The Beach Boys’ Endless Summer was the first record that changed my life. When the stylus first graced the vinyl, it was almost as if the music fundamentally altered my DNA. As summer comes to its inevitable astronomical end (alas, only in Beach Boys mythology is the season of sun eternal), it feels like a fitting time to reflect on the band via the new documentary, The Beach Boys, airing on Disney Plus.
Sure, there were countless influential albums to follow throughout my life, but the aptly titled Endless Summer started my lifelong, existential connection to music. The record cultivated within me a love for melody, harmony, pop, and particularly with the band’s more melancholy songs, such as “In My Room” and “Don’t Worry Baby”, an emotional bond. These sad songs about loneliness and early love contrasted with their sunny, striped shirt, fun, fun, fun visage.
Released in 1974, Endless Summer is a greatest hits compilation I discovered when I was seven years old, growing up in Malibu, California. The record is the embodiment of the mythic California dream—eternal sunshine and sand, saltwater and vintage cars, and the simple joy of life and living. My love for this record would lead me, inexplicably, for ten very surreal minutes into the home of Beach Boy Carl Wilson.
The Beach Boys were founded in 1961 in Hawthorne, California—a working-class burg in L.A.’s South Bay. The band consisted of the three Wilson brothers, Brian, Carl, and Dennis, their cousin Mike Love, and their friend Al Jardine.
Most casual music fans are familiar with band leader, composer, and producer Brian Wilson, who has been hailed as a prolific, if damaged, genius. In music circles, his experimentations with LCD, his self-isolation in bed for literally years, and his nervous breakdowns make his harmonies all the more heartbreakingly beautiful. Even those less familiar with the band’s voluminous catalog and Brain Wilson’s prodigious creative output are likely aware of brother Carl Wilson’s velveteen voice, most notably on the 1966 bona fide pop standard, “God Only Knows”.
“‘God Only Knows’ is one of the few songs that reduces me to tears every time I hear it,” mused Paul McCartney. “It’s really just a love song, but it’s brilliantly done.”
When I was a free-range kid roaming Malibu, I discovered that Carl Wilson lived a short distance from me in a beautiful Mediterranean mansion by the Pacific. One sun-drenched afternoon in 1976, I lingered on the street outside the house, hanging out with a friend, whiling the day away, hoping for a glimpse of pop-rock royalty. An hour passed. It was hot out, but we didn’t care. The roar of the ocean surf was constant. We paced around. Stood there. I was with my friend Robbie, his father, a special effects animator in Hollywood. I was always impressed that Robbie’s parents had Godzilla pictures hanging on the walls of their house.
A Mercedes rolled into the driveway as we paced outside the Wilson mansion. A woman stepped out wearing oversized sunglasses. We recognized her immediately from magazines and album liner-note photos. It was Carl Wilson’s wife. She looked at us, two beach grommets, long sun-bleached hair, cut-off blue-jean shorts lingering about the road. She asked if we were Beach Boys fans, and we nodded enthusiastically.
“If you help me with my groceries,” she said, opening the trunk of the Benz, I’ll take you into the house and find some things to give you.”
Our hearts pounded with excitement. She led us into the incredible beachside home, our arms loaded with groceries.
I could be completely wrong here, but I recall walking through the foyer, which featured a small, rectangular swimming pool with flowers floating on the surface of the turquoise water. The house was dark and cool, with plush pillows, ornate, rich wood, and oversized furniture. At least, this is my recollection. What I am sure of, unequivocally, is how kind Annie Wilson was to two nine-year-old boys who had been loitering outside her driveway on a sweltering bicentennial day.
Because the Beach Boys were the first band I connected with deeply, I watched The Beach Boys, directed by Frank Marshall and Thom Zimny, with keen interest. Marshall directed the superb 2020 documentary The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart. I wanted to see if he brought the same artistry to The Beach Boys.
Indeed, the film is a beautifully constructed biography. In an era of multi-episode streaming documentaries, at one hour and 53 minutes, the story breezes over some important aspects of the band’s 63-year legacy. The Beach Boys could have easily—and should have been—a multi-part film. It almost seems unconscionable that the passing of Wilson brothers Dennis in 1983 and Carl in 1998 are not even mentioned in the narrative. The only acknowledgment that Brain is the last Wilson standing is the dedication at the film’s end. However, just as Endless Summer, a Number One album, brought the Beach Boys an entirely new generation of fans with a rapturous tracklist, it was likely the goal of the filmmakers to appeal to Gen Z and Gen Alpha via Disney Plus with a breezy, linear, appreciation of the band’s sunny legacy. The Beach Boys was never intended to be a comprehensive narrative.
Still, it is the evocation of mid-century Los Angeles, replete with never-before-seen Wilson home movies and Kodachrome glimpses into a bygone era where a band, like the Jacksons a decade later, mixed show business with family. The Beach Boys were born in the back seat of the family car and the living room of their Hawthorne home. Managed by their protective but hyper-controlling father, Murry Wilson, a musician with unfulfilled aspirations, we learn how they were the first band to marry vocal harmonics a la the Four Freshmen over surf music.
The band relentlessly play live, garnering SoCal radio airplay and, not long after, touring the world. Meanwhile, the mastermind behind the vision, oldest brother Brian, becomes increasingly isolated, disenchanted by touring, and obsessed with writing, arranging, and composing. We witness the Wilson’s father’s jealousy of his eldest son’s talent, leading Brain to fire his own Dad. Murry Wilson retained the publishing rights to the band’s catalog and sold them in 1969 for $700k. Compare this payout to the likes of David Bowie (upwards of $250 million in 2022) or Bruce Springsteen (estimated at $500 million). Beach Boys lead singer Mike Love sums up his Uncle’s publishing catalog sale as a betrayal to his brethren. “He screwed his children and his grandchildren.”
The Beach Boys also highlights the fundamental misinterpretation of the band as all fun and sun when, like the Beatles, they became more introspective and experimental as they evolved. It is this dichotomy that makes the band so fascinating. Equally interesting is how the Beatles and the Beach Boys had a rivalry in the studio and on the Billboard charts.
Producer George Martin, often deemed the “fifth Beatle”, said: “If there is one person that I have to select as a living genius of pop music, I would choose Brian Wilson. Without Pet Sounds, Sgt. Pepper wouldn’t have happened. Pepper was an attempt to equal Pet Sounds.”
As Brian gave up touring, two bands emerged: the touring outfit and Brian (joined by legendary Los Angeles session musicians, the Wrecking Crew.) When the Beach Boys returned from the road, they would enter the studio and record the vocals that were their trademark. Seriously, listen to these albums again. No one can harmonize like that. No band of that stature has five members who could all sing lead.
And so, as the band toured, Brian segued into a period of unprecedented studio wizardry and compositional grandeur fueled by psychotropics and singular artistic brilliance. The making of the 1966 masterpiece Pet Sounds, misunderstood upon its release and deemed a commercial disappointment, gets a fair amount of attention in the documentary, as it should. All these years later, it is largely deemed one of the greatest albums ever made (Rolling Stone placed it at #2 on its list of the “Top 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” Pet Sounds, the documentary points out, finally went gold in 2000 and then, just two weeks after that, was certified platinum. Brian Wilson, bunkered down in the studio, created 13 pop-rock symphonies. It took over a quarter century to catch up to his genius.
The Beach Boys delves into the glorious weirdness of the abandoned Pet Sounds follow-up with Smile. This album consumed Brain so completely it drove him to near madness, and he had to walk away from it and, afterward, became less and less involved with writing and producing. (Smile was finally released in 2004 and, in all its psychedelic weirdness and trippy lyricism, is arguably just as good as its predecessor.
As the Beach Boys moved into the Vietnam War era, with Brian becoming even more reclusive, the band struggled to redefine themselves despite creating albums such as 1973’s Holland, an exceptional proggy-folk pop album with little input from band mastermind Brian Wilson. This is a group album and, as hard-core fans note, arguably their last very good record.
It was then, in 1974, that the Endless Summer compilation was released, and an entirely new generation discovered classic era Beach Boys—myself amongst the record-buying audience. At this time, the Beach Boys become “America’s band”, playing sold-out stadiums for fans fatigued by the tumult of the late 1960s and early ’70s and seeking a new sonic national party. The record certainly called to me. It also led me, inexplicably, into Carl Wilson’s home for ten minutes in the summer of 1976. Towards the end of The Beach Boys documentary, there it is—that house. In a brief flash, a celebration is held at the home I walked into for ten fleeting and surreal minutes.
This short, sweet documentary steers mostly clear of Behind the Music-style melodrama and rock ‘n’ roll clichés. Instead, it focuses on the group’s legacy and the undeniable, infectious good vibrations that will undoubtedly resonate for generations to come.
Works Cited
Taylor, Tom. “The album Paul McCartney crowned ‘the classic of the century'”. Far Out. 25 June 2022.
Taysom Joe. “Paul McCartney discusses his favourite song of all time“. Far Out. 21 December 2022.