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The promotion coincided with the releases of the ''[[Pet Sounds]]'' album (May 1966) and "[[Good Vibrations]]" single (October 1966), as well as the ''[[Smile (The Beach Boys album)|Smile]]'' recording sessions (a project that was [[Collapse of Smile|abandoned in 1967]]). During this period, Wilson sought the approval of what was known as the "[[Hip (slang)|hip]] intelligentsia" of the [[Counterculture of the 1960s|1960s counterculture]]. To this end, Taylor wrote columns for various American and British publications, where he compared Wilson to [[classical music|classical]] figures like [[Johann Sebastian Bach|Bach]], [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]], and [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|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.
The promotion coincided with the releases of the ''[[Pet Sounds]]'' album (May 1966) and "[[Good Vibrations]]" single (October 1966), as well as the ''[[Smile (The Beach Boys album)|Smile]]'' recording sessions (a project that was [[Collapse of Smile|abandoned in 1967]]). During this period, Wilson sought the approval of what was known as the "[[Hip (slang)|hip]] intelligentsia" of the [[Counterculture of the 1960s|1960s counterculture]]. To this end, Taylor wrote columns for various American and British publications, where he compared Wilson to [[classical music|classical]] figures like [[Johann Sebastian Bach|Bach]], [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]], and [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|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.


In art, the word "[[genius]]" is often attributed to creators known to be [[creativity and mental illness|eccentric]] or [[tortured artist]]s, and in Wilson's case, these elements are at the center of his mythology. By the 1970s, fans and detractors began referring to Wilson as a burned-out acid casualty; as biographer [[Peter Ames Carlin]] writes, his "public suffering [effectively] transformed him from a musical figure into a cultural one." In 1976, Wilson intimated: "I am a victim of the recording industry. ... I thought I had talent. But I didn't think I was a genius."
Wilson is considered to have originated the trope of the "reclusive genius" later to be adopted by many other popular musicians.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Guriel |first1=Jason |title=How Pet Sounds Invented the Modern Pop Album |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/05/how-pet-sounds-invented-the-modern-pop-album/482940/ |publisher=''[[The Atlantic]]'' |date=May 16, 2016}}</ref> In art, the word "[[genius]]" is often attributed to creators known to be [[creativity and mental illness|eccentric]] or [[tortured artist]]s, and in Wilson's case, these elements are at the center of his mythology. By the 1970s, fans and detractors began referring to Wilson as a burned-out acid casualty; as biographer [[Peter Ames Carlin]] writes, his "public suffering [effectively] transformed him from a musical figure into a cultural one." In 1976, Wilson intimated: "I am a victim of the recording industry. ... I thought I had talent. But I didn't think I was a genius."


==Background and historical context==
==Background and historical context==

Revision as of 04:19, 25 February 2018

This article is about the mythology and "genius" rhetoric associated with Brian Wilson. For details on his craft, see Musicianship of Brian Wilson.

Brian Wilson pictured with the Beach Boys in 1966

"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 replace 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.

Wilson is considered to have originated the trope of the "reclusive genius" later to be adopted by many other popular musicians.[1] In art, the word "genius" is often attributed to creators known to be eccentric or tortured artists, and in Wilson's case, these elements are at the center of his mythology. By the 1970s, fans and detractors began referring to Wilson as a burned-out acid casualty; as biographer Peter Ames Carlin writes, his "public suffering [effectively] transformed him from a musical figure into a cultural one." In 1976, Wilson intimated: "I am a victim of the recording industry. ... I thought I had talent. But I didn't think I was a genius."

Background and historical context

File:The Beach Boys (8794913159).jpg
The clean-cut Beach Boys of 1964. From left: Al Jardine, Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, Mike Love, and Dennis Wilson.

Early rock journalism and "genius"

For more context on "rock as art" values in music criticism, see Rockism.

In the mid-1960s, formative rock music journals like Crawdaddy!, Rolling Stone, and Creem aspired to elevate the music from popular entertainment to high art.[2] However, original music criticism (as in the Classical era) rarely used the word "genius" in the Romantic sense when describing composers like Beethoven. In the past, "genius" was negatively associated with "extravagant bizarreness" and "uncontrolled imagination".[3] According to music critic Barney Hoskyns in 1995:

"Genius" is actually a rare commodity in pop music; it's not a word bandied about idly. We don’t call [Jimi] Hendrix a genius, or even [Bob] Dylan. Genius has less to do with rock heroes than with pop solipsists, mavericks who invent their own sonic worlds to live in. Pop geniuses, we feel, are baffling talents who could have lived in any era. It is remarkable how many of them, in our minds, are hunched over keyboards rather than letting rip on electric guitars. ... The figure of the doomed troubadour is particularly susceptible to having the mantle of Genius laid over his fevered brow ... the element of tragedy and failed promise is a crucial factor. Genius must be accompanied by torment, we feel, or the very least by major eccentricity.[4]

Many early rock reporters believed that rock embodied a particular set of values, such as rebelliousness, innovation, seriousness, and sociopolitical intent. One of the methods they took to enforce this vision was the use of personality profiles.[2] By the 1960s, personality-centric discourse on celebrities was long established in the realms of media and entertainment, where it was useful for establishing public images as a marketable commodity.[5] "Originality" and "inventiveness" were also well-established ideas in the realms of classical discourse—with a caveat against works that drifted too far into "bizarreness" or "caprice".[3] Drawing from the auteur school of film criticism—which placed a high value on the singular vision and overriding aesthetic and thematic unity of a filmmaker's work—the emerging niche of rock journalism emphasized that rock music should be appreciated through the context of an artist's "sensibilities".[6] However, not all critics supported the idea of integrating high culture values into rock music, nor did they all argue for the importance of personal expression. In addition, some believed that such values were merely impositions of the cultural establishment.[7][nb 1]

Taylor and the Beach Boys

For more context on Wilson's increasingly ambitious recordings, see The Beach Boys Today!
"God Only Knows" (Pet Sounds, 1966)
According to musicologist Stephen Downes, even when considering its Baroque antecedents, "God Only Knows" was innovative for the way it conditions its tonality between the keys of E and A major. It is often praised as one of the "greatest" songs ever written.[9]
Problems playing this file? See media help.

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".[10] 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."[11] By early 1966, Wilson wanted to move the Beach Boys beyond their surf and hot rod aesthetic—iconography associated with the California Sound or "California Myth"—which he believed had gone stale. Instead, Wilson sought the approval of what was called the "hip intelligentsia", in other words, the countercultural tastemakers.[12] 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."[13]

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 an 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.[15] According to music critic Richie Unterberger, through his time working in Hollywood, Taylor "became, probably, the most famous rock publicist of the mid-'60s".[16] Parks introduced Wilson to Taylor,[17] and he was quickly assimilated into what was then an expanding coterie of Wilson's worldly-minded friends, musicians, mystics, and business advisers.[18] Taylor would 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."[19]

Taylor started working as a publicist for the Beach Boys sometime before their album Pet Sounds was released in May 1966.[14] He recalled that the "genius" promotion "came about 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 wasn't the mainstream consensus, he "started putting it around, making almost a campaign out of it."[14] 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 which Taylor personally believed himself, and thus swept away the band's outdated surfer image.[20] To this end, the Beach Boys paid him a salary of $750 a month (equivalent to $7,040 in 2023).[14][nb 2]

Contemporary press

May 1966 – June 1967

File:Beach Boys Pet Sounds advertisement 1966.jpg
Advertisement for the UK EMI release, where Pet Sounds was promoted as "The Most Progressive Pop Album Ever!"[22]

Taylor performed his services by promoting Wilson in numerous columns he wrote for various American and British publications. Not only was Wilson presented as a pop luminary on the level of esteemed contemporaries like John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Bob Dylan, but he was also compared to classical figures like Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart.[23] An example of a typical profile by Taylor, which contains some exaggerated assertions:

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.[24][nb 3]

Pet Sounds was massively influential upon its release and raised the band's prestige to the top level of rock innovators.[25] 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.[26][nb 4] 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".[28][nb 5] 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."[30] Wilson answered his praises by saying: "I'm not a genius, I'm just a hard working guy." Carlin writes that "such understated humility fed Brian's reputation even more."[31]

The Beach Boys' album Smile and single "Heroes And Villains" will make them the greatest group in the world. We predict they'll take over where The Beatles left off.

—Hit Parader, December 1966[32]

Throughout the summer of 1966, Wilson concentrated on finishing the group's next single, "Good Vibrations".[33] 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!.[34] 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.[35][nb 6] 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",[39] and that it "will be as much an improvement over [Pet] Sounds as that was over Summer Days."[40] 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."[41][nb 7] 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.[43]

Composer and Inside Pop host Leonard Bernstein praised Wilson's "Surf's Up", but did not explicitly call him a "genius".[44][45]

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 described him as "second only to Smokey Robinson" in terms of "the complete musician". Thomas 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."[46] In April 1967, Wilson was featured on Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution, a CBS-commissioned documentary by television producer David Oppenheim, whose past work focused on classical musicians such as Igor Stravinsky and Pablo Casals. The film examined young pop and rock musicians producing music that was "a symptom and generator" of social unrest and generation gaps.[47][nb 8] For Wilson's segment—an indoor solo performance of "Surf's Up" filmed in November—composer Leonard Bernstein described him as "one of today's most important pop musicians ... Poetic, beautiful even in its obscurity, 'Surf’s Up' is one aspect of new things happening in pop music today. As such, it is a symbol of the change many of these young musicians see in our future."[48]

"Goodbye Surfing, Hello God!"

Main article: Goodbye Surfing, Hello God!

In October 1967, Cheetah magazine published "Goodbye Surfing, Hello God!", a memoir written by Jules Siegel. Many of the Smile myths and legends can be traced to this single article.[49][50] 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."[51] 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."[52] On the same subject, 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.[51]

Effects on the band and Wilson's decline

A "Brian's Back!" 1976 press photo depicting Wilson as producer of 15 Big Ones

Wilson's bandmates and father Murry resented that he was singled out as a "genius".[53][nb 9] 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.[55] 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."[56] 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."[57][58] A 1971 article by Nolan reflected that at a certain point, the group's scene was not "happening" anymore, and that 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. God knows he could have ... But the Beach Boys ... [were] his family."[59] Bruce Johnston later said, remembering the time when the band began recording again after Smile was scrapped, that "we wanted to be a band again. The whole [Smile] thing had wiped everyone out, and we wanted to play together again."[60]

The press's romanticized portrayals of Wilson were only amplified by Taylor's announcement that Smile was "scrapped" in May 1967.[61] 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.[62][nb 10] 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".[64] 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".[28][nb 11]

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?

In 1976, Wilson intimated 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."[65] 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."[17] To expand his creative conceptions, Wilson turned to drugs, which Love says ultimately became his undoing: "It was hard enough to match the Beatles, but now he had to keep up with Mozart?"[56][nb 12] By 1967, Wilson said that he had run out of ideas "in a conventional sense", and that he was "about ready to die".[67] After 1967's Wild Honey, he relinquished his creative hold on the Beach Boys.[68][nb 13] From 1968 onward, his songwriting output declined substantially, but the public narrative of "Brian-as-leader" continued.[70] 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.[71] Producer Terry Melcher remembered how in one recording session from 1975, Wilson refused to go near the mixing board: "He knows 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."[72][nb 14]

After the 1960s, artists who delivered "raw emotion", "originality", and "spontaneity" were the ones favored in popular music criticism,[8] and in the 1970s, rock journalists started valuing the Beach Boys' experimental work over their early surf records in retrospective evaluations.[74] At the same time, fans and detractors began speaking of 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."[75][nb 15] Carlin says that Wilson's "public suffering" in the 1970s effectively "transformed him from a musical figure into a cultural one."[78] Wilson would 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!"[79] was intended to promote Wilson's return as an active producer and touring member of the band.[80][nb 16] This 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.[82]

Criticism

"Genius" as hyperbole

Curnett writes that the "prejudices inherent in auteur criticism" ultimately distorts critical appraisals of the Beach Boys.[83]

Wilson said: "I didn't think I was a genius. I thought I had talent. But I didn't think I was a genius."[65] 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."[84][nb 17] 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."[86][nb 18] 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]."[86] 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 Brian's "extravagant praise" 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.[88]

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."[89] 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."[17] 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 the two.[90]

In early 1999, HBO commissioned an interview of Wilson by the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne for an episode of Reverb which never aired.[84] 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?' He's been asked about his music, like, everyday of his fucking life, so you'd think that he'd have something to say about it ... 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?'"[91] 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."[92] The album received, according to the review-aggregating site Metacritic, mixed or average reviews.[93]

Wilson as "tragic genius"

See also: Don't fuck with the formula
In the rock press, conflicts between Mike Love (pictured in 1971) and Wilson are often sensationalized.[94]

At the center of Brian's legend is his "tragic genius", which Carl posits "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 story of Brian Wilson 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".[88] 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".[95]

While "all the key reference points" of Smile lore are traceable to "Goodbye Surfing, Hello God", author 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."[96] 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."[97] 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."[98] Love criticized the biography for solidifying a narrative that cast himself, his bandmates, and other members of Wilson's family as villains.[99][nb 19]

Mahoney considers that "While Wilson deserves pity for his struggles with sanity, that pity is stretched to the breaking point when you realize how [many millions of dollars] he could afford to throw away."[86] 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."[98] 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."[100]

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."[88] In 2011, after speaking to some of Wilson's close acquaintances, biographer Jon Stebbins speculated that "[w]orking in the studio and especially touring is not really his choice. His handlers, managers, and wife insist that he work. It's all a bit Landy-like when you look behind the curtain."[101][nb 20]

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ For example, Rolling Stone's Jon Landau wrote in 1966 that "rock is not primarily poetry or art, but something much more direct and immediate than either. Rock and roll has to be body music before it can be head music, or it will wind up being neither".[7] Conversely, Richard Meltzer in 1970 dismissed the idea of "heartfelt personal expression" in rock as "meaningless".[8]
  2. ^ The first time Taylor announced that Wilson was a genius may have been in his 1966 promotional column titled "Brian Wilson: Whizzkid Behind the Beach Boys". More references to the "genius" rhetoric could be found 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).[21]
  3. ^ 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."[24]
  4. ^ 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."[27]
  5. ^ 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".[29]
  6. ^ That month, the record was their first single certified gold by the RIAA.[36] 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.[37] 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."[38]
  7. ^ 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?"[42]
  8. ^ Oppenheim remembered: "Some person in New York was very high on Brian Wilson. I was very curious about him and his music." When he entered Wilson's Laurel Way home, "Brian was looking at the TV set with the volume off and just the color, detuned, and lots of vegetables around. ... It was a strange, insulated household, insulated from the world by money....A playpen of irresponsible people."[44]
  9. ^ At an early vocal session for "Help Me, Rhonda" (1965), Murry delivered the now-famous line: "Brian, I'm a genius too."[54]
  10. ^ 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.[63]
  11. ^ 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."[4] 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.[64] Jann 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."[28]
  12. ^ Wilson believes after he first dropped LSD in 1965: "It expanded my mind a little bit, so I could write better songs ... [While] it was worth it, I wouldn't take it again."[66]
  13. ^ 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."[25] 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."[69]
  14. ^ 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."[73]
  15. ^ 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."[76] In 1975, NME published an extended three-part piece by journalist Nick Kent which 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."[77]
  16. ^ Wilson expressed a fervent 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."[81]
  17. ^ Wilson was formally diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and mild manic depression.[85]
  18. ^ 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."[87]
  19. ^ He was reportedly so annoyed with the book that, while appearing at a Beach Boys fan convention, Leaf says he "tried to burn a hole in my head with an endless, icy stare, and began his speech with acerbic remarks so obviously aimed at me that all heads in the room turned to see my reaction."[97]
  20. ^ PopMatters's Casey Hardmeyer believed that Wilson's true involvement with No Pier Pressure was minimal, and responded to positive reviews by Rolling Stone, The Telegraph, and The Guardian, urging them to "stop encouraging this! Don’t give the people at Capitol Records or [producer] Joe Thomas any reason to bring Wilson out for any more obligatory solo albums or collaborations, and let this legend carry on in peace."[102]

Citations

  1. ^ Guriel, Jason (May 16, 2016). "How Pet Sounds Invented the Modern Pop Album". The Atlantic. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  2. ^ a b Lambert 2016, pp. 7–8.
  3. ^ a b Downes 2014, p. 35.
  4. ^ a b Hoskyns, Barney (September 1, 1995). ""Brian Wilson is a Genius": The Birth of a Pop Cult". The Independent.
  5. ^ Lambert 2016, pp. 5–7.
  6. ^ Lambert 2016, pp. 5, 7–8.
  7. ^ a b Downes 2014, pp. 33, 36.
  8. ^ a b Downes 2014, p. 36.
  9. ^ Downes 2014, pp. 36–38.
  10. ^ Carlin 2006, pp. 46, 56.
  11. ^ Carlin 2006, p. 46.
  12. ^ Sanchez 2014, p. 91, "gone stale"; Love 2016, "hip intelligentsia"
  13. ^ Love 2016, p. 152.
  14. ^ a b c d Kent 2009, p. 27.
  15. ^ Kozinn, Allan (September 9, 1997). "Derek Taylor, Beatles' Spokesman, Dies at 65". New York Times. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
  16. ^ Unterberger, Richie. "Derek Taylor". AllMusic. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
  17. ^ 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.
  18. ^ Sanchez 2014, p. 92.
  19. ^ Kent 2009, p. 31.
  20. ^ Sanchez 2014, pp. 91–93, "credible perspective"; Kent 2009, p. 27, "single most prestigious figure" and Taylor's personal beliefs; Love 2016, p. 146
  21. ^ Lambert 2016, p. 264.
  22. ^ Sanchez 2014, p. 81.
  23. ^ Sanchez 2014, pp. 92–93, pop luminary; Love 2016, pp. 146–147, classical comparisons
  24. ^ a b Carlin 2006, pp. 109–110.
  25. ^ a b Bogdanov, Woodstra & Erlewine 2002, p. 72.
  26. ^ Gaines 1986, p. 152.
  27. ^ "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)
  28. ^ a b c Badman 2004, p. 207.
  29. ^ Priore 2005, p. 96.
  30. ^ "Pet Sounds, the Most Progressive Pop Album ever OR as sickly as Peanut Butter". Melody Maker. July 30, 1966.
  31. ^ Carlin 2006, pp. 110–111.
  32. ^ Priore 2005, p. 102.
  33. ^ Badman 2004, p. 5.
  34. ^ Sanchez 2014, p. 94.
  35. ^ Badman 2004, pp. 155–156.
  36. ^ Sanchez 2014, p. 86.
  37. ^ Sanchez 2014, pp. 86–87.
  38. ^ "It's Beach Boys Over Beatles: Reader Poll". Billboard. 78 (50): 10. December 10, 1966. ISSN 0006-2510.
  39. ^ Carlin 2006, p. 91.
  40. ^ "Brian Wilson". Melody Maker. October 8, 1966. p. 7.
  41. ^ Sanchez 2014, pp. 93–94.
  42. ^ Nolan, Tom (November 27, 1966). "The Frenzied Frontier of Pop Music". Los Angeles Times West Magazine.
  43. ^ Carlin 2006, p. 106.
  44. ^ a b Gaines 1986, p. 170.
  45. ^ Carlin 2006, p. 120.
  46. ^ Thomas, Tracy (January 28, 1967). "Beach Boy a Day: Brian—Loved or Loathed Genius". NME. Available at Rock's Backpages (subscription required).
  47. ^ Sanchez 2014, p. 95.
  48. ^ Sanchez 2014, pp. 95, 97.
  49. ^ Carlin 2006, pp. 103–105.
  50. ^ Sanchez 2014, pp. 99, 102.
  51. ^ a b Lambert 2016, p. 219.
  52. ^ Lambert 2016, p. 7.
  53. ^ Carlin 2006, p. 110.
  54. ^ Roberts 2014, p. 51.
  55. ^ Priore 2005.
  56. ^ a b Love 2016, pp. 145–147.
  57. ^ Webb, Adam (December 14, 2003). "A profile of Dennis Wilson: the lonely one". The Guardian.
  58. ^ Carlin 2006, p. 316.
  59. ^ a b Nolan, Tom (October 28, 1971). "The Beach Boys: A California Saga". Rolling Stone (94). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  60. ^ Leaf, David (1990). Smiley Smile/Wild Honey (CD Liner). The Beach Boys. Capitol Records.
  61. ^ Lambert 2016.
  62. ^ Kent 2009, p. 43.
  63. ^ Kent 2009, p. 43, "heavily criticized"; Gaines 1986, p. 179, "new music"
  64. ^ a b Sculatti, Gene (September 1968). "Villains and Heroes: In Defense of the Beach Boys". Jazz & Pop. Retrieved June 13, 2017.
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  66. ^ Page Six Team (June 22, 2015). "Beach Boys' Brian Wilson says LSD 'expanded his mind'".
  67. ^ Highwater 1968.
  68. ^ Matijas-Mecca 2017, p. 83.
  69. ^ Harrison 1997, pp. 49–50}.
  70. ^ Matijas-Mecca 2017, pp. xxi–xxii, 83.
  71. ^ Carlin 2006, p. 150.
  72. ^ Leaf 1978, p. 169.
  73. ^ Carlin 2006, p. 151.
  74. ^ Lambert 2016, p. 218.
  75. ^ Matijas-Mecca 2017, pp. xx, 89.
  76. ^ Cohn 1970, pp. 103–104.
  77. ^ Sanchez 2014, pp. 103–104.
  78. ^ Carlin 2006, p. 277.
  79. ^ Sanchez 2014, p. 4.
  80. ^ Carlin 2006.
  81. ^ Rensin, David (December 1976). "A Conversation With Brian Wilson". Oui. Retrieved July 16, 2014.
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  83. ^ Lambert 2016, p. 8.
  84. ^ a b JC Gabel (2000). "Brian Wilson Vs. Wayne Coyne Vs. Stop Smiling: Part One". Stop Smiling. No. 9.
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  86. ^ a b c Mahoney, C.W. (November 19, 2016). "Hang On to Your Ego". The Washington Free Beacon.
  87. ^ McNamee, David (August 10, 2009). "The myth of Daniel Johnston's genius". The Guardian.
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  92. ^ Michaels, Sean (June 12, 2014). "Brian Wilson fans furious at Frank Ocean and Lana Del Rey collaborations". The Guardian.
  93. ^ No Pier Pressure at Metacritic. Retrieved 2015-04-07.
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  95. ^ Love 2016, p. 164.
  96. ^ Sanchez 2014, pp. 24, 99.
  97. ^ a b Unterberger, Richie. "David Leaf". AllMusic.
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  101. ^ Stebbins 2011.
  102. ^ Hardmeyer, Casey (April 7, 2015). "Album review". Popmatters. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  103. ^ Schinder 2007, p. 124.
  104. ^ Carlin 2006, p. 281.
  105. ^ Chidester, Brian (January 30, 2014). "Brian Wilson's Secret Bedroom Tapes". LA Weekly. Retrieved February 1, 2014.
  106. ^ 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

Further reading

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