Brian Wilson dies at 82

From 1962 to 1966, the American pop prodigy – whose death was announced by his family on Wednesday – wrote some of the most joyful music in rock history. With more than 200 songs celebrating sun, surf, and California dreams (Surfin’ USA, I Get Around, Fun Fun Fun, Surfer Girl), he helped make the Beach Boys the best-selling American band of their era.

Between the ages of 19 and 24, the bassist and singer stood shoulder to shoulder with the Beatles in creativity and influence. John Lennon once called Pet Sounds (1966) one of the greatest albums of all time. After the bright innocence of his early songs, Brian Wilson began to reflect on lost youth, steering the Beach Boys toward a more introspective, psychedelic sound rooted in the rising counterculture of the 1960s.

But by 1967, his mental health was unraveling under the weight of drug abuse, and he famously crashed mid-flight, unable to complete Smile, the ambitious follow-up to Pet Sounds. Decades later, after years marked by hospitalisations, treatments, and relapses, Wilson finally completed his long-lost masterpiece in 2002.

In truth, Brian Wilson was a “Beach Boy” mostly in name. By age 20, he had never set foot on a surfboard, and his solid, stocky frame set him apart from the image on album covers. Deaf in his right ear and with a mouth that twisted slightly when he spoke, he bore the physical and emotional scars of a difficult childhood – including, it is believed, repeated beatings from his father.

Surf-music

Born on 20 June 1942 in California, Brian Wilson found early joy and refuge in music. Gathered around the family’s Hammond organ, he taught his younger brothers the rich harmonies of jazz and gospel. In 1961, in the Los Angeles suburb of Hawthorne, he formed a band with his brothers Dennis and Carl, his cousin Mike Love, and a neighbourhood friend, Al Jardine.

Après un premier titre "Surfin'" (1961), mariant le rock de Chuck Berry et de Little Richard et les harmonies vocales des "Four Freshmen", les cinq jeunots s'adonnent à la "surf music". Fin 1962, avec "Surfin' USA", tous les adolescents connaissent les Beach Boys.

Their debut single, Surfin’ (1961), blended the driving energy of Chuck Berry and Little Richard with the close vocal harmonies of the Four Freshmen. By the end of 1962, with the release of Surfin’ USA, the Beach Boys had become teenage icons – and their sound, synonymous with the California dream.

An introvert by nature, Brian Wilson struggled with life on the road. In 1964, he suffered a panic attack on a flight to Paris and abruptly stopped touring, retreating instead to the studio where he felt most at home.

There, famously installing a piano in a sandbox to mimic the beach, Wilson immersed himself in songwriting, fuelled by LSD and other hallucinogens. He composed the band’s melodies alone, leaving the others to layer their harmonies over his increasingly complex arrangements.

“My creativity increased more than I’d hoped,” he told Rolling Stone in 2019, “but the downside is that it fucked up my brain.”

Rich tapestry of sound

In 1966, Brian Wilson unveiled Good Vibrations, a richly layered symphony of sound, pieced together over six weeks. The single sold a million copies in the United States and marked a creative high point in his career. Teaming up with Van Dyke Parks, a musician linked to the Beat Generation, Wilson began work on Smile; a project he described as “an adolescent symphony to God.” The sessions produced a collage of themes, including grunts, drills, and manic laughter, designed to build an echo chamber of sound reminiscent of Phil Spector’s wall of sound.

© Alberto E. Rodriguez / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)

But as Wilson sank deeper into drug use and paranoia, he became convinced he was being watched by Spector and the Beatles. His erratic behaviour unnerved his bandmates. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Wilson abandoned the project, and with it, the spotlight.

He was only 25, but his career seemed all but over. He spent years confined to bed, gaining weight and composing sporadically under the control of a dubious therapist. Meanwhile, the Beach Boys lived off their sun-soaked image. Tragedy followed: Dennis drowned in 1983; Carl died of cancer in 1998.

Then, in 2002, a quiet resurrection. Re-married and the adoptive father of seven, the so-called “Mozart of pop” returned to Smile. First in concert — where he reappeared like a dapper ghost, and then in the studio, Wilson finally shaped the unfinished opus into a coherent, luminous album.

In his final years, Brian Wilson was diagnosed with dementia and placed under legal guardianship in May 2024.