10 songs to celebrate the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, from Good Vibrations to God Only Knows
Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys was the visionary behind some of the most iconic songs of the 60s. We look back at some of his hits
The musical world lost a giant with the death of Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys’ visionary and fragile leader, at the aged of 82.
Attempting to distil Wilson’s talent and influence in a few short songs is an impossibility; even just focusing on a few select cuts from The Beach Boys’ 1966 album Pet Sounds, routinely regarded as one of the greatest of all time, would feel shortsighted.
1. Surfin’ USA, The Beach Boys (1963)
The song of the summer in 1963 – heck, the song of any summer, ever – “Surfin’ USA” at least partially introduced the group that would forever become synonymous with an image of California bliss, where the sun always shines, the waves are always pristine, and paradise is a place on Earth.
It’s hard to imagine the beach existing before these wake-up riffs, the guitars that sparked a surf rock movement and then some.
It’s hard to think that surf music was once mostly just instrumental – even when Wilson and his cousin, fellow Beach Boy Mike Love, hastily wrote up their first single, “Surfin’,” a minor hit released in 1961. The song borrows heavily from Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen.”