{"id":783652,"date":"2026-09-26T21:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T21:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/783652\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T21:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T21:52:11","slug":"the-massive-1977-flop-brian-wilson-called-my-favourite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/783652\/","title":{"rendered":"The massive 1977 flop Brian Wilson called &#8220;my favourite&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img width=\"1140\" height=\"855\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790459531_77_Brian-Wilson-Musician-The-Beatch-Boys-1977-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\" class=\"attachment-single-feature size-single-feature wp-post-image\" alt=\"Brian Wilson - Musician - The Beach Boys - 1977\" layout=\"fill\"  style=\"object-position: 50% 20%\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Credit: Far Out \/ Caribou Records \/ Public Domain<\/p>\n<p> Sat 26 September 2026 18:30, UK <\/p>\n<p>Anyone would have been happy to have <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/tags\/brian-wilson\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">Brian Wilson<\/a> in their corner if they were working on their records. <\/p>\n<p>Even when The Beach Boys mastermind was at his lowest creatively, the fact that he could create a string arrangement out of midair is the kind of talent that most people couldn\u2019t reach, even if they worked at their craft for decades. He was gifted with some of the best ears in the business, but that didn\u2019t mean that everyone had to share the same sentiments that he did when looking at his own records.<\/p>\n<p>But given the nature of where The Beach Boys have gone, there\u2019s a good chance Wilson wanted nothing to do with that side of his sound all that often. He knew what made a brilliant record, but <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/1958-hit-guaranteed-to-make-mike-love-happy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">since Mike Love tended to turn back<\/a> to the typical fun in the sun songs that they were known for, it\u2019s not like Wilson was itching to make records like that every time he went to the studio.<\/p>\n<p>He knew that he could take the band further than that, but there were a few musical leaps he had to take before he was ready for Pet Sounds. He was slowly testing the waters on his previous records, and by the time that he released his 1966 masterpiece, things looked like they were bound to be perfect. But that\u2019s not really what happened when he eventually started putting together the different pieces of the record.<\/p>\n<p>As much as he loved what he had created, there were a bunch of <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/pet-sounds-1966-britain-reaction-destroyed-brian-wilson\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">people more perplexed than anything <\/a>when they heard the album. Pet Sounds was too far ahead of the times in many respects, and while Wilson was dejected that his songs fell on deaf ears, he wasn\u2019t going to stop experimenting. But the more that he tested himself, the more lost he felt.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/the-2004-album-brian-wilson-called-the-best-vocals-ever\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">His road to making Smile<\/a> was one of the most tragic falls from grace, and while he was confined to his home after that, it\u2019s not like he couldn\u2019t still create music. He was at arm\u2019s length from the rest of the band for a long time, but even if the band did include tunes like \u2018Surf\u2019s Up\u2019 on some of their later albums, it wasn\u2019t until The Beach Boys Love You that Wilson felt like he was back in full force.<\/p>\n<p>He once said, \u201cThis is my favourite album we ever did.\u00a0It\u2019s funny because now people are beginning to see it as a classic. It was quite revolutionary in its use of synthesisers. It\u2019s got so much good stuff on it, \u2018Ding Dang\u2019, \u2018Let Us Go On This Way\u2019 and \u2018The Night Was So Young\u2019. I think it\u2019s overlooked. Everything\u2019s going on in there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n<p>Favourite or not, it\u2019s not like he was 100% back yet. The songs on the record do have a bit more of a sophomoric approach to lyrics, and it can get downright creepy hearing a grown man sing the lines to \u2018Roller Skating Child\u2019, and it\u2019s not like the public took too kindly to this kind of record when it was released.<\/p>\n<p>Even to this day, the album has yet to go gold in the US, only selling 400,000 copies, and not faring much better across the pond. The version of Wilson that everyone knew looked a lot different, but it\u2019s easy to see what some of the <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/1974-concert-that-made-patti-smith-want-to-be-a-rock-star\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">supporters of the record, like Patti Smith, saw<\/a> in it when they were first listening to it at the time.<\/p>\n<p>Given that Wilson had spent so much time away from the limelight and contemplating his place in the world, this was the sound of him trying to rediscover the childhood that he never had through song. It wasn\u2019t always easy, and it could get more than a little bit alarming, but maybe the reason why he claimed this album as his favourite was because of how much of his personality was put into his tunes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>  <a class=\"fw\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" style=\"\"> ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"28\" height=\"28\" src=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/wp-content\/themes\/far-out-magazine\/img\/google-discover.svg\" alt=\"\"\/> <\/a>   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Caribou Records \/ Public Domain Sat 26 September 2026 18:30, UK Anyone would have&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[42201,154668,29764,96,128,131986,1581,103157,160393,141546,15745,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-783652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1970s","tag-154668","tag-brian-wilson","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-pet-sounds","tag-pop","tag-pop-rock","tag-psych-rock","tag-surf-rock","tag-the-beach-boys","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}