Brian Wilson: Unveiling the Mastermind Behind the Beach Boys’ Symphony

The 11th of June has proven to be a cursed day. Exactly one year after the death of Françoise Hardy, Brian Wilson, the seemingly immortal Beach Boy, succumbed on Wednesday, June 11, 2025, just nine days shy of his 83rd birthday. For years, he battled a profound depression.

With the loss of the Beach Boys’ frontman, one can’t help but revisit the legendary interview he gave to Michka Assayas in Malibu for the 38th issue of Les Inrockuptibles in the summer of 1992. “The Beach Boys were always out of fashion. No mythology, no relatable identity, nothing existential to dream about: their photos were foolish, their album covers ugly or trivial,” the journalist insightfully noted.

Regarding Pet Sounds (1966), the Beach Boys’ absolute masterpiece, Brian Wilson had given this splendid response: “It’s the best album we’ve ever made. There was a lot of love and tears in the voices. It’s nice to listen to soft music. Paul McCartney loves this record. He said that Pet Sounds inspired Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. And they did it better, the Beatles surpassed us. We did our thing, and then they went higher. We never tried to go even higher. [Laughs.]”

A Source of Inspiration from the Beatles to Daft Punk

Since Wednesday evening, the pop world has been mourning the profound impact that the Beach Boys, and especially Brian Wilson (not forgetting Dennis Wilson, another genius of the family who drowned before turning forty), have had on numerous artists: from the Beatles to XTC, from Prefab Sprout to Primal Scream, from Étienne Daho to Teenage Fanclub, from High Llamas to Daft Punk (whose first group was named Darlin’, after the Beach Boys song), from Stereolab to the Lemon Twigs, from Phoenix to Girls. While the iconic album Smile has often been referred to as a “unfinished symphony,” with Brian Wilson’s passing, we can now, regrettably, speak of it as a “finished symphony.” God Only Knows.