(June 12, 2025). There aren’t enough words to do justice to Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys’ sonic architect, who died Wednesday, June 11, at age 82. But there is music — some of the most transcendent ever created — and that’s where I must begin.
Yesterday, I listened to Pet Sounds and, separately, “Good Vibrations” on repeat, multiple times each, trying through tears to wrap my head around how someone not yet 25 could’ve crafted such towering works of art. Albums and singles that weren’t just hits — they were seismic shifts. And yet, Wilson himself seemed to know in 1966 he’d reached a peak he might never scale again. That knowledge, coupled with the pressure to top himself, proved to be his undoing — at least within the Beach Boys fold.
I loved The Beach Boys, even if their early surf-pop aesthetic was miles away from my own experience. I was never a surfer. I am neither a California guy nor a big car enthusiast. But Pet Sounds? That was different. That was universal pop, with multiple stylistic influences (among them doo wop, jazz, and R&B). Released four weeks before I was born, it later became my gateway to understanding the soul of the band — and more specifically, of Brian Wilson.
Once I dove into that record as an adult, I realized that while I respected the other Beach Boys, which initially included brothers Dennis and Carl Wilson plus cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine, my admiration was almost singularly directed at Brian. Pet Sounds was his baby — a deeply personal, meticulously crafted statement from a man retreating inward as the world demanded more sunny harmonies in a decade that was becoming more turbulent.
Wilson wrote most of the album’s songs with co-lyricist Tony Asher — just two young men holed up in rooms, dissecting the intricacies of love and isolation. But what Wilson did with those lyrics was otherworldly. He turned what would become Pet Sounds’ thirteen tunes into fully orchestrated suites of emotion, stacking layers of sound that still send chills down the spines of music theorists and casual fans alike. Indeed, whole books and documentaries have been written about Pet Sounds.
The album was simultaneously Wilson’s response to the Beatles’ critically acclaimed Rubber Soul and his bid to out-Spector Phil Spector. And in many ways, he did. Pet Sounds wasn’t just a collection of songs; it was a sonic mood board with emotional resonance as deep as its production was rich. The shimmering “Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)” featured one of the most haunting string arrangements ever committed to tape. “I’m Waiting for the Day” was both a lullaby and a rallying cry, its coda exploding with vocal reassurance to a broken lover. It easily competes as my favorite song on Pet Sounds with “God Only Knows.” And “Let’s Go Away for Awhile,” the instrumental centerpiece Wilson composed alone, said more without words than most songs with them.
Pet Sounds wasn’t just critically revered — it produced hits, too. The album’s biggest commercial success was “Sloop John B,” a reimagined Bahamian folk tune that had been around since the early 1900s. It was the only track on the album not written by Wilson, yet it became the band’s highest-charting single from Pet Sounds, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. Ironically, it was also the one song most reminiscent of their earlier, water-focused, harmony-laced surf-pop — a sonic throwback on an otherwise forward-thinking album.
Then there was “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” the buoyant opening track and third single release. With its deceptively simple lyrics about young love yearning for adult freedom, it opened the album on a note of idealism before the more introspective tone took hold. “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” cracked the Top 10 as well, and together with “Sloop John B,” these singles gave Capitol Records the commercial wins they sought while allowing Brian to push the Beach Boys’ musical boundaries farther than ever before (it was a show of patience the label only allowed to go so far, as the release of the group’s follow-up album Smiley Smile would attest).
But my favorite was “God Only Knows.” That opening line — “I may not always love you” — is one of pop’s greatest deceptions, quickly flipping into a meditation on love so essential that life without it seems unlivable. The track’s audacity, its spiritual chord progressions, its use of French horn and layered counterpoint vocals (the famous “round” at the end), all made it more than just a song. It was a call to a deity rarely seen before in pop music. And, oddly, it was a B-side.
And just when you thought Wilson had given everything he could, he gave us “Good Vibrations.” For years, I thought it was part of Pet Sounds. It wasn’t — but it was born from the same creative burst. “Good Vibrations” was a psychedelic mini-symphony packed into three and a half minutes — a kaleidoscopic ride through musical movements, tempo shifts, and that unmistakable Electro-Theremin buzz that turned pop into avant-garde art. Brian knew he had nailed it. He reportedly believed it wasthe perfect record.
That belief, tragically, became a creative trap. His attempts to top “Good Vibrations” — most notably with the never-finished Smile project — led to friction with his bandmates, who didn’t always share his relentless perfectionism. He was famously removed from the recording of 1972’s “Sail On, Sailor,” another of this blogger’s personal favorites he co-wrote, because the rest of the group feared he’d obsessively tinker with it.
But that’s who Brian Wilson was. Whether working in a marijuana haze, on an LSD trip, or in moments of clarity, he poured every ounce of himself into his music. Every melody, every harmony, every percussive choice — it was all painstakingly constructed. He treated the interplay of instruments and voices like a dance between soulmates. And even if Pet Sounds only reached No. 10 on the Billboard 200 in 1966, it’s now canon. Rolling Stone has ranked it No. 2 on its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in every edition since 2003. Only the album in the No. 1 spot has changed — from the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. Pet Sounds has stayed put (logic tells me that should place it in the No. 1 spot eventually).
After Pet Sounds and “Good Vibrations,” Brian’s presence in the Beach Boys’ creative engine dimmed (or at least he began to give his bandmates more credit, or rope, take your pick). His youngest brother Carl — the band’s moral center — took up much of the slack from the late 1960s onward. Middle brother Dennis, the lone surfer in the band who once mocked Brian for sitting in his room listening to records all day as a child instead of going out to play sports, eventually became one of his brother’s most vocal defenders. Sadly, both brothers preceded Brian in death, as did their parents — the domineering father Murry, who helped the band rise before being fired in 1964, and their mother Audree.
Brian battled demons for most of his adult life — from substance abuse to mental illness to legal entanglements that at times threatened to overshadow his brilliance. But through it all, his music remained a safe space — not just for him, but for us.
He changed music forever — not just how it sounded, but how it was made. He turned the studio into an instrument and elevated pop into art. He gave us a glimpse of what music could be when built not for mass consumption, but for emotional honesty and sonic daring.
God only knows what we’d be without him, musically speaking. But thanks to Brian Wilson, we don’t have to wonder what pop perfection sounds like. He gave us that — and so much more.
Rest peacefully, Brian Wilson (June 20, 1942 – June 11, 2025).
DJRob
DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on Bluesky at @djrobblog.bsky.social, X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog, on Facebook or on Meta’s Threads.
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