A sad day indeed
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The world just lost a musical genius.
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Wow, icon for sure.
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Ouch, this one hurts.
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Very sad news indeed!
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It is difficult to fathom that we lost Sly Stone and Brian Wilson in the same week â two giants who rearranged the musical landscape.
(This is a sad reminder to me of the last time I recall two of my musical heroes dying within several days of each other: Albert Collins (Nov. 24, 1993) and Frank Zappa (Dec. 4, 1993).)
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Thought something was up, kept hearing Beach Boyâs music all day on the XM radio.
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Iâm now listening to Pet Sounds in its entirety for the first time. Itâs better than I could ever imagine.
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Beach Boys presented the best concert I ever heard, and I was lucky enough to hear most of the great ones having grown up in the Bay Area. RIP.
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I wonder now if some in inside circles knew this was close. Maybe just coincidence or my imagination, but I remember thinking the other day that Radio Paradise seemed to have been playing more Beach Boys.
Selfishly itâs a sad day for sure. The Beach Boys were a big part of my youth.
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I think that itâs fair to say that he was a truly iconic song writer, who wrote several songs which were huge âhitsâ.
Songs which were an integral part of my formative years, and have lived with me ever since.
R.I.P., Brian.
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He deserves all the accolades. But I was surprised to learn that he died because I thought he was long gone.
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He deserves the accolades. Sad news. I have never been a Beach Boys fan but his talent was undeniable.
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I remember grooving to the sounds of the Beach Boyâs when I was a wee lad.
Listening to them the other day on the radio I was struck by how incredible their vocals and harmonies were.
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Iâm firmly in the camp that describes Wilson as a musical genius. I think his work is just as influential and important to American music as George Gershwinâs. He was a genuine artist, a visionary with bigger ideas, and the artistâs understanding that those ideas had to be explored and expressed. Unlike Mike âdonât-****-with-the-formulaâ Love, whoâll forever be consigned to history as a nostalgia act.
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You might have thought we already lost him because unfortunately, he was suffering from Alzheimerâs, so he had stepped away from the public eye.
For quite a while I was using one particular Mike Love question to judge how good AI was getting - as the screenshot shows, Googleâs is there now.
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Yes, even without much information about his condition over the last couple of years, the news of his death was not a big surprise, at least to me. Iâd sort of been expecting it to happen âany dayâ for quite a while. Iâm not one to keep a bucket list, but Iâm incredibly grateful I got to see him perform 8 years ago along with a band that included Al Jardine and some of the old BB touring musicians, playing Pet Sounds in its entirety along with some Smile material and a lot of the old hits. The only time I saw the BB proper, it was during the Bruce Johnston era.
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I was and remain a fringe BB fan. I only saw them as a retro act at the MN state fair decades ago when Mike Love was the front man. If I hadnât seen America as the opening act, I would have been sorely disappointed all around. America was fantastic.
In the light of Brianâs passing, I listened to Pet Sounds in its entirety for the first time just last night. I found it revelatory, sensitive, beautiful and beyond my expectations.
Our heroes have limited life spans. The most recent recording of Brianâs I listened to was him playing popular Beach Boys songs on the piano. It sounded like a competent playing by a fifth year student pianist.
Rest in peace, Brian. Youâre treasures will certainly live on.
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I really felt the same way about them for a long time. Then sometime in the late 80s when I was working at a record store, a friend very passionately talked about the brilliance of Pet Sounds and beyond and I had a similar experience to you. I just sat there stunned at how beautiful it all was.
Its also odd music (in a really good way). Songs like God Only Knows go through amazing key changes that still leave me scrambling to figure out what he was trying to do and how he did it. There are even moments where I think its in one key only for him to then reveal that he had tricked me - and unexpected rhythms pop up where least expected and are provided by instruments I dont expect to be a driving force (accordion and harpsichord pushing a bridge??). Just genius.
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