Brian Wilson was more than a genius. His sound epitomized the lore of SoCal

Brian Wilson didn’t make the prima oregon the water oregon the sea-sprayed landmass we telephone Southern California. He didn’t invent the car oregon the surfboard. He wasn’t the archetypal idiosyncratic to acquisition the acold pang of isolation oregon to autumn successful emotion with idiosyncratic truthful profoundly that the lone happening to bash is regret it.

Listen to a opus by the Beach Boys, though — to 1 of the tortured and euphoric classics that made them the astir important American popular radical of the 1960s — and I stake you’d beryllium consenting to judge otherwise. I stake you’d importune connected it.

Wilson, who died Wednesday astatine 82, was 1 of music’s existent visionaries, if that’s the close connection for a feline who dealt successful the endless anticipation of sound. As a composer of melodies, a constructor of textures, an arranger of vocal harmonies — arsenic idiosyncratic who knew however to propulsion analyzable elements unneurotic into songs that someway felt inevitable — helium was up determination with Phil Spector, George Martin and the Motown squad of Holland-Dozier-Holland.

The Beach Boys’ hits are truthful embedded into American civilization astatine this constituent that you don’t truly request maine to supply examples. But let’s bash that for 2nd — let’s savor the opening of “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” wherever an eerily out-of-tune electrical guitar conjures a dreamlike ambiance until the hard thwack of a snare drum breaks the spell. Let’s deliberation astir the terrifying theremin enactment that snakes done “Good Vibrations” similar it’s tugging a flying saucer down onto Dockweiler Beach.

What we should truly bash is spell implicit to YouTube and propulsion up the isolated vocals from “God Only Knows,” which let you to luxuriate successful Wilson’s obsession with the quality voice. The opus is simply a cathedral of dependable that you could locomotion into 500 times without afloat grasping however helium built it.

For each his architectural craft, Wilson’s indispensable genius was his power of emotion — his quality to articulate the feeling of being overwhelmed by affection oregon fearfulness oregon disappointment. “Pet Sounds,” the Beach Boys’ 1966 masterpiece, represents the apotheosis of Wilson’s expressive powers: the trembling anticipation helium layers into “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” the sting of betrayal successful his singing successful “Caroline, No,” the certainty beneath those celestial harmonies successful “God Only Knows” that thing precious is destined to die.

To my ears, adjacent the group’s earlier worldly astir surfing and cars is laced with the melancholy of an outsider looking in. I tried retired that thought past twelvemonth connected Wilson’s relative and bandmate Mike Love, who wasn’t buying it: “If you’re talking astir ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’ oregon ‘I Get Around’ oregon ‘Surfin’ U.S.A.,’” helium told maine successful an interview, “there ain’t nary melancholy successful them.” That Love identified nary sadness successful the songs lone makes it easier to recognize wherefore Wilson the lonely young popular prima was penning tunes arsenic openly forlorn arsenic “In My Room.”

Wilson formed the Beach Boys successful Hawthorne successful 1961 with Love, his brothers Dennis and Carl and the Wilsons’ neighbour Al Jardine; the set rode rapidly to occurrence arsenic avatars of a benignant of postwar suburban prosperity. In 1964, aft suffering a panic onslaught connected an airplane, Wilson decided to discontinue touring and absorption his efforts successful the signaling studio, wherever helium made truthful galore advances that soon helium was holding his ain successful a originative rivalry with the Beatles. (As the communicative goes, the Beatles’ “Rubber Soul” inspired Wilson to marque “Pet Sounds,” which successful crook drove the Beatles toward “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”)

Yet Wilson’s panic onslaught tin besides beryllium seen arsenic the commencement of a lifelong conflict with intelligence unwellness that threatened to derail his vocation successful the aftermath of “Pet Sounds.” Indeed, not dissimilar that of Sly Stone, who besides died this week, the Beach Boys’ highest hit-making epoch looks comparatively little successful retrospect: After “Good Vibrations” successful 1966, the set didn’t people different No. 1 azygous until 1988 with “Kokomo,” which Wilson wasn’t progressive in.

Even so, the precocious ’60s and the 1970s remained a fertile play for Wilson — not conscionable with “Smile,” the infamously ambitious LP he’d yet implicit and merchandise successful 2004, but with quirky and soulful albums similar “Friends” and “Sunflower”; “Surf’s Up,” from 1971, features 1 of Wilson’s astir stirring songs successful the wistful rubric track, whose extravagantly wordy lyric by Wilson’s pal Van Dyke Parks is astir intolerable to parse successful thing but a pure-emotion sense.

The ’80s were darker — you tin ticker the 2014 movie “Love & Mercy” for a look astatine Wilson’s experiences with the therapist Eugene Landy, whom the grounds exec Seymour Stein erstwhile described to maine arsenic “the astir evil idiosyncratic that I ever met” — and yet nary Wilson instrumentality ever wanted to halt believing that Brian would travel back, a anticipation helium kept live done decades of intermittently superb enactment connected his own, with Parks and adjacent sometimes with the Beach Boys. (Dig retired Wilson and Parks’ 1995 “Orange Crate Art,” if you haven’t successful a while, for a almighty dose of bittersweet California whimsy.)

I interviewed Wilson once, astatine his location successful Beverly Hills successful 2010. He was preparing to merchandise a gorgeous medium of Gershwin interpretations that was doubly arsenic bully arsenic it needed to beryllium — and astir apt 3 times amended than astir anybody expected. Years of beingness and everything other had taken overmuch of his conversational easiness from him, astatine slightest erstwhile helium was talking to journalists. But I tin inactive spot him lighting up arsenic helium explained however helium learned to play “Rhapsody successful Blue,” which helium said he’d loved since his parent played it for him erstwhile helium was 2.

“It took america astir 2 weeks,” helium said of himself and a person who helped him larn the song. “I’d play a small spot from the Leonard Bernstein recording, past I’d spell to my piano, past backmost to Bernstein, past backmost to my piano, until I got the full happening down.”

A method wizard with his arms unfastened wide to a cruel and beauteous world, Brian Wilson ever got the full happening down.