Brian Wilson

Brian Douglas Wilson (born June 20, 1942) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who co-founded the Beach Boys. Often called a genius for his novel approaches to pop composition and mastery of recording techniques, he is widely acknowledged as one of the most innovative and significant songwriters of the 20th century. His best-known work is distinguished for its high production values, complex harmonies and orchestrations, vocal layering, and introspective or ingenuous themes. Wilson is also known for his former high vocal range and lifelong struggles with mental illness.
Raised in Hawthorne, California, Wilson's formative influences included George Gershwin, the Four Freshmen, Phil Spector, and Burt Bacharach. In 1961, he began his professional career as a member of the Beach Boys, serving as the band's songwriter, producer, co-lead vocalist, bassist, keyboardist, and de facto leader. After signing with Capitol Records in 1962, he became the first pop musician credited for writing, arranging, producing, and performing his own material. He also produced acts such as the Honeys and American Spring. By the mid-1960s he had written or co-written more than two dozen U.S. Top 40 hits, including the number-ones "Surf City" (1963), "I Get Around" (1964), "Help Me, Rhonda" (1965), and "Good Vibrations" (1966). He is considered among the first music producer auteurs and the first rock producers to apply the studio as an instrument.
In 1964, Wilson had a nervous breakdown and resigned from regular concert touring to focus on songwriting and production. This led to works such as the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and his first credited solo release, "Caroline, No" (both 1966), as well as the unfinished album Smile. By the late 1960s, his productivity and mental health had significantly declined, leading to periods marked by reclusion, overeating, and substance abuse. His first professional comeback yielded the almost solo effort The Beach Boys Love You (1977). In the 1980s, he formed a controversial creative and business partnership with his psychologist, Eugene Landy, and relaunched his solo career with the self-titled album Brian Wilson (1988). Wilson disassociated from Landy in 1991 and toured regularly as a solo artist from 1999 to 2022.
Heralding popular music's recognition as an art form, Wilson's accomplishments as a producer helped initiate an era of unprecedented creative autonomy for label-signed acts. His songs became defining works of the early 1960s zeitgeist and he is regarded as an important figure to many music genres and movements, including the California sound, art pop, psychedelia, chamber pop, progressive music, punk, outsider, and sunshine pop. Since the 1980s, his influence has extended to styles such as post-punk, indie rock, emo, dream pop, Shibuya-kei, and chillwave. He has received numerous industry awards, multiple hall of fame inductions, and frequent inclusion in critics' lists of the greatest musicians of all time.
Brian Douglas Wilson was born on June 20, 1942, at Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood, California, the first child of Audree Neva (née Korthof) and Murry Wilson, a machinist who later pursued songwriting part-time. His ancestry includes Dutch, Scottish, English, German, Irish, and Swedish origins. Wilson's two younger brothers, Dennis and Carl, were born in 1944 and 1946. Shortly after Dennis' birth, the family moved from Inglewood to 3701 West 119th Street in nearby Hawthorne, California. Wilson, along with his siblings, suffered psychological and sporadic physical maltreatment from their father. His 2016 memoir characterizes his father as "violent" and "cruel"; however, it also suggests that certain narratives about the mistreatment had been overstated or unfounded.
From an early age, Wilson exhibited an unusually high aptitude for learning by ear. His father remembered how, after hearing only a few verses of "When the Caissons Go Rolling Along", the infant Wilson was able to reproduce its melody. Murry was a driving force in cultivating his children's musical talents. Wilson undertook six weeks of accordion lessons, and by ages seven and eight, he performed choir solos at church. His choir director declared him to have perfect pitch. When Wilson was 12 years old, his family acquired an upright piano, and he then shifted his focus from accordion. He began teaching himself to play piano by spending hours mastering his favorite songs. He learned how to write manuscript music through a friend of his father.
Wilson sang with peers at school functions, as well as with family and friends at home, and guided his two brothers in learning harmony parts, which they would rehearse together. He also played piano obsessively after school, deconstructing the harmonies of the Four Freshmen by listening to short segments of their songs on a phonograph, then working to recreate the blended sounds note by note on the keyboard. Moreover, Wilson owned an educational record titled The Instruments of the Orchestra and was a regular listener of KFWB, his favorite radio station at the time. Carl introduced him to R&B, and their uncle Charlie taught him boogie-woogie piano. Both brothers would frequently stay up listening to Johnny Otis' KFOX radio show, deliberating over its R&B tracks and incorporating them into their musical lexicon. Carl remarked that by the age of 10, Wilson "could play great boogie-woogie piano!"
Carl remembered the numerous years when Wilson's life revolved solely around listening to Four Freshmen records and playing the piano for extensive periods. Dennis portrayed his elder brother as a "freak" who preferred listening to records over activities like baseball. One of Wilson's first forays into songwriting, penned on paper when he was nine, was a reinterpretation of the lyrics to Stephen Foster's "Oh! Susannah". In his 1991 memoir, he recalls writing his first song for a 4th grade school project concerning Paul Bunyan. In a 2005 interview, he said that he began composing original music in 1955, when he was 12.
In high school, Wilson played quarterback for Hawthorne High's football team, played baseball for American Legion Ball, and ran cross-country in his senior year. At 15, he briefly worked part-time sweeping at a jewelry store, his only paid employment before his success in music. He also cleaned for his father's machining company, ABLE, on weekends. Wilson auditioned to sing for the Original Sound Record Company's inaugural record release, "Chapel of Love" (unrelated to the 1964 song), but was deemed too young. For his 16th birthday, he received a portable two-track Wollensak tape recorder, allowing him to experiment with recording songs, group vocals, and rudimentary production techniques. Wilson involved his friends around the piano and would most frequently harmonize with those from his senior class in these recordings.
Written for his Senior Problems course in October 1959, Wilson submitted an essay, "My Philosophy", in which he stated that his ambitions were to "make a name for myself [...] in music." One of Wilson's earliest public performances was at a fall arts program at his high school. He enlisted his cousin and frequent singing partner Mike Love and, to entice Carl into the group, named the newly formed membership "Carl and the Passions". They performed songs by Dion and the Belmonts and the Four Freshmen, impressing classmate and musician, Al Jardine.
Fred Morgan, Wilson's high school music teacher, noted his aptitude for learning Bach and Beethoven at 17. Nonetheless, he gave Wilson a final grade of C for his Piano and Harmony course due to incomplete assignments. Instead of a 120-measure piano sonata for his final project, Wilson submitted a shorter 32-measure piece, earning an F. Reflecting on his last year of high school, Wilson said that he was "very happy. I wouldn't say I was popular in school, but I was associated with popular people."
In September 1960, Wilson enrolled as a psychology major at El Camino College in Los Angeles, also pursuing music. Disappointed by his teachers' disdain for pop music, he withdrew from college after about 18 months. By his account, he crafted his first entirely original melody, "Surfer Girl", in 1961, inspired by a Dion and the Belmonts rendition of "When You Wish Upon a Star". However, his close high school friends disputed his claim, recalling earlier original compositions from him.
The three Wilson brothers, Love, and Jardine debuted their first music group together, called "the Pendletones", in the autumn of 1961. At Dennis's suggestion, Brian and Love co-wrote the group's first song, "Surfin'". After practicing in the Wilsons' music room, Murry became their manager and prepared for their initial studio session.
Produced by Hite and Dorinda Morgan on Candix Records, "Surfin'" became a hit in Los Angeles and reached 75 on the national Billboard sales charts. However, the group's name was changed by Candix Records to the Beach Boys. Their major live debut was at the Ritchie Valens Memorial Dance on New Year's Eve, 1961. Just days before, Wilson had received an electric bass from his father, quickly learning to play with Jardine switching to rhythm guitar.
When Candix Records faced financial difficulties and sold the Beach Boys' master recordings to another label, Murry ended their contract. As "Surfin'" faded from the charts, Wilson collaborated with local musician Gary Usher to produce demo recordings for new tracks, including "409" and "Surfin' Safari". Capitol Records were persuaded to release the demos as a single, achieving a double-sided national hit.
In 1962, Wilson and the Beach Boys signed a seven-year contract with Capitol Records under producer Nick Venet. During sessions for their debut album, Surfin' Safari, Wilson negotiated with Capitol to record the band outside the label’s basement studios, which he deemed ill-suited for his group. At Wilson’s insistence, Capitol permitted the Beach Boys to fund their own external sessions while retaining all rights to the recordings. He also secured production control over the album, though he was not credited for this role in the liner notes.
Wilson reflected, "I've always felt I was a behind-the-scenes man, rather than an entertainer." Inspired by producer Phil Spector, whose work with the Teddy Bears he admired, Wilson sought to emulate Spector’s career path. Collaborating with songwriter Gary Usher, he composed numerous songs patterned after the Teddy Bears’ style and produced records for local talent, though without commercial breakthrough. His first uncredited production outside the Beach Boys was Rachel and the Revolvers’ "The Revo-Lution", co-written with Usher and released by Dot Records in September. Interference from Wilson's father eventually led to the dissolution of his partnership with Usher.
By mid-1962, Wilson was writing with disc jockey Roger Christian, whom he met via Murry or Usher, and with guitarist Bob Norberg, who later became his roommate. Bandmate David Marks later recalled Wilson’s obsession with music, stating he wrote songs "with people off the street ... [and] had so much stuff flowing through him he could hardly handle it." In October 1962, Safari Records—a short-lived label founded by Murry—released the single "The Surfer Moon" by Bob & Sheri, the first record to credit Brian as producer. The label’s only other release was Bob & Sheri’s "Humpty Dumpty", with both songs written by Wilson.
From January to March 1963, Wilson produced the Beach Boys' second album, Surfin' U.S.A., limiting his public appearances with the group to television gigs and local shows to prioritize studio work. Marks substituted for him on vocals during other performances. In March, Capitol released "Surfin' U.S.A.", the Beach Boys' first top-ten single. The accompanying album peaked at number two on the Billboard charts by July, cementing the Beach Boys as a major commercial act.
Against Venet's wishes, Wilson collaborated with artists outside Capitol, including the Liberty Records duo Jan and Dean. After meeting the pair in August, Wilson co-wrote "Surf City" with Jan Berry, which topped U.S. charts in July 1963, his first composition to do so. The song's success revitalized Jan and Dean's faltering career. Capitol and Wilson’s father disapproved of the collaboration; Murry demanded his son cease working with the duo, though they continued to appear on each other's recordings.
Around this time, Wilson began producing the Rovell Sisters, a girl group consisting of sisters Marilyn and Diane Rovell and their cousin Ginger Blake, whom he met at a Beach Boys concert during the previous August. Wilson pitched the group to Capitol as "the Honeys", a female counterpart to the Beach Boys. The company released several Honeys records as singles, though they sold poorly. He grew close to the Rovell family and resided primarily at their home through 1963 and 1964. The group's fourth single "He's a Doll", released in April 1964, exemplified his attempts to become an entrepreneurial producer like Spector.
Wilson was first officially credited as the Beach Boys' producer on their album Surfer Girl, recorded in June and July 1963 and released that September. This LP reached number seven on the national charts, with similarly successful singles. He also produced the car-themed album Little Deuce Coupe, released just three weeks after Surfer Girl. Still resistant to touring, Jardine stepped in as his live substitute. By late 1963, Marks' departure necessitated Wilson's return to the touring lineup. By the end of the year, Wilson had written, arranged, or produced 42 songs for other acts.
Throughout 1964, Wilson toured internationally with the Beach Boys while writing and producing their albums Shut Down Volume 2 (March), All Summer Long (June), and The Beach Boys' Christmas Album (November). Following a particularly stressful Australasian tour in early 1964, the group dismissed Murry as their manager. Murry maintained occasional contact with Wilson, offering unsolicited advice on the group’s business decisions. Wilson also continued to solicit his father’s opinions on musical matters.
In February, Beatlemania swept the U.S., a development that deeply concerned Wilson, who felt the Beach Boys' supremacy had been threatened by the British Invasion. Reflecting in 1966, he said, "The Beatles invasion shook me up a lot. [...] So we stepped on the gas a little bit." The Beach Boys’ May 1964 single "I Get Around", their first U.S. number-one hit, is identified by scholar James Perone as representing both a successful response by Wilson to the British Invasion and the beginning of an unofficial rivalry between him and the Beatles, principally Paul McCartney. The B-side, "Don't Worry Baby", was cited by Wilson in a 1970 interview as "Probably the best record we've done".
By late 1964, Wilson faced mounting psychological strain from career pressures. He began distancing himself from the Beach Boys’ surf-themed material, which had ceased following the All Summer Long track "Don't Back Down". During the group's first major European tour, a reporter asked how he had felt about originating the surfing sound, to which he responded by saying he had aimed to "produce a sound that teens dig, and that can be applied to any theme." Exhausted by his self-described "Mr Everything" role, he later expressed feeling mentally drained and unable to rest. Adding to his concerns was the group's "business operations" and the quality of their records, which he believed suffered from this arrangement.
On December 23, 1964, Wilson was to accompany his bandmates for a two-week U.S. tour, but during a flight from Los Angeles to Houston, he experienced a breakdown, sobbing uncontrollably due to stress over his recent marriage to Marilyn Rovell. Jardine recalled, "None of us had ever witnessed something like that." Wilson played the show in Houston later that day, but was replaced by session musician Glen Campbell for the rest of the tour dates. Wilson, speaking in 1966, described it as "the first of a series of three breakdowns I had." When the group resumed recording their next album in January 1965, Wilson declared to his bandmates that he would be withdrawing from future tours. Wilson attributed his decision partly to a "fucked up" jealousy of Spector and the Beatles.
Campbell continued substituting for Wilson on tour until February 1965, after which Wilson produced Campbell's solo single, "Guess I'm Dumb", as a gesture of appreciation. Columbia Records staff producer Bruce Johnston was subsequently hired as Wilson’s permanent touring replacement.
With his bandmates frequently touring, Wilson grew socially distant from the Beach Boys. In late 1964, he had relocated to a one-bedroom apartment at 7235 Hollywood Boulevard, where he began cultivating a new social circle through music industry connections. Biographer Steven Gaines writes that this period marked Wilson’s first independence from familial oversight, allowing friendships without "parental interference." Wilson befriended talent agent Loren Schwartz, whom he met at a Hollywood studio. Through Schwartz, Wilson engaged with literature on philosophy and world religions, sparking his interest in mystical topics. Schwartz also introduced Wilson to marijuana and hashish; his habitual use of these substances, combined with his frequent visits to Schwartz’s apartment, contributed to marital tensions with his wife Marilyn. His first song composed under the influence of marijuana was "Please Let Me Wonder" (1965).
Throughout 1965, Wilson's musical ambitions progressed significantly with the albums The Beach Boys Today! (March) and Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) (June). Weeks after relocating to an apartment on West Hollywood's Gardner Street with his wife early in the year, Wilson took the psychedelic drug LSD (or "acid") for the first time under Schwartz’s supervision.. Wilson later said of the experience, "I took LSD and it just tore my head off. [...] You just come to grips with what you are, what you can do [and] can't do, and learn to face it." During the experience, he composed portions of the Beach Boys' single "California Girls". He later described the session for the song's backing track, held on April 6, as his "favorite", and the opening orchestral section as "the greatest piece of music that I've ever written." However, he attributed persistent paranoia later that year to his LSD use.
After unsuccessful efforts to distance Wilson from Schwartz, Marilyn temporarily separated from him. She later reflected on the strain caused by his drug-associated social circle, stating, “He was not the same Brian […] These people were very hurtful, and I tried to get that through to Brian.” The couple soon reconciled, and, in late 1965, moved into a newly purchased home at 1448 Laurel Way in Beverly Hills. The house often filled with visitors, though Wilson later stated he “didn’t mind” so long as he could retreat to “sit [and] think.”
Wilson recalled that after relocating to his Beverly Hills home, he experienced an unexpected surge of creativity, working for hours at his "big Spanish table" to develop new musical ideas. He acknowledged heavy drug use, stating, "I was taking [...] a lot of pills, and it fouled me up for a while. It got me really introspective". Over five months, he planned an album that would elevate his music to "a spiritual level".
In December 1965, Wilson enlisted jingle writer Tony Asher as his lyricist for the Beach Boys’ next album, Pet Sounds (May 1966). He produced most of the album between January and April 1966 across multiple Hollywood studios, mainly employing his bandmates for singing vocal parts and session musicians for the backing tracks. Reflecting on the album, Wilson highlighted the instrumental “Let's Go Away for Awhile” as his "most satisfying piece of music" at the time and "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" as a partially autobiographical song "about a guy who was crying because he thought he was too advanced". In a 1995 interview, he called "Caroline, No" “probably the best [song] I’ve ever written.”
The album’s lead single, “Caroline, No”, released in March 1966, became Wilson’s first solo credit, sparking speculation about his potential departure from the Beach Boys. Wilson later said, “I explained to [the group], ‘It’s OK. It is only a temporary rift […] I wanted to step out a little bit.’” The single peaked at number 32, while Pet Sounds reached number 10. Wilson was "mortified" that his artistic growth had failed to translate into a number-one album. Marilyn stated, "When it wasn't received by the public the way he thought it would be received, it made him hold back. ... but he didn't stop. He couldn't stop. He needed to create more."
Through mutual connections, Wilson met Derek Taylor, the Beatles’ former press officer, who became the Beach Boys’ publicist in 1966. At Wilson’s request, Taylor launched a media campaign to elevate his public image, promoting him as a "genius". Taylor's reputation and outreach bolstered the album's critical success in the UK. However, Wilson later expressed resentment toward the “genius” label, which he felt heightened unrealistic expectations for his work. Bandmates including Mike Love and Carl Wilson also grew frustrated as media coverage increasingly centered on Wilson, overshadowing the group’s collaborative efforts.
Through late 1966, Wilson worked extensively on the Beach Boys’ single "Good Vibrations", which topped the U.S. charts in December, and began collaborating with session musician Van Dyke Parks on Smile, the planned follow-up to Pet Sounds. Wilson touted Smile as a “teenage symphony to God” and his expanding social and professional circle increasingly influenced his business and creative affairs. Parks said that, eventually, "it wasn't just Brian and me in a room; it was Brian and me ... and all kinds of self-interested people pulling him in various directions." Television producer David Oppenheim, who visited Wilson's home while filming the 1967 documentary Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution, characterized the attended scenes as “a playpen of irresponsible people.”
Smile was never finished, due in large part to Wilson's worsening mental condition and exhaustion. Associates often cite late 1966 as a turning point, coinciding with erratic behavior during sessions for the track "Fire" (or "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow"). In April 1967, Wilson and his wife relocated to a newly purchased mansion on 10452 Bellagio Road in Bel Air. There, Wilson began constructing a personal home studio. By this time, most of his recent associates had departed or been excluded from his life.
In May, Derek Taylor announced that Smile had been "scrapped".. Wilson explained in a 1968 interview, "We pulled out [...] because I was about ready to die. I was trying so hard. So, all of a sudden I decided not to try any more." That July, the Beach Boys released “Heroes and Villains” as a single; its mixed critical and commercial reception further strained Wilson’s morale, with biographers citing it as a factor in his professional and psychological decline. He later acknowledged that upholding his industry reputation "was a really big thing for me" and that he had grown weary of demands to produce "great orchestral stuff all the time".
Beginning with Smiley Smile (September 1967), the band shifted recording operations to Wilson's studio, where they worked intermittently until 1972. The album marked the first time production was credited to the group collectively instead of Wilson alone. Producer Terry Melcher attributed this change to Wilson’s reluctance to risk individual scrutiny, saying he no longer wanted to "put his stamp on records" for peers to criticize. In August 1967, Wilson briefly rejoined the band for two live performances in Honolulu, recorded for an unfinished live album titled Lei'd in Hawaii.
During sessions for Wild Honey (December 1967), Wilson encouraged his brother Carl to contribute more to the record-making process. He also began producing tracks for Danny Hutton's group Redwood, recording three songs including "Time to Get Alone" and "Darlin'", but the project was halted by Carl and Mike Love, who urged Brian to prioritize Beach Boys commitments. The band's June 1968 album Friends was recorded during a period of emotional recovery for Wilson. While the album featured increased contributions from other members, Wilson remained central to the project, even on tracks he did not write. He later described Friends as his second “solo album” (after Pet Sounds) as well as his favorite Beach Boys album.
For the remainder of 1968, Wilson's songwriting output declined substantially, as did his emotional state, leading him to self-medicate with the excessive consumption of food, alcohol, and drugs. As the Beach Boys faced impending financial collapse, he began to supplement his regular use of amphetamines and marijuana with cocaine, which Hutton had introduced to him. Hutton later stated that Wilson expressed suicidal ideation during this period, describing it as the onset of Wilson's "real decline".
In mid-1968, Wilson was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, possibly voluntarily. His hospitalization was kept private, and his bandmates proceeded with recording sessions for 20/20 (February 1969) during his absence. Once discharged later in the year, Wilson rarely finished any tracks for the band, leaving much of his subsequent output for Carl to complete. Journalist Nik Cohn wrote in 1968 that Wilson had become the subject of rumors describing him as "increasingly withdrawn", "brooding", and "hermitic" [sic], with occasional sightings of him "in the back of some limousine, cruising around Hollywood, bleary and unshaven, huddled way tight into himself."
Wilson typically stayed secluded upstairs while the group recorded below, joining sessions only to suggest revisions to music he had overheard. He occasionally emerged from his bedroom to preview new songs for the group. Melcher likened these appearances to Aesop delivering a new fable. According to Mike Love, Wilson had "lost interest in the mechanical aspect" of recording, deferring technical work to Carl. Band engineer Stephen Desper said that Wilson remained "indirectly involved" with the group's productions through Carl.
Conversely, Dennis Wilson stated that Brian had "no involvement at all" with the band beginning with the 20/20 sessions, forcing them to salvage and assemble fragments of his earlier work. He also refuted claims that the Beach Boys excluded Brian, explaining that he repeatedly visited Brian’s home to prioritize his health over recording. Marilyn recalled that her husband withdrew because of perceived resentment from the group: "It was like, 'OK, you assholes, you think you can do as good as me or whatever—go ahead—you do it. You think it's so easy? You do it.'" According to Desper, Brian’s reduced contributions stemmed from "limited hours in the day", as well as his aversion to confrontation, stating "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."
Journalist Brian Chidester later coined the term "Bedroom Tapes" to refer to Wilson's unreleased output between 1968 and 1975, most of which remains unheard publicly. Wilson's daughter Wendy recalled his creative process during this period, "Where other people might take a run to release some stress, he would go to the piano and write a 5-minute song."
Early in 1969, the Beach Boys commenced recording Sunflower (August 1970), during which Wilson contributed numerous songs, though most were excluded from the album's final track selection. He co-wrote and produced the single "Break Away" with his father in early 1969, after which he largely withdrew from studio work until August. At the time, the group faced difficulties securing a new record deal, attributed by Gaines to Wilson’s diminished standing in the industry. In May 1969, Wilson disclosed the band’s near-bankruptcy to reporters, a statement that derailed negotiations with Deutsche Grammophon and nearly jeopardized their upcoming European tour. That July, he opened a short-lived health food store, the Radiant Radish, with cousin Steve Korthof and associate Arny Geller.
In August, the Beach Boys' publishing company, Sea of Tunes, sold their song catalog to Irving Almo Music for $700,000 (equivalent to $6 million in 2024). Wilson signed the consent form under pressure from his father. Marilyn later stated that the sale emotionally devastated him: “It killed him. Killed him. I don't think he talked for days. [...] Brian took it as Murry not believing in him anymore.” During this period, Wilson reportedly engaged in self-destructive behavior, including an attempt to drive off a cliff and a demand to be buried in a backyard grave he had dug. He channeled his despondence into writing "'Til I Die", later calling the song a summation of "everything I had to say at the time."
Later in 1969, Wilson produced poet Stephen Kalinich's spoken-word album A World of Peace Must Come. That November, the Beach Boys signed to Reprise Records, a subsidiary of Warner Bros., with contractual terms requiring Wilson’s active participation in their albums. Van Dyke Parks, who brokered the deal, recalled that the band were "considered a problem at that time", and the label "just wanted Brian Wilson to come over and write some songs." During negotiations, Wilson attended a meeting with label executives wearing bright green face paint. Asked why he did this, Wilson responded, "Just seeing what would happen."
In March 1970, Wilson briefly substituted for Mike Love on tour, later calling it "the best three days of my life, I guess." In April, he attempted to produce a country and western album for co-manager Fred Vail, later known as Cows in the Pasture. By mid‑1970, Wilson was reported to be working on a "chorus of frogs" piece for Kalinich and had contemplated scoring an Andy Warhol film about a homosexual surfer.
Wilson's disappointment over the poor commercial reception of Sunflower led him to reduce his contributions to subsequent Beach Boys recordings. Bruce Johnston described his involvement in the Surf's Up sessions (August 1971) as that of "a visitor." In November 1970, Wilson performed with the band at the Whisky a Go Go for one-and-a-half dates. Intense discomfort had forced him to leave mid-performance during the second show. Following this experience, he told Melody Maker that although he was "quite happy living at home", he felt less creative and less engaged with the band. He described himself as "a kind of drop-out".
In September 1971, Wilson told a reporter he had recently returned to arranging rather than writing. In December, at a Long Beach concert, manager Jack Rieley persuaded Wilson to perform with the Beach Boys, though his appearance lasted only minutes. In February 1972, at an America gig at the Whisky a Go Go, Dan Peek recalled that Wilson “held court like a Mad King as Danny Hutton scurried about like his court jester.”
From late 1971 to early 1972, Wilson and musician David Sandler collaborated on Spring, the first album by Marilyn Wilson and Diane Rovell's new group, American Spring. As with much of his work in this period, the extent of his contributions varied, but it was his most involved production effort since Friends in 1968. During the recording of Carl and the Passions (April 1972), Wilson rarely left his bedroom, though Blondie Chaplin recalled, "when he came down his contribution was amazing." Wilson's unavailability was such that his image had to be superimposed into the group portrait included in the record's inner sleeve.
During the summer of 1972, Wilson joined his bandmates when they temporarily relocated to Holland after persistent persuasion. Residing in a Dutch house known as "Flowers" and repeatedly listening to Randy Newman's album Sail Away, he was inspired to write a fairy tale, Mount Vernon and Fairway, drawing on memories of listening to the radio at Mike Love's family home during his youth. The group declined to include the fairy tale on their next album, Holland (January 1973), and instead released it as a bonus EP packaged with the album. In 1973, Jan Berry (under the alias JAN) released the single "Don't You Just Know It", a duet featuring Wilson. That April, Wilson briefly joined his bandmates onstage during an encore at the Hollywood Palladium.
After his father's death in June 1973, Wilson secluded himself in the chauffeur's quarters of his home, where he spent his time sleeping, abusing drugs and alcohol, overeating, and exhibiting self-destructive behavior. He rarely ventured outside wearing anything but pajamas and later said that his father's death "had a lot to do with my retreating". Wilson's family were eventually forced to take control of his financial affairs due to his irresponsible drug expenditures. This led Wilson to occasionally wander the city, begging for rides, drugs, and alcohol.
According to Wilson, from 1974 to 1975, his output was confined to only minimal, fragmentary recordings, attributing this limitation to a diminished capacity for sustained concentration. He elaborated that he had been preoccupied with snorting cocaine, reading magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse, and "hanging out with Danny Hutton", whose Laurel Canyon house had become the center of Wilson's social life. Although increasingly reclusive during the day, Wilson spent many nights at Hutton's house fraternizing with colleagues such as Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop, who were mutually bemused by an extended Wilson-led singalong of the folk song "Shortnin' Bread". Other visitors of Hutton's home included Harry Nilsson, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and Keith Moon. On several occasions, Marilyn Wilson sent her friends to climb Hutton's fence and retrieve her husband. In 1974, Wilson interrupted a set by jazz musician Larry Coryell at The Troubadour by leaping on stage and singing "Be-Bop-A-Lula" while wearing slippers and a bathrobe.
Many reported anecdotes involving Wilson in the early 1970s, though frequently of questionable veracity, attained a legendary status. Recalling Wilson's wellbeing at the time, John Sebastian said, "It wasn't all grimness." Jeff Foskett, then a Beach Boys fan who had visited Wilson's home unannounced, similarly commented that Wilson had responded cordially to the visit and had belied the popular myths surrounding him. Wilson also participated in some recording sessions for Nilsson's "Salmon Falls" and Keith Moon's solo album, Two Sides of the Moon.
The Beach Boys' greatest hits compilation Endless Summer was a surprise success, becoming the band's second number-one U.S. album in October 1974. To take advantage of their sudden resurgence in popularity, Wilson agreed to join his bandmates in Colorado for the recording of a new album at James William Guercio's Caribou Ranch studio. The group completed a few tracks, including "Child of Winter (Christmas Song)", but ultimately abandoned the project. Released as a single at the end of December 1974, "Child of Winter" was their first record that displayed the credit "Produced by Brian Wilson" since 1966.
Early in 1975, while still under contract with Warner Bros., Wilson signed a short-lived sideline production deal with Bruce Johnston and Terry Melcher's Equinox Records. Together, they founded the loose-knit supergroup known as California Music, which also included involvement from Gary Usher, Curt Boettcher, and other Los Angeles musicians. Along with his guest appearances on Johnny Rivers' rendition of "Help Me, Rhonda" and Jackie DeShannon's "Boat to Sail", Wilson's production of California Music's single "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" represents his only "serious" work throughout this period of semi-inactivity.
Wilson's increased consumption of food, cigarettes, alcohol, and other drugs—including heroin—strained his marriage to Marilyn, who threatened divorce or institutionalization. By this time, his weight had reached 240 pounds (110 kg). In 1975, to address his declining health, band manager Stephen Love appointed his brother Stan, a professional basketball player, as Wilson's bodyguard, trainer, and caretaker. Marilyn also enlisted the band's lawyers and accountants to remind Wilson of his contractual obligation with Warner Bros. to write and produce for the Beach Boys under threat of legal action and loss of his home. According to Stan, Wilson’s growing resentment led him to frequently announce his withdrawal from the Beach Boys, but his bandmates persisted. Although Stan improved Wilson's health over several months, he soon returned to his NBA commitments. Subsequently, Wilson entered psychologist Eugene Landy’s intensive 24-hour therapy program in October.
Under Landy's care, Wilson stabilized and became more socially engaged, renewing his productivity. In 1976, the slogan "Brian's Back!" was widely used to promote the Beach Boys' concert tours and the July release of 15 Big Ones, the first album since Pet Sounds to list Wilson as the sole producer. Recording sessions were tense, as his bandmates opposed his proposal for a covers album and questioned his readiness to lead studio proceedings. Ultimately, a compromise was reached, and the album featured a mix of covers and original material.
Beginning on July 2, 1976, Wilson resumed regular performances with the band for the first time since December 1964, singing and alternating between bass guitar and piano. In August, he toured outside California for the first time since March 1970. NBC premiered a Lorne Michaels–produced television special, titled The Beach Boys, featuring recent concert footage, interviews, and a comedy sketch with Wilson alongside NBC's Saturday Night (later Saturday Night Live) cast members Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. Despite the promotional success of "Brian's Back!", the campaign was controversial. Wilson's remarks in interviews implied he had not fully recovered from his addictions; on one occasion, he remarked that he "felt like a prisoner." A concert reviewer noted that he "seemed uncomfortable on stage" and contributed "nil".
From October 1976 to January 1977, Wilson produced a collection of recordings largely on his own while his bandmates pursued other creative and personal endeavors. Released in April 1977, The Beach Boys Love You was the band's first album to feature Wilson as the primary composer since Wild Honey in 1967. Originally titled Brian Loves You, the album showcased Wilson playing nearly every instrument. Band engineer Earle Mankey described it as Wilson's effort to create a "serious, autobiographical" work. In a 1998 interview, Wilson listed 15 Big Ones and Love You as his two favorite Beach Boys albums.
At the end of 1976, Wilson’s family and management dismissed Landy after he raised his monthly fee to $20,000 (equivalent to $111,000 in 2024). Shortly afterward, Wilson told a journalist he considered the treatment successful despite the high cost. Landy’s role was immediately assumed by his cousins, Steve Korthof and Stan Love, along with professional model Rocky Pamplin—a college friend of Stan. Under their supervision, Wilson maintained a healthy, drug-free lifestyle for several months.
In early 1977, Wilson produced Adult/Child, intended as the follow-up to Love You, but some bandmates voiced concerns about the work, leading to its non-release. In March, the Beach Boys signed with CBS Records, whose contract required Wilson to compose most of the material for all subsequent albums. According to Gaines, Wilson was distraught at the prospect. In reference to the sessions for M.I.U. Album (October 1978), Wilson described experiencing a "mental blank-out". He was credited as the album's "executive producer". Stan noted that Wilson was "depressed" and reluctant to write with Mike, though Mike persisted in trying to collaborate. Around this time, Wilson attempted to produce an album for Pamplin that would have featured the Honeys as backing vocalists.
After a disastrous Australian tour in 1978, Wilson regressed and began secretly acquiring cocaine and barbiturates. In mid-1978, following an overdose, he left his family and hitchhiked in West Hollywood, eventually arriving at a gay bar where he played piano for drinks. A bar patron then drove him to Mexico, after which he hitchhiked to San Diego. Days later, police found him in Balboa Park without shoes, money, or a wallet, and he was taken to Alvarado Hospital for detox from alcohol poisoning. After his discharge, Wilson rejoined his bandmates for the recording of L.A. (Light Album) (March 1979), but after producing demos and early recordings, he asked that Bruce Johnston take over the project.
With his marriage unraveling, Wilson left his mansion in Beverly Hills for a modest home on Sunset Boulevard, where his alcoholism worsened. After attacking his doctor during a visit, he was institutionalized at Brotzman Memorial Hospital for several months—initially admitted in November 1978 for three months, discharged for one month, then readmitted. In January 1979, while hospitalized, his caregivers Stan Love and Rocky Pamplin were dismissed. Wilson was released in March. Following his release, he rented a house in Santa Monica and was cared for by a "round-the-clock" psychiatric nursing team. Later, he purchased a home in Pacific Palisades. Although his bandmates urged him to produce their next album, Keepin' the Summer Alive (March 1980), he was unable or unwilling to do so.
Wilson remained engrossed in his overeating and drug habits, influenced in part by Dennis. To motivate Wilson in his musical endeavors, Dennis occasionally provided him with McDonald's hamburgers and cocaine. Jon Stebbins' biography of Dennis describes clandestine recording sessions between the brothers, which were hidden due to efforts by "certain members of the Beach Boys clan" to keep them apart. Discovering their collaboration often led to a halt in the proceedings. Bootlegged tapes of the brothers' collaborations—produced in 1980 and 1981 at the Venice Beach home studio of musicologist and film executive Garby Leon—later became known among fans as the "cocaine sessions" or "hamburger sessions".
In early 1981, Pamplin and Stan Love were convicted of assaulting Dennis at his home after learning that Dennis had been providing Wilson with drugs. In early 1982, Wilson signed a trust document granting Carl control of his finances and voting power in the band's corporate structure, and he was involuntarily admitted for a three-day stay at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica. By that time, his diet included as many as four or five steaks per day, along with substantial quantities of ice cream, cookies, and cakes. By the end of the year, his weight exceeded 340 pounds (150 kg).
In 1982, after overdosing on alcohol, cocaine, and other drugs, his family and management staged an elaborate ruse to persuade him to reenter Landy’s program. When approached by the band, Landy agreed to resume treatment only if granted complete control over Wilson's affairs and promised rehabilitation within two years. On November 5, the group falsely informed Wilson that he was destitute and no longer a Beach Boy, insisting he reenlist Landy as his caretaker to continue receiving his touring income.
Wilson acquiesced and was taken to Hawaii, where he was isolated from friends and family and placed on a strict diet and health regimen. Combined with counseling sessions that retaught him basic social etiquette, the treatment restored his physical health. By March 1983, he had returned to Los Angeles and was moved, under Landy's direction, to a Malibu home where he lived with several of Landy's aides and was cut off from many of his own friends and family, including his children and ex-wife Marilyn.
Between 1983 and 1986, Landy charged approximately $430,000 annually (equivalent to $1.36 million in 2024). When he requested additional funds, Carl Wilson was obliged to allocate a quarter of Brian's publishing royalties. Landy gradually assumed the role of Wilson's creative and financial partner, eventually representing him at Brother Records, Inc. corporate meetings. Landy was accused of creating a Svengali-like environment by controlling every aspect of Wilson's life—including his musical direction. Wilson countered these claims, stating, "People say that Dr. Landy runs my life, but the truth is, I'm in charge." He later claimed that in mid-1985 he attempted suicide by swimming as far out to sea as possible before one of Landy's aides retrieved him.
As Wilson's recovery consolidated, he participated in recording The Beach Boys (June 1985), a release touted as his "comeback". He then curtailed regular collaborations with the band to pursue a solo career under Landy's guidance. In 1986, he worked with former collaborator Gary Usher at Usher's studio, producing roughly a dozen songs—most unreleased—with one track, "Let's Go to Heaven in My Car", appearing on the Police Academy 3 (1986) soundtrack. This body of work became known as "the Wilson Project".
During this period, Wilson occasionally rejoined his bandmates on stage and performed his first ever solo gigs at several charity concerts around Los Angeles. In January 1987, he accepted a solo contract from Sire Records president Seymour Stein, mandated co-production by multi-instrumentalist Andy Paley to keep Wilson focused. In return, Landy was allowed to serve as executive producer. Other producers, including Russ Titelman and Lenny Waronker, soon joined the project, and conflicts with Landy emerged throughout the recording sessions.
Released in July 1988, Brian Wilson received favorable reviews and moderate sales, peaking at number 52 in the U.S. The album featured "Rio Grande", an eight-minute Western suite reminiscent of songs from Smile. Its release was largely overshadowed by the controversy surrounding Landy and the success of the Beach Boys' "Kokomo", their first number-one hit since "Good Vibrations" and the first without Wilson's involvement. By 1990, Wilson was estranged from the Beach Boys, with his bandmates scheduling recording sessions without him and twice rejecting his offers to produce an album, according to Brother Records president Elliot Lott.
In 1989, Wilson and Landy formed the company Brains and Genius. By then, Landy was no longer legally recognized as Wilson's therapist and had surrendered his California psychology license. Together, they worked on Wilson's second solo album, Sweet Insanity, with Landy co-writing nearly all the material. Sire rejected the album due to Landy's lyrics and the inclusion of Wilson's rap song "Smart Girls". In May 1989, Wilson recorded "Daddy's Little Girl" for the film She's Out of Control, and in June, he was among the featured guests on the charity single "The Spirit of the Forest".
In October 1991, Wilson published his first memoir, Wouldn't It Be Nice: My Own Story. Biographer Peter Ames Carlin noted that the book plagiarized excerpts from earlier biographies and ranged from harsh criticisms of his bandmates to passages resembling legal depositions. The memoir prompted defamation lawsuits from Mike Love, Al Jardine, Carl Wilson, and his mother, Audree Wilson. After a conservatorship suit filed by his family in May 1991, Wilson and Landy's partnership was dissolved in December, followed by a restraining order.
Throughout the 1990s, Wilson was embroiled in numerous lawsuits. In August 1989, he had filed a $100 million suit against Irving Music to reclaim song publishing rights sold by his father decades earlier. Although he did not regain the rights, he secured a $10 million out-of-court settlement in April 1992. The next month, Wilson was sued by Mike Love over long-neglected royalties and songwriting credits. In December 1994, a jury ruled in favor of Love, awarding him $5 million and a share of future royalties from Wilson. In September 1995, Wilson sued his former conservator, Jerome Billet, seeking $10 million for alleged failures in supervising the lawyers handling the Irving Music and Love lawsuits. According to his second wife Melinda, when they married in 1995, Wilson was entangled in nine separate lawsuits, many unresolved until the early 2000s.
Wilson's productivity had increased significantly after his disassociation from Landy. The day after the restraining order had been placed against Landy, Wilson renewed his songwriting partnership with Andy Paley, and together they composed and recorded a substantial body of material intended for a proposed Beach Boys album throughout the early to mid-1990s. Concurrently, Wilson collaborated with musician Don Was on the documentary Brian Wilson: I Just Wasn't Made for These Times (1995), whose soundtrack—comprising rerecorded Beach Boys songs—was released in August as his second solo album.
In 1993, Wilson agreed to record an album of songs written and composed by Van Dyke Parks, which was credited to the duo and released as Orange Crate Art in October 1995. In the late 1990s, Wilson and Tony Asher rekindled their writing partnership, and one of their songs, "Everything I Need", appeared on The Wilsons (1997)—a project by his daughters Carnie and Wendy that included select contributions from Wilson.
Although some recordings with the Beach Boys were completed, the Wilson–Paley project was eventually abandoned. Instead, Wilson co-produced the band's 1996 album Stars and Stripes Vol. 1 with Joe Thomas, owner of River North Records and a former professional wrestler. In 1997, Wilson relocated to St. Charles, Illinois, to work on a solo project with Thomas. His third solo album, Imagination (June 1998)—which he described as "really a Brian Wilson/Joe Thomas album"—peaked at number 88 in the U.S. and received criticism for its homogenized radio pop sound. Shortly before the album's release, Wilson suffered the loss of his brother Carl and their mother Audree.
Some reports from this period suggested that Wilson had been pressured into a career and exploited by those close to him, including Melinda. His daughter Carnie nicknamed Ledbetter "Melandy", while family friend Ginger Blake described Wilson as "complacent and basically surrendered". Mike Love stated his willingness to reunite the Beach Boys with Wilson but remarked that "Brian usually has someone in his life who tells him what to do. And now that person kinda wants to keep him away from us. I don't know why. You'd have to ask her, I guess." When asked if he still considered himself a Beach Boy, Wilson responded, "No. Maybe a little bit." Debate persisted among fans over whether Wilson fully consented to his semi-regular touring schedule through the 2010s.
From March to July 1999, Wilson embarked on his first ever solo tour, playing about a dozen dates in the U.S. and Japan. His supporting band included former Beach Boys touring musician Jeff Foskett (guitar), Wondermints members Darian Sahanaja (keyboards), Nick Walusko (guitar), Mike D'Amico (percussion, drums), and Probyn Gregory (guitar, horns); along with Chicago-based session musicians Scott Bennett (various), Paul Mertens (woodwinds), Bob Lizik (bass), Todd Sucherman (drums), and Taylor Mills (backing vocals). Wilson toured the U.S. again in October. In 2000, he stated, "I feel much more comfortable on stage now. I have a good band behind me. It's a much better band than the Beach Boys were."
In August 1999, Wilson filed suit against Thomas, seeking damages and a declaration that he could work on his next album without Thomas's involvement. Thomas counter-sued, alleging that Wilson's wife had "schemed against and manipulated" him and Wilson; the case was later settled out of court.
Early in 2000, Wilson released his first live album, Live at the Roxy Theatre. Later that year, he embarked on U.S. tour dates featuring the first full live performances of Pet Sounds, with Wilson backed by a 55-piece orchestra. Van Dyke Parks was commissioned to write an overture arrangement of Wilson's songs. Critic Geoff Edgers likened the tour's historical significance to the reemergence of Syd Barrett or J.D. Salinger after decades in seclusion. Although critics praised the tour, it suffered from poor attendance and resulted in financial losses amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars. In March 2001, Wilson attended a tribute show held in his honor at Radio City Music Hall in New York, where he performed "Heroes and Villains" publicly for the first time in decades.
The Pet Sounds tour was followed by another in 2002, this time playing in Europe, with a sold-out four-night residency at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Recordings from these concerts were issued as the live album Brian Wilson Presents Pet Sounds Live (June 2002). Over the next year, Wilson continued sporadic recording sessions for his fourth solo album, Gettin' In over My Head. Released in June 2004, the record featured guest appearances from Van Dyke Parks, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, and Elton John. Some of the songs were leftovers from Wilson's past collaborations with Paley and Thomas.
To the surprise of his associates, Wilson agreed to follow the Pet Sounds tours with concert dates featuring songs from the unfinished Smile album. Sahanaja assisted with sequencing and Parks contributed additional lyrics. Brian Wilson Presents Smile (BWPS) premiered at the Royal Festival Hall in London in February 2004 and its positive reception led to a subsequent studio album adaptation. Wilson's engineer Mark Linett recalled that when he handed Wilson the CD of the completed album, "I swear you could see something change in him. And he's been different ever since." According to Sahanaja, Wilson held the CD to his chest, remarking, "I'm going to hold this dear to my heart", while visibly trembling.
Released in September, BWPS debuted at number 13 on the Billboard 200, the highest chart position for any album by the Beach Boys or Brian Wilson since 1976's 15 Big Ones and the highest ever debut for a Beach Boys-related album. It was later certified platinum. In support of BWPS, Wilson embarked on a world tour covering the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Sahanaja told Australian Musician, "In six years of touring this is the happiest we've ever seen Brian, I mean consistently happy". In July 2005, Wilson performed at the Live 8 in Berlin, an event watched by about three million viewers on television.
In September 2005, Wilson organized a charity drive for Hurricane Katrina victims, offering a personal phone call for donations of $100 or more and raising over $250,000. In November, Mike Love filed a lawsuit alleging that Wilson misappropriated his songs, likeness, the Beach Boys trademark, and the "Smile" album in connection with BWPS. The suit was ultimately dismissed as meritless.
In October 2005, Arista Records released Wilson's album What I Really Want for Christmas, featuring two new originals by Wilson. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Pet Sounds, he toured the album briefly in November 2006 with Al Jardine accompanying him. In 2007, the Southbank Centre in London commissioned Wilson to create a new song cycle in the style of Smile. Collaborating with Scott Bennett, Wilson reconfigured a collection of recently written songs into That Lucky Old Sun, a semi-autobiographical conceptual piece about California. A studio-recorded version of the work was released as his seventh solo album in September 2008 and received generally favorable reviews.
In 2009, Wilson was approached by Walt Disney Records to record a Disney songs album, agreeing only if he could also record an album of George Gershwin songs. The Gershwin project, Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin, was released in August 2010, reaching number 26 on the Billboard 200 and topping its Jazz Albums chart. Wilson then toured, performing the album in its entirety. In October 2011, he released In the Key of Disney, which peaked at number 83 in the U.S. This release was soon overshadowed by The Smile Sessions, issued one week later.
In mid-2011, he reunited with his bandmates Mike Love, Al Jardine, David Marks, and Bruce Johnston to re-record "Do It Again" in secret for a potential 50th anniversary album. Rumors soon circulated in the music press about a world tour by the group. In a September report, Wilson said he was not participating in the tour with his bandmates, remarking, "I don't really like working with the guys, but it all depends on how we feel and how much money's involved. Money's not the only reason I made records, but it does hold a place in our lives."
Ultimately, Wilson agreed to the tour—which lasted until September 2012—and to record the album That's Why God Made the Radio, released in June 2012. By that time, Wilson had renewed his creative partnership with Joe Thomas. Although Wilson was listed as the album's producer, Thomas was credited with "recording" and Love with "executive producer". Most of the musicians in the reunion touring band were from Wilson's solo band, with two (Scott Totten and John Cowsill) being from Love's band.
In June 2013, Wilson's website announced that he was recording and self-producing new material with Don Was, Al Jardine, David Marks, former Beach Boy Blondie Chaplin, and guitarist Jeff Beck. It stated that the material might be split into three albums: one of new pop songs, another of mostly instrumental tracks with Beck, and another of interwoven tracks dubbed "the suite" which initially began form as the closing four tracks of That's Why God Made the Radio. In January 2014, Wilson declared in an interview that the Beck collaborations would not be released.
In September 2014, Wilson attended the premiere of Bill Pohlad's biopic Love & Mercy at the Toronto International Film Festival. He had contributed "One Kind of Love" to the film, which later received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song. In October, BBC released a re-recorded version of "God Only Knows" —featuring Wilson, Brian May, Elton John, Jake Bugg, Stevie Wonder, Lorde, and others—to commemorate the launch of BBC Music. A week later, he was featured as a guest vocalist on Emile Haynie's single "Falling Apart". His cover of Paul McCartney's "Wanderlust" was subsequently included on the tribute album The Art of McCartney in November.
Released in April 2015, No Pier Pressure marked another collaboration between Wilson and Joe Thomas, featuring guest appearances from Jardine, Marks, Chaplin, and others. Fans had reacted negatively to the announcement that Wilson would be recording a duets album, prompting a Facebook post—attributed to Wilson—that said, "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." The album reached the U.S. top 30, but critical reaction was mixed due to its adult contemporary arrangements and extensive use of autotune. Later that year, Sahanaja was asked if Wilson was reaching the end of his career as a performing artist, responding, "I gotta be honest. Each of the past five years I thought to myself, 'Well, this is probably going to be it.'"
In March 2016, Wilson and Al Jardine began the Pet Sounds 50th Anniversary World Tour, billed as his final performances of the album. In October, his second memoir, I Am Brian Wilson, written by journalist Ben Greenman after several months of interviews, was published. Asked about negative remarks in Wilson's book, Love refuted that his printed statements were spoken and argued that Wilson was "not in charge of his life, like I am mine", adding that he preferred to avoid pressuring Wilson "because I know he has a lot of issues." In the late 2010s, Wilson remarked to a journalist that he had not "had a friend to talk to in three years."
In a 2016 Rolling Stone interview, Wilson responded to a retirement question by stating he would rather continue touring than sit idle. Similarly, in 2017 he mentioned that although he had not written a song since 2012, he had no plans to retire. In 2019, Wilson embarked on a co-headlining tour with the Zombies, performing selections from Friends and Surf's Up.
Around this time, Wilson had two back surgeries that left him reliant on a walker. In 2019, he postponed some concert dates due to worsening mental health. His social media conveyed that he was grappling with unfamiliar internal struggles and occasionally speaking without intent, with the reason still uncertain. The next month, his social media declared that he had recovered and would resume touring. Pausing his tours after the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in early 2020, he resumed touring in August 2021, with many dates rescheduled to the next year. In November, two releases followed: At My Piano, featuring new instrumental piano recordings of his songs, and the soundtrack to Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road, which includes both new and previously unreleased recordings.
At the end of 2021, Wilson sold his publishing rights to Universal Music Publishing Group for $50 million. Wilson was paid almost $32 million for his songwriter share plus $19 million for his reversion rights (his ability to reclaim his song rights within a time period after signing them away under the Copyright Act of 1976). In 2022, his ex-wife Marilyn, who had been awarded half of his songwriting royalties, sued Wilson for $6.7 million after he sold his rights to UMPG.
On July 26, 2022, Wilson played his final concert as part of a joint tour with Chicago at the Pine Knob Music Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan, where he was reported to have "sat rigid and expressionless" throughout the performance. Days later, he cancelled his remaining tour dates for that year, with his management citing "unforeseen health reasons" as the reason. During a January 2023 appearance on a Beach Boys fan podcast, Wilson's daughter Carnie reported that her father was "probably not going to tour anymore, which is heartbreaking".
On January 30, 2024, Melinda Ledbetter died at their home. The following month, it was announced that Wilson had dementia and entered into another conservatorship, which began in May 2024.
Cows in the Pasture, the unfinished album Wilson had produced for Fred Vail in 1970, will be completed by Vail in 2024. Wilson is the executive producer and contributed new vocals to one of the tracks. The album's release in 2025 will be accompanied by a docuseries about Vail and the album's making.
Wilson’s chordal vocabulary derived primarily from rock and roll, doo-wop, and vocal jazz. At age two, he heard Glenn Miller's 1943 rendition of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, an experience that left a lasting emotional impact—later saying, "It sort of became a general life theme". As a child, his favorite artists included Roy Rogers, Carl Perkins, Bill Haley, Elvis Presley, Henry Mancini, and Rosemary Clooney. He recalled Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" (1954) as the first music he felt compelled to learn and sing. His education in music composition and jazz harmony largely came from deconstructing the vocal harmonies of the Four Freshmen, whose repertoire included works by Gershwin, Jerome Kern, and Cole Porter.
Wilson credited his mother with introducing him to the Four Freshmen, attributing his love for harmonies and the human voice to their "groovy sectional sound". Their 1956 album Freshmen Favorites was the first pop album that Wilson listened to in its entirety and he regarded Voices in Love (1958) as "probably the greatest single vocal album I've ever heard". He greatly admired the group's arranger, Dick Reynolds, whose services he later employed for the Beach Boys' Christmas album and Adult/Child. It is likely that Wilson learned nearly the entirety of the Four Freshmen's recorded repertoire up through 1961, after which his obsession with the group diminished. He was additionally influenced by the Four Preps, although this has been "largely underappreciated" by journalists and historians, according to biographer James Murphy.
Inquired for his music tastes in 1961, Wilson replied, "top 10", referring to essentially any of the top hits of the era. Particular favorites included many songs by Chuck Berry, the Coasters, and the Everly Brothers. He particularly admired Berry's "rhythm and lyrical thoughts". Carl said that he and his brother "were total Chuck Berry freaks" and together sang Coasters songs with Four Freshmen-style arrangements before the Beach Boys formed. Later, Wilson recorded renditions of the Everly Brothers' "Devoted to You" (1958), the Robins' "Smokey Joe's Cafe" (1955), the Olympics' "Hully Gully" (1960), the Shirelles' "Mama Said" (1961), and the Regents' "Barbara Ann" (1961).
Wilson disliked surf music. In the estimation of biographer Timothy White, he instead sought a "new plateau midway between Gershwin and the best Four Freshmen material" when forming his band. Gershwin's influence became more pronounced later in his career, particularl after the 1970s when he dedicated himself to learning the violin parts from Rhapsody in Blue. In 1994, he recorded a choral version of the piece with Van Dyke Parks.
Phil Spector's influence on Wilson is widely acknowledged. In 1966, he referred to Spector as "the single most influential producer", and in 2000, "probably the biggest influence of all", noting, "Anybody with a good ear can hear that I was influenced by Spector." He particularly admired his method of treating "the song as one giant instrument", valuing the enormous, spacious sound, with "the best drums I ever heard". Upon hearing the Ronettes' 1963 hit "Be My Baby" on his car radio, he immediately pulled over and declared it the greatest record he had ever heard. Record producer Lou Adler personally introduced them to each other only a few days later.
Contrary to many accounts, Spector's engineer, Larry Levine, recalled that Spector held Wilson in high regard and was openly effusive in his praise. Levine said that the two producers "had a good rapport", with Wilson often attending Spector's recording sessions and consulting him about his production methods. After Spector's "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" (1964) became a hit for the Righteous Brothers, Wilson called co-writers Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil to laud the record as the greatest ever and expressed his desire to work with them in the future. He submitted "Don't Worry Baby" and "Don't Hurt My Little Sister", both written with the Ronettes in mind, but Spector declined. In 1977, he wrote a 1950s style love song, "Mona", with lyrics referencing some of his favorite Spector tracks, including "Da Doo Ron Ron" and "Be My Baby".
Asked for anybody's songs that he wished he had written, Wilson listed three: "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'", "Be My Baby", and Burt Bacharach's "Here I Am", the latter composer being often overlooked by scholars as an influence. Wilson named Bacharach, alongside Spector and Chuck Berry, as his main chordal influences, and said that Bacharach had a "profound" influence that "got me going in a direction." Wilson produced renditions of Bacharach's "My Little Red Book" and "Walk On By" in 1967 and 1968, respectively, but left the recordings unreleased.
Wilson's other significant musical influences include Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Nelson Riddle, the Motown sound, Disney film soundtracks such as Mary Poppins (1964), and soul musicians such as Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder. Wendy Carlos' 1969 album Switched-On Bach, described by Wilson as "one of the most electrifying records" he had ever heard, influenced his use of synthesizers.
It is often reported that the Beach Boys and the Beatles influenced each other, although Wilson rejected the notion that his work was shaped by his rivals. He acknowledged that he had felt threatened by the Beatles' success and that this awareness drove him to concentrate his efforts on trying to outdo them in the recording studio. In a 2002 interview, he said that each new Beatles release, particularly over 1964–65, pushed him "to try something new" in his work. He praised Paul McCartney's stylistic versatility and commended his bass playing as "technically fantastic".
In 1976, Wilson commented that he felt contemporary popular music had lacked the artistic integrity it once had, with Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" (1975) being one exception. In a 1988 interview, he named the 1982 compilation Stevie Wonder's Original Musiquarium I and Paul Simon's 1986 release Graceland among his ten favorite albums of all time. In 2007, he cited Billy Joel as his favorite pianist. By 2015, Wilson maintained that he does not listen to modern music, only "oldies but goodies".
Wilson's writing process, as he described in 1966, started with finding a basic chord pattern and rhythm that he termed "feels", or "brief note sequences, fragments of ideas". He explained, "once they're out of my head and into the open air, I can see them and touch them firmly. They're not 'feels' anymore." He wrote later that he aspired to write songs that appear "simple, no matter how complex it really is." In a 2009 interview, he stated that his favorite chord is E major seventh, while his favorite key signatures to play in are B, C♯, E, and E♭.
Common devices in Wilson's musical structures include jazz chords, such as sevenths and ninths. Wilson attributed his use of minor seventh chords to his affinity for the music of Burt Bacharach. Chord inversions, particularly those featuring a tonic (I) with a fifth in the bass, are also prevalent in his work, again influenced by Bacharach, especially songs like "Walk On By" and "This Guy's in Love with You" (1968). The flattened subtonic (♭VII), which is common in the music of the Four Freshmen and popular music in general, is the nondiatonic chord that appears the most in Wilson's compositions. Sudden breaks into a cappella segments, again borrowed from the Four Freshmen, are another feature of his music, having been employed in "Salt Lake City" (1965) and "Sloop John B" (1966).
Many of Wilson's compositions are marked by destabilized tonal centers, resulting in functional ambiguity. He frequently uses key changes within verses and choruses, including "truck driver's modulations", to create dynamic shifts in his music. Tertian movement is another recurring aspect of his style.
Wilson's bass parts are often melodic and given prominent focus in his arrangements. He also applied chromaticism in his musical structures, including diminished seventh chords. His use of chromatic bass descents are most notably displayed in "Our Prayer" (1969). Other songs are characterized by "syncopated exercises and counterpoints piled on top of jittery eighth-note clusters and loping shuffle grooves", features that producer Alan Boyd said took "an almost manic edge" in Wilson's work during the 1970s.
Some of Wilson's songs incorporate a I – IV – I – V pattern, a formula derived from "Da Doo Ron Ron", as well as a circle of fifths sequence that begins with the mediant (iii), inspired by "Be My Baby". He frequently uses stepwise-falling melodic lines, stepwise diatonic rises like I – iii – IV – V, and whole-step root movements such as I – ♭VII – ♭VI – V. Numerous songs alternate between supertonic and dominant chords (ii – V) or tonic and flattened subtonic chords (I – ♭VII), the latter featuring in the verses of "Guess I'm Dumb" and the intro to "California Girls".
Wilson generally collaborated with another lyricist, although he occasionally composed both words and music alone with "Surfer Girl", "Girl Don't Tell Me", "I'm Bugged at My Ol' Man", "Busy Doin' Nothin'", "This Whole World", "'Til I Die", and "Love and Mercy", among others. Most of his songs explore introspective themes, and several portray the male object or narrator as a "loser", evident on "She Knows Me Too Well", "Don't Hurt My Little Sister", "Merry Christmas, Baby", and "All Dressed Up for School". Other recurring themes in Wilson's songs include feminine objectification, youthful innocence, slice of life stories or observations, and health and fitness.
Although the Beach Boys became known for surfing imagery, his compositions with collaborators outside the band, such as "Lonely Sea" and "In My Room" from 1963, typically avoided this subject matter. Unlike his contemporaries, social issues were never referenced in his lyrics. In his 2008 book Dark Mirror: The Pathology of the Singer-Songwriter, Donald Brackett identifies Wilson as "the Carl Sandburg and Robert Frost of popular music—deceptively simple, colloquial in phrasing, with a spare and evocative lyrical style embedded in the culture that created it." Brackett opined that although "John Lennon came close", Wilson expressed "intense fragility" and "emotional vulnerability" to degrees that few other singer-songwriters had.
Wilson said, "I was unable to really think as a producer up until the time where I really got familiar with Phil Spector's work. That was when I started to design the experience to be a record rather than just a song." He frequently attended Spector's recording sessions, observing his arranging and recording techniques, and adopted Spector's choice of studios and session musicians, later known as the Wrecking Crew. Wilson established approximately one-third of a song's final arrangement during the writing process, with the remainder developed in the studio.
Rather than using Gold Star Studios, Spector's favored facility, Wilson chose Studio 3 at Western for its privacy and the presence of staff engineer Chuck Britz, who served as Wilson's principal engineer from 1962 to 1967. While Britz typically handled technical tasks like level mixing and microphone placement, Wilson made extensive adjustments to the setup, usurping standard studio protocols of the era that limited console use to assigned engineers. Once Britz prepared an initial configuration, Wilson took control of the console, directing session musicians from the booth using an intercom or non-verbal cues alongside chord charts. Britz recalled that Wilson would work with the players until he achieved the desired sound, a process that frequently lasted for hours.
Wilson first used the Wrecking Crew for productions with the Honeys in March 1963, and two months later, during sessions for Surfer Girl, he began gradually integrating these musicians into Beach Boys records. Until 1965, the band members typically performed the instrumentation, but as Wilson's sessions came to necessitate 11 or more different players, his reliance on the Wrecking Crew increased. In 1966 and 1967, he almost exclusively used these musicians for the backing tracks, although their involvement diminished considerably after 1967.
His musicians, many trained in conservatories, were impressed by his abilities. Unlike most other producers, Wilson never required them to devise their own parts. Bassist Carole Kaye recounted that the group "were in awe of Brian", while guitarist Jerry Cole recalled that he and his fellow players "would walk out of Brian's sessions shaking our heads, saying, 'This son of a bitch is either crazy, or he's an absolute genius.'" Drummer Hal Blaine, however, recalled that all of the musicians "helped arrange, as far as I'm concerned."
Wilson's best-known productions typically employed instruments such as saxophones and bass harmonicas. He usually instructed his drummer to play only the snare and floor-tom afterbeats characteristic of Spector's records. Reflecting further Spector influence, Wilson rarely used ride or crash cymbals and often combined color tones to produce novel sounds, such as a harpsichord doubled with another instrument. Other practices he adopted from Spector included recording two echo chambers simultaneously and having standup bass and Fender bass play identical parts. His bass lines were usually played with a hard plectrum, which imparted a more percussive quality—a technique he adapted from Motown. Carol Kaye recalled that he would have her boost the treble so that the deeper bass passages sounded unmistakably pick-played rather than finger-plucked.
His first use of a string section was on "The Surfer Moon" in mid-1963. Before Pet Sounds, he seldom used string ensembles, preferring to overdub them after recording the basic instrumental track, which was then followed by vocal overdubs. Beginning with the 1963 track "Surfin' U.S.A.", he double-tracked the vocals, resulting in a deeper and more resonant sound.
Starting in 1964, Wilson performed tape splices on his recordings, usually to allow difficult vocal sections to be performed by the group. By 1965, he had become more adventurous in his use of tape splicing, such as on the song "And Your Dream Comes True", which was recorded in sections and then edited together to create the final song. These experiments culminated with the similar but more complex editing processes adopted for "Good Vibrations" and Smile. Mark Linett, who has engineered Wilson's recordings since the 1980s, stated, "He certainly wasn't the first person to do edits, but it was unusual to record a song in four or five sections, and then cut it together."
According to Wilson, after his first nervous breakdown in 1964, he had endeavored to "take the things I learned from Phil Spector" and maximize his instrumental palette. In Priore's assessment, Wilson reconfigured Spector's Wall of Sound techniques, aiming for "audio clarity" and "a more lush, comfortable feel". The 2003 book Temples of Sound states that Wilson distinguished himself from Spector through the usage of certain instruments, such as banjo, and by possessing a "clean muscle" missing in Spector's work. Danny Hutton remarked that anyone recording immediately after Wilson's session would fail to replicate the sound he achieved. According to Hutton, "There was a lot of subtle stuff he did. [...] He was just hands-on. He would change the reverb and the echo, and all of a sudden, something just – whoa! – got twice as big and fat."
Wilson's vocal style was shaped by studying the Four Freshmen, from whom he developed a versatile head voice that allowed him to hit high notes without resorting to falsetto, although he did use falsetto on some Beach Boys tracks. He recalled that he "learned how to sing falsetto" through listening to Four Freshmen renditions of songs like "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows", "I'll Remember April", and "Day by Day". Rosemary Clooney also influenced his singing; by mimicking her phrasing on recordings like "Hey There", he learned "to sing with feeling".
Wilson's highest note was D5 in 1966. Initially, his singing was characterized by a pure tenor voice; later in life, he employed this range only rarely. Fearing that a high vocal delivery might fuel perceptions of homosexuality, he avoided it. After the early 1970s, his voice degraded following heavy cigarette and cocaine use, with 15 Big Ones marking the emergence of what biographer Peter Ames Carlin termed Wilson's "baritone croak". In a 1999 interview, Wilson compared his style to Bob Dylan's "harsh, raspy voice", remarking, "I'm like the Bob Dylan of the '90s."
Wilson is diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and mild bipolar disorder. Since 1965, he has regularly experienced auditory hallucinations in the form of disembodied voices. These hallucinations are mainly derogatory, but sometimes positive, and have occasionally inspired songs. Wilson referred to the voices as "heroes and villains" that contributed to "a life of scare".
Gaines, in his 1986 biography of the Beach Boys, highlighted the challenge faced by Wilson's family and associates in discerning genuine mental health issues from potential manipulative behavior on Wilson's part. Wilson's 1991 memoir suggests that his Houston flight incident from December 1964 made him realize that he could control others through displays of "craziness". Subsequent to that incident, Marilyn arranged his first psychiatrist visit, where it was ruled that Wilson's condition was due to work-related fatigue. Wilson typically refused counseling, and his family believed his idiosyncrasies stemmed from drug habits or were simply innate to his personality. Marilyn countered accusations of neglect on her part, emphasizing her repeated efforts to get him professional help and pointing out his capability to mislead medical professionals.
According to Wilson, he had been introduced to recreational drugs by an acquaintance during a Beach Boys tour. His hallucinations emerged early in 1965, about a week after his first time using psychedelics. Loren Schwartz, his supplier, said that Wilson's first dosage was 125 micrograms of "pure Owsley" and resulted in "full-on ego death". Mike Love observed signs of irregular behavior in Wilson by July, recalling an incident where Wilson deliberately crashed his car into a 7-Up machine at a gas station, an act Love deemed out of character. His drug use was initially concealed from his bandmates and family, including Love, who had thought Wilson to be strictly opposed to drugs.
Wilson, in 1990, attributed LSD to himself developing "a Jesus Christ complex" in the mid-1960s. Following the advice of Four Freshmen manager Bill Wagner, Wilson consulted with a UCLA psychiatrist on the adverse effects of LSD. The psychiatrist later told Wagner, "I don't know if he is savable. He gives me the impression he's been on it for a while, and he's entirely enamored of it." By 1966, Wilson acknowledged using "pills" for introspection rather than leisure and viewed psychedelic usage as benign. His 2016 memoir states that he abstained from consuming LSD for a second time until he was 23, around 1966 or 1967. Marilyn suspected he had numerous LSD experiences in the ensuing years, although she only knew of two such incidents at the time. Ledbetter, in 2004, claimed Wilson had taken LSD only thrice in his life.
As Wilson's condition worsened, he grew susceptible to paranoid delusions, believing that his auditory hallucinations were Satan coming "in the form of other people that were competing with me and had ideas of killing me." By 1968, following the birth of their first child, Marilyn's concerns about Wilson's mental health intensified. Wilson was hospitalized later that year and prescribed Thorazine for severe anxiety disorder. He may have self-admitted and possibly received treatments ranging from talking therapies to doses of lithium and electroconvulsive therapy during this stay.
Following the mid-1970s, Wilson was given the since-retracted diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. He was given this diagnosis, in addition to manic-depressive psychosis, when he was a patient at Brotzman Memorial Hospital in 1978. Landy, in 1976, had initially refuted such a diagnosis, suggesting Wilson's main issue was "being scared". In 1984, doctors again misdiagnosed Wilson with schizophrenia, also finding evidence of brain damage caused by excessive and sustained drug use.
In the late 1980s, Wilson developed facial tics, called tardive dyskinesia, that were symptomatic of the excessive psychotropic medications Landy and his medical team had administered. Therapist Peter Reum, a fan who had met Wilson on several occasions, stated that Wilson would have deterioriated into a "drooling, palsied mental patient", and potentially died of heart failure had he continued this drug regimen. In a 2002 interview, Wilson stated, "I don't regret [the Landy program]. I loved the guy—he saved me." After Wilson sought medical care elsewhere, he was declared to have organic personality disorder. Musician Sean O'Hagan, who was invited to collaborate with Wilson in the 1990s, characterized Wilson as "totally dependent on other people", with signs reminiscent of autism.
Wilson's mental condition improved in later years, although his auditory hallucinations still persisted, especially when performing onstage. He credits his relationship with his second wife for allowing him to resume his career as a musician. In his own words, he said that he should have spent the early 2000s "in a mental institution under heavy sedation" due to the stresses of his condition; however, "Things have started to get a little bit easier, but I'm not always in a positive, happy place." In 2002, he lamented that his successful treatment had inhibited his creativity and songwriting.
At age 11, during a Christmas choir recital, it was found that Wilson had significantly diminished hearing in his right ear. The issue was diagnosed as a nerve impingement by a family doctor. The exact cause remains unclear, but possible causes include a birth defect, an injury from his father, Murry, or another child.
It is improbable that Wilson was born partially deaf as such defects generally manifest earlier. Wilson himself believed the deafness might have resulted from his father slapping him shortly before turning three, although he also stated in a 2000 interview that his deafness had been present at birth and unrelated to his father's physical abuse. Murry commented that the deafness may have resulted from a football game injury, while Wilson's mother, Audree, said that Wilson believed the incident occurred when he was around 10 and a child hit his ear, a claim repeated in his 2016 memoir.
Due to this infirmity, Wilson developed a habit of speaking from the side of his mouth, giving the false impression that he had suffered a stroke. He also experiences tinnitus that worsens when he is fatigued or exposed to loud noises. In the late 1960s, he underwent corrective surgery that was unsuccessful in restoring his hearing.
Wilson's first serious relationship was with Judy Bowles, a high school student he had met at a baseball game in mid-1961. The couple were engaged during Christmas 1963 and were to be married the following December. She inspired his songs "Judy" (1962), "Surfer Girl" (1963), and, according to some accounts, "The Warmth of the Sun" (1964), the latter being written shortly after they had separated. Around then, he had gradually become romantically involved with another high school student, singer Marilyn Rovell, whom he had met in August 1962. Wilson's "All Summer Long" (1964) referenced their first meeting with the lyric "Remember when you spilled Coke all over your blouse?" Inspired by a remark from Marilyn's older sister Diane, Wilson wrote "Don't Hurt My Little Sister" (1965) about his early relationship with Marilyn.
Wilson and Marilyn were married in December 1964. Together, they had two daughters, Carnie and Wendy (born 1968 and 1969, respectively), who later had musical success of their own as two-thirds of the group Wilson Phillips. His daughters inspired his songs "Roller Skating Child" (1977) and "Little Children" (1988).
Much of the lyrical content from Pet Sounds reflected early marital strains that later intensified. Wilson later described himself as a neglectful father and husband during his first marriage. He had encouraged his wife to pursue extramarital affairs, including one with songwriter Tandyn Almer, while he engaged in an affair with her sister, the subject of his song "My Diane" (1978). Concurrently, Wilson maintained an affair with Debbie Keil, a telephone operator who worked for the Beach Boys as a fan mail sorter from 1969 to 1970. To Marilyn's chagrin, Wilson permitted Keil's frequent visitations to the Wilson household, inspiring his song "The Night Was So Young" (1977).
In July 1978, Wilson and Marilyn separated, and he filed for divorce in January 1979. Marilyn received custody of their children and a half share of Wilson's songwriting royalties. Wilson continued his relationship with Keil until 1981. After the separation, Wilson dated one of his nurses, Carolyn Williams, until January 1983. Singer Linda Ronstadt, in her 2013 memoir Simple Dreams, implied that she had briefly dated Wilson in the 1970s. Wilson later contributed backing vocals to her 1989 single "Adios".
Wilson initially dated former model and car saleswoman Melinda Kae Ledbetter from 1986 to late 1989. Ledbetter attributed the premature end of their relationship to interference by Landy. After 1991, he and Ledbetter reconnected and married on February 6, 1995, Ledbetter became Wilson's manager, likening her role to negotiating, much as she had in car sales. They adopted five children. By 2012, Wilson had six grandchildren, two daughters of Carnie and four sons of Wendy. Ledbetter died on January 30, 2024. In his social media, Wilson declared she "was my savior. She gave me the emotional security I needed to have a career. She encouraged me to make the music that was closer to my heart".
Wilson was raised in a Presbyterian family. In many interviews, he has emphasized the spiritual essence of his music, particularly with Pet Sounds. He was also intrigued by astrology, numerology, and the occult, as reflected in his original concepts for Smile. In 1966, Wilson expressed his belief that all music "starts with religion", and while he recognized a "higher being who is better than we are", he was not traditionally religious.
In the late 1960s, Wilson and his bandmates promoted Transcendental Meditation (TM). By 1968, he had equated religion and meditation, though he ultimately abandoned TM. He described himself in 1976 as having over-diversified his readings, maintaining then that he still believed, as he did in the 1960s, that the coming of "the great Messiah [...] came in the form of drugs" while acknowledging that his own drug experiences "really didn't work out so well, so positively". Friend Stanley Shapiro mentioned Wilson once composed a private song for God.
In 1999, when asked for his religious beliefs, Wilson responded: "I believe in Phil Spector". Asked again, in 2011, he said that while he had spiritual beliefs, he did not follow any particular religion. Asked in 2004 for his favorite book, Wilson answered "the Bible", and questioned if he believed in life after death, Wilson replied "I don't".
Wilson has admitted to having a poor memory and occasionally lying in interviews to "test" people. David Oppenheim, recalling his 1966 interview with Wilson, remembered, "we tried to talk with him but didn't get much out of him. Some guy said 'He's not verbal.'" During his late 1970s comeback, Wilson remarked, "Interviews are for publicity." At that time, he had often asked journalists for drugs during interviews, described by Leaf as "a game" on Wilson's part, as an anonymous source suggested he had other means to obtain drugs. Journalist Verlyn Klinkenborg in 1988 observed that while Wilson was known for being brutally honest, what he believes to be true depends on his mood at the time and could vary dramatically if inquired on another occasion.
In later years, many writers have found Wilson challenging to interview, as his responses are usually curt or lacking in substance. Edgers wrote in 2000 that "no writer will ever understand Brian Wilson", highlighting his often "clipped and conflicting" responses, adding that he "generally makes it clear to interviewers that he would rather be somewhere else — and that's when he's feeling good." Salon's Peter Gilstrap wrote in 2015 that Wilson had been known to end interviews abruptly, though the author concluded that his actions were not "due to a bad attitude.".
In a 2007 interview, Wilson was asked about "good movies" he had watched recently and named Norbit. Then, asked his all-time favorite movie, he again answered Norbit. A later Spin piece, marking this exchange's tenth anniversary, referred to it as a classic display of Wilson's terseness and jokingly dubbed it "one of the most important blog posts in recent American history".
From 1962 to 1979, Wilson wrote or co-wrote over two dozen U.S. Top 40 hits for the Beach Boys, with eleven reaching the top 10, including the number-ones "I Get Around" (1964), "Help Me, Rhonda" (1965), and "Good Vibrations" (1966). Three more that he produced, but did not write, were the band's "Barbara Ann" (number 2) in 1965, "Sloop John B" (number 3) in 1966, and "Rock and Roll Music" (number 5) in 1976. Among his other top 10 hits, Wilson co-wrote Jan and Dean's "Surf City" (the first chart-topping surf song) and "Dead Man's Curve" (number 8) in 1963, and the Hondells' "Little Honda" (number 9) in 1964.
Wilson is widely regarded as one of the most innovative and significant songwriters of the late 20th century. Fellow composers who have acknowledged his advancements include Philip Glass, Gustavo Dudamel, and Burt Bacharach, the latter of whom praised Wilson as "one of the greatest innovators" in music history. In discussing Wilson's harmonic ingenuity, musicologist Philip Lambert states in 2016 that his harmonic approach demonstrated an exceptional mastery and significantly expanded upon the British-American pop idiom of the 1960s, leaving a lasting imprint on popular music since.
The level of creative control that Wilson had asserted over his own record output was unprecedented in the music industry, leading him to become the first pop artist credited for writing, arranging, producing, and performing his own material. Although there had been numerous examples of artists who were essentially "self-produced", Wilson distinguished himself for having directed every phase of an album's production. Furthermore, most of the written arrangements among 1960s rock groups were not composed by the artists themselves. Wilson's autonomy encompassed control over recording studios and personnel, including engineers and the typically intrusive A&R representative. According to biographer James Murphy, Wilson's singular artistic freedom was pivotal in reshaping both the landscape of popular music and the music industry's perception of artistic control.
In addition to being one of the first music producer auteurs, Wilson helped popularize the idea of the recording studio as a compositional tool, and he was the first rock producer to use the studio in this fashion. Granata writes that Wilson's "authoritative approach [...] affected his contemporaries" and thus "redefined" the role of the producer. In his 2015 book Electric Shock, Peter Doggett identifies Wilson as the quintessential figure of an era marked by "some of the most notorious pop battles" between "idealistic musicians" and the executives funding their ambitious projects. Virgil Moorefield's 2010 book The Producer as Composer: Shaping the Sounds of Popular Music acknowledges Wilson as a "brilliant producer" who significantly expanded the field of music production.
Beatles producer George Martin said, "No one made a greater impact on the Beatles than Brian [...] the musician who challenged them most of all." Jimmy Webb explained, "As far as a major, modern producer who was working right in the middle of the pop milieu, no one was doing what Brian was doing. We didn't even know that it was possible until he did it." David Crosby called Wilson "the most highly regarded pop musician in America. Hands down. Everybody by that time had figured out who was writing it all and who was arranging it all."
His accomplishments as a producer influenced many others in his field, effectively setting a precedent that allowed subsequent bands and artists to produce their own recording sessions, either autonomously or in conjunction with other like minds. Following his exercise of total creative autonomy, Wilson ignited an explosion of like-minded California producers, supplanting New York as the center of popular records. Wilson was also a pioneer of "project" recording, where an artist records by himself rather than at an established studio.
The 1967 CBS documentary Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution, hosted by the classical conductor Leonard Bernstein, described Wilson as "one of today's most important pop musicians." Artists who have described Wilson as a "genius" have included George Martin, Leon Russell, Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, Jimmy Page, Elton John, Tom Petty, Henry Rollins, and Questlove. Many other musicians have voiced admiration for Wilson's work or cited it as an influence, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Ray Davies, John Cale, David Byrne, Todd Rundgren, Patti Smith, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Bruce Springsteen, Randy Newman, Ray Charles, and Chrissie Hynde.
Further to his invention of new musical textures and his novel applications of quasi-symphonic orchestras, Wilson helped propel the mid-1960s art pop movement, and, with Pet Sounds, was immediately heralded as art rock's leading figure. Carlin writes that Wilson had originated an "art-rock" style that merged transcendent artistic possibilities with the mainstream appeal of pop music. Academic Larry Starr writes, "In a sense, Brian Wilson was the first self-conscious second-generation rock 'n' roller" as well as "the first fully realized" example of both an innovative and majorly successful pop musician. Starr credits Wilson with establishing a successful career model that was then followed by the Beatles and other mid-1960s British Invasion acts. According to journalist Erik Davis, "Not only did [he] write a soundtrack to the early '60s, but Brian let loose a delicate and joyful art pop unique in music history and presaged the mellowness so fundamental to '70s California pop."
Van Dyke Parks stated, "Brian Wilson was not imitative, he was inventive; for people who don't write songs, it's hard to understand how inventive he really was." Parks elaborated that "Wilson made music as accessible as a cartoon and yet rewarded repeated listening as much as Bach", also suggesting that Wilson's sensibilities overlapped with those espoused by other pop artists of the era, including Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. In his 1969 book Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock, Nik Cohn recognizes Wilson as a progenitor of authentic pop art, elevating high school-themed music "to completely new levels" and transforming it into a mythic narrative.
Under Wilson's creative leadership, the Beach Boys became major contributors to the development of psychedelic music, although they are rarely credited for this distinction. Christian Matijas-Mecca, in his book about psychedelic rock, credits Wilson, alongside Bob Dylan and the Beatles, for establishing a creative standard that "enabled psychedelic artists to expand their sonic and compositional boundaries", yielding "entirely new" sounds and tone colors. In an editorial piece on sunshine pop, a subgenre closely associated with psychedelia, The A.V. Club's Noel Murray recognized Wilson as among "studio rats [that] set the pace for how pop music could and should sound in the Flower Power era: at once starry-eyed and wistful." Murray added that Wilson himself rarely produced true sunshine pop music, but was still "hugely influential" to the genre's development.
Wilson's work with the Beach Boys, especially on Pet Sounds, "Good Vibrations" and Smile, marked the beginnings of progressive pop, a genre that is distinguished by sophisticated and unorthodox approaches to pop music. Writing in 1978, biographer David Leaf identified Wilson's 1960s productions as a chief influence on bands such as Queen, Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), 10cc, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, among others. Musicologist Bill Martin, an author of books about progressive rock, acknowledged Wilson's influence on the prog movement, particularly through his complex songwriting and basslines, adding that Wilson, alongside the Who frontman Pete Townshend, "showed that adolescence can be the subject of great music".
Wilson's detachment from live performance—deploying bandmates as "attractive avatars"—foreshadowed later producer-musicians like Max Martin. Writing in 2016, The Atlantic's Jason Guriel credits Pet Sounds with inventing "the modern pop album" by establishing auteur-driven production, anticipating "the rise of the producer [and] the modern pop-centric era, which privileges producer over artist and blurs the line between entertainment and art." Guriel also situated artists such as Prince, Michael Jackson, Radiohead, and Kanye West within Wilson's template.
Wilson's popularity and success is attributed partly to the perceived naïveté of his work and personality. In music journalist Barney Hoskyns' description, the "particular appeal of Wilson's genius" can be traced to his "singular naivety" and "ingenuousness", alongside his band being "the very obverse of hip". Commenting on the seemingly "campy and corny" quality of the Beach Boys' early records, David Marks said that Wilson had been "dead serious about them all", elaborating, "It's hard to believe that anyone could be that naive and honest, but he was. That's what made those records so successful. You could feel the sincerity in them." John Cale supported, "What Brian came to mean was an ideal of naïveté and innocence [...] Pet Sounds was adult and childlike at the same time."
The most culturally significant "tragedy" in 1960s rock, according to journalist Richard Goldstein, was Wilson's failure to overcome his insecurities and realize "his full potential as a composer" after having anticipated developments such as electronica and minimalism. Writing in 1981, sociomusicologist Simon Frith identified Wilson's withdrawal in 1967, along with Phil Spector's self-imposed retirement in 1966, as the catalysts for the "rock/pop split that has afflicted American music ever since". Frith added that, while the influence of both these producers was evident in 1967 hit songs by the Electric Prunes, the Turtles, Strawberry Alarm Clock, Tommy James and the Shondells, and the 5th Dimension, the most enduring and successful American pop act was the Monkees, which had been created as "an obvious imitation of the Beatles".
Speaking in a 1997 interview, musician Sean O'Hagan felt that rock music's domination of mass culture following the mid-1960s had the effect of artistically stifling contemporary pop composers who, until then, had been guided by Wilson's increasingly ambitious creative advancements. In her article which dubbed him "the godfather of sensitive pop", music journalist Patricia Cárdenas credits Wilson with ultimately inspiring many musicians to value the craft of pop songwriting as much as "the primal, hard-driving rock 'n' roll the world had come to know since then."
By the mid-1970s, Wilson had tied with ex-Pink Floyd member Syd Barrett for rock music's foremost "mythical casualty". Timothy White wrote that Wilson's ensuing legend rivaled that of the California myth promoted by the Beach Boys, while Brackett characterized Wilson's "rise and fall and rise" as a "downright Shakespearean" story, with Wilson "elevated to Olympian status by every serious musician since".
Ultimately, Wilson became regarded as the most famous outsider musician. Author Irwin Chusid, who codified the term "outsider music", noted Wilson as a potentially unconvincing example of the genre due to Wilson's commercial successes, but argued that the musician should be considered an outsider due to his "tormented" background, past issues with drug dependencies, and unorthodox songwriting. Other critics have drawn comparisons between Wilson and the outsider musician Daniel Johnston, who also struggled with lifelong mental illness and a "genius" labeling.
Wilson has also been declared the "godfather" of punk, indie rock, and emo. Principally through his early records, Wilson, alongside his collaborator Mike Love, was a key influence on the development of punk rock and the movement's evolution into indie rock. According to critic Carl Wilson (no relation to the Beach Boys' Carl Wilson), "The Ramones, for instance, seized on and subverted the early Wilson template: Be True to Your School became Rock'n'Roll High School." The critic also notes, "For the artier branches of post-punk, Wilson's pained vulnerability, his uses of offbeat instruments and his intricate harmonies, not to mention the Smile saga itself, became a touchstone", especially for such bands as Pere Ubu, XTC, U2, R.E.M., the Pixies, and My Bloody Valentine.
Later in the 20th century, Wilson was credited with "godfathering" an era of independently produced music that was heavily indebted to his melodic sensibilities, chamber pop orchestrations, and recording experiments. Author Nathan Wiseman-Trowse credited Wilson, alongside Spector, with having "arguably pioneered", in popular music, the "approach to the sheer physicality of sound", an integral characteristic of the dream pop genre. Newer acts who were influenced by Wilson, or that voiced their admiration, included Robyn Hitchcock, Redd Kross, the Church, Rain Parade, Big Dipper, the Go-Betweens, Psychic TV, the Feelies, and the dBs.
Many of the most popular acts of the 1980s and 1990s recorded songs that celebrated or referenced Wilson's music, including R.E.M., Bruce Springsteen, Barenaked Ladies, the Jayhawks, and Wilco. Simultaneously, the High Llamas inspired many American touring groups, especially around Los Angeles, to recognize Wilson as an "alternative music hero". Stereolab and the Elephant 6 collective, whose roster included Apples in Stereo, of Montreal and the Olivia Tremor Control, were all heavily influenced by Wilson. In Japan, references to Wilson and his "mad boy genius" legend became a common trope among Shibuya-kei (渋谷系) musicians such as Cornelius, who was heralded by critics as "the Japanese Brian Wilson". In 2000, Marina Records released Caroline Now!, an album of Wilson's songs recorded by artists including Alex Chilton, Kim Fowley, the Aluminum Group, Eric Matthews, Saint Etienne, Peter Thomas, the High Llamas, and Jad Fair of Half Japanese.
Through acts such as Panda Bear, and especially his 2007 album Person Pitch, Wilson began to be recognized for his continued impact on the indie music vanguard since the late 2000s. In 2009, Pitchfork ran an editorial feature that traced the development of nascent indie music scenes, and chillwave in particular, to the themes of Wilson's songs and his reputation for being an "emotionally fragile dude with mental health problems who coped by taking drugs." Writing in his 2011 book on the Beach Boys, Mark Dillon stated that tributes to Wilson remained "common among musicians young enough to be his children".
Wilson's influence continues to be attributed to modern dream pop acts such as Au Revoir Simone, Wild Nothing, Alvvays, and Lana Del Rey. In 2022, She & Him, accompanied by the release of Melt Away: A Tribute to Brian Wilson, embarked on a concert tour dedicated to renditions of Wilson's songs.
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