Brian Wilson died today. He was 82 years old. I have been asked to write a column that sums up his impact on modern music. The problem is that this is impossible. It’s like trying to explain the impact of water or oxygen on modern music. Brian Wilson’s influence is so vast and all-encompassing that mere words cannot do it justice. Perhaps if I wrote 12 perfect songs, collaborated with some of the world’s finest musicians in recording them, and then laid down the most heart-stoppingly beautiful vocals ever over those tracks, I could give Brian Wilson the tribute he deserves.
Instead, I’m going to tell my Brian Wilson story.
It was 2015, and I was assigned to write a profile of John Cusack timed with the release of Love & Mercy, the Brian Wilson biopic. If you haven’t seen it, the film cuts between two different eras — we see the 1960s Brian Wilson, the boy-genius singer, songwriter, record producer and leader of America’s most popular rock band, The Beach Boys. The visionary who made one of the greatest and most famous albums ever, Pet Sounds, and then attempted to complete the greatest and most infamous “lost” record of all-time, Smile. The legend eventually felled by mental health and substance abuse problems in the late ’60s and ’70s, forever cementing him as rock’s greatest “tragedy” story.
That version of Wilson was played by Paul Dano with eerie specificity. He captured Wilson’s unlikely combination of ambition, innocence, brilliance, and fragility. The sense that the man who produced so many incredible, haunting melodies was losing a piece of himself with every hit song. Parts of his soul that he would never get back.
Cusack played a different Brian Wilson. His Brian was from the ’80s, the eccentric middle-aged man under the tutelage of a crackpot therapist, Eugene Landy (played with suitably gonzo bombast by Paul Giamatti). After ballooning in weight during his wilderness years, Landy bullied Wilson into slimming down and putting out his first solo album, 1988’s Brian Wilson. The production was dodgy and the song credits suspiciously listed Landy as a co-writer on five of the 11 tracks. But it did have the song that lent the film its title, an achingly pure plea for kindness and forgiveness that became a kind of personal anthem for an artist cruelly denied both love and mercy for much of his life.
The film’s structure is intended to give Wilson’s story a redemptive arc, from the glory and pain of his artistic prime to the “comeback” of his middle and later years, when he met and married his second wife, Melinda Ledbetter. And that mostly matched the reality of Wilson’s life. The reclusive figure who retired from touring in his early 20s after suffering a nervous breakdown became something of a road dog in his later years. Suddenly, if you wanted to see Brian Wilson in person, you could. And he was backed by an amazing and supportive group of musicians who played his music as well as anybody ever did, The Beach Boys included. In 2004, he even managed to finally finish Smile, and it turned out incredibly (even shockingly) well.
But there was always a sadness about Brian Wilson. So much sadness. And it was that sadness which drew me to his music as a teenager in the ’90s. “Sometimes I feel very sad,” he sings in one of his greatest songs. But it was more than sometimes. I was sad and Brian was sad, but Brian could make our sadness sound like an opera. He turned depressive introspection into an art form.
It might be strange to imagine a 16-year-old in the era of grunge and gangsta rap huddling up with headphones and playing “Til I Die,” “Caroline, No,” or “The Warmth Of The Sun” on repeat. But The Beach Boys had a renaissance in the ’90s. I had actually liked them before that. My first concert ever was The Beach Boys at Milwaukee’s Marcus Amphitheater in 1987, when I was 9 years old. I don’t know if Brian Wilson was there, but I’m pretty sure John Stamos was. They were, at the time, known as the Full House band, due to Stamos’ friendship with Mike Love and their occasional appearances on the ABC sitcom.
This was not, exactly, a cool reputation. But that started to change in the early ’90s when the best Beach Boys albums — the ones released between Pet Sounds and 1977’s Love You, though I’m a big enough fan to stump for a few albums to the left and the right of those signposts — were reissued. In high school, I bought the Good Vibrations boxed set, which contained a disc with 10 songs from Smile, my introduction to that glorious corner of Brian Wilson’s work. My favorite track (and probably my favorite Wilson composition overall) was the piano demo version of “Surf’s Up,” a song that later was repurposed and refurbished (without Brian’s input or consent) as the title track for The Beach Boys’ great 1971 album.
But I always preferred the piano demo. Unlike most Brian Wilson classics, there are no production flourishes on that record. No grand orchestrations anchored by Carol Kaye’s probing bass and Hal Blaine’s Wagnerian drums. It was just Brian, his remarkable tenor, Van Dyke Parks’ fantastically impenetrable lyrics, and a suite of melodies so sweet and striking they are destined to linger in your heart and mind from the moment you hear them.
A lot of people were listening to those records, and a good number of them were musicians. In indie and alternative rock, “records that emulate Brian Wilson” practically became its own subgenre. Flaming Lips took their shot with The Soft Bulletin. Wilco did it with Summerteeth and (to a lesser degree) Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Elliott Smith applied serious Beach Boys overtones to albums like XO and Figure 8. Fiona Apple put her own spin on Wilson’s grandiose production style on her early records. The Elephant 6 collective was almost entirely predicated on trying to will a modern version of Pet Sounds or Smile into existence. And one of those bands, Neutral Milk Hotel, pretty much pulled that off with In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, right down to leader Jeff Mangum’s subsequent Brian Wilson-esque retreat from the world.
Some bands drew inspiration from the pre-Pet Sounds era. Weezer’s “Blue Album” was among the decade’s most influential examples of taking Beach Boys-style songs and adding heavier guitars. The semi-jokey argument that Pet Sounds is the first emo album might actually be better applied to a song like “In My Room,” which sounds more like an emo song while expressing core emo themes. (It’s dark, I’m alone, I’m trying not to be afraid, etc.) But Wilson’s reach extended into all sorts of genres, including pop-punk (Blink-182), electronic music (Air, The Avalanches), freak folk (Animal Collective), shoegaze (My Bloody Valentine), and so much more. So, so, so much more. I couldn’t possibly list every artist who owes him a debt here. His music is like that one Jenga piece where if you remove it, it sends the totality of modern music crashing down.
Zooming out even wider, Brian Wilson with Pet Sounds invented the concept of the auteur-driven album that attempts to break new ground while fearlessly ignoring commercial concerns. Believe it or not, there weren’t really records like that — not in a pop context, anyway — before Brian dared to do it. (When you’re considered a primary influence on Sgt. Pepper’s, you have truly achieved “elemental” status.) Even artists who aren’t directly influenced by Brian Wilson — or even people who have never knowingly listened to his music — have been shaped by Pet Sounds. When Radiohead made OK Computer, they were shaped by Pet Sounds. When Kanye West made My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, he was shaped by Pet Sounds. When Beyoncé made Lemonade, she was shaped by Pet Sounds. Which means you and I and every other music fan have also been shaped by Pet Sounds.
Back to Cusack: The plan was to interview him in the basement of Metro, a well-known rock club in Cusack’s hometown of Chicago. And, I was told, Brian Wilson was going to be with him. I was beside myself. I was going to meet and interview Brian Wilson? I felt immediate anxiety. For one thing, Wilson was known as a difficult interview. His memory was faulty and his answers were often short and nonsensical. (Like the time he called the Eddie Murphy comedy Norbit his favorite movie of all time.) What was amazing is that he was probably the most accessible rock icon of his generation. If you wanted to interview Brian Wilson, there was a good chance you could do it. And then you might regret it.
At the same time, I could not believe that I was going to meet Brian Wilson. It didn’t seem real. I had seen him the night before at a screening for Love & Mercy, where he appeared for a short (and awkward) Q&A. Upon his arrival on stage, he was immediately greeted with a standing ovation. I’m sure Brian Wilson provoked this kind of reaction wherever he went. People applauded for all the wonderful music he had given the world. They applauded because they empathized with his troubled past. And they applauded because he was Brian Wilson, American monument. Seeing Brian Wilson, talking to Brian Wilson, shaking Brian Wilson’s hand — it was like somehow encountering Mark Twain or Abraham Lincoln in the wild. Only those guys never wrote “God Only Knows.”
Suddenly there I was, sitting on a barstool next to Lloyd Dobler and the modern-day Mozart. What do you say to these people? I decided to talk about “Surf’s Up.” I told Brian how much I loved that song. How I used to listen to it when I felt alone and rejected and how his music had shepherded me through all that hurt. How I can’t believe someone actually wrote that song, because it seems like one of those properties that magically appears to prove that God is real.
“I wrote that in 1964!” Wilson exclaimed.
I nodded my head and ruled against a fact-check. We chatted for a bit more about the film, and the surreal feeling started to fade. Brian Wilson really was just a person. He woke up in the morning, brushed his teeth, ate his breakfast, and tried to make it through another day like the rest of us. He was more fragile and innocent than ambitious and brilliant. His life was hard, and his life was unfair, but it was his. And, in his endless generosity, he shared it with the world.
“Thanks for the interview, man,” he said, suddenly, extending his hand. We had talked for about 10 minutes. Then Brian Wilson got up, walked away, and was gone.