forthcoming single "Heroes and Villains" would make the Beach Boys "the greatest group in the world ... [taking] over where The Beatles left off."[35]
"Goodbye Surfing, Hello God!"
[edit]In October 1967, Cheetah magazine published "Goodbye Surfing, Hello God!", a memoir written by Jules Siegel.[36][37] It included a tongue-in-cheek reference to the widespread "genius" rhetoric, with Siegel pondering the question of whether Wilson was a "a genius, Genius, or GENIUS". Siegel extensively discussed Wilson's struggle to overcome the band's surfing image in America and credited the collapse of Smile to "an obsessive cycle of creation and destruction that threatened not only his career and his fortune but also his marriage, his friendships, his relationships with the Beach Boys and, some of his closest friends worried, his mind".[38][nb 7]
On the subject of Siegel's article, professor Andrew Flory wrote:
Siegel greatly romanticized Wilson and Smile, echoing and fostering the pervasive audience view of Wilson as a tortured genius ... Depicting Wilson in decline, with the non-release of Smile as the most obvious byproduct of mental and creative psychosis, achieved two important goals. First, Siegel gave rock fans a manner in which to view Wilson as hip, helping countercultural audiences traverse the social chasm between "Fun, Fun, Fun" and "Good Vibrations." But more importantly, Siegel's article was one of many from the time that venerated Smile as a relic of this hipness, intensifying audience interest in the unavailable work.[38]
Aftermath
[edit]Reactions from the band and rock critics
[edit]Wilson's bandmates and father Murry resented that he was singled out as a "genius".[40] In a 1966 article that asked if "the Beach Boys rely too much on sound genius Brian", his brother Carl rejected the notion, explaining that although Brian was the most responsible for their music, every member of the group contributed ideas.[41] Mike Love recalled, in his 2016 memoir, that "[a]s far as I was concerned, Brian was a genius, deserving of that recognition. But the rest of us were seen as nameless components in Brian's music machine ... This frustrated all of us but infuriated Carl ... It didn't feel to us as if we were just riding on Brian's coattails."[42] On the other hand, Dennis steadfastly defended Brian's stature in the band, stating "Brian Wilson is the Beach Boys. He is the band. We're his fucking messengers. He is all of it. Period. We're nothing. He's everything."[43][44] Writing in a 1971 article, Nolan said that at a certain point, Wilson "made it very clear" to then-business partner David Anderle "that it was always going to be the Beach Boys, that Brian wouldn't do it alone ... the Beach Boys ... [were] his family."[45]
The press's romanticized portrayals of Wilson were amplified by Taylor's announcement that Smile was "scrapped" in May 1967.[46] Later that month, Taylor terminated his employment with the group in order to focus his attention on organizing the June 16–18 Monterey Pop Festival, an event the Beach Boys declined to headline at the last minute.[47] Their cancellation was heavily criticized and came to be seen as an admission of the band's failure to integrate with the "new music", resulting in a cataclysmic blow to their reputation.[48] In 1968, Jazz & Pop's Gene Sculatti wrote that Wilson was "currently at the center of an intense contemporary rock controversy, involving the academic 'rock as art' critic-intellectuals, the AM-tuned teenies, and all the rest of us in between. ... the California sextet is simultaneously hailed as genius incarnate and derided as the archetypical pop music copouts".[49] On December 14, 1967, Wenner printed an influential article in Rolling Stone that denounced the "genius" label, which he called a "promotional shuck" and an attempt to compare Wilson with the Beatles. He wrote: "Wilson believed [that he was a genius] and felt obligated to make good of it. It left Wilson in a bind; a bind which meant that a year elapsed between Pet Sounds and their latest release, Smiley Smile. ... The Beach Boys are just one prominent example of a group that has gotten hung up on trying to catch The Beatles. It's a pointless pursuit." Subsequently, many discerning rock fans began excluding the group from "serious consideration".[20]
Effect on Wilson's decline
[edit]I think the Jules Siegel stuff and a lot of that stuff that went around before really turned him off. Most of the stuff about Brian is grossly inaccurate. ... But he's not cooperative with the press at all. And Brian, I'm sorry, he is a put on. He's really a very highly evolved person. And he's very sensitive at the same time, which can be confusing. Brian's Brian, you know?
—Carl Wilson, 1971[45]
Wilson later said that, by 1967, he had run out of ideas "in a conventional sense", and that he was "about ready to die".[50] He also expressed his dissatisfaction with being branded a genius: "Once you've been labeled as a genius, you have to continue it or your name becomes mud. I am a victim of the recording industry."[51] Parks said that Taylor's line "forced Brian Wilson to have to continuously prove that he's a genius and not just a lucky guy with a tremendous amount of talent and a lot of people collaborating beautifully around him."[9] To expand his creative conceptions, Wilson turned to drugs, which Love says ultimately became his undoing:[failed verification] "It was hard enough to match the Beatles, but now he had to keep up with Mozart?"[42]
After 1967's Wild Honey, Wilson relinquished his creative hold on the Beach Boys.[52][nb 8] From 1968 onward, his songwriting output declined substantially, but the public narrative of "Brian-as-leader" continued.[54] Following the 1969 termination of their contract to Capitol Records, the band's new contract with Reprise stipulated Brian's proactive involvement with the band in all albums.[55] Producer Terry Melcher attributed Wilson's diminished output to being aware of "his reputation, so he makes a lot of unfinished records; sometimes, I feel that he feels that he's peaked and does not want to put his stamp on records so that peers will have a Brian Wilson track to criticize."[56][nb 9]
By the 1970s, fans and detractors began speaking of Wilson as a burned-out acid casualty.[58][nb 10] Carlin says that Wilson's "public suffering" in the 1970s effectively "transformed him from a musical figure into a cultural one".[61] Wilson did not attract the level of press attention he achieved in the 1960s until a new marketing campaign was devised in 1976. This time, the tagline "Brian's Back!"[62] was intended to promote Wilson's return as an active producer and touring member of the band.[63] It was the first of many "Brian's back" campaigns, and in the ensuing decades, the announcement was repeated on numerous occasions in different contexts.[64]
Criticism
[edit]"Genius" as hyperbole
[edit]Wilson said: "I didn't think I was a genius. I thought I had talent. But I didn't think I was a genius."[51] Wilson was formally diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and mild manic depression.[66] When asked if he disliked being known as a "crazy guy" who writes "crazy songs", he replied: "Yeah, I do. ... I think it's exaggerated. It's going an extra 20 yards."[67] C.W. Mahoney of The Washington Free Beacon characterized Wilson's appeal to the millennial indie music landscape as "a Daniel Johnston who made listenable music".[68][nb 11] He opined that Wilson's reputed genius "is evidence of our obsession with childlike innocence and the victory of boring poptimism", adding that Pet Sounds may be "great" but is not as sophisticated as "what [Frank] Zappa was doing in 1966, to say nothing of Miles [Davis]".[68] According to writer Carl Wilson (no relation to Brian's brother): "Critics like to squabble over which artists are overrated or underrated. But Wilson defies those categories entirely. ... Instead of the overrated, call [him part of] the overstocked." His belief is that the "extravagant praise" for Brian is partly the result of a "retroactive overcorrection to The Beach Boys’ slighting by the late-1960s counterculture". In Carl's view,
The word "genius" always risks estranging its subject from their cultural context. There were many influences on Wilson’s signature style ... Wilson’s ability to draw on and synthesise all these influences, while keeping pace with competitors such as The Beatles and The Byrds, was impressive but it was not out of nowhere, and it was hardly unique among musicians. What made it more dramatic was that it came in the person of a white Christian kid from the California suburbs instead of Jewish New Yorkers like Leiber and Stoller or the Detroit soul musicians of Motown, cranking into high gear around the same time. Combining clean-cut, boy-next-door appeal with aesthetic forward-thinking was what made Wilson a real anomaly in US pop-culture history. And in that myth was also the seed of his downfall, as creativity and conformity collided.[70]
Music writer Richard Goldstein related his impression of Wilson based on a meeting in 1967: "I've read monographs on the Beach Boys that describe Wilson as a self-conscious artist, fully aware of musical history. That wasn't my impression. He came across as a typical rock autodidact, deeply insecure about his creative instincts, terrified that the songs he was working on were too arty to sell."[71] According to Van Dyke Parks, Wilson was a highly innovative songwriter, but it was a "mistake" to call him a genius. In Parks' opinion, Harry Nilsson "was truly a genius—the smartest guy I ever met in the music business. ... He followed his own nose without any sense of apology, reserving even the right to be wrong because he knew that it was necessary to keep that right to reach any height."[9][nb 12] In early 1999, HBO commissioned an interview of Wilson by the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne for an episode of Reverb which never aired.[67] Following the interview, Coyne felt that Wilson surrounded himself with yes-men, which he found "off-putting at times", and that "later on, I was like, 'Well, if he's such a genius, why can't he talk?'" Coyne added: "I'm not in contempt of him, though. I just hate that if someone is drug-damaged, or eccentric, or possibly mad, people will let them shit all over themselves thinking, 'Isn't he cool?'"[73][nb 13]
Wilson as "tragic genius"
[edit]In his article for the BBC's website, journalist Carl Wilson writes that the image of Brian as "tragic genius" represents the pop-world equivalent of "what the tragic genius of Vincent Van Gogh is to modern art: a parable of sensitivity sacrificed to cruel indifference. ... For decades that lore has echoed through new records and retrospective box sets, countless books and essays, documentaries, TV movies, fictional accounts, ... and tribute songs". He adds that the story behind the legend features its own antagonist, Mike Love, who is known for his distaste of the Smile album and for urging Wilson not to "fuck with the formula".[70] Love called the quote the "most famous thing I've ever said, even though I never said it." He wrote that it crystallized a reductive "morality tale" that positions Wilson as "the tormented genius who was undone by his own family", a theme which appears throughout the writings of Wilson's "awestruck biographers".[77][nb 14]
Author Luis Sanchez cites David Leaf's 1978 book The Beach Boys and the California Myth as the first work that "put the 'Brian Wilson is a genius' trope into perspective", adding that "One compelling aspect of Leaf's story is its dynamic of good guys and bad guys."[79] According to music critic Richie Unterberger, the book examined the behind-the-scenes tensions and family history that had never been covered before. He adds that "If there is a flaw to Leaf's writing, it's that its praise of Brian Wilson is often unabashed, and his dominant creative role in the group arguably overstated."[80] Sanchez concurs that the book takes on an oversimplified view: "The tendency of Leaf's particular mythology ... is to settle on the notion that The Beach Boys' music is meaningful exclusively in terms of Brian Wilson's genius."[81] Love criticized the biography for solidifying a narrative that cast himself, his bandmates, and other members of Wilson's family as villains.[82] In the revised 1985 edition of his book, Leaf wrote that he "no longer indict[s] the world of 'being bad to Brian,' when it's apparent that Brian has been hardest on himself."[81]
Carl concludes that as of the 2010s, the interest in Brian's life comes primarily from "the human-interest angle" rather than a musical one, "[which] plays into the popular tendency to fetishise any overlap between genius and madness, which seems at once like a denial of the commonness of mental illness and a way to channel our envy of the gifted. [Plus] there is the nagging desire, whether exploitative or well-meant, to push the one-time prodigy to produce again, to squeeze out one last masterpiece. These factors all distort both Wilson's story and his significance."[70]
See also
[edit]- Cultural impact of the Beach Boys
- Musicianship of Brian Wilson
- Creativity and mental illness
- Savant syndrome
References
[edit]Notes
- ^ According to author Philip Lambert, the first time Taylor announced that Wilson was a genius may have been in his 1966 article titled "Brian Wilson: Whizzkid Behind the Beach Boys".[13] More references to the "genius" rhetoric appeared in Melody Maker and New Musical Express, specifically the articles "Brian, Pop Genius!" (May 21, 1966), "Brian Wilson's Puppets?" (November 12, 1966), and "Brian: Loved or Loathed Genius" (January 28, 1967).[14]
- ^ Carlin writes: "It’s the last line that’s priceless (though the rest of it doesn’t hesitate to stretch the facts up to and beyond the breaking point), given the expert way Taylor, working through a reporter (or alter ego) identified as “’60's Hollywood reporter Jerry Fineman,' manages to both assert Brian’s genius and then shrug it off as a nuisance in the same breath."[16]
- ^ Bruce Johnston stated that when he was in London in May 1966, a number of musicians and other guests gathered in his hotel suite to listen to repeated playbacks of the album. This included Lennon, McCartney and the Who's drummer Keith Moon. Moon himself involved Johnston by helping him gain coverage in British television circuits, and connecting him with Lennon and McCartney. Johnston claimed that Pet Sounds got so much publicity, "it forced EMI to put the album out sooner."[19]
- ^ The magazine Teen Set reported on the phenomenon of British youth who complained that the Beatles' latest records "are trying to sound like The Beach Boys".[21] In response to the album's promotion and acclaim, Melody Maker surveyed many pop musicians on whether they believed that the album was truly revolutionary or progressive. The author concluded that "the record's impact on artists and the men behind the artists has been considerable."[22]
- ^ That month, the record was their first single certified gold by the RIAA.[27] The Beach Boys were soon voted the number-one band in the world in an annual readers' poll conducted by NME, ahead of the Beatles, the Walker Brothers, the Rolling Stones, and the Four Tops.[28] Billboard speculated that this was influenced by the success of "Good Vibrations", and that "The sensational success of the Beach Boys ... is being taken as a portent that the popularity of the top British groups of the last three years is past its peak."[29]
- ^ Nolan's same November 1966 article reports that Wilson's change in direction was inspired by a psychedelic experience he had one year prior: "He'd never take it again, he says, because that would be pointless, wouldn’t it? And the people who take it all the time, acid heads he can't go along with. Like all those people–Timothy Leary and all–they talk a lot, but they don't really create, you know?"[33]
- ^ Having attended some of the Smile sessions by January 1967, Tracy Thomas wrote in the NME of Brian's commitment to attaining his artistic vision and concluded: "This dedication to perfection does not always endear him to his fellow Beach Boys, nor their wives, nor their next door neighbours, with whom they were to have dinner … But when the finished product is 'Good Vibrations' or Pet Sounds or Smile they hold back their complaints."[39]
- ^ Critic Richie Unterberger reviewed that in Wild Honey, "the Beach Boys were revealed as a group that, although capable of producing some fine and interesting music, were no longer innovators on the level of the Beatles and other figureheads."[17] Music theorist Daniel Harrison described it as a self-conscious attempt by the Beach Boys to "regroup as a rock 'n' roll band and to reject the mantle of recording-studio auteurs that Brian had made them wear. Without Brian's drive, of course, they could no longer be those auteurs, hence Wild Honey."[53]
- ^ Alternatively, the band's former engineer Stephen Desper said that Brian's reduced contributions was "just that you've got limited hours in the day. Brian ... doesn't like to hurt anyone's feelings, so if someone's working on something else, he wasn't going to jump in there and say, 'Look, this is my production and my house, so get outta here!' That's totally out of character for him."[57]
- ^ Nik Cohn's 1970 depiction of Wilson was of an "increasingly withdrawn, brooding, hermitic ... and occasionally, he is to be seen in the back of some limousine, cruising around Hollywood, bleary and unshaven, huddled way tight into himself."[59] In 1975, NME published a three-part piece by journalist Nick Kent that profiled Wilson as an overeating, fey eccentric. According to author Luis Sanchez: "The article followed the bombast of Siegel's 'Genius with a capital G' line to some bizarre ends. ... the reader is left with the image of an insufferable man out of touch with reality: the leader of The Beach Boys reduced to a caricature, tormented by his own genius."[60]
- ^ Johnston is a singer-songwriter who suffers with mental illness and who has a sizable cult following. Press coverage rarely speaks critically of the musician. The Guardian's David McNamee argued that "superlative praise is just one of the many ways the great outsider artist ... has been done a disservice", referencing the 2006 documentary, The Devil and Daniel Johnston, which "explicitly emphasised that Johnston was lo-fi's very own Brian Wilson. This kind of canonising helps no one, least of all Johnston himself."[69]
- ^ By the 1980s, Wilson was paying his psychologist Eugene Landy a salary of about $300,000 a year for advice on creative decisions. Wilson's family subsequently alleged that Landy was "unduly" influencing him in personal and financial matters, and in response, California courts enacted a restraining order between Wilson and Landy.[72]
- ^ In 2014, fans reacted negatively to the announcement that Wilson was to record a duets album, titled No Pier Pressure, and called it a "cash-in". A Facebook post attributed to Wilson responded to the feedback: "In my life in music, I've been told too many times not to fuck with the formula, but as an artist it's my job to do that."[74] According to the review-aggregating site Metacritic, the album ultimately received mixed or average reviews.[75]
- ^ After a jury ruled that Love was owed credit to 39 songs previously credited solely to Wilson and that Wilson or his agents had engaged in promissory fraud, the potential damages were estimated to range between $58 million and $342 million. According to Love, "[t]o Brian’s fans, he was beyond accountability. ... By now, the myth was too strong, the legend too great. Brian was the tormented genius who suffered to deliver us his music—the forever victim, as his lawyer said."[78]
Citations
- ^ Carlin 2006, pp. 46, 56.
- ^ Carlin 2006, p. 46.
- ^ Sanchez 2014, p. 91.
- ^ Love 2016, p. 48.
- ^ Love 2016, p. 152.
- ^ a b c d Kent 2009, p. 27.
- ^ Kozinn, Allan (September 9, 1997). "Derek Taylor, Beatles' Spokesman, Dies at 65". New York Times. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
- ^ Unterberger, Richie. "Derek Taylor". AllMusic. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
- ^ a b c Dombal, Ryan. "5–10–15–20: Van Dyke Parks The veteran songwriter and arranger on the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, and more". Pitchfork.
- ^ Sanchez 2014, p. 92.
- ^ Kent 2009, p. 31.
- ^ Sanchez 2014, pp. 91–93, "credible perspective"; Kent 2009, p. 27, "single most prestigious figure" and Taylor's personal beliefs; Love 2016, p. 146
- ^ Lambert 2016, p. 264.
- ^ Lambert 2016, pp. 264, 272–73.
- ^ Sanchez 2014, pp. 92–93, pop luminary; Love 2016, pp. 146–147, classical comparisons
- ^ a b Carlin 2006, pp. 109–110.
- ^ a b Bogdanov, Woodstra & Erlewine 2002, p. 72.
- ^ Gaines 1986, p. 152.
- ^ "Comments by Bruce Johnston". The Pet Sounds Sessions (Booklet). The Beach Boys. Capitol Records. 1997.
{{cite AV media notes}}
: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link) - ^ a b Badman 2004, p. 207.
- ^ Priore 2005, p. 96.
- ^ "Pet Sounds, the Most Progressive Pop Album ever OR as sickly as Peanut Butter". Melody Maker. July 30, 1966.
- ^ Carlin 2006, pp. 110–111.
- ^ Badman 2004, p. 5.
- ^ Sanchez 2014, p. 94.
- ^ Badman 2004, pp. 155–156.
- ^ Sanchez 2014, p. 86.
- ^ Sanchez 2014, pp. 86–87.
- ^ "It's Beach Boys Over Beatles: Reader Poll". Billboard. Vol. 78, no. 50. December 10, 1966. p. 10. ISSN 0006-2510.
- ^ Carlin 2006, p. 91.
- ^ "Brian Wilson". Melody Maker. October 8, 1966. p. 7.
- ^ Sanchez 2014, pp. 93–94.
- ^ Nolan, Tom (November 27, 1966). "The Frenzied Frontier of Pop Music". Los Angeles Times West Magazine.
- ^ Carlin 2006, p. 106.
- ^ Priore 2005, p. 102.
- ^ Carlin 2006, pp. 103–105.
- ^ Sanchez 2014, pp. 99, 102.
- ^ a b Lambert 2016, p. 219.
- ^ Thomas, Tracy (January 28, 1967). "Beach Boy a Day: Brian—Loved or Loathed Genius". NME. Available at Rock's Backpages (subscription required).
- ^ Carlin 2006, p. 110.
- ^ Priore 2005.
- ^ a b Love 2016, pp. 145–147.
- ^ Webb, Adam (December 14, 2003). "A profile of Dennis Wilson: the lonely one". The Guardian.
- ^ Carlin 2006, p. 316.
- ^ a b Nolan, Tom (October 28, 1971). "The Beach Boys: A California Saga". Rolling Stone. No. 94.
- ^ Lambert 2016.
- ^ Kent 2009, p. 43.
- ^ Kent 2009, p. 43, "heavily criticized"; Gaines 1986, p. 179, "new music"
- ^ Sculatti, Gene (September 1968). "Villains and Heroes: In Defense of the Beach Boys". Jazz & Pop. Retrieved June 13, 2017.
- ^ Highwater 1968.
- ^ a b "The Beach Boys". Music Favorites. Vol. 1, no. 2. 1976.
- ^ Matijas-Mecca 2017, p. 83.
- ^ Harrison 1997, pp. 49–50}.
- ^ Matijas-Mecca 2017, pp. xxi–xxii, 83.
- ^ Carlin 2006, p. 150.
- ^ Leaf 1978, p. 169.
- ^ Carlin 2006, p. 151.
- ^ Matijas-Mecca 2017, pp. xx, 89.
- ^ Cohn 1970, pp. 103–104.
- ^ Sanchez 2014, pp. 103–104.
- ^ Carlin 2006, p. 277.
- ^ Sanchez 2014, p. 4.
- ^ Carlin 2006.
- ^ Matijas-Mecca 2017, pp. xiii–xiv.
- ^ Lambert 2016, p. 8.
- ^ Carlin 2006, p. 280.
- ^ a b JC Gabel (2000). "Brian Wilson Vs. Wayne Coyne Vs. Stop Smiling: Part One". Stop Smiling. No. 9.
- ^ a b Mahoney, C.W. (November 19, 2016). "Hang On to Your Ego". The Washington Free Beacon.
- ^ McNamee, David (August 10, 2009). "The myth of Daniel Johnston's genius". The Guardian.
- ^ a b c Wilson, Carl (June 9, 2015). "The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson: America's Mozart?". BBC.
- ^ Goldstein, Richard (April 26, 2015). "I got high with the Beach Boys: "If I survive this I promise never to do drugs again"". Salon.
- ^ Hilburn, Robert (October 13, 1991). "Landy's Account of the Wilson Partnership". The Los Angeles Times.
- ^ JC Gabel (2000). "Brian Wilson Vs. Wayne Coyne Vs. Stop Smiling: Part Two". Stop Smiling. No. 9.
- ^ Michaels, Sean (June 12, 2014). "Brian Wilson fans furious at Frank Ocean and Lana Del Rey collaborations". The Guardian.
- ^ No Pier Pressure at Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-04-07.
- ^ Lambert 2016, pp. 217–218.
- ^ Love 2016, p. 164.
- ^ Love 2016, pp. 373–374.
- ^ Sanchez 2014, pp. 24, 99.
- ^ Unterberger, Richie. "David Leaf". AllMusic.
- ^ a b Sanchez 2014, p. 25.
- ^ Love 2016, pp. 160–163.
Bibliography
- Badman, Keith (2004). The Beach Boys: The Definitive Diary of America's Greatest Band, on Stage and in the Studio. Backbeat Books. ISBN 978-0-87930-818-6.
- Bogdanov, Vladimir; Woodstra, Chris; Erlewine, Stephen Thomas, eds. (2002). All Music Guide to Rock: The Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul. Backbeat Books. ISBN 978-0-87930-653-3.
- Carlin, Peter Ames (2006). Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson. Rodale. ISBN 978-1-59486-320-2.
- Cohn, Nik (1970). Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock. Grove Press. ISBN 978-0-8021-3830-9.
- Downes, Stephen (2014). Aesthetics of Music: Musicological Perspectives. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-48691-3.
- Gaines, Steven (1986). Heroes and Villains: The True Story of The Beach Boys. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0306806479.
- Harrison, Daniel (1997). "After Sundown: The Beach Boys' Experimental Music" (PDF). In Covach, John; Boone, Graeme M. (eds.). Understanding Rock: Essays in Musical Analysis. Oxford University Press. pp. 33–57. ISBN 978-0-19-988012-6.
- Highwater, Jamake (1968). Rock and Other Four Letter Words: Music of the Electric Generation. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 0-552-04334-6.
- Kent, Nick (2009). "The Last Beach Movie Revisited: The Life of Brian Wilson". The Dark Stuff: Selected Writings on Rock Music. Da Capo Press. ISBN 9780786730742.
- Lambert, Philip, ed. (2016). Good Vibrations: Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys in Critical Perspective. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-11995-0.
- Leaf, David (1978). The Beach Boys and the California Myth. New York: Grosset & Dunlap. ISBN 978-0-448-14626-3.
- Love, Mike (2016). Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy. Penguin Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-698-40886-9.
- Matijas-Mecca, Christian (2017). The Words and Music of Brian Wilson. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-4408-3899-6.
- Priore, Domenic (2005). Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece. London: Sanctuary. ISBN 1860746276.
- Roberts, Michael J (2014). The Great Songwriters - Beginnings Vol 2: Paul Simon and Brian Wilson. BookBaby. ISBN 978-1-4835-2148-0.
- Sanchez, Luis (2014). The Beach Boys' Smile. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-62356-956-3.
- Schinder, Scott (2007). "The Beach Boys". In Schinder, Scott; Schwartz, Andy (eds.). Icons of Rock: An Encyclopedia of the Legends Who Changed Music Forever. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0313338458.
Further reading
[edit]- Curnutt, Kirk (2012). Brian Wilson (Icons of Pop Music). Equinox Pub. ISBN 978-1-908049-91-9. – book-length analysis of the "genius" rhetoric surrounding Wilson
- Gallucci, Michael (June 2, 2015). "Brian Wilson and His Mad-Genius Influence on Pop Music". Ultimate Classic Rock.
- Hepworth, David (October 16, 2016). "Why I want to tell the Beach Boys to get over themselves". New Statesman.
- Sommer, Tim (June 3, 2016). "For the Love of Mike Love: It's Time to Destroy 'the Legend of Brian Wilson'". Observer.
- Williamson, Victoria (January 21, 2016). "Was musical memory the secret to Brian Wilson's genius?". The Guardian.
Category:Brian Wilson Category:1966 in American music Category:1967 in American music Category:1960s in American music Category:Advertising campaigns Category:Advertising slogans Category:The Beach Boys Category:Creativity and mental illness Category:Music journalism