Never miss a beat
Brian Wilson passed away on June 11th, 2025. I went to work the next day, keeping my composure for most of the commute, until "It's Not Easy Being Me" started playing. The grandiose instrumentation, paired with frustrated, earnest lyrics, was comforting in a way. A song from the heart, adorned with sound, like a pat on the back for young artists everywhere. By the time I arrived at my desk, I was in tears.
On social media, I've seen a few friends post tributes to Wilson, from his Beach Boy days to his solo work, and how it affected them. So I was surprised when, earlier this week, one of my coworkers lamented that no one seems to be talking about Wilson's death. For the outsized impact he had on rock/pop music, this doesn't seem fair. And I think there are a couple obvious reasons why:
1.) His death wasn't sudden or unexpected, relatively, and he left behind a strong catalogue of work. We, as the mourning public, can only hope he passed with dignity and satisfaction. I felt this way about Stephen Sondheim as well.
2.) There are several global crises taking place that dwarf the despair we might feel in the wake of a celebrity's death. Wilson's close friends and family will process his death however they must, but we have very little stake in it other than the fact that he will no longer produce things for us to enjoy. Our focus is on what's in front of us, and trying to survive.
But I believe there's another reason I've only heard a few tributes and memorial sentiments since last week: Brian Wilson was ultimately a musician for musicians, a composer for composers, an artist for artists.
"Art for artists" has a terrible reputation. It's defined by a series of memes and in-jokes for anyone familiar with "the craft", existing in some echelon above the supposed dowdy public conception of "good" art. Someone who makes art for artists is viewed with the same derision as an academic who never leaves the library, who's trained and studied but never connected their work to the real world. Art for artists is a gala you were never invited to, a mark of bourgeois privilege. Art for artists is a betrayal, because artists should create accessible work.
There are certainly people out there who behave this way, but they're not really making art for fellow artists, let alone the wider public. They're creating for reputation, appeal, complexity for the sake of it. That's fine, they're allowed to do that. But it's sickening when they receive money and plaudits for what the average person considers pretty empty. Art for artists feels like a waste of effort, of something so distant and cerebral that it cannot connect to its audience. Labelling something "art for artists" is the same as the "literary" genre—creating a class system among creative people in which metatext, theory and complexity signifies quality, and only the most well-educated, well-resourced people can pick up on the artistry at play.
But that's not the whole story; that's the reputation it's garnered when art is viewed as a commodity.
Brian Wilson was a musical prodigy. Whatever he heard in his head, he learned how to translate into intricate harmonies for the Beach Boys. But orchestrating Pet Sounds, an attempt to break away from the wholesome Americana image and stray into what would become psychadelic rock, involved instrumentation that, in theory, absolutely shouldn't have worked. But you don't need to have studied music theory or even played an instrument to detect something wildly complex on this album, and something even more unhinged in the subsequent Smile sessions (and its refined re-release, SMiLe).
When I say he's a musician for musicians, I'm referring to his passion for sound. There's a difference between pursuing a sound, shaping a whole song to play with it, and just writing a tune. He used the studio, every talented musician at his disposal, rather than just the frontmen who'd go on tour, to achieve that. Yet for all the complexity, the resulting music is wistful, evocative, and pleasant to the ear.
And art for artists involves giving back. He was inspired by the Four Freshmen, Phil Spector, and other musical greats to replicate their sound, to merge rock and experimentation. But more importantly, he inspired others, from the Beatles to Elton John, and shaped rock and pop music as we know it. Later in life, he lent his particular composition style to songs by Emile Haynie, Janelle Monáe, Peter Hollens and Kesha. He also collaborated with Kacey Musgraves, Nate Ruess (from Fun.) and She & Him, among others, on his final album, No Pier Pressure.
One of the tributes I found online, posted by a musician friend, was an interview excerpt with Wilson, in which he mentioned that he wanted "God Only Knows" to fade out on an infinite round. It creates this sense of security, like a trance, in which you never actually know what life is like without this person. I think that "art for artists" exists on a similar round, or loop—we are constantly creating, mentoring, collaborating, forming in-jokes and theories about creativity, re-making ourselves and creating again. To assess art based solely on its mass appeal or penetrability is to cheapen its purpose in the world. Art for artists means art for everyone, or at least someone.
You might not like Sunday in the Park With George, Artpop, Pet Sounds, any of Pink Floyd's early work or the fact that music theory exists at all. You might groan at poems about poetry, seductive odes to odes and meta-sonnets. And you might agree with me that doing a creative writing MFA is just a get-published-quick scheme to produce a piece of work that only academics trying to quantify creativity will enjoy. But take a moment and question why that is.
I am skeptical of the idea that artists deliberately complicate things to confuse their audience. I think they experiment, have the resources to put it out in the world when they feel it's ready, and sometimes it goes nowhere and sometimes it's considered one of the greatest things ever made. This isn't the best example, but The 1975's Notes on a Conditional Form is a mess of an album, in part because the band decided to try a bunch of genres with a bunch of different messages and see what would happen. The follow-up, Being Funny in a Foreign Language, is more focused, but still blends genres and themes. And I'm glad both are out in the world. Finnegan's Wake is considered impenetrable but I'm happy Joyce wrote it. There are millions of other examples of work that seems tricky or inaccessible at first glance and its reputation dwarfs its actual content.
And if you're underwhelmed once you've experienced the over-hyped piece of art, that doesn't diminish the labour involved in making it, let alone the creativity in conceiving it in the first place.
Instead, consider how art makes you feel. Not just how you instantly respond, but how you connect to the artist. Do you feel their heart, their soul, in the work? Do you see one of Caspar David Friedrich's landscapes and feel lonely? Do you hear "God Only Knows" and think of someone? Do you read a romantasy novel and feel your heart racing before the characters finally kiss? Great. You've connected with art. Now repeat: stare for longer, listen closely, re-read or re-watch. This might not have been made for you, or maybe it was, but it is yours now. Enjoy.
I write to write. One of my good poet friends gleefully edits our poems and expects very little in return. I don't think I have mass appeal and that's fine. The mark of something beautiful is the life that created it. Brian Wilson lived a full, terrifying, gifted and tumultuous life. I will remember him for the impact he had on me, an enthralled 20-year-old in the balcony of the London Palladium, tearing up on the final chord of "Love and Mercy".
P.S. I recommend watching Love and Mercy, the 2014 biopic about Wilson, the creation of Pet Sounds and him breaking free from his abusive therapist with the help of Melinda Ledbetter. It's probably the best biopic I've ever seen, with its use of parallel storylines and sound engineering. More importantly, it's a sincere tribute to his life and his passion for music. I'm a sucker for stories of redemption, or escape and justice. And I'm a sucker for anyone who can translate mental illness and psychosis into artistic media.
After seeing that film, I listened to Pet Sounds, the Smile Sessions, and Surf's Up back to back for months, and even woke up bright and early while on my year abroad to snag tickets to the Pet Sounds 50th Anniversary tour. It was advertized as Wilson's final performances of the album, and something in my gut said I needed to be there. In May 2016, I went to the London Palladium alone, and enjoyed one of the best concerts I've ever attended.
Al Jardine and his son, Matt, really boosted the show alongside the band. But what made that concert resonate with me even now was seeing Wilson at work, even with songs he's performed maybe hundreds of times. He didn't seem tired or fed up like some older artists might; he was engaged in every note, his eyes piercing the piano's keys, like he was still working on the perfect sound.
