ABSTRACT
Along with the Beatles, Brian Wilson (born 1942) of the Beach Boys was one of the driving forces behind rock music’s mid-1960s transformation from a fad almost exclusively associated with teenagers into a more ambitious medium. Originally known for their surf music style, intricate vocal harmonies, and glorification of the southern California lifestyle, the Beach Boys gained critical acclaim for their lush and lavish studio experimentation on their 1966 album Pet Sounds. The follow-up single, “Good Vibrations,” was an unprecedented mammoth recording event, one that spanned six months and approximately fifteen separate sessions at four different studios. Wilson eventually was forced to whittle away more than ninety hours of studio tape to arrive at the three-and-a-half-minute finished product, a song which he famously referred to as his “pocket symphony.” Jules Siegel’s 1967 article describes Wilson’s work on his next project, the ill-fated Smile (which would lay dormant until Wilson finally completed it in 2004). Siegel portrays a musician struggling with the daunting implications that go with the label of “genius,” a word that conjures images of a tortured artist imbued with otherworldly gifts. Siegel’s depiction of Wilson certainly fits this bill. The author also paints Wilson as a religious individual, and one who believes in the spiritual power of music. Such portraits were commonplace during the nineteenth century, when critics heralded Romantic era composers for both their genius and the spirituality of their musical creations. To what extent can we reasonably speak of rock music, such as that of the Beach Boys, as part of a spiritual practice, or as fulfilling a spiritual purpose?
