Brian Wilson is a genius

Brian Wilson pictured with the Beach Boys in 1966

"Brian Wilson is a genius" is a tagline referencing the Beach Boys' leader Brian Wilson. It was created by the Beatles' former press officer Derek Taylor in 1966, who was then employed as the Beach Boys' publicist. Taylor frequently called Wilson "genius" as part of a campaign he developed to both reinvent the band's image and legitimize Wilson as a serious artist on par with the Beatles and Bob Dylan. The hype generated by the campaign ultimately bore a number of unintended consequences for the band's reputation and internal dynamic, and has been credited as a contributing factor to Wilson's professional and psychological decline.

Taylor's promotion coincided with the releases of the Pet Sounds album (May 1966), the "Good Vibrations" single (October 1966), and the Smile album (an unfinished project that was abandoned in mid 1967). During this period, Wilson experimented with psychedelics and 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 such as Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. By the end of 1966, an NME reader's poll placed Wilson as the fourth-ranked "World Music Personality"—about 1,000 votes ahead of Bob Dylan and 500 behind John Lennon.

Wilson commented that the "genius" branding led him to become "a victim of the recording industry". The campaign succeeded at a wider recognition of his talents, but he felt more pressure 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 creativity, which bandmate Mike Love said became his undoing. His ensuing legend originated the trope of the "reclusive genius" among studio-oriented musical artists[1] and later inspired comparisons to other musicians such as Syd Barrett (Pink Floyd) and Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine).[2][3]

Taylor and the Beach Boys

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".[4] 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."[5] By early 1966, Wilson wanted to move the Beach Boys beyond their surf and hot rod aesthetic, an image that he believed was outdated.[6] Instead, in Mike Love's description, Wilson sought recognition from the countercultural tastemakers, or the "hip intelligentsia".[7] 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."[8]

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.

—Nick Kent[9]

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.[10] According to music critic Richie Unterberger, through his time working in Hollywood, Taylor "became, probably, the most famous rock publicist of the mid-'60s".[11] It was Parks who introduced Wilson to Taylor.[12] Taylor was quickly assimilated into what was then an expanding coterie of Wilson's worldly-minded friends, musicians, mystics, and business advisers.[13] He later recalled one conversation with Brian and his brother Dennis Wilson in which they denied ever writing "surf music or songs about cars or that the Beach Boys had been involved in any way with the surf and drag fads ... they would not concede."[14]

Contemporary press

Taylor started working as a publicist for the Beach Boys sometime before their album Pet Sounds was released in May 1966, with the group paying him a salary of $750 a month (equivalent to $5,660 in 2017). 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 such as Parks and singer Danny Hutton, Taylor wondered why it was not the mainstream consensus, and began "putting it around, making almost a campaign out of it". 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. The campaign promoted Wilson as an exceptional "genius" among pop artists, an idea that Taylor personally believed in.[15] Brian later reflected that "legends grew about ... our music ... and I was getting fascinated with the fact that I was becoming famous and there was an interest in my style of life."[16]

One of the earliest instances of Taylor announcing that Wilson was a genius was in his 1966 article titled "Brian Wilson: Whizzkid Behind the Beach Boys".[17] More references to the "genius" rhetoric appeared in Melody Maker and New Musical Express, specifically the articles "Brian, Pop Genius!" by Don Traynor (May 21, 1966), "Brian Wilson's Puppets?" by Alan Walsh (November 12, 1966), and "Brian: Loved or Loathed Genius" by Tracy Thomas (January 28, 1967).[18] In Taylor's writings, Wilson was presented as a pop luminary on the level of esteemed contemporaries such as John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Bob Dylan, as well as classical figures such as Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart.[19] What follows is a typical excerpt by Taylor, identified as "'60s Hollywood reporter Jerry Fineman", and 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.[20]

Pet Sounds was widely influential and raised the band's prestige as an innovative rock group.[21] Taylor is widely recognized as instrumental in the album's success in the UK due to his longstanding connections with the Beatles and other industry figures.[22] Rolling Stone founding editor Jann Wenner later reported that British fans identified the Beach Boys as "years ahead" of the Beatles and declared Wilson a "genius".[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, reaching the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in December, and became their first number one in Britain.[26]

As quoted in interviews, Wilson declared that the group's next album Smile (originally called Dumb Angel) would "be as much an improvement over [Pet] Sounds as that was over Summer Days".[27] 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."[28][nb 1] 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.[30]

In May 1967, Taylor announced that Smile had been "scrapped", and the press intensified their romantic depictions of Wilson.[31] In October 1967, Cheetah magazine published "Goodbye Surfing, Hello God!", a memoir written by Jules Siegel.[32][33] It included a tongue-in-cheek reference to the widespread "genius" rhetoric, with Siegel pondering the question of whether Wilson was "a genius, Genius, or GENIUS". Siegel covered Wilson's struggle to overcome the band's surfing image in the US 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".[34] According to academic Kirk Curnett, Siegel's article was "the most instrumental in establishing Brian as mercurial in the broader senses of that term: as an eccentric and erratic artist perilously pursuing the muse instead of blithely serving the masses".[35] Also discussing the 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 ... 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." ... [The article also] venerated Smile as a relic of this hipness, intensifying audience interest in the unavailable work[34]

Aftermath

The Beach Boys, July 1967.

Wilson later said that he had run out of ideas by 1967 "in a conventional sense", and he was "about ready to die".[36] He also expressed a 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."[37] Parks echoed 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."[12] Love said that Wilson turned to drugs as a way to expand his creative conceptions and deliver on the comparisons he had received with the Beatles and Mozart.[38]

Following the initial press, Jazz & Pop's Gene Sculatti wrote that a rock controversy involving Wilson brew among "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".[39] On December 14, 1967, Wenner printed an influential article in Rolling Stone that denounced the "genius" label, which he called a "promotional shuck" and a "pointless" 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 ... which meant that a year elapsed between Pet Sounds and their latest release, Smiley Smile."[23] As a result of the article, many rock fans excluded the group from "serious consideration".[23][nb 2]

Wilson's bandmates and father Murry resented that he was singled out as a "genius".[41] Mike Love reflected that while Brian deserved the recognition, the press was a frustration to everyone in the group, and his brother Carl Wilson was especially bothered by the misconception that they were "nameless music components in Brian's music machine".[42][nb 3] Brian's then-wife Marilyn intimated that Brian decided to reduce his involvement with the band "because he thought that they all hated him".[46][nb 4] After 1967's Wild Honey, he relinquished his creative hold on the Beach Boys,[49] and from 1968 onward, his songwriting output declined substantially, but the public narrative of "Brian-as-leader" continued.[50] He became increasingly known for his reclusiveness[51] and would not attract the level of press attention he achieved in the 1960s until a new marketing campaign, "Brian's Back!", was devised in 1976.[52][nb 5]

By the 1970s, both fans and detractors began to view Wilson as a burned-out acid casualty. Some of the characterizations advanced by industry insiders included "genius musician but an amateur human being", "washed-up", "bloated", "another sad fucking case", and "a loser".[57] Writing in his 1970 book Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock, Nik Cohn's 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."[58] In 1971, Carl commented that the Jules Siegel writings "and a lot of that stuff that went around before really turned [Brian] off."[59] He explained that most of it was "grossly inaccurate" and characterized Brian as "a very highly evolved person" who is "very sensitive at the same time, which can be confusing," adding that Brian does not cooperate with the press "at all".[59] Peter Ames Carlin wrote that Wilson's "public suffering" effectively "transformed him from a musical figure into a cultural one".[60]

In 1975, NME published an extended three-part piece by journalist Nick Kent, "The Last Beach Movie", which depicted Wilson as an overeating, fey eccentric. According to music historian 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."[61] Kent wrote a follow-up to the piece in 1980, where he reported that the Beach Boys "hated" the original article so much that they "instigated a long drawn-out communication breakdown with the paper lasting a number of years".[62] Bruce Johnston also stated in another music magazine that Wilson became "suicidally depressed" after reading the article.[62]

Criticism

At the center of Brian's legend, according to music critic Carl Wilson (no relation to Brian's brother), is his "tragic genius". He explained:

It is to pop 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. ... The word "genius" always risks estranging its subject from their cultural context. There were many influences on Wilson’s signature style ... 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.[63]

Brian said: "I didn't think I was a genius. I thought I had talent. But I didn't think I was a genius."[37] 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."[64] Van Dyke Parks believed that 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."[12]

In the rock press, conflicts between Mike Love (pictured in 1971) and Wilson are often sensationalized.[65]

While "all the key reference points" of Smile lore are traceable to "Goodbye Surfing, Hello God", Luis Sanchez references 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. ... One compelling aspect of Leaf’s story is its dynamic of good guys and bad guys."[66][nb 6] Mike Love, who is usually given an "antagonist" role in the mythology, is known for urging Wilson not to "fuck with the formula".[63] 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".[70][nb 7] Derek Taylor could not recall hearing "a single disparaging word" about Brian from the other Beach Boys during his employment with the group; "Maybe a few jokes about his eccentricities, but always basically affectionate."[72]

In 1995, music critic Barney Hoskyns described the campaign as "the birth of a pop cult" and added that the term genius "is actually a rare commodity in pop music" more likely to be reserved for artists who espouse "the element of tragedy and failed promise ... torment ... or the very least by major eccentricity."[40] In early 1999, HBO commissioned an interview of Wilson by the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne for an episode of Reverb which never aired.[64] Following the interview, Coyne felt, "I was like, 'Well, if he's such a genius, why can't he talk?' ... I'm not in contempt of him ... 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]

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".[74][nb 8] 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]".[74] Carl concluded that as of 2015, the interest in Brian Wilson's life comes primarily from a "human-interest angle" concerned with "the popular tendency to fetishise any overlap between genius and madness" rather than a purely musical one, "[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."[63]

See also

  • The Beach Boys Love You – album received with a sharp divide between fans and critics, some of whom saw the album as a work of "eccentric genius" whereas others "dismissed it as childish and trivial".[76]
  • Andy Paley sessions – unfinished recording sessions from the 1990s that "reflect more of Brian's musical, emotional, and intellectual interests than any series of songs he'd recorded since The Beach Boys Love You"[77]
  • Bedroom Tapes – unreleased recordings by Wilson described as "schizophrenia on tape"[78]
  • Chillwave – a music genre partly derived from Wilson's legend as an "emotionally fragile dude with mental health problems who coped by taking drugs"[79]
  • Creativity and mental illness
  • Savant syndrome
  • "Brian Wilson" (song)

References

Notes

  1. ↑ 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?"[29]
  2. ↑ Barney Hoskyns locates the "particular appeal" of Wilson's genius to "the fact that the Beach Boys were the very obverse of hip – the unlikeliness of these songs growing out of disposable surf pop – and in the singular naivety and ingenuousness of his personality."[40] In Gene Sculatti's editorial, titled "In Defense of the Beach Boys", he praised the "characteristic innocence and somewhat childlike visions" that was imbued in their music.[39] Wenner also criticized the Beach Boys' "totally disappointing" live performances: "To please their fans, they do their old material but make fun of it. Their old material is fine and they should do it with pride that they have every reason to take."[23]
  3. ↑ 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.[43] On the other hand, Dennis 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."[44][45]
  4. ↑ Producer and friend 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."[47] 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."[48]
  5. ↑ It was intended to promote Wilson's return as an active producer and touring member of the band.[53] 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.[54] In 1976, Wilson expressed a desire to leave the group and record a solo album, but could not. He puts the reason down to the conflicts that it would create between him and the band, remarking, "Sometimes I feel like a commodity in a stock market."[55] It was only the first of many "Brian's back" campaigns, and in the ensuing decades, the announcement was repeated on numerous occasions in different contexts.[56]
  6. ↑ 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."[67] 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."[68] Love criticized the biography for solidifying a narrative that cast himself, his bandmates, and other members of Wilson's family as villains.[69] 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."[68]
  7. ↑ 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, fans of Wilson thought "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."[71]
  8. ↑ 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."[75]

Citations

  1. ↑ Guriel, Jason (May 16, 2016). "How Pet Sounds Invented the Modern Pop Album". The Atlantic.
  2. ↑ Lester, Paul (March 12, 2004). "I lost it". The Guardian.
  3. ↑ Hill, Scott (November 2011). "An Open Letter to My Bloody Valentine's Loveless". Wired.
  4. ↑ Carlin 2006, pp. 46, 56.
  5. ↑ Carlin 2006, p. 46.
  6. ↑ Sanchez 2014, p. 91.
  7. ↑ Love 2016, p. 48.
  8. ↑ Love 2016, p. 152.
  9. ↑ Kent 2009, p. 27.
  10. ↑ Kozinn, Allan (September 9, 1997). "Derek Taylor, Beatles' Spokesman, Dies at 65". New York Times. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
  11. ↑ Unterberger, Richie. "Derek Taylor". AllMusic. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
  12. 1 2 3 Dombal, Ryan. "5–10–15–20: Van Dyke Parks The veteran songwriter and arranger on the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, and more". Pitchfork.
  13. ↑ Sanchez 2014, p. 92.
  14. ↑ Kent 2009, p. 31.
  15. ↑ Sanchez 2014, pp. 91–93, "credible perspective"; Kent 2009, p. 27, origins, "single most prestigious figure", salary, and Taylor's personal beliefs; Love 2016, p. 146
  16. ↑ Priore 1995, p. 248.
  17. ↑ Lambert 2016, p. 264.
  18. ↑ Lambert 2016, pp. 264, 272–73.
  19. ↑ Sanchez 2014, pp. 92–93, pop luminary; Love 2016, pp. 146–147, classical comparisons
  20. ↑ Carlin 2006, pp. 109–110.
  21. ↑ Bogdanov, Woodstra & Erlewine 2002, p. 72.
  22. ↑ Gaines 1986, p. 152.
  23. 1 2 3 4 Badman 2004, p. 207.
  24. ↑ Badman 2004, p. 5.
  25. ↑ Sanchez 2014, p. 94.
  26. ↑ Badman 2004, pp. 155-156.
  27. ↑ "Brian Wilson". Melody Maker. October 8, 1966. p. 7.
  28. ↑ Sanchez 2014, pp. 93–94.
  29. ↑ Nolan, Tom (November 27, 1966). "The Frenzied Frontier of Pop Music". Los Angeles Times West Magazine.
  30. ↑ Carlin 2006, p. 106.
  31. ↑ Lambert 2016.
  32. ↑ Carlin 2006, pp. 103–105.
  33. ↑ Sanchez 2014, pp. 99, 102.
  34. 1 2 Lambert 2016, p. 219.
  35. ↑ Lambert 2016, p. 7.
  36. ↑ Highwater 1968.
  37. 1 2 "The Beach Boys". Music Favorites. Vol. 1 no. 2. 1976.
  38. ↑ Love 2016, pp. 145–147, 158–159.
  39. 1 2 Sculatti, Gene (September 1968). "Villains and Heroes: In Defense of the Beach Boys". Jazz & Pop. Retrieved June 13, 2017.
  40. 1 2 Hoskyns, Barney (September 1, 1995). ""Brian Wilson is a Genius": The Birth of a Pop Cult". The Independent.
  41. ↑ Carlin 2006, p. 110.
  42. ↑ Love 2016, pp. 145–147.
  43. ↑ Priore 2005.
  44. ↑ Webb, Adam (December 14, 2003). "A profile of Dennis Wilson: the lonely one". The Guardian.
  45. ↑ Carlin 2006, p. 316.
  46. ↑ Don, Was (1995). Brian Wilson: I Just Wasn't Made for These Times (Documentary film).
  47. ↑ Leaf 1978, p. 169.
  48. ↑ Carlin 2006, p. 151.
  49. ↑ Matijas-Mecca 2017, p. 83.
  50. ↑ Matijas-Mecca 2017, pp. xxi–xxii, 83.
  51. ↑ Carlin 2006, p. 165.
  52. ↑ Sanchez 2014, p. 4.
  53. ↑ Carlin 2006.
  54. ↑ Carlin 2006, p. 150.
  55. ↑ Rensin, David (December 1976). "A Conversation With Brian Wilson". Oui. Retrieved July 16, 2014.
  56. ↑ Matijas-Mecca 2017, pp. xiii–xiv.
  57. ↑ Matijas-Mecca 2017, pp. xx, 89.
  58. ↑ Cohn 1970, pp. 103–104.
  59. 1 2 Nolan, Tom (October 28, 1971). "The Beach Boys: A California Saga". Rolling Stone (94).
  60. ↑ Carlin 2006, p. 277.
  61. ↑ Sanchez 2014, pp. 103–104.
  62. 1 2 Kent 2009, p. 54.
  63. 1 2 3 Wilson, Carl (June 9, 2015). "The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson: America's Mozart?". BBC.
  64. 1 2 JC Gabel (2000). "Brian Wilson Vs. Wayne Coyne Vs. Stop Smiling: Part One". Stop Smiling. No. 9.
  65. ↑ Lambert 2016, pp. 217–218.
  66. ↑ Sanchez 2014, pp. 24, 99.
  67. ↑ Unterberger, Richie. "David Leaf". AllMusic.
  68. 1 2 Sanchez 2014, p. 25.
  69. ↑ Love 2016, pp. 160–163.
  70. ↑ Love 2016, p. 164.
  71. ↑ Love 2016, pp. 373–374.
  72. ↑ Priore 1995, p. 262.
  73. ↑ JC Gabel (2000). "Brian Wilson Vs. Wayne Coyne Vs. Stop Smiling: Part Two". Stop Smiling. No. 9.
  74. 1 2 Mahoney, C.W. (November 19, 2016). "Hang On to Your Ego". The Washington Free Beacon.
  75. ↑ McNamee, David (August 10, 2009). "The myth of Daniel Johnston's genius". The Guardian.
  76. ↑ Schinder 2007, p. 124.
  77. ↑ Carlin 2006, p. 281.
  78. ↑ Chidester, Brian (January 30, 2014). "Brian Wilson's Secret Bedroom Tapes". LA Weekly. Retrieved February 1, 2014.
  79. ↑ Richardson, Mark, ed. (November 12, 2009). "In My Room (The Best Coast Song): Nine Fragments on Lo-fi's Attraction to the Natural World". Pitchfork.

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.
  • Gaines, Steven (1986). Heroes and Villains: The True Story of The Beach Boys. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0306806479.
  • 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 (1995). Look, Listen, Vibrate, Smile!. Last Gap. ISBN 0-86719-417-0.
  • Priore, Domenic (2005). Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece. London: Sanctuary. ISBN 1860746276.
  • 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. Icons of Rock: An Encyclopedia of the Legends Who Changed Music Forever. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0313338458.

Further reading

  • 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.
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