Entertainment ( Europe Brief News): Brian Wilson, the legendary Beach Boys co-founder and mastermind behind timeless summer hits, has died at 82, marking the end of an era in music history.
On Wednesday, Wilson’s family announced his passing on his website and social media pages. There were no immediate details provided.
Wilson’s longstanding representatives, manager LeeAnn Hard and publicist Jean Sievers, were in control of his personal and medical matters during the court conservatorship that had been in place since May 2024.
The oldest and final of three musical brothers, Brian played bass, Carl played lead guitar, and Dennis played drums.
He and the other Beach Boys went from being a local California band to becoming national hitmakers and international surf and sun ambassadors in the 1960s. Wilson was pitied for his troubles and praised for his skills. He was a big Romantic in rock.
With over 30 Top 40 hits and over 100 million copies sold worldwide, the Beach Boys are one of the most well-known bands of the rock period.
The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” defeated Wilson’s 1966 album “Pet Sounds,” which was ranked No. 2 on a 2003 Rolling Stone ranking of the greatest 500 albums. In 1988, the Beach Boys—who also included childhood friend Al Jardine and Wilson cousin Mike Love—were elected into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Wilson and Love fought over composition credits, but his peers—from Bruce Springsteen and Elton John to Carole King and Katy Perry—loved him and were envious.
Long after he stopped making songs, Wilson continued to inspire and captivate musicians and fans. Wilson performed “Pet Sounds” and his restored masterpiece, “Smile,” in front of reverent audiences in concert halls in his latter years with a loyal group of younger musicians. As a master in creating pop music or a trailblazer in dissecting it, he was imitated by a diverse spectrum of artists, including Janelle Monáe, Animal Collective, Lindsey Buckingham, and The Go-Go’s.
Wilson served as both the host and the wallflower for the Beach Boys’ music, which was like a continual party.
He was a tall, reserved man with a charming, crooked smile, who was half deaf (supposedly from being beaten by his father, Murry Wilson), and he seldom ever touched a surfboard unless a photographer was there.
Wilson didn’t completely create another Beach Boys album for years because he was a drug addict and psychologically handicapped, occasionally lazing around in a sandbox he had constructed in his living room.
Their greatest hits CD, “Endless Summer,” was their biggest hit of the 1970s and contributed to their comeback as well-liked live performers.
Wilson was diagnosed with schizoaffective disease and confused interviewers with short and rambling responses, despite being well enough in the twenty-first century to magically finish “Smile,” tour, and record again.
Wilson’s association with Dr. Eugene Landy, a psychologist who was accused of having Svengali-like control over him, was one of the weirder moments of his life. Landy was barred from Wilson’s personal and business affairs in 1991 due to a lawsuit filed by Wilson’s family.
Carl Wilson and other family members questioned whether Brian had even read the book because they thought it was basically Landy’s account of Brian’s life. Because the book claimed that Audree Wilson, their mother, watched helplessly as her husband abused Brian as a child, she filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against HarperCollins, the publisher.
After helping write the lyrics for scores of songs, Love successfully sued Brian Wilson, claiming he was being denied royalties. The band’s name would eventually belong to him.
Even so, the Beach Boys occasionally delivered a hit single. In 1988, “Kokomo,” which was recorded without Wilson, peaked at number one.
Wilson, on the other hand, put out solo albums like “Brian Wilson” and “Gettin’ In Over My Head,” which featured appearances by Clapton and McCartney, among others.
Wilson’s solo instrumental “Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow” and the box collection “The Smile Sessions” earned him just two competing Grammys.
His other accolades included being inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, receiving a Grammy for lifetime accomplishment, and receiving an homage at the Kennedy Center. When he went back to his former Hawthorne high school in 2018, he saw his past being literally rewritten: The principal gave him a “A” instead of the “F” he had received in music.
How did Wilson’s mental health struggles influence his musical legacy?
Wilson battled depression, substance misuse, auditory hallucinations, and schizoaffective disease, but he nevertheless created some of the 20th century’s most inventive and profoundly impactful music.
Periods of great creativity, like the creation of Pet Sounds and the ambitious but originally unfinished Smile project—which he referred to as a “teenage symphony to God”—were facilitated by his mental health issues.
Wilson stopped touring with The Beach Boys in 1964 after experiencing his first significant mental breakdown. He then turned his attention to studio work, where he could better regulate his surroundings and express his ideas.
However, reports of him laying in bed for days and acting erratically show that his difficulties also led to social isolation and disengagement.
