Beach Boys Brian Wilson Dead At 82
One of the greatest songwriters of all time, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys has died at 82, via Variety:
Brian Wilson, the brilliant musician who codified the California teen lifestyle in a series of ’60s hits by his band the Beach Boys, has died. He was 82.
In a post shared on Instagram, his family announced Wilson’s death. “We are heartbroken to announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away,” they wrote. “We are at a loss for words right now. Please respect our privacy at this time as our family is grieving. We realize that we are sharing our grief with the world.”
A sensitive and ambitious talent, Wilson went on to push the boundaries of rock’s possibilities with a string of mid-’60s feats with his band: the lush and affecting 1966 song cycle “Pet Sounds,” the dazzling, complex 1966 single “Good Vibrations” and the long-mythical, tragically scrapped magnum opus “Smile.”
Encapsulating the group’s import in “The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll,” critic Jim Miller wrote, “In the ’60s, when they were at the height of their original popularity, the Beach Boys propagated their own variant on the American Dream, painting a dazzling picture of beaches, parties and endless summer, a paradise of escape into private as often as shared pleasures. Yet by the late ’60s, the band was articulating…a disenchantment with the suburban ethos, and a search for transcendence.”
[Variety]
More on his legacy at the link.
Hard to overstate his impact on pop music over the last 60 years and how many of his songs have become ingrained in American culture, but here are just a few that everyone knows:
Here are the isolated vocals to the end of God Only Knows. Brian Wilson wrote and produced this at 23 years old pic.twitter.com/tZkgajBtCR
— Henry White (@Henry_White1996) June 11, 2025
