music question

[Steve Perry]

The early Beach Boys singles were great, but the Cult of Brian is a) based on his later work, Pet Sounds (1966) and afterward, and b) the most overblown rock cult there is. As Greil Marcus pointed out many years ago, the Wilson cult is based largely on music that no one ever heard (though it's begun to seep out on bootlegs and official releases in recent years)--he trashed an album called *Smile* ca 1967-68 because he was cracking up at the time and believed (by some accounts) that the music he was making was causing the wave of Southern California fires that were happening at the time. This later music has its moments, but in general it's precious beyond belief, suffused as it is with Wilson's own brand of hyper-sensitive, beautiful loser romanticism. What you're missing, probably--and what affords Wilson a modest but still perceptible cult these days--is an appreciation for his infantilism and fervent wish to withdraw from the world, which resonates with the more pop-oriented and the more nihilistically inclined elements of the post-punk audience.

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From: 	Frances Bolton (PHI)
Sent: 	Friday, December 18, 1998 11:03 PM
To: 	lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
Subject: 	music question

A propos of absolutely nothing, can anyone tell what was the big deal
about the Beach Boys, and the cult of Brian Wilson in particular? I hear
them on the radio, and always try to reconcile what I am hearing with what
I hear about Brian Wilson being mind bogglingly brilliant, but I can't.
What am I missing?

Thanks, 
frances

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