Who wrote the book of rock? No. 5: The Beach Boys

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The Beach Boys.

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In this 10-part series, we pay tribute to the rock 'n' roll-era visionaries who came up with the musical vocabulary we're still hearing today -- the ones without whom the language of rock 'n' roll would not sound the same.

MONTREAL -- It started out more than 50 years ago as the coming together of Chuck Berry's primal rock 'n' roll riffs, the close harmonies of the Four Freshmen and an attempt to chronicle California's culture of cars, surfboards and girls.

That was the simple formula Beach Boys leader Brian Wilson heard in his head in Hawthorne, Calif., in 1961. Within only six years, that sound was on its way to becoming something close to divine -- "teenage symphonies to God," Wilson called the group's music in 1967.

And that way lay madness.

It's tough to listen to an indie band or pop revivalist group trying to evoke sunshine and optimism -- ironically or not -- with layers of falsetto-led background vocals and not think of the musical vision that closed the door on Wilson's already-fragile sanity.

Drugs, an abusive father, lack of support from bandmates and the music business probably all played their role in the haunted gaze we see on the 69-year-old Wilson's face when he performs today. But perhaps much has to do with how close he got to that one perfect note before he blinked first and retreated to the giant sandbox he had set up in his music room so he could play piano with his feet in the sand.

By the time Pet Sounds -- considered by many to be his masterwork with the Beach Boys -- was released in 1966, Wilson had set a standard for ambition in pop music that made even the Beatles feel the heat.

The envelope-pushing had been in his music for some time: Just listen to the wondrous chord progression in I Get Around from 1964 or the exquisite changes in the 1965 track Please Let Me Wonder, to name only two of many examples.

But it was with Pet Sounds and the followup single Good Vibrations that Wilson became the auteur music geeks still analyze today. The album still shows such depth that listening to it with the vocals alone or with the backing tracks isolated -- the Pet Sounds Sessions box set offers both options -- is equally thrilling.

For some, Smile, the successor to Pet Sounds, is even more rewarding. But that album -- which remained shelved for 44 years until the sessions were released last year -- also marks the point at which a spooked Wilson gave up, leaving the Beatles unchallenged as the leaders of musical change in the pop world.

And what of the other Beach Boys? What of Mike Love's Everyman jocularity, Carl Wilson's angelic voice, Dennis Wilson's rugged appeal or the way Al Jardine and Bruce Johnston added their special blend, with the others, to the layers of vocals?

These men all made the Beach Boys a bona fide group, with an image and a stage presence. Not to mention that they carried the ball for many years while Brian Wilson couldn't get out of bed. They deserve their place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

But the group became more than a ready-made nostalgia act because of Brian, who never surfed but caught the perfect wave. He promised Fun, Fun, Fun, but found the beautiful suburban melancholia of In My Room and I Just Wasn't Made For These Times instead. And along the way, he produced masterful walls of flawless harmonies and complicated arrangements that still invite dissection and inspire artists to try harder and do better.

-- the Montreal Gazette

Will C. on the Beach Boys:

WHEN I was in high school, I checked out Pet Sounds. That's the one that blew me away. That sounds clichéd, I know, but I can't lie to you: It's an album unlike any other -- the arranging, the production values on it and the lyrics.

The words really did hit home, especially being in high school at that time and knowing I wanted to move out of Maine to Boston. That's Not Me -- that song was huge.

I spent a lot of my youth listening mostly to hip-hop music. I was buying Public Enemy and all that stuff.

But with hip hop in general, a lot of it is hung up on being cool and being hip and acting a certain way and being hardened in a certain way. When you go out and see people sometimes, everyone's afraid to smile. I got so tired of it. Some of this was self-imposed in my head: Listen to cool stuff; don't say you like this and that. The Beach Boys were dismissed by so many people as unhip.

I just got sick of playing that whole game. I fell in love with this group and it helped me not to care about what people think about the music. It's really not about that. It's not about what's hip. I loved the Beach Boys.

It's really just the musical bed of everything; the combination of all those wonderful sounds. It felt almost healing to listen to music that could put me in a completely different vibe.

They became masters of using the studio as an instrument. The music was beautiful, and it influenced me to step my game up and learn from their production techniques. As I got heavily into production with music, I had to open up my ears. When you start making beats and stuff, you do have to start listening to other music, and it was a godsend that I landed there.

Will C. is a Boston-based rapper and producer. While much of the work is in the hip-hop genre, his latest mix project, Adieu or Die, pays tribute to the Beach Boys by manipulating samples and interview snippets in a surreal soundscape. He is 25. Listen to Adieu or Die or download it for free at willcmusic.com.

KEY TRACKS:

1. I Get Around

2. California Girls

3. God Only Knows

4. Good Vibrations

5. Cabin Essence

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 8, 2012 A14