page_title: Musicianship of Brian Wilson
section_title: The Beatles
hierarchical_section_title: Musicianship of Brian Wilson / Musical influences / The Beatles
caption_attribution_description: English: Publicity photo of the Beatles with producer George Martin in the studio at Abbey Road. Only John Lennon, George Harrison and Paul McCartney are pictured.
context_page_description: The songwriting of American musician Brian Wilson, co-founder and multi-tasking leader of the Beach Boys, is widely considered to be among the most innovative and significant of the late 20th century. His combined arranging, producing, and songwriting skills also made him a major innovator in the field of music production. In a 1966 article that asks "Do the Beach Boys rely too much on sound genius Brian?" brother and bandmate Carl Wilson said that while every member of the group contributed ideas, Brian was most responsible for their music. Dennis Wilson said: "Brian Wilson is the Beach Boys. He is the band. We're his fucking messengers. He is all of it. Period. We're nothing. He's everything."
  Wilson is often referred to as a "genius". He cultivated his skills from an early age, learning how to play a toy accordion before moving on to piano. On his 16th birthday, he received a Wollensak tape recorder that allowed him to experiment with recording songs and early group vocals. With the exception of some college courses, his understanding of music theory was self-taught.
context_section_description: The Beach Boys and the Beatles are often said to have directly reciprocated each other's musical developments during the 1960s.  The two bands inspired each other with their artistry and recording techniques, pushing them further out in the studio. Author David Moskowitz identifies "I Get Around" (May 1964) 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. In 2002, Wilson recalled that, particularly over 1964–65, each new Beatles release pushed him "to try something new" in his work; he cited "Girl Don't Tell Me" as the most obvious example of his songwriting being directly influenced by the Beatles. After first hearing Rubber Soul in December 1965, Wilson was "blown away" by the Beatles' ability to create an album of consistently good original songs and resolved to top this achievement when making Pet Sounds. In turn, Beatles producer George Martin said, "No one made a greater impact on the Beatles than Brian."
  Wilson has said: "The Beatles inspired me. They didn't influence me." While he was enamored with Rubber Soul, he explained: "I liked the way it all went together, the way it was all one thing. It was a challenge to me ... It didn't make me want to copy them but to be as good as them. I didn't want to do the same kind of music, but on the same level." Carl elaborated: "[Phil Spector] was Brian's favorite kind of rock; he liked [him] better than the early Beatles stuff. He loved the Beatles' later music when they evolved and started making intelligent, masterful music, but before that Phil was it." According to Mike Love, Carl followed the Beatles more closely than anyone else in the group, but Brian was the most "rattled" by the Beatles, feeling tremendous pressure to "keep pace" with them. Brian once characterized himself as "fucked up" and "jealous" of Spector and the Beatles, saying; "i was flipping out. I couldn't understand how [the Beatles] could be just yelled and screamed at. The music they made, 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' for example, wasn't even that great a record, but they just screamed at it." On another occasion, he's said that he was overwhelmed by the "electricity" of their voices on the song ("It really turned me on"). He recalled that he and Love immediately felt threatened by the Beatles and added that he knew the Beach Boys could never match the excitement created by the Beatles as performers, and that this realization led him to concentrate his efforts on trying to outdo them in the recording studio.
  Brian identified the main difference between his music approach to the Beatles' is that they simplify songs to their "skeletal form," whereas he would be "impelled to make [them] more complex," and that if he had arranged "Norwegian Wood", he would have "orchestrated it, put in background voices, [and] done a thousand things." On the subject of the Beatles' Revolver (1966), Love responded: "No, I don't think he was influenced by Revolver. Brian was in his own world, believe me. If he were influenced by the Beatles, there'd be more fuzz tone and a few sitars on our records, but there never have been, really." Wilson praised McCartney's bass playing, calling it "technically fantastic, but his harmonies and the psychological thing he brings to the music comes through. Psychologically he is really strong ... The other thing that I could never get was how versatile he was. . ... we would spend ages trying to work out where he got all those different types of songs from." In 2014, Brian stated that he thought "Strawberry Fields Forever" was "a weird record ... I liked it", although he denied rumors which said that the song had crippled him emotionally. In 2015, he highlighted "With a Little Help from My Friends" as a favorite. He views "Let It Be" as an intensely comforting song, likening it to valium.
caption: The Beatles working with George Martin in a studio, 1964
exif: {"Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Express Editor", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image ExifOffset": "81"}