Brian Wilson’s family shared the sad news that he has passed away, though they didn’t mention exactly when, where, or what caused it.
“We are heartbroken to announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away,” his family wrote in its statement. “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. Love & Mercy.”
Back when he was still a teenager in Inglewood, Brian and his brothers Dennis and Carl, plus Mike Love and Al Jardine, started a band together, but their first record label changed their name to the Beach Boys without even asking. Their first track, “Surfin’,” came out, and pretty soon Capitol signed them for their debut, Surfin’ Safari. After that, “Surfin’ U.S.A.” climbed the charts, and in 1963 alone, they dropped three albums: Surfin’ U.S.A., Surfer Girl, and Little Deuce Coupe. Brian didn’t just make music for his own group—he also produced songs for people like Jan and Dean, Donna Loren, and a bunch of others.
A year after all that, Brian had a panic attack and decided to step away from touring with the Beach Boys, focusing on creating music in the studio instead. That’s when he started working with the Wrecking Crew on Pet Sounds, a record that was super different and kind of flopped at first, but way later, people realized it was a masterpiece and it even got put into the National Recording Registry for being so important.
Fans always wonder how someone can keep coming up with new ideas like that.
Brian once said, “I wanted to grow musically, so I experimented,” in an interview with the Harvard Business Review in 2016. “I wasn’t the type to sit around and be satisfied with an accomplishment, especially not in the studio. And I had ideas coming into my head all the time. Many had to do with using instruments as voices and voices as instruments. I would put sounds together to create something new. Some ideas didn’t work, because they were too difficult to achieve at the time. But most did. And then I immediately moved to the next thing.”
Sometimes, life just feels like a bunch of songs we never expected to hear, and then suddenly, the music stops.
