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Twelve of Brian Wilson’s greatest songs – from surf to psychedelia and beyond
Elaborating classic pop and doo-wop into divinely beautiful and inimitable hitmaking, these are some of the late musician’s most unmistakable masterpieces
From the intro’s union of french horn, piano and bells that suggest both sacred and sentimental to the angelic, interweaving harmonies that convey everything from contented sigh to delicate apprehension, God Only Knows is the pop song as exalted state, a transformative ineffable experience where euphoria and despair are one and the same. Rooted in the simple idea of a young man spying a woman from afar, it blossoms into a swirling sonic puzzle whose miraculous beauty can be broken down into constituent parts – the ghostly female vocal of Paul Tanner’s electro-theremin, those throbbing primal cellos, the boys’ wordless, choir-like harmonies that turn lust into a prayer – but never fully comprehended. With their references to Surf’s Up, Pet Sounds and such early melancholy Brian compositions as The Warmth of the Sun and Surfer Girl, the final three tracks on the last Beach Boys studio LP work as a kind of mournful valedictory suite.
Or read this on The Guardian
